In the middle of the night Harry was jolted awake when a large bundle of fur landed on his face.

He bolted upright, knocking his attacker onto the coverlet. "Tibbles!" he sputtered through a moutful of cat hairs. Tibbles bounded noiselessly off his lap and through the part in the bed hangings.

Harry grumbled as he pushed the hangings aside and put on his glasses to look at the clock. It was one-thirty in the morning, an ungodly hour to be shocked awake.

Harry grabbed his wand, intending to change Tibbles into a brick or something else inanimate. The animal perched on the windowsill, looking down into the grounds and growling. Growling angrily, menacingly, not purring.

"What are you looking at?" Harry whispered, creeping up to the window. He looked down at the moonlight-flooded lawns to see a flaxen-haired woman sneaking across the grass towards the broom shed.

Harry ran back to the trunk at the foot of his bed and dug out the Omnioculars he had gotten at the Quidditch World Cup. Going back to the window, he raised the Omnioculars to his face and caught a glimpse of the woman glancing all round herself, just before slipping through the door into the broom shed.

"What." Harry murmured to himself. "Who is she?" he whispered to Tibbles. The Kneazle made no answer, only gazed at him intently.

Harry was about to run for help when he saw her through the Omnioculars again as she left the broom shed. In the moonlight her long hair shimmered like silver. She was clutching a broom. He spun the zoom dial on the side to look at the logo etched into the end of the handle, and his heart stopped at the sight of a feather carved in the polished wood. She was taking Ron's Feather-Light broom!

He focussed on her face. The ice-blue eyes scanned the stone walls of the school's stone walls. She seemed to be looking for a particular window. Her left hand was in her pocket, undoubtedly fingering a wand. Harry held his breath, hoping that she wouldn't see him.

He wasn't even aware that he was leaning against the glass, so it came as a great shock when the window swung out and banged on the outside wall. The sudden movement drew the woman's attention. Her gaze flickered upwards and their eyes met.

Immediately they recognized each other.

"You!" cried Harry Potter and Maldora Lestrange at the same time.

Maldora leaped at once onto the Feather-Light broom and took off.

"Hey!" Harry dropped the Omnioculars on the floor and ran to his trunk. His Firebolt lay on top of his clothes. Never stopping to think, he climbed on and launched himself out the window.

He chased her straight up through the wispy grey clouds and down to earth again. "Catch me if you can!" Maldora shouted gleefully. She tried to drill him into the ground with a well-executed Wronski Feint, which failed to dupe Harry, who had been a Quidditch Seeker long enough to recognize a Feint coming. She pulled up hard and soared higher again.

They dipped and dove, Harry staying tight on her tail. They flew into the Quidditch stadium and wove through the golden hoops. Harry held onto the Firebolt with one hand and began firing curses at Maldora with his wand in the other; but she was an excellent flier, and dodged every one. All of a sudden Harry himself was nearly blasted off his broom. Maldora had her wand out and she was pointing over her shoulder at Harry, trying to knock him out of the air. She wasn't even looking over her shoulder while she shouted her curses. Her aim was very good, Harry observed when he nearly lost his glasses to a Reductor Curse.

They flew on, both wands expelling bright jets of light that spiralled out into the darkness on either side of them. Finally Harry managed to singe her fair hair, and when she cried out and reached up to touch her hair he hit her with a Disarming Spell. Her wand fell to the ground far below as she was blasted forward off the broom.

Harry braked hard and watched her fall, preparing to throw a Stunner as soon as she landed-but twenty feet from the field the Feather-Light broom caught her safely, like it had caught Ron at the first Quidditch match. Harry let out a half-shout of dismay and frustration at the incredible luck of his opponent.

She turned back for her wand, but he moved forward quickly and shot Stunners at her. She was forced to pull up and leave her wand on the grass. She floated up to the same level as him. And there they hovered in midair, facing off a hundred feet above the Quidditch pitch.

"Do you know who I am?" she demanded, drawing herself up imperiously.

"Lestrange," Harry panted, trying to catch his breath.

"Yes." She flipped back her shining flaxen hair over her shoulder. She looked extremely well, Harry thought, for someone who had spent over a decade in the company of the soul-sucking Dementors. Sirius Black had kept a haunted look from his time in Azkaban, something Harry did not see in her face. "I am the magnificent Maldora Lestrange! And you are the pitiable Harry Potter. What else do you know about me? Tell me."

"You're a Death Eater," Harry said.

"True, and proud of it. Lord Voldemort will one day rule the world, and I and my husband will be right by his side!" Her eyes sparkled.

Harry suddenly fired a curse at her, but she tipped to one side and rolled over in the air to miss it.

"You killed Arabella Figg's husband," Harry accused when she was upright again.

"Faustus Figg? It's true. Foolish Faustus was in my way. So is that nasty wife of his, Arabella Figg. I'll kill her too. And you, her little darling, you will die as well!"

"You're unarmed," Harry pointed out.

"But I'm the better flier, I have years more experience! And I'm faster than you any day, especially on my Feather-Light broom. Lord Voldemort wants your head on a pike, Harry Potter. He'll shower me with rewards."

Harry flew at her, more out of pure nerve and shock than bravery-but at the last second she did a Woollongong Shimmy and he missed.

"That's Ron's broom, you stole it!" shouted Harry.

"Don't be ridiculous, it was mine in the first place," Maldora shouted back.

Harry opened his mouth to respond, but he stopped as he began to understand something. He was in the grip of slow, sickening realization. Hadn't he had the clues all along? He'd always known the truth, he had only to see it inside his head.

Maldora Lestrange's nonexistent past, her lack of background until the sudden and mysterious emergence into the world.

The devouring of Dai Llewellyn by a Chimaera.

The murder of Honoura Prewett, a former Hogwarts student.

Maldora's remarkable and very unusual ability to resist the Dementors' powers.

Her Quidditch manoeuvres, so well-executed.

The Feather-Light broom and her claim of previous ownership.

And most telling of all, that old photograph of a black cat and its owner, a beautiful little girl with fair hair like flax and icy blue eyes, who had grown up into a powerful witch with the selfsame features; the witch who now faced him and told him she was going to kill him.

She was grinning at him. "Solange," he said slowly.

Her eyes widened. She shook her head mutely.

"Yes! You're Solange Figg," Harry said, flabbergasted by his own words. "That's why you're obsessed with killing Arabella Figg-she's your mother."

"No!" she cried, panicked, and Harry knew he was right. She looked wildly for her wand, but it was lying fifty yards behind Harry, while his wand was aimed at her heart.

"Stupefy!" he cried, but it was dodged. Then Maldora Lestrange, nee Solange Figg, turned and flew on into the night.