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Chapter 242: St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries
🕑 Added 2018-09-24 06:44:03 +0000 UTCEvan, Harry and Hermione excitedly discussed the store’s future design and planning, the goods that could be sold there, pricing and so on.
Lupin was alone in the house to check whether there were perils and latent dangers. In less than ten minutes, he discovered two Boggarts, a dozen nests of mice and spiders, a large group of Doxies, in addition to Bundimuns.
The Bundimun is a kind of miraculous creature that could survive and thrive with ease.
At rest, Bundimuns resemble a patch of greenish fungus with eyes. Skilled at creeping under floorboards and behind skirting boards, they infest houses.
The presence of a Bundimun is usually announced by a foul stench of decay.
Once it appears in a house, The Bundimun oozes a secretion which rots away the very foundations of the dwelling in which it is found.
"Very bad, we have to deal with these Bundimuns as soon as possible!" Lupin turned a piece of floor open, indicating to Evan, Harry, and Hermione to look inside.
Evan saw a whole lot of Bundimuns under the rotten floor, and because they were alarmed, they hurriedly scuttled away on their numerous spindly legs.
"Generally speaking, Scouring charms will rid a house of an infestation of Bundimuns." Lupin clapped his hands and stood up. "But there are too many Bundimuns here, and it is not easy to take action. It is likely to have extremely serious consequences, and even the place may collapse. We need to contact the Pest Sub-Division of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. They will send someone to deal with this matter."
As Lupin said, the house had been abandoned for a long time, and unlike 12 Grimmauld Place, it was not protected by magic and it was in a very bad condition.
Just as they studied how to deal with the troublesome creatures living in the store, Sirius came in.
He had replaced the wand with a new one: a beautiful black wand, hawthorn wood, and Dragon heartstring core. In addition to the new wand, he carried a cage in his hand. There was a beautiful little owl inside, and after seeing them, Evan shouted excitedly.
"I just went to the owl shop next door and bought this owl, ready to give it to the Weasley boy named Ron." Sirius said, "He may be willing to raise this owl. After all, because of my fault, he lost the rat..."
"He will be delighted. Ron has always wanted a pet of his own."
"As long as he likes it!" Sirius smiled, put the cage on the ground, walked into the store and looked around. "Evan, how do you feel about it?"
"The layout is very good. It's similar to what I imagined, but it needs to be cleaned up. Before you came, we’ve found a lot of Bundimuns. "
“This shop hasn’t been used for too long, so it is not surprising to have such things." Sirius opened the floor and looked at it. He frowned and said, "These things are not easy to handle. We should go for lunch first, and then visit your friend. During this period, I will tell Kreacher to clean up in here."
“Bundimuns can be handed over to me." Lupin said, "I have an acquaintance in the Pest Sub-Division. He is an expert in dealing with this aspect of biology."
They talked for a while and then went back to the Leaky Cauldron for lunch.
Then they set out to see Ron at St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. This time, they did not take the Knight Bus, but Sirius and Lupin took Evan, Harry and Hermione with them in Apparate.
After a loud bang, they appeared on a wide Muggle street.
"Where is St. Mungo's Hospital?" Harry looked around curiously. "Why don't we just Apparate into it?"
"When the hospital was first established, people used to be able to do it. But as the number of patients gradually increased, the Ministry of Magic banned Apparate in the hospital, as it led to accidents in many cases." Lupin explained, "As for the location, we are now standing at the door of the hospital. "
In front of them was a large, old-fashioned, red brick department store called Purge and Dowse Ltd.
The place had a shabby, miserable air; the window displays consisted of a few chipped dummies with their wigs askew, standing at random and modeling fashions at least ten years out of date. Large signs on all the dusty doors read CLOSED FOR REFURBISHMENT.
In the vicinity of a particularly ugly female dummy, Evan felt a strange magic.
“Go this way!" Sirius muttered, pushing Evan, Harry and Hermione in front of him. "There are too many Muggles here. There’s not enough land in Diagon Alley. The Ministry of Magic had a hard time finding this address to build a hospital so that patients could come and go and fit in with the crowds.”
Next to them was a Muggle commercial street, with endless flow of people and cars, in sharp contrast to Diagon Alley.
"Aren't these Muggles going to spend Christmas at home?" Sirius asked strangely. "What are they all running out for?!"
“There is a business district nearby, where people can gather, have dinner, shop, sing, watch movies and so on during the holidays." Evan noticed Sirius’s puzzled face. He continued to explain, "A movie is recording people's specific actions through a machine, to be replayed for them later on a big screen..."
“I know, that's Muggle special magic, the effect is almost the same as the Pensieve!" Sirius looked up around him and put his right hand unconsciously on the wand in his waist. "We'll discuss this later. You three had better get closer to me. If anything happens, I'll take action."
Looking at Sirius's appearance, Evan was very doubtful whether he really understood what he had said.
In fact, apart from rare cases like Mr. Weasley's, pure blood Wizards knew very little about the Muggle world and most people knew it only a few hundred years ago.
For the rapid development of science and technology in the Muggle world, the magic circle basically took a disregarding attitude.
An idea popped into Evan’s mind that he might try to work with Mr. Weasley to bring some of the more advanced machinery of the Muggle world into the wizarding world, which might have unexpected effects.
Unfortunately, Hogwarts' defensive magic prohibited the operation of all electronic devices and they could only be promoted in Diagon Alley.
Evan thought about the feasibility of this idea as he followed Harry to the dummy in the Green Nylon dress he had just felt to be abnormal.
"We have to go in. Are the three of you ready?" Sirius asked.
Everyone nodded, clustering around him.
Evan saw Lupin, standing in front of him, leaning close to the glass, looking up at the very ugly dummy, his breath steaming up the glass.
"Wotcher… We're here to see Ron Weasley. "
For a split second, Evan felt that Lupin looked funny, talking that quietly through a sheet of glass, when there were buses rumbling along behind him and all the racket of a street full of shoppers.
So did Harry and Hermione, who looked up at Lupin and Sirius doubtfully, and then their mouths opened in shock as the dummy gave a tiny nod and beckoned its jointed finger.
The next second, they stepped forward through what felt like a sheet of cool water, emerging quite warm and dry on the other side.
There was no sign of the ugly dummy or the place where she had stood. They entered St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries.
