AN: So, here is the next chapter. A bit further down, the POV will change to Sian, and you will begin to see what is wrong with her, which you have to read as it will be important in a chapter or two, as well as the rest of this first book of the last in the series, if you know what I mean. Anyway, enjoy this chapter.

Chapter 20

Imamu's Secret

KIARA

After a while, I felt Sian stiffen beside me. I looked at her: her face was tense and she looked as though she was straining to hear any noise, like the sound of approaching footsteps.

"What is it, Sian? What's wrong?" I asked her.

"I ... don't know," she said slowly. "I've just got the feeling that ... someone's watching us."

Chris and I looked at each other. We both knew from experience that we should never dismiss Sian's strong feelings, where in such a place as a barren wasteland but no one but the three of us seemed to exist, the idea was laughable. And I was not alone in thinking this.

"Come on, S.D.," said Chris, trying to make light of the situation, "look around you. There's only you, me and Kiara here, alone, in the middle of a dead land. Anyone would be mad to live here now, wouldn't they?"

Sian nodded thoughtfully. "You're right," she said. "I'm being presumptuous, as usual, as well as overthinking things. I guess I'm worried that She-You-Know has got something set up for us, so can you really blame me for - ?"

She broke off then, freezing mid-sentence, and I understood why, for the sound of rasping breathing and shuffling footsteps was growing closer. Chris, Sian and I turned around slowly towards the door to see a man moving slowly towards us. His stoop, his stoutness, his shuffling gait all gave an impression of extreme age. We watched in silence as he drew nearer. At last he came to a halt in front of us, close enough that the light of our wands illuminated him, and he simply stood there in the middle of the freezing castle's rooftop, facing us.

I knew at once that there was no possibility of this man being a Muggle: he was standing there gazing at a statue that ought to have been completely invisible to him, if he was not a wizard. Even assuming that he was a wizard, however, it was odd behaviour to come out to the middle of this barren wasteland, simply to look at an old statue. Nevertheless, I had the strangest feeling that he knew who Chris, Sian and I were. Just as I reached this uneasy conclusion, he raised a gloved hand and beckoned.

Sian stepped right up to my ear.

"How did he know we were here?"

I shook my head. The man beckoned again, more vigorously. I could think of many reasons not to obey the summons, and yet my suspicions about his identity were growing stronger every moment that we stood facing each other on the deserted rooftop.

Was it possible that he had been waiting for us all the long months? That Crighton had told him to wait, and that I would come in the end? Was it not likely that it was he who Chris, Sian and I had felt following us as we moved through the Pride Lands and had followed us to this spot?

Finally I spoke, causing Chris and Sian to jump.

"Are you Imamu?"

The muffled figure nodded and beckoned again.

Chris, Sian and I looked at each other. I raised my eyebrows at each of them in turn: Chris looked nervous and Sian unsure, but they both nodded.

We stepped towards the man and, at once, he turned and hobbled off back the way he had come. We followed him back through the crumbling castle, back outside into the chilly air and around the back of the castle, where we trekked carefully down a steep hill; I kept an eye on Imamu in case he fell or stumbled, but he managed it with ease for a man his age, which surprised me. We then walked along a dry and dirty path, which seemed to stretch on forever, and just when I began to wonder what the point was of Imamu bringing us this way, I stopped, for something had caught my eye.

A little off the path, on the top of a hill, I could just make out some cracked ground. Ignoring Chris, Sian and Imamu, I walked up to it and what I saw was a large crater, which was empty but for a dead blackened tree that was split right up the middle; and it wasn't just the tree that was black, the whole of the inside of the crater was as black as pitch. I felt uneasy as I stared into it, the light of our three wands illuminating the scene, and the longer I looked, the more I felt goose pimples run up and down my body that had nothing to do with the cold; I don't know whether it had to do with the feeling of Dark Magic in the air or the fact that I knew, somehow, that something terrible had happened here, or maybe it was a combination of the two, but I did not feel comfortable standing there, and yet the longer I stood there, the more I found I didn't want to move; it was almost as though some otherworldly force was keeping me rooted to the spot.

I then heard Sian's voice, which sounded distant in my ears; she and Chris had ran up to me without me noticing.

"Why have you stopped here, Kiara?"

"Is this place important, somehow?" said Chris, a slight tremor in his voice.

"Yes," I said, barely registering my own voice. I looked at them both, and I saw that they were scared as I told them, "This is where it happened, you guys. This is where She-You-Know almost killed me all those years ago."

In the wandlight, I saw Chris' face pale as Sian murmured, "Good God!" I don't know what had made me say the words, but somehow I knew them to be true. This was the place where Zira had tried to end my life when I was just a baby ...

Neither myself nor Chris nor Sian had heard Imamu coming back for us. It was only when I felt someone beside me did I notice him. He beckoned me to follow him once more and I nodded. I then turned to Chris and Sian and motioned with my head for them to follow me, which they did at once, skirting around the crater, and once we were away from the source of where my messed up life began, I'm sure that I wasn't the only one who breathed a sigh of relief for getting away from the place where such Dark Magic lay.

The three of us followed Imamu a little further, until we reached a rather shabby-looking cottage made up of rough-hewn concrete with steel sheets making up the roof. He fumbled for a moment with a knot of rope that I assumed was meant to act like a lock of some kind that was attached to the door, then opened it and stood back to let us pass.

He smelled back, or perhaps it was his house: I wrinkled my nose as we sidled past him. Now that I was beside him properly, I realised how tiny he was; bowed down with age, he came barely level with my chest. He closed the door behind us, his knuckles blue and mottled against the peeling wood of the door, then turned and peered into my face. His eyes were thick with cataracts and sunken into folds of transparent skin, and his whole face was dotted with broken veins and liver spots. I wondered whether he could make me out at all, for it was very dark, even with all the sparkling wandlight.

The odour of old age, of unwashed clothes and stale food intensified as he unwound a moth-eaten, black scarf, revealing a head of scant white hair through which the scalp showed clearly.

"Imamu?" I repeated.

He nodded again. I became aware of the locket against my skin; the thing inside it that sometimes ticked or beat had woken; I could feel it pulsing through the cold silver. Did it know, could it sense, perhaps, that the thing that would destroy it was near?

Imamu shuffled past us, pushing Chris and Sian aside as though he had not seen them, and vanished into what seemed to be a sitting room.

"Kiara, I'm not sure about this," breathed Sian.

"I agree," said Chris. "Kiara, doesn't something about all this seem ... I dunno ... off to you, somehow?"

"Look at the size of him; I think we could overpower him if we had to," I said. "Listen, I should have told you two, I knew he wasn't all there. Lizzie called him 'gaga'."

"Come!" called Imamu from the next room.

Sian turned and froze at the sound of Imamu's voice, her expression unsure. Chris put his arm around her reassuringly.

"It's OK," I said gently, and I led the way into the sitting room.

Imamu was tottering around the place lighting candles, but it was still very dark, not to mention extremely dirty. Thick dust crunched beneath our feet and I detected, underneath the dark and mildewed smell, something worse, like meat gone bad. I wondered when was the last time anyone had been inside Imamu's house to check whether he was coping. He seemed to have forgotten that he could do magic too, for he lit the candles clumsily by hand, his trailing raggedy cuff in constant danger of catching fire.

"Let me do that," I offered, and I took the matches from him. He stood watching me as I finished lighting the candle stubs that stood on saucers around the room, perched precariously on stacks of books and on side tables crammed with cracked and mouldy cups.

The last surface on which I spotted a candle was a bow-fronted chest of drawers on which there stood a large number of photographs. When the flame danced into life, its reflection wavered on their dusty glass and silver. I saw a few tiny movements from the pictures. As Imamu fumbled with logs for the fire, I muttered, "Tergeo." The dust vanished from the photographs, and I saw at once that half a dozen were missing from the largest and most ornate frames. I wondered if Imamu or somebody else had removed them. The sight of a photograph near the back of the collection caught my eye, and I snatched it up.

It was the golden-haired, merry-faced thief, the young woman who had perched on Hori's window sill, smiling lazily up at me out of the silver frame. And it came to me, instantly, where I had seen the girl before: in The Life and Lies of Susan Crighton, arm in arm with the teenage Crighton, and that must be where all the missing photographs were: in Peter's book.

"Mr Ibori?" I said, and my voice shook slightly. "Who is this?"

Imamu was standing in the middle of the room watching Sian light the fire for him.

"Mr Ibori?" I repeated, and I advanced, with the picture in my hands, as the flames burst into life in the fireplace. Imamu looked up at my voice and the Horcrux beat faster upon my chest.

"Who is this person?" I asked him, pushing the picture forwards.

He peered at it solemnly, then up at me.

"Do you know who this is?" I repeated, in a much slower and louder voice than usual. "This woman? Do you know her? What's she called?"

Imamu merely looked vague. I felt an awful frustration. How had Peter Meter unlocked Imamu's memories?

"Who is this woman?" I repeated loudly.

"Kiara, what are you doing?" asked Chris.

"This picture, Chris, it's the thief, the thief who stole from Hori! Please!" I said to Imamu. "Who is this?"

But he only stared at me.

"Why did you ask us to come with you, Mr Ibori?" asked Sian, raising her own voice. "Was there something you wanted to tell us?"

Giving no sign that he had heard Sian, Imamu now shuffled a few steps closer to me. With a little jerk of his head, he looked back into the hall.

"You want us to leave?" I asked.

He repeated the gesture, this time pointing first at me, then to himself, then at the ceiling.

"Oh, right ... Chris, Sian, I think he wants me to go upstairs with him."

"All right," said Sian, "let's go."

But when Chris and Sian moved, Imamu shook his head with surprising vigour, once more pointing first at me, then to himself.

"He wants me to go up with him, alone."

"Why?" asked Chris, and his voice rang out sharp and clear in the candlelit room; the old man shook his head a little at the loud noise.

"Maybe Crighton told him to give the sword to me, and only to me?"

"Do you really think he knows who you are, Kiara?" Sian asked, unsure.

"Yes," I said, looking down into the milky eyes fixed upon my own, "I think he does."

"Well, OK then, but be quick, Kiara."

"Be careful," Chris whispered, looking at me intently. "And call us if you need us."

I nodded at him. "Lead the way," I told Imamu."

He seemed to understand, because he shuffled round me towards the door. I glanced back at Chris and Sian with a reassuring smile, but I was not sure that Sian had seen it; as Chris was keeping his eyes locked on me, Sian stood hugging herself in the midst of the candlelit squalor, looking towards the bookcase. As I walked out of the room, unseen by both Sian and Imamu, I slipped the silver-framed photograph of the unknown thief inside my jacket.

The stairs were steep and narrow: I was half tempted to place my hands on stout Imamu's backside to ensure that he did not toppled over backwards on top of me, which seemed only too likely. Slowly, wheezing a little, he climbed to the upper landing, turned immediately right and led me into a low-ceilinged bedroom.

It was pitch-black and smelled horrible: I had just made out a chamber pot protruding from under the bed before Imamu closed the door, sending the room into near darkness, as the only light available was the light from my wand.

Imamu then moved closer to me, cautiously and carefully.

"You really are Pride-Lander?" he whispered.

"Yes, I am."

He nodded slowly, solemnly. I felt the Horcrux beating faster, faster than my own heart: it was an unpleasant, agitating sensation.

"Have you got anything for me?" I asked, but he seemed distracted by my wand-tip.

"Have you got anything for me?" I repeated.

Then he closed his eyes and several things happened at once: my scar pricked painfully; the Horcrux twitched so that the front of my sweater actually moved; the dark, fetid room dissolved momentarily. I felt a leap of joy and spoke in a high, cold voice: hold her!

I swayed where I stood: the dark, foul-smelling room seemed to close around me again; I did not know what had just happened.

"Have you got anything for me?" I asked for a third time, much louder.

"Over here," he whispered, pointing to the corner. I raised my wand and saw that outline of a cluttered dressing table beneath the curtained window.

This time he did not lead me. I edged my way between him and the unmade bed, my wand raised. I did not want to look away from him.

"What is it?" I asked as I reached the dressing table, which was heaped high with what looked and smelled like dirty laundry.

"There," he said, pointing at the shapeless mass.

And in the instant that I looked away, my eyes raking the tangled mess for a sword hilt, a ruby, he moved weirdly: I saw it out of the corner of my eye; a panic made me turn and horror paralysed me as I saw the old body collapsing and the great snake pouring from the place where his neck had been.

The snake struck as I raised my wand: the force of the bite to my forearm sent the wand spinning towards the ceiling, its light swung dizzyingly around the room and was extinguished: then a powerful blow from the tail to my midriff knocked the breath out of me: I fell backwards on to the dressing table, into the mound of filthy clothing -

I rolled sideways, narrowly avoiding the snake's tail, which thrashed down upon the table where I had been a second earlier: fragments of the glass surface rained upon me as I hit the floor. From below, I heard Chris call, "Kiara?", which was quickly followed by a bang ...

SIAN

Sian was hugging herself, not only as a means to keep warm, but also as a way of comforting herself in the darkened, smelly cottage as she looked at the bookshelf. She was tired, cold and alone, so very alone, for every good thing that had once been in her life had been cruelly taken from her, starting with her mother, her dear mother, who Sian thought she could always count on, even in death. How foolish of her for thinking so! for Sian hated her mother now, hated her for turning away when she needed her most, for what kind of mother would ever do something like that to their own -

But just as Sian was thinking these thoughts, a great pain, the likes of which she had never felt before, cut through her, striking her very heart and seeming to go all the way through to her soul; the pain was so intense, in fact, that Sian unconsciously grabbed on to the bookcase in front of her in order to steady herself, breathing as steadily as she could under the circumstances, but not too loud as to arouse concern in Chris.

This wasn't the first time Sian had felt this pain, oh no, for it had started not long after her mother had turned her back on the poor girl, in soft jabs at first, but growing increasingly stronger with each passing day, until she was feeling the pain at odd intervals through the day. Sian particularly felt the pain whenever she used magic, no matter if it was a powerful spell or not, and she was able to conceal her winces carefully enough, though for how much longer Sian could keep this façade up without attracting attention, she did not know, but Sian was worried. Not about death - oh no, never that - but for what was happening to her.

"Are you all right, Sian?"

Sian spun around and found herself face to face with Chris, who was looking at her, concerned. Sian quickly straightened up, plastered a fake yet convincing smile on her face and said, "I'm fine, Chris. Just browsing, see?"

Chris eyed her suspiciously for a moment, before he nodded and turned his attention back to the photographs above the fireplace. Inwardly breathing a sigh of relief, Sian looked at the books, and was surprised at the book her hand had fallen upon.

The Life and Lies of Susan Crighton was lying under her fingertips. She picked it up carefully, and as she saw her mother's picture on the cover, her expression hardened, even as the green mist that she had come to associate with her mother - the same mist that she had seen when staring at the statue in the Ministry, the mist that only she could see - surrounded her as it came out of the book, she ignored it as she studied the book closely, and the more of the book she took in, the more suspicious she became about where she, Chris and Kiara were.

"Hey, Chris, can you come over here?" Sian called.

There was approaching footsteps.

"What is it, S.D.?"

"Look at this book, Chris. And I mean, really look at it," said Sian, handing the book to him. Sian watched Chris as he looked at it, and she was surprised and a little irritated by the fact that he couldn't see what she could.

"What about it?" Chris asked her, shrugging.

Annoyed, Sian snatched the book back and said rather irritably, "Look, this book came out a few months ago, right?"

"Right. So?"

"So, if Peter wrote this, and sent this copy to Imamu to read," she added, tapping the note addressed to Imamu, "then why is the spine still stiff?"

Sian watched in relief as realisation hit Chris, but was thrown off by his next words.

"But didn't Great-Aunt Lizzie tell Kiara that Imamu's going gaga these days?"

"That may be, Rickers," said Sian quickly, "but you can't deny that something's felt wrong ever since we got here, can you?"

Chris shook his head. "No, no I can't. But then, what do you suppose is - what are you doing?" he added quickly, for Sian was putting the book in her beaded bag.

Sian stopped what she was doing and looked up at Chris.

"Look, normally I would disapprove of this kind of thing, but seeing as he hasn't read it yet, I think we're safe. Besides, I don't think he's in any fit state to read it, do you?"

Chris opened his mouth, ready to answer, but before he could do so, a loud bang echoed from upstairs, catching the brother and sister's attention.

"Kiara?" Chris called nervously, approaching the stairs.

He received no answer, but a second later there came another loud bang and a thud; Chris turned back to Sian, his face alert.

"Kiara's in trouble. We have to help her. Come on!"

Sian nodded and hurried forwards, but tripped over her feet as soon as she took her first step, but Chris caught her before she hit the ground, sending some books falling to the floor as a result of her elbow hitting the bookcase. Ignoring her brother's suspicious look, Sian hastily muttered her thanks before sidestepping around him and bounding up the stairs, Chris, of course, right behind her, but neither brother nor sister were prepared for the scene that met their eyes ...

KIARA

I could not get enough breath into my lungs to call back: then a heavy smooth mass smashed me to the floor and I felt it slide over me, powerful, muscular -

"No!" I gasped, pinned to the floor.

"Yes," whispered the voice. "Yess ... hold you ... hold you ..."

"Accio ... Accio wand ..."

But nothing happened and I needed my hands to try to force the snake from me as it coiled itself around my torso, squeezing the air from me, pressing the Horcrux hard into my chest, a circle of ice that throbbed with life, inches from my own frantic heart, and my brain was flooding with cold, white light, all thought obliterated, my own breath drowned, distant footsteps, everything going ...

A metal heart was banging outside my chest, and now I was flying, flying with triumph in my heart, without need of broomstick or Thestral ...

I was abruptly awake in the sour-smelling darkness; Namzo had released me. I scrambled up and saw the snake outlined against the landing light: it struck, and Sian and Chris dived to either side of the room: Sian's deflected curse hit the curtained window, which shattered. Frozen air filled the room as I ducked to avoid another shower of broken glass and my foot slipped on a pencil-like something - my wand -

I bent and snatched it up, but now the room was full of the snake, its tail thrashing; I saw that Chris had jumped over the bed and landed in a protective crouch in front of me, glaring at the snake, his wand at the ready, but Sian was nowhere to be seen and for a moment I thought the worst, but then there was a loud bang and a flash of red light and the snake flew into the air, smacking me hard in the face as it went, coil after heavy coil rising up to the ceiling. I raised my wand, but as I did so my scar seared more painfully, more powerfully than it had done in years.

"She's coming! Chris, Sian, she's coming!"

As I yelled, the snake fell, hissing wildly. Everything was chaos: it smashed shelves from the wall and splinted china flew everywhere as I grabbed Chris' hand as Sian hurried to join us -

The snake reared again as Sian hurtled herself over the bed, but I knew that worse than the snake was coming, was perhaps already at the gate, my head was going to split open with the pain from my scar -

The snake lunged as I took a running leap, dragging Chris with me, who in turn dragged Sian with him; as it struck, Sian screamed, "Confringo!" and her spell flew around the room, exploding the wardrobe mirror and ricocheting back at us, bounding from floor to ceiling; I felt the heat of it sear the back of my hand. Glass cut my cheek as, pulling both Chris and Sian with me, I leapt from the broken dressing table and then straight out of the smashed window into nothingness, Chris' yell of terror reverberating through the night as we were pulled through wind and colour away from the Pride-Lands ...

And then my scar burst open and I was Zira and I was running across the fetid bedroom, her long, white hands clutching the windowsill as she glimpsed the brown-haired boy and girl and the golden-haired girl in the middle twisted and vanished in the blue light of a Portkey, she screamed with rage, a scream the mingled with the boy's, that echoed across the dark dry gardens, over the distant church bells ringing in Christmas day ...

And her scream was my scream, her pain was my pain ... that I could happen here, where it had happened before ... here, within miles of the tree where I had come so close to die ... to die ... and the pain was so terrible ... ripped from my body ... but if I had no body, why did my head hurt so badly, if I was dead, how could I feel so unbearably, didn't pain cease with death, didn't it go ...

The day was warm and bright, the trees swaying lazily in the cool breeze, as the spirits of the earth and water danced and played together ... unaware that she was gliding along, unseen by any ... but slowly, the spirits started to sense a presence that was not supposed to be there ... a dark, evil thing ... and one by one, the spirits departed back to the trees and under the water, where they became still ... she gave a short, cold, cruel laugh and journeyed on, paying no heed to the beauty of the place, for there was important work for her to do that day, and she journeyed on with triumph ... she had waited for this, she had hoped for it ...

Stealthily she glided along, until she heard voices: one rough and hoarse, the other lighter and smoother, accompanied by the joyous shrieks and giggles of a child ... glancing around the trunk of a dead tree, she saw three people on a picnic blanket below, two men and a baby: the first man was large with dark hair, the second man was short and skinny and had auburn hair that was turning steadily grey, and the baby had short blonde hair that was beginning to thicken out, wearing a light green coloured dress ...

She stood there, watching the two men discuss some nonsensical rubbish, she assumed ... apparently the baby seemed to think so too, for she crawled away from her babysitters, directly towards her hiding place ... excitement grew within her as she watched the child come closer and closer ...

Finally the child made it, out of breath but clearly pleased with herself from the way she was giggling ... not for much longer, she thought maliciously, as she decided to show herself ...

Sensing something above her, the girl looked up at her with a kind of bright interest, perhaps thinking that it was her mother come to play a stupid, foolish game with her -

She pointed the wand very carefully into the girl's face: she wanted to see it happen, the destruction of this one, inexplicable danger. The child began to cry: it had seen that she was not Nala. She did not like it crying, she had never been able to stomach the small ones' crying in the orphanage -

"Avada Kedavra!"

And then she broke: she was nothing, nothing but pain and terror, as a woman she had never seen before came running to this spot ... attracted, no doubt, by the painful screams of the child ...

The woman handled the child carefully, shock written all over her features, as the two men came running to where they were ...

"You fools!" she yelled, rounding on the men, "you can't let a child like this out of your sight, not even for a second! What were you playing at?"

"Well, er - "

"We were just - "

"Oh, never mind!" said the woman impatiently. "The important thing is is that we get her to Simba and Nala and that they know what has happened so that we can do something about this. Quickly," the woman handed the baby to the skinny man, "take Kiara, go to Pride Castle and tell them what happened. In the meantime, I will be back in my cottage in Wales with Sarafina, because my son wants me there to keep an eye on things for him over there. Now go! Go!"

The woman Disapparated ... the two men took the child to Pride Castle and she followed them at a distance, once again ignoring the land, which had changed from calm, sunny and quiet to dark, stormy and unsettled, as something small and green whizzed past her for the castle ...

When the two men got to the castle, the front doors banged open: she was pleased to see Simba running, panic-stricken, towards the two men, with Nala right behind him ...

"No, Kiara, no! I cannot believe this has happened to you, my baby girl!" Simba screamed, snatching the child out of the skinny man's arms ... he and the stout man left, as Nala came up behind Simba, looking at the child ...

"Simba, this is terrible! Quickly, we must do something to save - "

"We will, Nala," he said, drawing her to him. "We will ..."

She watched the scene before her with pleasure, before soaring in the opposite direction as Simba looked at her - or rather, at a spot close by her ... and she knew then that she must hide herself, not here in the place where she could so easily be found, but far away ... far away ...

"No," I moaned.

The snake rustled on the filthy, cluttered floor, and she had killed the girl, and yet she was the girl ...

"No ..."

And now she stood at the broken window of Imamu's house, immersed in memories of her greatest loss, and at her feet the great snake slithered over broken china and glass ... she looked down, and saw something ...

"No ..."

"Kiara, it's all right, you're all right!"

She stooped down and picked up the smashed photograph. There she was, the unknown thief, the thief she was seeking ...

"No ... I dropped it ... I dropped it ..."

"Kiara, it's OK, wake up, wake up!"

I was Kiara ... Kiara, not Zira ... and the thing that was rustling was not a snake ...

I opened my eyes.

"Kiara," Sian whispered, relieved. "Thank goodness!"

"Are you all right?" Chris asked quietly.

"Yes," I lied.

I was in the tent, lying on one of the lower bunks beneath a heap of blankets. I could tell that it was almost dawn by the stillness and the quality of the cold, flat light beyond the canvas ceiling. I was drenched in sweat; I could feel it on the sheets and blankets.

"We got away."

"Yes," said Chris. "I lifted you and carried you here the moment we had Apparated away from the spot we were at earlier, the spot the Portkey took us to, which was a tough job as you were thrashing and jerking with every step I took. You've been ... well, you haven't been quite ..."

There were purple shadows under his and Sian's eyes, and I noticed that he was holding my hand and Sian held a small sponge in her hand: she had been wiping my face.

"You've been ill," he finished. "Quite ill."

"How long ago did we leave?"

"Hours ago. It's nearly morning."

"And I've been ... what, unconscious?"

"Not exactly," said Sian uncomfortably. "You've been shouting and moaning and ... things," she added, in a tone that made me feel uneasy. What had I done? Screamed curses like Zira; cried like the baby in the cot?

"I couldn't get the Horcrux off you," Sian said, and I knew she wanted to change the subject. "Neither of us could. It was stuck, stuck to your chest. You've got a mark, I'm sorry, I had to use a Severing Charm to remove it from you. The snake bit you, too, but I've cleaned the wound and put some dittany on it."

I put two fingers around the neck of the sweaty T-shirt I was wearing, pulled the sticky garment off my skin and looked down. There was a scarlet oval over my heart where the locket had burned me. I could also see the half-healed puncture marks to my forearm.

"Where've you put the Horcrux?"

"In my bag. I think we should keep it off for a while."

I lay back on my pillows and looked into their pinched, grey faces.

"We shouldn't have gone to the Pride Lands. It's my fault, it's all my fault, Sian, I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault. I wanted to go too; I really thought Ma might have left the sword there for you."

"Yeah, well ... we got that wrong, didn't we?"

"What happened, Kiara?" Chris asked me gently. "What happened when he took you upstairs? Was the snake hiding somewhere? Did it just come out and kill him and attack you?"

"No," I said. "He was the snake ... or the snake was him ... all along."

"Wait, what?"

I closed my eyes. I could still smell Imamu's house on me: it made the whole thing horribly vivid.

"Imamu must have been dead a while. The snake was ... was inside him. She-You-Know put it there in the Pride Lands, to wait. You were right, S.D. She knew I'd go back."

"The snake was inside him?"

I opened my eyes again: Chris and Sian both looked revolted, nauseated.

"Meers said there would be magic we never imagined," I said. "He didn't want to talk in front of you two, because it was Parseltongue, all Parseltongue, and I didn't realise, but of course, I could understand him. Once we were up in the room, the snake sent a message to She-You-Know, I heard it happen inside my head, I felt her get excited, she said to keep me there ... and then ..."

I remembered the snake coming out of Imamu's neck: Chris and Sian did not need to know the details.

" ... he changed, changed into the snake, and attacked."

I looked down at the puncture marks.

"It wasn't supposed to kill me, just keep me there 'til She-You-Know came."

If I had only managed to kill the snake, it would have been worth it, all of it ... sick at heart, I sat up and threw back the covers.

"Kiara, no, I'm sure you ought to rest!" said Chris, a hand on my chest, but I thwacked it back.

"You're the ones that need sleep. No offence, but you both look terrible. I'm fine. I'll keep watch for a while. Where's my wand?"

Neither Chris nor Sian answered, they merely looked at me.

"Where's my wand, Sian?"

She and Chris looked at each other; Sian looked nervous, frightened even.

"Kiara ... "

"Where's my wand?"

She sighed resignedly, then reached down beside the bed and held it out to me.

The holly and phoenix wand was nearly severed in two. One fragile strand of phoenix feather kept both pieces hanging together. The wood had splintered apart completely. I took it into my hands as though it was a living thing that had suffered a terrible injury. I could not think properly: everything was a blur of panic and fear. Then I held out the wand to Sian.

"Mend it. Please."

"Kiara, I don't think, when it's broken like this - "

"Please, Sian, try!"

"R-Reparo!"

The dangling half of the wand resealed itself. I held it up.

"Lumos!"

The wand sparked feebly, then went out. I pointed it at Sian.

"Expelliarmus!"

Sian's wand gave a little jerk, but did not leave her hand. The feeble attempt at magic was too much for my wand, which split into two again. I stared at it, aghast, unable to take in what I was seeing ... the wand that had survived so much ...

"Kiara," Sian whispered, so quietly I could hardly hear her. "I'm so sorry. I think it was me. As we were leaving, you know, the snake was coming for us, and so I cast a Blasting Curse, and it rebounded everywhere, and it must have - must have hit - "

"It was an accident," I said mechanically. I felt empty, stunned. "We'll - we'll find a way to repair it."

"Kiara, I don't think we're going to be able to," said Sian. "Remember ... remember Chrissie? When she broke her wand, crashing the car? It was never the same again, she had to get a new one."

I thought of Wandwick, kidnapped and held hostage by Zira, of Hori, who was dead. How was I supposed to find myself a new wand?

"Well," I said, in falsely matter-of-fact voice, "well, I'll just borrow yours for now, then. While I keep watch."

Sian handed me her wand as Chris put his arm around her, and I left them sitting beside my bed, desiring nothing more than to get away from her.