Chapter 2
My Scar
KIARA
I lay flat on my back, breathing hard as though I had just run a mile. I had awoken from a vivid dream with my hands pressed over my face. The old scar on my forehead, which was shaped like a flame, burned beneath my fingers as though someone had just pressed a white-hot wire to my skin. A second later, I jumped up as a flash of lightning burst outside my room. I looked outside; from what I heard, the rain hammered hard outside. I know that we had sandbags outside the doors and Grandmother Sarabi had placed water-repelling charms around the house and the stables for extra protection; after all, this was the summer of 2007, where in the UK, we had ten weeks of torrential rain (we witches and wizards naturally think this was just the weather being the weather, but I heard some Muggles being superstitious by blaming the rain on a song by some woman from Barbados), which hammered outside.
Anyhoo, I sat up and rubbed my scar with one hand, as the wiped the sleep out of my eyes, so that I could see better. My room then came into brighter focus, lit by the occasional flash of lightning.
It was quite a large, spacious room, with a fair few wardrobes at the end of the room, along with a body-length mirror. Over the years, many of my old toys had gone, because of course I was growing up and therefore I had no real need for them. Many of my video games and DVDs and CDs I still kept. I hadn't painted my walls since I started Dragon Mort, not because I had run out of imagination, but because it was a nice reminder for me to remember what I used to dream of through my pictures. My desk lay on the other side of my bedside table, on top of which were my hair brushes, wash bag and a picture of my parents on their wedding day, which lay next to my bed, and on my desk were my books, bits of parchment, quills and ink bottles placed here and there for my work, and my bed, of course, was right against the window.
Now getting back to the topic at hand, I ran my fingers over my scar again. It was still painful. I turned on the lamp beside me, scrambled put of bed, crossed the room and peered into the body-length mirror. At that moment in time, I was a tall, slender girl of fourteen, the same girl that stared back at me out of the mirror, her dark amber eyes puzzled under her straight, waist-length, flowing golden hair that curled slightly at the end, that had tawny highlights in my fringe from my father. I examined the flame scar of my reflection more closely. It certainly looked normal, but it still stung.
I tried to recall what I had been dreaming about before I had awoken. It had seemed so real (which of course it was, but I didn't realise it yet) ... there had been three people I knew and one I didn't ... I concentrated hard, frowning, trying to remember ...
The dim picture of a darkened room came to me ... there had been a snake on the hearthrug ... a small man named Alan, nicknamed Wormy ... his wife, Alice ... and a cold, high voice ... the voice of Lady Zira. I remember feeling as though an ice cube had slipped down into my stomach at the very thought ...
I closed my eyes tightly and then tried to remember what Zira had looked like, but it was impossible ... all I knew was that the moment when Zira's chair swung around, and I, Kiara, had seen what was sitting in it, I had felt a spasm of horror which had awoken me ... or, I wondered, had it been the pain in my scar? I then turned a thought to who the old woman was, for there had definitely been an old woman; I had watched her fall to the ground. It became way too confusing for me; I put my face into my hands, blocking out my bedroom, and tried desperately to hold on to the picture of that dimly lit room, but it was like trying to keep water in my cupped hands; the materials were trickling away as fast I tried to hold on to them ... Zira, Wormy and Alice had been talking to someone they had killed, though at that moment I could not for the life of me remember the name ... and they were plotting to kill someone else ... me ...
I took my face out of my hands, opened my eyes and stared around my bedroom, as though I had expected to see something unusual. As it happened, there was a number of unusual things in my room, which I have already mentioned, but the one thing I forgot to mention was that at the foot of my bed, a large wooden trunk stood open, revealing a cauldron, broomstick, navy robes and a few more spellbooks. A large, open cage was placed on my widowsill, which was where my owl, Harold, usually perched, but at the time he was out hunting (in that weather, I have no idea). On the floor beside my bed, a book lay open; I had been reading it before I fell asleep the night before. The pictures in that book were all moving. Women in yellow robes were zooming in and out of sight on broomsticks, throwing a red ball to each other.
I walked over to that book, picked it up and watched one of the witches score a spectacular goal by putting the ball through a fifty-foot-high hoop. I then snapped the book shut. Even Quidditch - in my opinion, the best sport in the world - couldn't distract me at that moment. I placed Flying with the Harpies on my bedside table, sat back on my bed and opened my curtains to look out into the garden below.
I lived in a cottage in South Wales that was on a hill with my grandmothers, Sarabi and Sarafina, who were my parents' mothers (obviously). They weren't there that night; Grandmother Sarafina was with my aunt Mavuto and her husband and child: Uncle Frank and my cousin, Carol. Grandmother Sarabi, though, I think had Apparated to see Crighton about something. Where, she did not say, and I remember her saying that she didn't know when she'd be back, either. Anyhoo, as I looked out into the garden, as far as I could tell, there wasn't a single soul out there.
And yet ... and yet ... I ran my fingers over my scar again. It wasn't the pain that bothered me; I was, after all, no stranger to pain and injury. I had lost all the bones from my right arm once, and had them painfully regrown in a night. The same arm had been jabbed by a venomous foot-long fang not long afterwards. In my third year I had fallen fifty feet from an airborne broomstick. I was used to bizarre accidents and injuries; they were unavoidable if you attended Dragon Mort Magical Academy (and Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry too, I suppose) and had a knack of attracting a lot of trouble.
No, the thing that bothered me most at that moment was that the last time my scar hurt me before this time, it had been because Zira had been close by ... but Zira couldn't be there ... the idea of Zira lurking near my grandmothers' cottage was absurd, impossible ...
I listened closely to the silence around me. Was I half-expecting to hear the creak of a stair, or the swish of a cloak? And I jumped again slightly as a loud crash of thunder resounded outside.
I shook myself mentally; I was all alone in the cottage, but at that moment I wished that one of my grandmothers was there with me - Grandmother Sarabi in particular.
My grandmothers Sarabi and Sarafina were, as I've noted before, my parents' mothers, one a Muggle (Sarafina), my mother's mother, and the other a witch (Sarabi), who was obviously my father's mother. To remind you all, I was given to my grandmothers to protect me after Zira had failed to kill me. They had raised me, and did a good job of it, too. The only downside to my childhood was that every once in a while, during the summer, I had to spend time with my aunt, uncle and cousin (but as I learned when I was twelve, my Uncle Frank loved me). Of course, I saw them every so often after I had started at Dragon Mort, but that wasn't often (in fact, from what I remember that summer, I didn't see a lot of them, although I think that might have had to do with the weather). Anyhoo, I wanted Grandmother Sarabi there, because she was the only one in that house who understood what I was going through. With her, it would be so much easier to talk to than Grandmother Sarafina. I'm pretty sure you understand why. If not, why are you reading this? No offence.
And yet, it was because of Zira that I had gone to live with my grandmothers in the first place. If it hadn't been for Zira, I would not have the flame scar on my forehead. If it hadn't been for Zira, then my parents and I would never have become separated ...
I had been ten months old the day that Zira - the most powerful Dark witch for a century, a witch who had been gaining power secretly and steadily for eleven years - arrived in the Pride-Lands, and tried to use the curse that had disposed many full-grown witches and wizards in her secret and steady rise to power - and, incredibly, it had not worked. Instead of killing me, the curse had rebounded on Zira. I had survived with nothing but a flame-shaped cut on my forehead, and Zira had been reduced to something barely alive. Her powers gone, her life almost extinguished, Zira had fled; the terror in which the secret community of witches and wizards had lived for so long had been lifted, Zira's followers had been disbanded, and I, Kiara Pride-Lander, became famous.
It had been a very big shock for me to discover, on my eleventh birthday, to find out that everyone in the wizarding world knew my name. I arrived at Dragon Mort to find that heads turned and whispers followed me wherever I went. But I was used to that by this point in my life; at the end of that summer, I would be starting my fourth year at Dragon Mort, and I was counting down the days until I would go back to the castle again.
But if I remember rightly I had two weeks to go before that time. I looked hopelessly around my room again, and my eyes paused on the birthday cards my three best friends had sent me at the end of July. I couldn't help but wonder about how they would react if I wrote to them and told them of my scar hurting.
At once, Sian Dawson's voice filled my head, shrill and panicky.
"Your scar hurt? Kiara, that's really serious ... write to Ma! And I'll go and check Common Magical Ailments and Afflictions ... Maybe there's something in there about curse scars ..."
Yes, that would be Sian's advice: go straight to her mother, the Headmistress of Dragon Mort, and consult a book. I stared out of the window at the pitch black sky. I doubted very much that there was a book out there that could've helped me. As far as I knew, I was the second person to have survived a curse like Zira's; it was highly unlikely, therefore, that I would have found my symptoms listed in Common Magical Ailments and Afflictions. As for informing the Headmistress, I had no idea where Crighton went during the summer holidays. I amused myself for a moment, picturing Crighton, with her long caramel-brown hair with silver streaks, full-length witches robes and pointed hat, stretched out on a beach somewhere, rubbing suntan lotion into her small crooked nose. Wherever Crighton was, though, I was sure that Harold would've found her; my owl never failed to deliver a letter to anyone, even without an address. But what would I write?
Dear Professor Crighton, sorry to bother you, but my scar hurt this morning. Yours sincerely, Kiara Pride-Lander.
Even inside my head the words sounded stupid.
And so I tried to imagine one of my other best friend's, Chrissie Dawson's reaction, and in a moment, Chrissie's long nosed, freckled face seemed to swim before me, wearing a bemused expression.
"Your scar hurt? But ... but She-You-Know can't be near you now, can she? I mean ... you'd know, wouldn't you? She'd be trying to do you in again, wouldn't she? I dunno, Kiara, maybe curse scars always twinge a bit ... I'll ask Dad ..."
Mr Dawson was a fully qualified wizard who worked in the Auror department at the Ministry of Magic, but as far as I knew, he didn't have any expertise in the matter of curse scars. In any case, I didn't like the idea of the whole Dawson family knowing that I, Kiara, was getting jumpy because of a few moments' pain. I had no idea what Crighton would do or think, but Beth, Kastrel, Merida, Joe and Jack - Chris, Sian and Chrissie's younger siblings - and Ben and Dave - the Dawsons' foster brothers - might've thought that I would've lost my nerve. The Dawsons are my favourite family in the world (apart from my own); I hoped that they might have sent me an invite to come and stay with them some time around then (Chris and Chrissie had mentioned something about a Quidditch Friendly), and somehow, I didn't want my visit there punctured with anxious enquiries about my scar (and that's why I didn't think of what Chris would say - well, that and the fact that what I thought the other two would say already cleared it up for me).
I kneaded my forehead with my knuckles. What I really wanted (and I felt almost ashamed to admit it to myself) was someone like - someone like a parent; an adult's wizards advice that I could ask without feeling stupid, people who cared about me, , who had had experience of Dark Magic ...
And then the solution came to me. It was so simple and so obvious that I couldn't believe it had taken me so long to reach this conclusion - my own parents, Simba and Nala Pride-Lander.
I leapt up from my bed, got to my desk and sat down; I pulled a spare piece of parchment towards me, loaded my eagle-feather quill with ink, wrote Dear Daddy and Mum, and paused, wondering how best to phrase my problem, and still marvelled at the fact that I hadn't thought of my parents straight away (of course, I would've told my grandmothers if they were in the house with me, but they weren't. Don't worry, though, I promised myself that I would tell Grandmother Sarabi the moment she got back). But then, perhaps, it wasn't so surprising - after all, I had only found my parents again two months prior to that night.
There was a simple reason for my parents' absence from my life until then - my parents had been in Azkaban, the terrifying wizard prison, guarded by creatures called Stingers, soul-sucking fiends that had a big, staring, non-blinking red eye in the middle of where its head should be, with a black slit running down the middle of the eye for its pupil, who came to search for my parents at Dragon Mort when they had escaped. Yet my parents were innocent - the murders for which they had been convicted of had been committed by Alan and Alice Abster, Zira's supporters, whom nearly everybody then believed to be dead. Chris, Sian, Chrissie and I knew otherwise, however; we had come face-to-face with them in our third year, though only Professor Crighton believed us.
For one glorious hour, I believed that that my parents would be living with me and my grandmothers, because I wanted us all to live together once their names were cleared. But the chance had been snatched away from me - Wormy and Alice had escaped before we could take them to the Ministry of Magic, and my parents had escaped on the back of a Hippogriff called Noelani, and since then, my parents had been on the run. The happy home my grandmothers and I might have shared with my parents if Wormy and Alice had not escaped haunted me all that summer. I felt quite downhearted returning to my grandmothers knowing that they almost had their son and daughter - and I my parents - back.
Nevertheless, now that I knew that my parents were innocent - and more importantly, my grandmothers knew, too - I was able to ask questions about my parents in their younger days and was able to get answers from them without my grandmothers brushing the questions aside and hiding their faces in shame. It was quite fun for me to learn that I wasn't the only one in their younger days who had been quite the little troublemaker in my family. Those were some truly good times my grandmothers and I had, sitting on that couch and listening to what they had been up to. Surprisingly, my father was a little bit of a troublemaker, too, when he was a child, for he and my mother once found themselves in a little bit of trouble, and boy was Grandfather Mufasa angry with him when he found out! But then the stories stopped, and my grandmothers' faces both became serious, and when I tried to ask what it was that happened, they both switched the subject. I didn't know what happened at the time, but I gathered that it must have been terrible, so I dropped it (and just so you know, I wouldn't find out what happened until my seventh year).
Anyhoo, I had received two letters from my parents since I had been back at my grandmothers' cottage. Both had been delivered, not by owls (as was the norm with wizards), but by large, brightly coloured, tropical birds. Harold had not approved of these flashy intruders; he had been most reluctant to allow them to drink from his water tray before they flew off again. I, on the other hand, liked them; they put me in mind of palm trees and white sand, and I hoped that wherever my parents were (they never said in case the letters were intercepted) they were enjoying themselves. Somehow, I found it hard to imagine Stingers surviving for long in bright sunlight; perhaps that was why my parents had gone south. My parents letters, which lay in a drawer in my bedside table, sounded cheerful, and in both of them, they had reminded me to call them if ever I needed to. Well, I certainly needed to at that moment.
My lamp seemed to grow slightly dimmer as the clouds became slightly lighter and dawn seemed to creep slowly into the room. Finally, when the light became bright enough that I could just about make out my garden through the rain-streaked window, I cleared my desk of crumpled pieces of parchment and re-read my finished letter.
Dear Daddy and Mum,
Thanks for your last letter. That bird was enormous, it could hardly get through my window.
Things are the same as usual here. My grandmothers are treating me well, but the weather's terrible. We're getting some rain, even though the floods in the main part of the UK are over, we're still getting a backlash off it (don't ask me why, I don't know). I hope the weather clears up soon, for I would like to take my horse for a ride; I think he's getting restless from the lack of exercise.
My grandmothers and I both wish you and wish you were here with us, but now there's something I need to tell you.
A weird thing happened to me this morning. My scar hurt again. Last time that happened was because Zira was at Dragon Mort. But I don't think she can be anywhere near me now, can she? Do you know if curse scars sometimes hurt years afterwards?
I'll send this with Harold when he gets back from hunting. Say hello to Noelani for me. And don't worry, I'll tell Grandmother Sarabi and Grandmother Sarafina you love and miss them.
Lots of love,
Your darling daughter,
Kiara
Yes, I thought, this looks all right. There was no point putting in the dream, for I didn't want it to look as though I was too worried. I folded the parchment up and laid it aside on my desk, ready for when Harold returned. Then I got to my feet, stretched, and decided to take a shower.
When I got back to my room, I dressed and seeing as Grandmother Sarabi said that she'd probably be back in time for breakfast, I decided to get dressed and make a start on it. I put on a pair of jeans, a lavender blouse and a dark blue cardigan, tied up my hair, put on my boots and headed down to the kitchen, leaving my lamp on, for it was still thundery outside.
When I reached the kitchen and was about to start the breakfast, I suddenly realised that Crooks, our cat, wasn't there. I thought he was still out hunting, but as I was pulling out pans, I vaguely heard the cries of a cat over the pounding of the rain and crashes of thunder. I looked out the window and what I saw shocked me: it was a poor cat that was soaking wet and half-drowning in a puddle. But as I looked closer, I realised that it wasn't any cat, but Crooks! I quickly left the kitchen appliances (thank God I hadn't switched on the stove!), grabbed my coat, dashed outside and grabbed a struggling Crooks out of the puddle, tried as hard as I could to protect him in my coat from the rain without getting scratched too hard (to no avail), got him back inside, switched the heater on in the lounge, took off my coat, hung it in the little coat room which was opposite the front door, before I quickly dashed upstairs, grabbed a towel from the bathroom and hurried back downstairs to find Crooks in front of the fire. I pulled him into my lap and tried to clear him up the best I could, kissing him and stroking him as I did.
I didn't hear the crack to say she had returned, but I did hear the door open and heard her footsteps, which only meant one thing: Grandmother Sarabi had returned.
0000
OK, I know I didn't get the facts right concerning the floods, but this was the only way that I could make that joke, which I hope you all enjoyed.
