Chapter 11
Madame Pomfrey looked up as the door to the hospital wing opened and looked appraisingly at the white-haired teen in the doorway. Bakura's face was strained and he was biting his lip hard enough to make it bleed as he stepped into the room but there were no other signs of anything wrong.
"What seems to be the matter?" she asked, stepping away from the medicine she had been preparing.
"Headache." The other replied succinctly.
Madame Pomfrey pulled out her wand and cast a quick spell, making Bakura first tense up and then relax, seeming to notice for the first time that there was blood on his mouth. He quickly licked his lips, getting rid of any traces of red and thanked the healer before starting out of the room.
"Oh no you don't," Madame Pomfrey stopped him and quickly pulled him over to one of the beds. "You are going to stay there and rest. I don't know what you did to yourself but headaches created by a magical overdose are nasty and can get worse quickly. You aren't leaving until I'm sure you're all right."
Bakura, seeing he had no choice, submitted gracefully, allowing himself to be tucked into the bed and fussed over with a minimum of complaining. Madame Pomfrey was actually quite impressed. Normally once her patients couldn't feel the pain anymore they either insisted that they were fine and left, or insisted that they were mortally wounded and expected special privileges.
When Yami and Marik barged in and insisted upon seeing Bakura she was less pleased. "You have five minutes, no more. And I don't want to hear any loud noises or any spells going on. Now go, and hurry."
"Why, Kura, are we not allowed to be noisy?" Marik demanded. "And what are you doing in bed?"
"Apparently I overdid it and used too much magic pulling myself back into control so quickly." Bakura said, looking up unhappily at the two of them. "So she's keeping me here until she's determined that I'm not in any further danger from the backlash. At least the headache's gone now."
"Do you want us to bring you your work?" Yami asked, "Or would you prefer to ignore it?"
"I'm going to be so bored after a day in here that I'd be happy to do some work." Bakura moved restlessly. "So do come in, if, that is, I haven't already gotten frustrated and broken out of here despite the healer's instructions."
"Never disobey a healer Bakura." Yami's voice was sober. "You should know that by now."
"I was just joking. Honestly..." Bakura trailed off. "I'm still being an idiot aren't I?"
"Uh, yes?" Marik bit his lip, trying not to look at Bakura, who shrugged and closed his eyes. Madame Pomfrey came bustling in and told them to get out, they'd had their time.
"All right then, I'm gonna go bother my hikari. See ya soon?"
"Ya, later." Marik managed to say over his shoulder as they were hustled out.
"Um, I heard you weren't feeling well..." Malfoy trailed of, staring at Bakura.
"I'm fine really." Bakura sat up. "I'm just supposed to stay in here for a little while longer to make sure. But thanks for coming. I'm surprised she actually let you through. She's already turned a few people away, both today and yesterday."
"You're popular."
Bakura smirked, "No need to sound so surprised."
"Sorry. I didn't mean it that way. You must be really bored up here. There's nothing to do in the hospital wing."
"I'm not as bored as I could be, but yes this is pretty boring. At least I've got something to do." He gestured towards the pile of books beside the bed. "Hermione insisted that I use this time to get ahead on my work and I'm too bored to try and disagree."
"Uh, can you help me with these then?" Malfoy pulled out a pile of duel monsters cards. "My father keeps sending them to me but I don't know what to do with them."
And thus began a highly enjoyable lunch hour. Bakura looked over Malfoy's cards and helped him form a deck. Malfoy learned how to play and handed Bakura all the cards he didn't want. Bakura looked through them, handed some back to him telling him to put them in his deck, he'd need them and explaining why. A couple of them went into Bakura's deck, and the rest he told Malfoy to get rid of somehow, they weren't any good.
When Malfoy had to leave, however, Bakura ended up even more bored than he had been before. /Stay in bed hikari./ He ordered, shoving Ryou back into their body as he retreated to his soul room. /And tell me if anyone comes in./
/Yes, Bakura./ Ryou's reply was soft and Bakura sneered as he looked around his soul room trying to decide what to do.
"What are you doing here?" Marik snarled. He'd come in to see Bakura and wasn't too happy about finding Ryou there instead.
"I got bored and decided my soul room would be more fun." Bakura said calmly, taking over Ryou's body again. "So I let him take control. Problem?"
"Nah," Marik waved it off. "Just that I wanted you not him. Are you allowed out of here yet?"
"After tonight I'm free." Bakura told him. "Just wish it had been earlier. What's been going on while I've been here?"
"Well, Yami's been staring at Hermione, Ron's been glaring at Yami and Harry's remained completely oblivious to it all. So nothing interesting really. You?"
"Malfoy came in and wanted Duel Monsters explained to him. So I've added a few cards to my deck." Bakura smirked. "I spent the rest of the time in my soul room." He raised one hand to finger the tiny onyx studs he wore. "These are starting to get boring."
"Watcha gonna replace em with?" Marik teased, putting on a fake accent.
"You've been spending too much time around the mutt." Bakura replied in a fake serious tone. "And I was thinking of something along the lines of a starburst. I made these while coming up with the design."
He held out a simple pair of drop earrings. The stones were white pearly things covered in a thin layer of amethyst. But the amazing thing was that you could see through the purple gemstones to the pearls underneath. They had been cut so finely that the clarity and quality of the perfectly matched pearls underneath could be clearly seen.
"I made a pair each. Black for me, ruby for Yami, and these for you. Question is what to make next."
"Didn't you say you were thinking of making some star thing?"
"Done that already." Bakura waved a hand absently. "I'll show you once they're finished. I've still got to coat them so they end up looking right."
"You're the one that knows about these things." Marik shrugged. "I just do wood carving. Come up with anything for me to make by the way?"
"Yes actually." Bakura pulled out a simple spiral design worked in bronze. "I've been thinking how this would look in 3D with hieroglyphics carved around the edges. Your choice as to the message."
"Yeah," Marik nodded. "It would look cool. I'll make a bunch and you can make something out of them afterwards."
"Okay," Bakura nodded. "Sounds good to me. Do you realize it's only a couple of weeks before All Hallows? It might be fun to scare everyone then."
"Yeah," Marik's eyes lit up. "That sounds great! We can use your monsters and call up the spirits around this place that didn't choose to become ghosts. And if Yami agrees we can call up some of the nasties around here for a showdown."
"Mmm," Bakura agreed, smirking. "This is going to be fun."