Chapter 1

The Scarlet Lady Ascending

KIARA

Hello again, dear readers. So, here we are again. The final chapter of my story. Now, I know many of you are confused about this book being split, but that's only because there is so much going on in this book that it has to be split, and I hope you will understand this more as we go on. Now, normally I would tell you what is going to happen at this point, but I don't want to spoil anything for you. So, I will see you in chapter three, and in the meantime, you will see what's happening with Lady Zira, who is back, and as evil as ever ...

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The two women appeared out of nowhere, a few yards apart in the narrow, moonlit lane. For a second they stood quite still, wands directed at each other's chests; then, recognising each other, they stowed their wands beneath their cloaks and started walking briskly in the same direction.

"News?" asked the taller of the two.

"The best," replied Tiana Triphorm.

The lane was bordered on the left by wild, low-growing brambles, on the right by a high, neatly manicured hedge. The women's long cloaks flapped around their ankles as they marched.

"Thought I'd be late," said Yap, her blunt features sliding in and out of sight as the branches of overhanging trees broke the moonlight. "It was a little trickier than I expected. But I hope she will be satisfied. You sound confident that your reception will be good?"

Triphorm nodded, but did not elaborate. They turned right, into a wide driveway that led off the lane. The high hedge curved with them, running off into the distance beyond the pair of impressive wrought-iron gates barring the women's way. Neither of them broke step: in silence both raised their left arms in a kind of salute and passed straight through as though the dark metal were smoke.

The yew hedges muffled the sound of the women's footsteps. There was a rustle somewhere to their right: Yap drew her wand again, pointing it over her companion's head, but the source of the noise proved to be nothing more than a pure white peacock, strutting majestically along the top of the hedge.

"She always did herself well, Narissa. Peacocks ..." Yap thrust her wand back under her cloak with a snort.

A handsome manor house grew out of the darkness at the end of the straight drive, lights glinting in the diamond-paned downstairs windows. Somewhere in the dark garden beyond the hedge, a fountain was playing. Gravel crackled beneath their feet as Triphorm and Yap sped towards the front door, which swung inwards at their approach, though nobody had visibly opened it.

The hallway was large, dimly lit and sumptuously decorated, with a magnificent carpet covering most of the stone floor. The eyes of the pale-faced portraits on the walls followed Triphorm and Yap as they strode past. The two women halted at a heavy wooden door leading into the next room, hesitated for the space of a heartbeat, then Triphorm turned the bronze handle.

The drawing room was full of silent people, sitting at a long and ornate table. The room's usual furniture had been pushed carelessly up against the walls. Illumination came from a roaring fire beneath a handsome marble mantelpiece surmounted by a gilded mirror. Triphorm and Yap lingered for a moment on the threshold. As their eyes grew accustomed to the lack of light they were drawn upwards to the strangest feature of the scene: an apparently unconscious human figure hanging upside down over the table, revolving slowly as if suspended by an invisible rope, and reflected in the mirror and in the bare, polished surface of the table below. None of the people seated underneath this singular sight was looking at it except for a pale young woman sitting almost directly below it. She seemed unable to prevent herself from glancing upwards every minute or so.

"Yap. Triphorm," said a high, clear voice from the head of the table. "You are very nearly late."

The speaker was seated directly in front of the fireplace, so that it was difficult, at first, for the new arrivals to make out more than her silhouette. As they drew nearer, however, her face shone through the gloom, death-white, straggly, uneven hair, snake-like, with slits for nostrils and gleaming red eyes whose pupils were vertical. She was so pale that she seemed to emit a pearly glow.

"Tiana, here," said Zira, indicating the seat on her immediate right. "Yap - beside Dali."

The two women took their allotted places. Most of the eyes around the table followed Triphorm and it was to her that Zira spoke first.

"So?"

"My Lady, the Order of the Centaur intends to remove Kiara Pride-Lander from her current place of safety on Saturday next, at nightfall."

The interest around the table sharpened palpably: some stiffened, others fidgeted, all gazing at Triphorm and Zira.

"Saturday ... at nightfall," repeated Zira. Her red eyes fastened upon Triphorm's icy-blue ones with such intensity that some of the watchers looked away, apparently fearful that they themselves would be scorched by the ferocity of the gaze. Triphorm, however, looked calmly back into Zira's face and, after a moment or two, Zira's lipless mouth curved into something like a smile.

"Good. Very good. And this information comes - "

"From the source we discussed," said Triphorm.

"My Lady."

Yap had leaned forward to look down the long table at Zira and Triphorm. All faces turned to her.

"My Lady, I have heard differently."

Yap waited, but Zira did not speak, so she went on, "Dalca, the Auror, let slip that Pride-Lander will not be moved until the twenty-ninth, the night before the girl turns seventeen."

Triphorm was smiling.

"My source told me that there are plans to lay a false trail; this must be it. No doubt a Confundus Charm has been placed upon Dalca. It would not be the first time, she is known to be susceptible."

"I assure you, my Lady, Dalca seemed quite certain," said Triphorm.

"I assure you, Yap, the Auror Office will play no further part in the protection of Kiara Pride-Lander. The Order believes that we have infiltrated the Ministry."

"The Order's got one thing right, then, eh?" said a squat woman sitting a short distance from Yap; she gave a wheezy giggle that was echoed here and there along the table.

Zira did not laugh. Her gaze had wandered upwards, to the body revolving slowly overhead, and she seemed to be lost in thought.

"My Lady," Yap went on, "Dalca believes an entire party of Aurors will be used to transfer the girl - "

Zira held up a large, white hand and Yap subsided at once, watching resentfully as Zira turned back to Triphorm.

"Where are they going to hide the girl next?"

"At the home of one of the Order," said Triphorm. "The place, according to the source, has been given every protection that the Order and the Ministry together could provide. I think that there is little chance taking her once she is there, my Lady, unless, of course, the Ministry has fallen before next Saturday, which might give us the opportunity to discover and undo enough of the enchantments to break through the rest."

"Well, Yap?" Zira called down the table, the firelight glinting strangely in her red eyes. "Will the Ministry have fallen by next Saturday?"

Once again, all heads turned. Yap squared her shoulders.

"My Lady, I have good news on that score. I have - with difficulty, and great effort - succeeded in placing an Imperius Curse upon Prudence Thicko."

Many of those sitting around Yap looked impressed; her neighbour, Dali, a woman with a long, twisted face, clapped her on the back.

"It is a start," said Zira. "But Thicko is only one woman. Scrimwazz must be surrounded by our people before I act. One failed attempt on the Minister's life will set me back a long way."

"Yes - my Lady, that is true - but you know, as Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Thicko has regular contact not only with the Minister herself, but also with the Heads of all the other Ministry departments. It will, I think, be easy, now that we have such a high-ranking official under our control, to subjugate the others, and then they can all work together to bring Scirmwazz down."

"As long as our friend Thicko is not discovered before she has converted the rest," said Zira. "At any rate, it remains unlikely that the Ministry will be mine before next Saturday. If we cannot touch the girl at her destination, then it must be done while she travels."

"We are at an advantage there, my Lady," said Yap, who seemed determined to receive some portion of approval. "We now have several people planted within the Department of Magical Transport. If Pride-Lander Apparates or uses the Floo Network, we shall know immediately."

"She will not do either," said Triphorm. "The Order is eschewing any form of transport that is controlled or regulated by the Ministry; they mistrust everything to do with the place."

"All the better," said Zira. "She will have to move in the open. Easier to take, by far."

Again, Zira looked up at the slowly revolving body as she went on, "I shall attend to the girl in person. There have been too many mistakes where Kiara Pride-Lander is concerned. Some of them have been my own. That Pride-Lander and her family lives is due more to my errors, than to her triumphs."

The company round the table watched Zira apprehensively, each of them, by his or her expression, afraid tat they might be blamed for Kiara Pride-Lander's continued existence. Zira, however, seemed to be speaking more to herself than to any of them, still addressing the unconscious body above her.

"I have been careless, and so have been thwarted by luck and chance, those wreckers of all but the best laid plans. But I know better now. I understand those things that I did not understand before. I must be the one to kill Kiara Pride-Lander (and her parents, if I get the chance to), and I shall be."

All these words, seemingly in response to them, a sudden wail sounded, a terrible, drawn-out cry of misery and pain. Many of those at the table looked downwards, startled, for the sound had seemed to issue from below their feet.

"Wormy," said Zira, with no change in her quiet, thoughtful tone, and without removing her eyes from the revolving body above, "have I not spoken to you about keeping our prisoner quiet?"

"Yes m-my Lady," gasped a small man halfway down the table, who had been sitting so low in his chair that it had appeared, at first glance, to be unoccupied. Now he scrambled from his seat and scurried from the room, leaving nothing behind him but a curious gleam of silver. His neighbour, a woman, who was just as small as he was, with a hard face and square spectacles, glared at his back as he ran.

"As I was saying," continued Zira, looking again at the tense faces of her followers, "I understand better now. I shall need, for instance, to borrow a wand from one of you before I go to kill Pride-Lander."

The faces around her displayed nothing but shock; she might have announced that she wanted to borrow one of their arms.

"No volunteers?" said Zira. "Let's see ... Narissa, I see no reason for you to have a wand any more."

Narissa Malty looked up. Her skin appeared yellowish and waxy in the firelight and her eyes were sunken and shadowed. When she spoke, her voice was hoarse.

"My Lady?"

"Your wand, Narissa. I require your wand."

"I ..."

Malty glanced sideways at her husband. He was staring straight ahead, quite as pale as she was, his short, blond hair lying flat and limp, but beneath the table his long fingers closed briefly on her wrist. At his touch, Malty put her hand into her robes, withdrew a wand and passed it along to Zira, who held it up in front of her red eyes, examining it closely.

"What is it?"

"Elm, my Lady," whispered Malty.

"And the core?"

"Dragon - dragon heartstring."

"Good," said Zira. She drew out her own wand and compared the lengths.

Narissa Malty made an involuntary movement; for a fraction of a second, it seemed she expected to receive Zira's wand in exchange for her own. The gesture was not missed by Zira, whose eyes widened maliciously.

"Give you my wand, Narissa? My wand?"

Some of the throng sniggered.

"I have given you your liberty, Narissa, is that not enough for you? But I have noticed that you and your family seem less than happy of late ... that is it about my presence in your home that displeases you, Narissa?"

"Nothing - nothing, my Lady!"

"Such lies, Narissa ..."

The soft voice seemed to hiss on even after the cruel mouth had stopped moving. One or two of the wizards barely repressed a shudder as the hissing grew louder; something heavy could be heard sliding across the floor beneath the table.

The huge snake emerged to climb slowly up Zira's chair. It rose, seemingly endlessly, and came to rest across Zira's shoulders: its neck the thickness of a man's thigh; its eyes, with their vertical slits for pupils, unblinking. Zira stroked the creature absently with long, thin fingers, still looking at Narissa Malty.

"Why do the Maltys look so unhappy with their lot? Is my return, my rise to power, not the very thing they professed to desire for so many years?"

"Of course, my Lady," said Narissa Malty. Her hand shook as she wiped sweat from her upper lip. "We did desire it - we do."

To Malty's left, her husband made an odd, stiff nod, his eyes averted from Zira and the snake. To her right, her daughter Dani, who had been gazing up at the inert body overhead, glanced quickly at Zira and away again, terrified to make eye contact.

"My Lady," said a dark woman halfway down the table, her voice constricted with emotion, "it is an honour to have you here, in our family's home. There can be no higher pleasure."

She sat beside her brother, as unlike him in looks, with her dark red hair and heavily lidded eyes, as she was in bearing and demeanour; where Latchna sat rigid and impassive, Katalina leaned towards Zira, for mere words could not demonstrate her longing for closeness.

"No higher pleasure," repeated Zira, her head tilted a little to one side as she considered Katalina. "That means a great deal, Katalina, from you."

Her face flooded with colour; her eyes welled with tears of delight.

"My Lady knows I speak nothing but the truth!"

"No higher pleasure ... even compared with the happy event that, I hear, has taken place in your family this week?"

She stared at her, her lips parted, evidently confused.

"I don't know what you mean, my Lady."

"I'm talking about your niece, Katalina. And yours, Latchna and Narissa. She has just married the werewolf, Timon Meers. You must be so proud."

There was an eruption of jeering laughter from around the table. Many leaned forward to exchange gleeful looks; a few thumped the table with their fists. The great snake disliking the disturbance, opened its mouth wide and hissed angrily, but the Love Destroyers did not hear it, so jubilant were they at Katalina and the Maltys' humiliation. Katalina's face, so recently flushed with happiness, had turned an angry, blotchy red.

"She is no niece of ours, my Lady," she cried over the outpouring of mirth. "We - Latchna and I - have never set eyes on our sister since she married the Mudblood. This brat has nothing to do with either of us, nor any beast she marries."

"What say you, Danielle?" asked Zira, and though her voice was quiet, it carried clearly through the catcalls and jeers. "Will you babysit the cubs?"

The hilarity mounted; Dani Malty looked in terror at her mother, who was staring down into her own lap, then caught her father's eye. He shook his head almost imperceptibly, then resumed his own deadpan stare at the opposite wall.

"Enough," said Zira, stroking the angry snake. "Enough."

And the laughter died at once.

"Many of our oldest family trees become a little diseased over time," she said, as Katalina gazed at her, breathless and imploring. "You must prune yours, must you not, to keep it healthy? Cut away those parts that threaten the health of the rest."

"Yes, my Lady," whispered Katalina, and her eyes swam with tears of gratitude again. "At the first chance!"

"You shall have it," said Zira. "And in your family, so in the world ... we shall cut away the canker that infects us until only those of the true blood remain ..."

Zira raised Narissa Malty's wand, pointed it directly at the slowly revolving figure suspended over the table and gave it a tiny flick. The figure came to life with a groan and began to struggle against invisible bonds.

"Do you recognise our guest, Tiana?" asked Zira.

Triphorm raised her eyes to the upside-down face. All of the Love Destroyers were looking up at the captive now, as though they had been given permission to show curiosity. As he revolved to face the firelight, the man said, in a cracked and terrified voice, "Tiana! Help me!"

"Ah, yes," said Triphorm, as the prisoner turned slowly away again.

"And you, Danielle?" asked Zira, stroking the snake's snout with her wand-free hand. Dani nodded her head jerkily. Now that the man had woken, she seemed unable to look at him any more.

"But of course, you have taken his classes for three years," said Zira. "For those of you who do not know, we are joined here tonight by Christian Boggles who, until recently, taught at Dragon Mort Magical Academy."

There were small noises of comprehension around the table. A broad, hunched man with pointed teeth cackled.

"Yes ... Professor Boggles taught the children of witches and wizards all about Muggles ... how they are not so different from us ..."

One of the Love Destroyers spat on the floor. Christian Boggles revolved to face Triphorm again.

"Tiana ... please ... please ..."

"Silence," said Zira, with another twitch of Malty's wand, and Christian fell silent as if gagged. "Not content with corrupting and polluting with the minds of wizarding children, last week Professor Boggles wrote an impassioned defence of Mudbloods in the Daily Squabbler. Wizards, he says, must accept these thieves of their knowledge and magic. The dwindling of the pure-bloods is, says Professor Boggles, a most desirable circumstance ... he would have us all mate with Muggles ... or, no doubt, werewolves ..."

Nobody laughed this time: there was no mistaking the anger and contempt in Zira's voice. For the third time, Christian Boggles revolved to face Triphorm. Beads of sweat were pouring from his forehead into his hair. Triphorm looked back at him, quite impassive, as he turned slowly away from her again.

"Avada Kedavra."

The flash of green light illuminated every corner of the room. Christian fell, with a resounding crash, on to the table below, which trembled and creaked. Several of the Love Destroyers leapt back in their chairs. Dani fell out of hers on to the floor.

"Dinner, Namzo," said Zira softly, and the great snake swayed and slithered from her shoulders on to the polished wood.