Harry Potter 05 - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

this way? He’s in a closed ward, you know, he must have slipped out while I was bringing in the Christmas presents, the door’s usually kept locked … not that he’s dangerous! But,’ she lowered her voice to a whisper, ‘he’s a bit of a danger to himself, bless him … doesn’t know who he is, you see, wanders off and can’t remember how to get back … it is nice of you to have come to see him.’
    ‘Er,’ said Ron, gesturing uselessly at the floor above, ‘actually, we were just – er –’
    But the Healer was smiling expectantly at them, and Ron’s feeble mutter of ‘going to have a cup of tea’ trailed away into nothingness. They looked at each other helplessly, then followed Lockhart and his Healer along the corridor.
    ‘Let’s not stay long,’ Ron said quietly.
    The Healer pointed her wand at the door of the Janus Thickey Ward and muttered, ‘Alohomora.’ The door swung open and she led the way inside, keeping a firm grasp on Gilderoy’s arm until she had settled him into an armchair beside his bed.
    ‘This is our long-term residents’ ward,’ she informed Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny in a low voice. ‘For permanent spell damage, you know. Of course, with intensive remedial potions and charms and a bit of luck, we can produce some improvement. Gilderoy does seem to be getting back some sense of himself; and we’ve seen a real improvement in Mr Bode, he seems to be regaining the power of speech very well, though he isn’t speaking any language we recognise yet. Well, I must finish giving out the Christmas presents, I’ll leave you all to chat.’
    Harry looked around. The ward bore unmistakeable signs of being a permanent home to its residents. They had many more personal effects around their beds than in Mr Weasley’s ward; the wall around Gilderoy’s headboard, for instance, was papered with pictures of himself, all beaming toothily and waving at the new arrivals. He had autographed many of them to himself in disjointed, childish writing. The moment he had been deposited in his chair by the Healer, Gilderoy pulled a fresh stack of photographs towards him, seized a quill and started signing them all feverishly.
    ‘You can put them in envelopes,’ he said to Ginny, throwing the signed pictures into her lap one by one as he finished them. ‘I am not forgotten, you know, no, I still receive a very great deal of fan mail … Gladys Gudgeon writes weekly … I just wish I knew why …’ He paused, looking faintly puzzled, then beamed again and returned to his signing with renewed vigour. ‘I suspect it is simply my good looks …’
    A sallow-skinned, mournful-looking wizard lay in the bed opposite staring at the ceiling; he was mumbling to himself and seemed quite unaware of anything around him. Two beds along was a woman whose entire head was covered in fur; Harry remembered something similar happening to Hermione during their second year, although fortunately the damage, in her case, had not been permanent. At the far end of the ward flowery curtains had been drawn around two beds to give the occupants and their visitors some privacy.
    ‘Here you are, Agnes,’ said the Healer brightly to the furry-faced woman, handing her a small pile of Christmas presents. ‘See, not forgotten, are you? And your son’s sent an owl to say he’s visiting tonight, so that’s nice, isn’t it?’
    Agnes gave several loud barks.
    ‘And look, Broderick, you’ve been sent a pot plant and a lovely calendar with a different fancy Hippogriff for each month; they’ll brighten things up, won’t they?’ said the Healer, bustling along to the mumbling man, setting a rather ugly plant with long, swaying tentacles on the bedside cabinet and fixing the calendar to the wall with her wand. ‘And – oh, Mrs Longbottom, are you leaving already?’
    Harry’s head spun round. The curtains had been drawn back from the two beds at the end of the ward and two visitors were walking back down the aisle between the beds: a formidable-looking old witch wearing a long green dress, a moth-eaten fox fur and a pointed hat decorated with what was unmistakeably a stuffed vulture and, trailing behind her looking thoroughly depressed – Neville.
    With a sudden rush of understanding, Harry realised who the people in the end beds must be. He cast around wildly for some means of distracting the others so that Neville could leave the ward unnoticed and unquestioned, but Ron had also looked up at the sound of the