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St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries is located in the heart of London. To get in, one must talk to a female dummy behind the glass of a closed, run-down looking department store called Purge and Dowse Ltd. When the dummy registers your request, you step straight through the glass and to Muggle eyes, vanish completely. These precautions are in place so that Muggles never stumble upon the wizard hospital. Stepping through the glass leads one to the reception area at St. Mungo's. The reception area is filled with rows of rickety wooden chairs, upon which sit visitors and patients (sporting gruesome disfigurements or making peculiar noises or reading old copies of the tabloid Witch Weekly). Healers (the equivalent of Muggle doctors and nurses) walk among the patients making notes. Healers lime-green robes embroided with a crossed wand and bone on the chest. There are various department desks, in front of which long queues of witches and wizards wait to be served. There are posters on the walls of the reception area which say things like: 'A clean cauldron keeps potions from becoming poisons' and 'Antidotes are anti-don'ts unless approved by a qualified healer'. There is a portrait of Dilys Derwent, a famous Healer and Headmistress of Hogwarts, whose portrait can also be found in Dumbledore's office. Dumbledore can keep an eye on things at St. Mungo's by consulting with Dilys's portrait - as she can move between the two locations. The corridors in St. Mungo's are lined with Healer portraits and lit by crystal bubbles which float up tot he ceiling like giant soapsuds. A floor guide to St. Mungo's: ARTEFACT
ACCIDENTS ........................ Ground floor CREATURE-INDUCED
INJURIES ............... First floor Mr Weasley was tended to in the Dangerous Dai Llewellyn Ward when he received his snake bite from Voldemort. He shared his ward with a werewolf, among other patients. MAGICAL
BUGS ................................... Second floor POTION
AND PLANT POISONING ............. Third floor SPELL
DAMAGE .................................... Fourth floor The Spell Damage floor is home to Ward 49 (the Janus Thickey Ward) - the ward for long-term patients (those who have suffered permanent damage as a result of spells). Gilderoy Lockhart and the Longbottoms (Neville's parents) live in this ward, as did Broderick Bode (the Unspeakable) before he was murdered. VISITORS' TEAROOM / HOSPITAL SHOP .... Fifth floor The caption below the floor guide reads: IF YOU ARE UNSURE WHERE TO GO, INCAPABLE OF NORMAL SPEECH OR UNABLE TO REMEMBER WHY YOU ARE HERE, OUR WELCOMEWITCH WILL BE PLEASED TO HELP. |
St.
Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries