The Founders

Chapter 66

There had always been a certain quality of light in the hospital wing.

Whether it was caused by one's own injuries or some quirk of the room itself, Kyra wasn't sure, but waking up there always felt like lying underwater.

The light was heavy and shifting and never glared directly onto your eyelids; there was something dampened about it, as if it too were sick. Sick. Was Kyra sick? She had often lain in this room, recovering from injuries. Injuries caused by her own stupid decisions.

Like the time that Grace dared her to climb one of the quidditch goalposts in their second year, and she had broken her leg. Or the time that she had gone monkey bar climbing with Oscar from the rafters of the owlery. Oscar was shat on but she got a concussion.

Then there was another time- what was it? She bet that she could steal wood from a wand tree but was chased out instead by the bowtruckles, and fell to the ground. That time, she had fallen on top of Kat and Kat had to go to the hospital wing instead. A broken wrist, she thought... She couldn't remember; her head was too heavy.

She shifted uneasily, feeling pinned in her subconscious like a rock pressed to a riverbed by the crushing weight of the rushing water above. Something squeezed her hand and she jerked away from the pressure.

Her head throbbed and throbbed. She couldn't focus anymore. Unconnected images rushed past her mind's eye like silt being thrown up onto a beech and then washed away. A face, hollow but for blazing blue eyes; a blackened kitchen, left untouched; nooses swinging in a breeze; a darkened changing room, the outline of a shoulder; an orchard at sunset, light streaming thickly; a train surrounded by billows of smoke; a girl chasing her on chubby legs; a tiny body held swaddled in her arms; a garden in autumn, leaves flurrying down; a swing and laughter; smiling eyes and warmth and two pairs of arms reaching down for her.

The memory drifted apart like a photograph left too long in water, melting like snow in water.

She could feel wetness on one cheek but the feeling might have been another memory. She lifted a hand to wipe it away but found that her arm was too heavy. Her palms stung. It would just be easier, she thought driftingly, to sleep. Sleep. Sleep.

v

When Kyra finally felt her thoughts coalesce into the shape of a subconscious that she recognised, she peeled open her eyes and stayed completely still. The ceiling in the hospital wing was curving stone, cut into beautiful arches that created domes every few feet.

Coats of arms were etched into each sloping side of a dome, and a pattern of lines formed that Kyra couldn't quite decipher. Maybe she could just lie here, working it out, until she couldn't feel anymore. She still couldn't quite reach her emotions.

They were there, and she remembered now what had happened. But it felt distanced from her, as though the emotions attached to each event had been enclosed behind glass; it was there, it just couldn't burn in the asphyxiated atmosphere of her numbness.

"Ah, you're awake," a brisk voice cut piercingly into her mind. She winced and raised a hand to her ear. Her arms were still like bags of water, but she could lift them.

"Oh dear," the voice continued. "Yes, your head might hurt for a few more hours, poor dear. I can give you some pain relief for it. Mind you don't go battling any more ancient warriors in the meantime, though." She chuckled at her own joke, pouring something from a bottle on the bedside table beside Kyra. Kyra turned her head and painfully sat up.

"What?"

Madame Pomphrey looked up in confusion, lifting the spoon to Kyra's lips. "There you go." Kyra swallowed the potion. "What was that, dear?"

"I mean, you- you know about what happened?" Kyra tried to steady her voice and pulled her knees up to her chest.

"Oh yes, poor girl. You gave everyone quite a shock when you came through that entrance! But you've been very brave and everyone is very proud of you."

Kyra said nothing. Proud of her? She had killed someone; someone who was in an unimaginable amount of pain.

Pomphrey was looking at her with some concern. "Well, I sent your friends down to the feast about half an hour ago. None of them had eaten, you see. And I was going to let you join them, if you wanted, but if you don't feel up to it..." She trailed off delicately.

Kyra shook her head and began pulling the covers off her. They were slightly clammy with her feverish sweat. "No, I'll go." She stood, a little dizzy, but otherwise fine. "Could I- could I have a shower first, please?"

"Of course, dear. This way."

Kyra stood under the scalding water, feeling the dirt and blood drain away. Some of it had been scourgified off, but most was still crusted on her skin. She scrubbed it violently, wanting to get it all off. The water ran pink as blood washed out of her hair.

When she scrubbed her face, her fingers came away pink with Kat's blood and she was almost sick. Once she was completely clean, she stood there for so long that the water no longer felt painfully hot. Then she wrapped a towel around herself, and stood in front of the mirror for a moment.

Her lips were a little swollen and dry, and there was a faint white scar from her temple to her cheek, but her skin looked pink and bright and clean and everything that she didn't feel.

Once she was dressed, she pulled her wet hair into two dripping braids. She walked slowly out of the hospital wing and down the stairs. The hallways had that summer coolness to them, and outside the windows, she could see sunlight still in the full trees, and gleaming warmly on the grass.

She bypassed the great hall, with the doors flung open. She could see the rows of countless students, chatting and eating and laughing as they enjoyed the end of term feeling. Candles floated over their heads, making the room brightly lit, even though the sun still hadn't set. She walked quickly past the entrance and across the entrance hall, and slipped through the front doors.

It was just starting to turn dusk and the air was still warm. She considered walking to the greenhouses, but then realised that she physically couldn't make herself do it. There were too many ghosts there. Instead, she walked towards the lake and swung around the edge to the little pebble beach there.

She didn't sit down on the bench, but instead she sat on the gravel, right in front of the water, and pulled her knees up.

It was a stunning evening. The trees were fully decked out in green, the sun illuminating their tops. Their reflections rippled and drifted in the water on the opposite side of the lake. Small waves rippled up the pebbles and stopped just below her feet before washing back down, like little swallows of the grit.

The sky, lightly purple, reflected in the lake. The air was balmy and a few birds were singing in the forest behind her. Kyra took a deep breath, and hugged her legs more tightly.

From behind her, she heard a pebble crunch.