AN: Hello, dear readers. This is more of an apology for the note I left at the bottom of the last chapter, stating that this one was going to state the start of Chris and Kiara's relationship in a way, but it's not - that's the next chapter. I'm sorry I did that, I was just so excited to share with you that Chris and Kiara are going to come together that I let my excitable heart overrule my sensible head. I changed the bottom author's note a few days ago, so check it out if you don't believe me. So next week you will definitely see the start of Chris and Kiara, but for now, enjoy this chapter.
Chapter 24
Horcruxes
KIARA
I could feel the Felix Felicis wearing off as I crept back into the castle. The front door had remained unlocked for me, but on the third floor I met Weeves and only narrowly avoided detection by diving sideways through one of my shortcuts. By the time I got up to the portrait of the Fat Lord and pulled off my Invisibility Cloak, I was not surprised to find him in a most unhelpful mood.
"What sort of time do you call this?"
"I'm really sorry - I had to go out for something important - "
"Well, the password changed at midnight, so you'll have to sleep in the corridor, won't you?"
"You're joking!" I said. "Why did it have to change at midnight?"
"That's the way it is," said the Fat Lord. "If you're angry, go and take it up with the Headmistress, she's the one who's tightened security."
"Fantastic," I said bitterly, looking around at the hard floor. "Really brilliant. Yeah, I would go and take it up with Crighton if she was here, because she's the one who wanted me to - "
"She is here - " said a voice behind me. "Professor Crighton returned to the school an hour ago."
Nearly Headless Nicola was gliding towards me, her head wobbling as usual upon her ruff.
"I heard it from the Bloody Baroness, who saw her arrive," said Nicola. "She appeared, according to the Baroness, to be in good spirits, though a little tired, of course."
"Where is she?" I said, my heart leaping.
"Oh, groaning and clanking up on the Astronomy Tower, it's a favourite pastime of hers - "
"Not the Bloody Baroness, Crighton!"
"Oh - in her office," said Nicola. "I believe, from what the Baroness said, that she had some business to attend to before turning in - "
"Yeah, she has," I said, excitement blazing in my chest at the prospect of telling Crighton I had secured the memory. I wheeled about and sprinted off again, ignoring the Fat Lord who called after me.
"Come back! All right, I lied! I was annoyed you woke me up! The password's still "tapeworm"!"
But I was already hurtling back along the corridor, and, within minutes, I was inside the elevator - using one of the tokens Sian had given me in case she wasn't around to place it in the slot - and was zooming around to the Headmistress' office.
"Enter," said Crighton when I knocked. She sounded exhausted but happy.
I pushed open the door. There was Crighton's office, looking the same as ever, but with black, star-strewn skies beyond the windows.
Sian was there, sitting beside her mother, the two of them looking at an album of sorts when I entered. When mother and daughter looked up and saw who it was, they were both surprised to see me, the former rather more than the latter.
"Good gracious, Kiara," said Crighton in surprise. "To what do I owe this very late pleasure?"
"Ma'am - I've got it. I've got the memory from Beadu."
I pulled out the tiny glass bottle and showed it to Crighton and Sian. For a moment or two, both looked stunned. Then their faces split into equally wide smiles.
"Kiara, this is spectacular news! Very well done indeed! I knew you could do it!" said Crighton joyously.
"Nice work, kid!" said Sian, as her mother, forgetting the lateness of the hour, hurried around her desk, took the bottle with Beadu's memory in her uninjured hand and strode over to the cupboard where she kept the Pensieve.
"And now," said Crighton, placing the stone basin upon her desk and emptying the contents of the bottle into it, "now, at last, we shall see. Girls, quickly ..."
Sian and I both bowed obediently over the Pensieve and our feet left the office floor ... once again we fell through darkness and landed in Arachne Beadu's office many years before.
There was the much younger Arachne Beadu, with her thick, shiny black hair on top of her rather pointed head, sitting again in the comfortable winged armchair in her office, her feet resting upon a velvet pouffe, a small glass of wine in one hand, the other rummaging in a box of crystallised pineapple. And there were the half a dozen teenage girls sitting around Beadu with Dizra Maliay in the midst of them, Makasha's silver and red ring gleaming on her finger.
Crighton landed beside me just as Maliay asked, "Ma'am, is it true that Professor Cheerymind is retiring?"
"Dizra, Dizra, if I knew I couldn't tell you," said Beadu, wagging her finger reprovingly at Maliay, though winking at the same time. "I must say, I'd like to know where you get your information, girl; more knowledgeable than half the staff, you are."
Maliay smiled; the other girls laughed and cast her admiring looks.
"What with your uncanny ability to know things you shouldn't, and your careful flattery of the people who matter - thank you for the pineapple, by the way, you're quite right, it is my favourite - "
Several of the girls tittered again.
" - I confidently expect you to rise to Minister for Magic within twenty years. Fifteen, if you keep sending me pineapple. I have excellent contacts at the Ministry."
Dizra Maliay merely smiled as the others laughed again. I noticed that she was by no means the eldest of the group of girls, but that they all seemed to look at her as their leader.
"I don't know that politics would suit me, ma'am," she said when the laughter had died again. "I don't have the right kind of background, for one thing."
A couple of the girls around her smirked at each other. I was sure they were enjoying a private joke: undoubtedly what they knew, or suspected, regarding their gang leader's famous ancestor.
"Nonsense," said Beadu briskly, "couldn't be plainer you come from decent wizarding stock, abilities like yours. No, you'll go far, Dizra, I've never been wrong about a student yet."
The small golden clock standing upon Beadu's desk chimed eleven o'clock behind her and she looked round.
"Good gracious, is it that time already? You'd better get going, girls, or we'll all be in trouble. Aakster, I want your essay by tomorrow or else it's detention."
One by one the girls filed out of the room. Beadu sat up then stood up out of her armchair and carried her empty glass over to her desk. A movement behind her made her look round; Maliay was still standing there.
"Look sharp, Dizra, you don't want to be caught out of bed out of hours, and you a Prefect ..."
"Ma'am, I wanted to ask you something."
"Ask away, then, m'girl, ask away ..."
"Ma'am, I wondered what you know about ... about Horcruxes?"
Beadu stared at her, her long, thin fingers absent-mindedly caressing the stem of her wine glass.
"Project for Defence Against the Dark Arts, is it?"
But I could tell that Beadu knew perfectly well that this was not schoolwork.
"Not exactly, ma'am," said Maliay. "I've come across the term while reading and I didn't fully understand it."
"No ... well ... you'd be hard-pushed to find a book at Dragon Mort that'll give you details on Horcruxes, Dizra. That's very Dark stuff, very Dark indeed," said Beadu.
"But you obviously know all about them, ma'am? I mean, a witch like you - sorry, I mean, if you can't tell me, obviously - I just knew if anyone could tell me, you could - so I just thought I'd ask - "
It was very well done, I thought, the hesitancy, the casual tone, the careful flattery, none of it overdone. I, Kiara, had had too much experience of trying to wheedle information out of reluctant people not to recognise a master at work. I could tell that Maliay wanted the information very, very much; perhaps had been working towards this moment for weeks.
"Well," said Beadu, not looking at Maliay, but fiddling with the ribbon on top of her box of crystallised pineapple, "well, it can't hurt to give you and overview, of course. Just so that you understand the term. A Horcrux is the word used for an object in which a person has concealed part of their soul."
"I don't quite understand how that works, though, ma'am," said Maliay.
Her voice was carefully controlled, but I could sense her excitement.
"Well, you split your soul, you see," said Beadu, "and hide part of it in an object outside the body. Then, even if one's body is attacked or destroyed, one cannot die, for part of the soul remains earthbound and undamaged. But, of course, existence in such a form ..."
Beadu's face crumpled and I found myself remembering words I had heard the night Zira returned.
"I was ripped from my body, I was less than spirit, less than the meanest ghost ... but still, I was alive."
"... few would want it, Dizra, very few. Death would be preferable."
But Maliay's hunger was now apparent; her expression was greedy, she could no longer hide her longing.
"How do you split your soul?"
"Well," said Beadu uncomfortably, "you must understand that the soul is supposed to remain intact and whole. Splitting it is an act of violation, it is against nature."
"But how do you do it?"
"By an act of evil - the supremest act of evil. By committing murder. Killing rips the soul apart. The wizard intent upon creating a Horcrux would use the damage to their advantage: they would encase the torn portion - "
"Encase? But how - ?"
"There is a spell, do not ask me, I don't know!" said Beadu, shaking her head like an old elephant bothered by mosquitoes. "Do I look as though I have tried it - do I look like a killer?"
"No, ma'am, of course not," said Maliay quickly. "I'm sorry ... I didn't mean to offend ..."
"Not at all, not at all, not offended," said Beadu gruffly. "It's natural to feel some curiosity about these things ... wizards of a certain calibre have always been drawn to that aspect of magic ..."
"Yes, ma'am," said Maliay. "What I don't understand, though - just out of curiosity - I mean, would one Horcrux be much use? Can you only split your soul once? Wouldn't it be better, make you stronger, to have your soul in more pieces? I mean, for instance, isn't seven the most powerfully magical number, wouldn't seven - ?"
"Merlin's beard, Dizra!" yelped Beadu. "Seven! Isn't it bad enough to think of killing one person? And in any case ... bad enough to divide the soul ... but to rip it into seven pieces ..."
Beadu looked deeply troubled now: she was gazing at Maliay as though she had never seen her plainly before and I could tell that she was regretting entering into the conversation at all.
"Of course," she muttered, "this is all hypothetical, what we're discussing, isn't it? All academic ..."
"Yes, ma'am, of course," said Maliay quickly.
"But all the same, Dizra ... keep it quiet, what I've told you - that is to say, what we've discussed. People wouldn't like to think we've been chatting about Horcruxes. It's a banned subject at Dragon Mort, you know ... Crighton's particularly fierce about it ..."
"I won't say a word, ma'am," said Maliay and she left, but not before I glimpsed her face, which was full of that same wild happiness it had worn when she had first found out that she was a witch, the sort of happiness that did not enhance her beautiful features, but made them, somehow, less human ...
"Thank you, Kiara," said Crighton, moving to stand between myself and Sian. "Let us go ..."
When we landed back on the office floor, Crighton led Sian to the desk and made her lean on it. Crighton then go Sian's chair from beside her own and moved it to the front beside the other chair, which she sat down on. I didn't understand what was going on until I sat next to Sian and looked at her properly: she was white, her eyes were wide and unblinking and she was shaking. I didn't blame her for how she reacted; the information was horrible.
Crighton then knelt in front of Sian and made her drink something that I could not see, but whatever it was, it worked: Sian coughed and spluttered, blinked and looked around, as if wondering where she was. Then she saw her mother in front of her, looking at her fondly, and she sighed in relief.
"Oh ... I'm so sorry, Mother," she said shakily, "but that ... that was - "
"I know, my darling, I know," said Crighton, and she held Sian tightly for a while. I didn't say anything, for I knew that that moment was only for those two. When Sian had calmed down, Crighton pulled back. Sian did look better: she had stopped shaking, her eyes weren't so bright and she had some colour back in her cheeks.
"Are you better now, magi?" Sian nodded. "Ready to continue?" Sian nodded again. "You sure?" Another nod. "All right, then." Crighton then flashed Sian another warm smile, kissed her forehead, stood up and went to sit behind her desk. Once she sat down, she spoke to both of us.
"I have been hoping for this piece of evidence for a very long time," she said. "It confirms the theory on which I have been working, it tells me that I am right, and also how very far there is to go ..."
I suddenly noticed that every single one of the old headmasters and headmistresses in the portraits around the walls was awake and listening in on our conversation. A corpulent, red-nosed witch had actually taken out an ear-trumpet.
"Well, girls," said Crighton, "I am sure you understood the significance of what we just heard. At the same age as you both are right now, give or take a few months, Dizra Maliay was doing all she could to find out how to make herself immortal."
"You think she succeeded then, ma'am?" I said. "She made a Horcrux? And that's why she didn't die when she attacked me? She had a Horcrux hidden somewhere? A bit of her soul was safe?"
"A bit ... or more," said Crighton. "You heard Zira: what she particularly wanted from Arachne was an opinion on what would happen to the wizard who created more than one Horcrux, what would happen to the wizard so determined to evade death that they would be prepared to murder many times, rip their soul repeatedly, so as to store it in many, separately concealed Horcruxes. No book would have given her that information. As far as I know - as far, as I am sure, Zira knows - no wizard, apart from Lord Voldemort, has ever done more than tear their soul in two."
Crighton paused for a moment, marshalling her thoughts, and then said, "Four years ago, I receive what I considered certain proof that Zira had split her soul."
"Where?" I asked. "How?"
"You handed it to me, Kiara," said Crighton. "The diary, Maliay's diary, the one giving instructions on how to reopen the Chamber of Mysteries."
I don't understand, ma'am," I said.
"Well, although I did not see the Maliay who came out of the diary, what you described to me, Kiara, was a phenomenon I had never witnessed. A mere memory starting to act and think for itself? A mere memory, sapping the life out of my daughter into whose hands it had fallen? No, something much more sinister had lived inside that book ... a fragment of soul, I was almost sure of it. The diary had been a Horcrux. But this raised as many questions as it answered. What intrigued and alarmed me most was that that diary had been intended as a weapon as much as a safeguard."
"I still don't understand," I said.
"Well, it worked as a Horcrux is supposed to work - in other words, the fragment of soul concealed inside it was kept safe and had undoubtedly played its part in preventing the death of its owner. But there could be no doubt that Maliay really wanted that diary read, wanted the piece of her soul to inhabit or possess somebody else, so that Snake-Eyes' monster would be unleashed again."
"Well, she didn't want her hard work to be wasted," I said. "She wanted people to know she was Snake-Eyes' heir, because she couldn't take credit at the time."
"Quite correct," said Crighton, nodding. "But don't you see, Kiara, that if she intended the diary to be passed to, or planted on, some future Dragon Mort student, she was being remarkably blasé about that precious fragment of her soul concealed within it. The point of a Horcrux is, as Professor Beadu explained, to keep part of the self hidden and safe, not to fling it into somebody else's path and run the risk that they might destroy it - as indeed happened: that particular fragment of soul is no more; you and Sian both saw to that, Kiara.
"The careless way in which Zira regarded this Horcrux seemed more ominous to me. It suggested that she must have made - or been planning to make - more Horcruxes, so that the loss of her first would not be so detrimental. I did not wish to believe it, but nothing else seemed to make sense.
"Then you told me, two years later, that on the night that Zira returned to her body, she made a most illuminating and alarming statement to her Love Destroyers. "I, who have gone further than anybody along the path that leads to immortality." That was what you told me she said, Kiara. "Further than anybody." And I thought I knew what that meant, though the Love Destroyers did not. She was referring to her Horcruxes, Horcruxes in the plural, girls, which I do not believe any other wizard - except one - has ever had. Yet it fitted: Lady Zira had seemed to grow less human with the passing years, and the transformation she had undergone seemed to me to be only explicable if her soul was mutilated beyond the realms of what we might call usual magic ..."
"So she's made herself impossible to kill by murdering other people?" I said. "Why couldn't she make herself a Mirror of Wishes, or steal one, if she was so interested in immortality?"
"Well, we know that she tried to do just that five minutes ago," said Crighton. "But there are several reasons why, I think, a Mirror of Wishes would appeal less than Horcruxes to Lady Zira.
"While the Elixir of Life does indeed extend life, it must be drunk regularly, for all eternity, if the drinker is to maintain their immortality. Therefore, Zira would be entirely dependent on the Elixir, and if it ran out, or was contaminated, or if the Mirror was stolen, she would die just like any other woman. Zira likes to operate alone, remember. I believe that she would have found the thought of being dependent, even on the Elixir, intolerable. Of course she was prepared to drink it if it would take her out of the horrible part-life to which she was condemned after attacking you, Kiara, but only to regain a body. Thereafter, I am convinced, she intended to continue to rely on her Horcruxes: she would need nothing more, if she could only regain a human form. She was already immortal, you see ... or as close to immortal as any woman can be.
"But now, Kiara, armed with this information, the crucial memory you have succeeded in procuring for us, we are closer to the secret of finishing Lady Zira than anyone has ever been before. You heard her, girls: "Wouldn't it be better, make you stronger, to have you soul in more pieces ... isn't seven he most powerfully magical number ..." Isn't seven the most powerfully magical number. Yes, I think the idea of a seven-part soul would greatly appeal to Lady Zira."
"She made seven Horcruxes?" I said, horror-struck, while several of the portraits on the walls made similar noises of shock and outrage. "But they could be anywhere in the world - hidden - buried or invisible - "
"I am glad to see you appreciate the magnitude of the problem," said Crighton calmly. "But firstly, no, Kiara, not seven Horcruxes, six. The seventh part of her soul, however, maimed, resides inside her regenerated body. That was the part of her that lived a spectral existence for so many years during her exile; without that, she has no self at all. That seventh piece of soul will be the last that anybody wishing to kill Zira must attack - the piece that lives in her body."
"But the six Horcruxes, then," I said, a little desperately, "how are we supposed to find them?"
"You are forgetting, Kiara ... you and Sian have already destroyed one of them. And I have destroyed another."
"You have?" I said eagerly.
"Yes indeed," said Crighton, and she raised her blackened, burned-looking hand. "The ring, Kiara. Makasha's ring. And a terrible curse there was upon it too. Had it not been - forgive me the lack of seemly modesty - for my own prodigious skill, and for Professor Triphorm's timely action when I returned to Dragon Mort, desperately injured, I might not have lived to tell the tale. However, a withered hand does not seem an unreasonable exchange for a seventh of Zira's soul. The ring is no longer a Horcrux."
As Crighton was talking about how she had injured her hand, out of the corner of my eye I saw Sian shift uncomfortably in her chair, her eyes downcast, but I ignored it, focusing on Crighton.
"How did you find it, Mother?" said Sian in a small voice at last, raising her head again.
"Well, as you girls now know, I have made it my business for many years to discover as much as I can about Zira's past life. I have travelled widely, visiting those places she once knew. I stumbled across the ring hidden in the ruin of the Mackay's house. It seems that once Zira had succeeded in sealing a piece of her soul inside it, she did not want to wear it any more. She hid it, protected by many powerful enchantments, in the shack where her ancestors had once lived (Marmarin having been carted off to Azkaban, of course), never guessing that I might one day take the trouble to visit the ruin, or that I might be keeping an eye open for traces of magical concealment.
"However, we should not congratulate ourselves to heartily. You destroyed he diary and I the ring, but if we are right in our theory of a seven-part soul, four Horcruxes remain."
"And they could be anything?" I said. "They could be old tin cans or, I dunno, empty potion bottles ...?"
"You are thinking of Portkeys, Kiara, which must be ordinary objects, easy to overlook. But Lady Zira use tin cans or old potion bottles to guard her own precious soul? You are forgetting what I have shown you. Lady Zira liked to collect trophies, and she preferred objects with a powerful magical history. Her pride, her belief in her own superiority, her determination to carve for herself a startling place in wizarding history; these things suggest to me that Zira would have chosen her Horcruxes with some care, favouring objects worthy of the honour."
"The diary wasn't that special," I muttered. Sian nodded in agreement.
"The diary, as you have said yourself, is proof that she was the heir of Snake-Eyes. I am sure that Zira considered it of stupendous importance."
"So, the other Horcruxes?" I said. "Do you think you know where they are, ma'am?"
"I can only guess," said Crighton. "For the reasons I have already given, I believe that Lady Zira would objects that, in themselves, have a certain grandeur. I have therefore trawled back through Zira's past to see if I can find evidence that such artefacts have disappeared around her."
"The locket!" I said loudly. "Badger-Stripes' cup!"
"Yes," said Crighton, smiling. "I would be prepared to bet - perhaps not my other hand - but a couple of fingers, that they became Horcruxes three and four. The remaining two, assuming again that she created a total of six, are more of a problem, but I will hazard a guess that, having secured objects from Badger-Stripes and Snake-Eyes, she set out to track down objects owned by Lion-Heart and Raven-Wings. Four objects from the four founders would, I am sure, have exerted a powerful pull over Zira's imagination. I cannot answer for whether she managed to find anything of Raven-Wings'. I am confident, however, that the only known relic of Lion-Heart remains safe."
Crighton pointed her blackened fingers to the wall behind her, where a ruby-encrusted sword reposed within a glass case.
"Do you think that's really why she wanted to come back to teach at Dragon Mort, ma'am?" I said. "To try and find something from one of the other founders?"
"My thoughts precisely," said Crighton. "But unfortunately, that does not advance us much further, for she was turned away, or so I believe, without the chance to search the school. I am forced to conclude that she never fulfilled her ambition of collecting four founders' objects. She definitely had two - she may have found three - that is the best we can do for now."
"Even if she got something of Raven-Wings' or Lion-Heart's, that leaves a sixth Horcrux," I said, counting on my fingers. "Unless she got both?"
"I don't think so," said Crighton. "I think I know what the sixth Horcrux is. I wonder what you will say when I confess that I have been curious for a while about the behaviour of the snake, Namzo?"
"The snake?" I said, sounding as startled as Sian looked. "You can use animals as Horcruxes?"
"Well, it is inadvisable to do so," said Crighton, "because to confide something to part of your soul that can think or move for itself is obviously a very risky business. However, if my calculations are correct, Zira was still at least one Horcrux short of her goal to six when she found you in the Pride Lands that day and attempted to kill you.
"She seems to have reserved the process of making Horcruxes for particularly significant deaths. She believed that in killing you, she was destroying the danger the prophecy had outlined. She believed she was making herself invincible. I am sure that she was intending to make her final Horcrux with your death.
"As we know, she failed. After an interval of some years, however, she used Namzo to kill an old Muggle woman, and it might then have occurred to her to turn her into her last Horcrux. He underlines the Snake-Eyes connection, which enhances Lady Zira's mystique. I think she is perhaps as fond of him as she can be of anything; she certainly likes to keep him close and she seems to have an unusual amount of control over him, even for a Parshydamouth."
"So," I said, "the diary's gone, the ring's gone. The cup, the locket and the snake are still intact and you think there might be a Horcrux that was once Raven-Wings' or Lion-Heart's?"
"An admirably succinct and accurate summary, yes," said Crighton, bowing her head.
"So ... are you still looking for them, ma'am? Is that where you've been going when you'd been leaving the school?"
"Correct," said Crighton. "I have been looking for a very long time. I think ... perhaps ... I may be close to finding another one. There are hopeful signs."
"And if you do," I said quickly, "can I come with you to help get rid of it?"
"Oh, and can I come, too?" Sian asked eagerly. I looked at her, surprised at how eager she was. When she saw me looking, she said, "What? I don't want to miss out on the opportunity to destroy another Horcrux."
Crighton looked at the two of us very intently for a moment before saying, "Yes, I think so."
"We can?" Sian and I said together: she sounded excited, whereas I was more taken aback.
"Oh yes," said Crighton, smiling slightly. "I think you have both earned the right."
I felt my heart lift. I felt relieved that I did not hear words of caution and protection for once. The headmasters and headmistresses around the walls seemed less impressed by Crighton's decision; I saw a few of them shaking their heads and Philomena Naenia actually snorted.
"Does Zira know when a Horcrux is destroyed, ma'am? Can she feel it?" I asked, ignoring the portraits.
"A very interesting question, Kiara. I believe not. I believe that Zira is now so immersed in evil, and these crucial parts of herself have been detached for so long, she does not feel as we do. Perhaps, at the point of death, she might be aware of her loss ... but she was not aware, for instance, that the diary had been destroyed until she forced the truth out of Narissa Malty. When Zira discovered that the diary had been mutilated and robbed of all its powers, I am told that her anger was terrible to behold."
"But I thought she meant Narissa Malty to smuggle it into Dragon Mort?"
"Yes she did, years ago, when she was sure she would be able to create more Horcruxes, but still Narissa was supposed to wait for Zira's say-so, and she never received it, for Zira vanished shortly after giving her the diary. No doubt she thought that Narissa would not dare do anything with the Horcrux other than guard it carefully, but she was counting too much upon Narissa's fear of a mistress who had been gone for years and whom Narissa believed dead. Of course, Narissa did not know what the diary really was. I understand that Zira had told her the diary would cause the Chamber of Mysteries to reopen, because it was cleverly enchanted. Had Narissa known she held a portion of her mistress' soul in her hands she would undoubtedly have treated it with more reverence - but instead she went ahead and carried out the old plan for her own ends: by planting the diary on one of my daughters," (Crighton's face crumpled with pain for a moment at the memory, as did Sian's) "she hoped to discredit my husband, have me thrown out of Dragon Mort and get rid of a highly incriminating object in one stroke. Ah, poor Narissa ... what with Zira's fury about the fact that she threw away the Horcrux for her own gain, and the fiasco at the Ministry last year, I would not be surprised if she is secretly glad to be safe in Azkaban at the moment."
I sat in thought for a moment, then asked, "So if all of her Horcruxes are destroyed, Zira could be killed?"
"Yes, I think so," said Crighton. "Without her Horcruxes, Zira will be a mortal woman with a maimed and diminished soul. Never forget, though, that while her soul may be damaged beyond repair, her brain and her magical power remain intact. It will take uncommon skill and power to kill a witch like Zira, even without her Horcruxes."
"But I haven't got uncommon skill and power," I said, before I could stop myself.
"Yes, you have," said Crighton firmly. "You have a power that Zira has never had. You can - "
"I know!" I said impatiently. "I can love!" It was with difficulty that I stopped myself adding, "Bid deal!"
"Yes, Kiara, you can love," said Crighton, who looked as though she knew perfectly well what I had just refrained from saying, "which, given everything that has happened to you, is a great and remarkable thing. You are still too young to understand how unusual you are, Kiara."
"So, when the prophecy says that I'll have "power the Scarlet Lady knows not", it just means - love?" I asked, feeling a little let down.
"Yes - just love," said Crighton. "But Kiara, never forget that what the prophecy says is only significant because Zira made it so. I told you this at the end of last year. Zira singled you out as the person who would be most dangerous to her - and in doing so, she made you the person who would be most dangerous to her!"
"But it comes to the same - "
"No, it doesn't!" said Crighton, sounding impatient now. Pointing at me with her black, withered hand, she said, "You are setting too much store by the prophecy!"
"But," I spluttered, "but you said the prophecy means - "
"If Zira had never heard of the prophecy, would it have been fulfilled? Would it have meant anything? Of course not! Do you think every prophecy in the Hall of Prophecy has been fulfilled?"
"But," I said, bewildered, "but last year, you said one of us would have to kill the other - "
"Kiara, Kiara, only because Zira made a grave error, and acted on Professor Crystals' words! If Zira had never been the reason that you were separated from your parents, would she have imparted in you a furious desire for revenge? Of course not! If she had not killed your brother, Kopa, would your father have given you a protection she could not penetrate? Of course not, Kiara! Don't you see? Zira herself created her worst enemy, just as tyrants everywhere do! Have you any idea how much tyrants fear the people they oppress? All of them realise that, one day, amongst their many victims, there is sure to be one who rises against them and strikes back! Zira is no different! Always she was on the lookout for the one who would challenge her. She heard the prophecy and leapt into action, with the resul that she not only handpicked the woman most likely to finish her, she handed her uniquely deadly weapons!"
"But - "
"It is essential that you understand this!" said Crighton, standing up and striding about the room, her glittering robes swooshing in her wake; I had never seen her so agitated. "By attempting to kill you, Zira herself singled out the remarkable person who sits here in front of me, and gave her the tools for the job! It is Zira's fault that you were able to see into her thoughts, her ambitions, that you even understood the reptilelike language in which she gives orders, and yet, Kiara, despite your privileged insight into Zira's world (which, incidentally, is a gift any of her Love Destroyers would kill to have), you have never been seduced by the Dark Arts, never, even for a second, shown the slightest desire to become one of Zira's followers!"
"Of course I haven't!" I said indignantly. "She killed my brother and separated me from my parents!"
"You are protected, in short, by your ability to love!" said Crighton loudly. "The only protection that can possibly work against the lure of power like Zira's! In spite of all the temptation you have endured, all the suffering, you remain pure of heart, just as pure as you were at the age of eleven, when you stared into a mirror that reflected your heart's desire, and it showed you the only way to thwart Lady Zira, and not immortality or riches. Kiara, have you any idea how few wizards could have seen what you saw in that mirror? Zira should have known then what she was dealing with, but she did not!
"But she knows it now. You have flitted into Lady Zira's mind without damage to yourself, but she cannot possess you without enduring mortal agony, as she discovered in the Ministry. I do not think she understands why, Kiara, but she was in such a hurry to mutilate her own soul, she never paused to understand the incomparable power of a soul that is untarnished and whole."
"But, ma'am," I said, making valiant efforts not to sound argumentative, "it all comes down to the same thing, doesn't it? I've got to try and kill her, or - "
"Got to?" said Crighton. "Of course you've got to! But not because of the prophecy! Because you, yourself, will never rest until you've tried! The three of us know it! Imagine, please, just for a moment, that you had never heard that prophecy! How would you feel about Zira now? Think!"
I watched Crighton striding up and down in front of me, and I thought. I thought of my parents, my little brother, Kion, and my grandmothers, and how much I wanted to protect them. I thought of my brother, Kopa. I thought of Pumbaa. I thought of Georgia Diggs. I thought of all the terrible deeds I knew Lady Zira had done. As I thought of all this, a flame seemed to leap inside my chest, searing my throat.
"I'd want her finished," I said quietly. "And I'd want to do it."
"Of course you would!" cried Crighton. "You see, the prophecy does not mark you as her equal ... in other words, you are free to choose your way, quite free to turn your back on the prophecy! But Zira continues to set store by the prophecy. She will continue to hunt you ... which makes it certain, really, that - "
"That one of us is going to end up killing the other," I said. "Yes."
But I understood at last what Crighton had been trying to tell me. It was, I thought, the difference between being dragged into the arena to face a battle to the death and walking into the arena with your head held high. Some people, perhaps, would say that there was little to choose between the two ways, but Crighton knew, and Sian knew - and so do I, I thought, with a rush of fierce pride, and so do my parents and my grandmothers - that there was all the difference in the world, and as long as I had my friends fighting beside me, I knew, somehow, that my fighting chances were higher and stronger than ever before.