Another rather depressing chapter, sorry. I really should find my happy place.
Kit rounded the corner, careful not to spill the hot coffee onto herself. She walked over to the chair Mrs Weasley was sleeping in and woke her gently.
'I thought you could do with a cup' Kit smiled gently as she saw the tears already glistening in the woman's eyes.
Mrs Weasley slumped back into her chair and sipped the coffee. She was exhausted and had hardly slept, but she was glad Kit had woken her. She was glad Kit was here, because the boys had gone back to school and Arthur still had to work, and she didn't feel up to facing this alone. She glanced over to the beds where the girls lay but did not let her gaze linger too long because she knew she couldn't bare it.
It had been three days. Three days since she was woken by that awful scream and rushed downstairs in her dressing gown and slippers. And, three days since she opened that door and saw her daughter caked in dark blood and covered in bruises and unconscious on the floor. And, three days since she tried to wake her and got no response, shaking and shaking the limp, pale form of her child until Arthur dragged her away. And, three days since she looked at her hands and screamed, because that was her daughters blood that stained them such a deep crimson, and all she could think about was washing them clean because if she could do that then it would be gone, wouldn't it? If she could just clean away all of the blood then Ginny would be all right, wouldn't she? Because without the blood there her daughter would just be asleep and she would wake when her mother called her, and she would be curled up in her own bed, snoring quietly and not lying prone in the crisp white linen of the hospital bed with healers rushing in and out.
Of course, it wasn't just Ginny that she worried about. She knew Hermione's injuries were worse, much worse, than Ginny's; and there was a good chance that Hermione would not wake up now, or ever, but it hadn't been Hermione's blood that stained her hands, or Hermione's scream that had woken her.
Kit watched as the woman next to her stared blankly at the far wall, as she had been doing most of the time Kit had been in the hospital. But then, Kit wasn't there for conversation, and she knew that she could do little things to help this woman and that was worth it. It had been a surprise when Ron called her with the news because, firstly, it wasn't exactly something that she was expecting to hear, but also she didn't think that she was someone that they would have called.
Ron had been so unsure of what to say on the phone and he was choking back tears when he tried to say the words. It had been an awful shock to everyone and they still didn't know what had happened or why. Everyone was in shock, because the girls were, in truth, so young and now their families had to face the fact that they might not wake up or even make it through the next night.
Kit turned and walked over to her chair by Hermione's bed. She placed her coffee on the side-table and sat stiffly in the chair. She looked at the girl, swollen bruised and bloody, with her neck braced and her eyes wrapped in bandages. She knew that there was yet more damage beneath the bed covers. She had been told of cracked ribs and internal bleeding but it didn't seem to sink in because all she could think about was the girl's almost unrecognisable face: the broken nose, the shatter skull, the eye that, even if she woke up, she would probably never use again.