To Be Luminous || HP [REVIVAL 2021]

Chapter Fifteen

Always Looking Out

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"He's all right, Kiara. Go get some sleep in the dorms. I promise I'll keep my eye on him."

"Who will keep their eye on you, then?"

There are a few other students curtained off who are recovering from stray firework burns. Someone broke their arm when they fell off the stadium stands. Another student was nearly trampled in the hysteria, and is recovering from a concussion. Kiara only knows because she listens, but she does not visit them. Nurse Abbott is too busy to watch Scorpius and Albus twenty-four-seven. So Kiara sits like a statue.

Albus chuckles low, but winces. Kiara stares even more intensely at him. The boy looks worse than the barely-alive Scorpius. He has a second degree burn going down from his chest and across his torso, and it twists and mottles his purpling skin. She just can't understand how he can be so light-hearted, like he doesn't have four broken ribs from the loose Bludger, and a healing gash across his cheek that continues to bleed if he smiles (which he insists on doing). The whites of his eyes are still red with blood. And the bruises from taking the fall cover his back and trim abdomen like spiderwebs that disappear under the waistband of white cotton pants.

Albus just doesn't look like someone who could ever get hurt. But he is.

Nurse Abbott says he will be completely recovered in five days, with noticeable progress each hour—but Kiara sits here watching him like waiting for water to boil.

"Should your ribs not be taped?" she asks, almost impatiently.

He shakes his head. "Nurse Abbott says I need to try to take deep breaths."

"OK."

"Hey, um . . . Would you . . . want to . . . talk about what's on your mind?"

She stares at him. "Nothing is on my mind."

Albus sucks in a cheek. "There's a lot going on. It's good to take things at your own pace, but I think it's really important to—"

"I would like to change the subject."

He hesitates, his cheeks turning pink.

"But—"

"Albus."

"OK, Kiara. I understand. Would you mind helping me sit up?"

She stands and steps beside him, waiting for instruction on how to assist. He asks her to support his back. He pushes himself up on one elbow, grimacing in pain, and Kiara gently places a palm between his shoulder blades and another against his bicep. Her heart beats just a bit faster, though she ignores it. She feels warm, hard muscles moving beneath her hands as he positions himself higher on the cot, then he waits for her to remove her touch and rests against the wall with his eyes closed.