Chapter 36

Flesh, Blood and Bone

KIARA

I felt my feet slam into the ground; my injured leg gave way and I fell forwards; my hand let go of the Triwizard Cup at last. I raised my head.

"Where are we?" I said.

Georgia shook her head. She got up and pulled me to my feet, and we looked around.

We had left the Dragon Mort grounds completely; we had obviously travelled miles - perhaps hundreds of miles - even left the country - for even the mountains surrounding the castle were gone, and the air, instead of being warm, had turned slightly cold. We were standing instead in a dark and overgrown graveyard; the black outline of a small church was visible beyond a large yew tree to our right. A hill rose above us to our left. I could just make out the outline of a fine old house on the hillside.

Georgia looked down at the Triwizard Cup and then up at me.

"Did anyone tell you the Cup was a Portkey?" she asked.

"Nope," I said. I was looking around the graveyard. It was completely silent, and slightly eerie. "Is this supposed to be part of the task?"

"I dunno," said Georgia. She sounded slightly nervous. "Wands out, d'you reckon?"

"Yeah," I said, glad that Georgia had made the suggestion rather than me.

We pulled out our wands. I kept looking around me. I had, yet again, the strange feeling that we were being watched.

"Someone's coming," I said suddenly.

Squinting tensely through the darkness, we watched the figures drawing nearer, walking steadily towards us between the graves. I couldn't make out their faces; but from the way one of them was walking, and holding its arms, I could tell that the figure was carrying something. Whoever the people were, they were both short, and wore hooded cloaks pulled over their heads to obscure their faces. And - several paces nearer, the space between us closing all the time - I saw that the thing in one of the figure's arms looked like a baby ... or was it merely a bundle of robes?

I lowered my wand slightly, and glanced sideways at Georgia. Georgia shot me a quizzical look. We both turned back to watch the approaching figures.

The stopped beside a towering marble headstone, only six feet from us. For a second, Georgia and I and the two figures simply looked at each other.

And then, without warning, my scar exploded with pain. It was agony such as I had never felt before that point; my wand slipped from my fingers as I put my hands over my face; my knees buckled; I was on the ground and I could see nothing at all; I felt as though my head was about to split open, such was the force of the pain.

From far away, above my head, I heard a high, cold voice say, "Kill the spare."

A swishing noise and a second voice, which screeched the words to the night: "Avada Kedavra!"

A blast of green light blazed through my eyelids, and I heard something heavy fall to the ground beside me; the pain in my scar reached such a pitch that I retched, and then it diminished; terrified of what I was about to see, I opened my stinging eyes.

Georgia was lying spread-eagled on the ground beside me. She was dead.

For a second that contained an eternity, I stared into Georgia's face, at her open grey eyes, blank and expressionless as the windows of a deserted house, at her half-open mouth, which looked slightly surprised. And then, before my mind had accepted what I was seeing, before I could feel anything but numb disbelief, I felt myself being pulled to my feet by two pairs of hands.

The short man in one of the cloaks put down his bundle, as the woman who held me lit her wand, and dragged me towards the marble headstone. I saw the name upon it flickering in the wand-light before I was forced around and slammed against it.

DIZRA MALIAY

The cloaked man had joined the woman, who was conjuring tight cords around me, tying me from neck to ankles to the headstone. I heard calm breathing from the woman who tied me and shallow, fast breathing from the depths of the man's hood; I struggled, and the woman hit me - hit me with a hand that had a finger missing. And then I realised who it was who were under the cloaks. It was the Absters.

"You!" I gasped.

But the Absters did not reply; Wormy's wife had finished tying me, and Wormy was busy checking the tightness of the cords, his fingers trembling uncontrollably, fumbling over the knots. I heard his wife's foot tapping impatiently. Once sure that I was bound so tightly to the headstone that I couldn't move an inch, Wormy got a length of some black material from his wife and stuffed it roughly into my mouth; then, without a word, they turned from me and hurried away. I couldn't make a sound, nor could I see where the Absters had gone; I couldn't turn my head to see beyond the headstone; I could see only what was right in front of me.

Georgia's body lay some twenty feet away. Some way beyond her, glinting in the starlight, lay the Triwizard Cup. My wand was on the ground at my feet. The bundle of robes that I had thought was a baby was close by, at the foot of the grave. I watched it, and my scar seared with pain again ... and I suddenly knew that I didn't want to see what was in those robes ... I didn't want that bundle opened ...

I heard noises at my feet. I looked down and saw a gigantic snake slithering through the grass, circling the headstone where I was tied. Wormy's fast, wheezy breathing, accompanied by moans and groans from his wife, were growing louder again. It sounded as though they were forcing something heavy across the ground. Then they came within my field of vision, and I saw them pushing a large cauldron to the foot of the grave. It was full of what seemed to be water - I could hear it slopping around - and it was larger than any cauldron I have ever used; a great stone belly large enough for a full-grown man to sit in.

The thing inside the bundle of robes was stirring more persistently, as though it was trying to free itself. Now Wormy's wife was busying herself at the bottom of the cauldron with a wand. Suddenly there were crackling flames beneath it. The large snake slithered away into the darkness.

The liquid in the cauldron heated very fast. The surface began not only to bubble, but also to send out fiery sparks, as though it was on fire. Steam was thickening, blurring the outline of Wormy's wife tending the fire. The movements beneath the cloak became more agitated. And I heard the high, cold voice again.

"Hurry!"

The whole surface of the water was alight with sparks now. It might have been encrusted with diamonds.

"It is ready, mistress."

"Now ..." said the cold voice.

Wormy, who was closest to the robes on the ground, pulled them open, revealing what was inside them, and I let out a scream that was strangled in the wad of material that was blocking my mouth.

It was as though Wormy had flipped over a stone, and revealed something ugly, slimy and blind - but worse, a hundred times worse. The thing Wormy had been carrying had the shape of a crouched human child, except that I had never seen anything less like a child. It was hairless apart from a few tufts of death-white hair on its head, and it was scaly-looking, a dark, raw, reddish black. Its arms and legs were thin and feeble, and its face - no child alive ever had a face like that - was flat and snake-like, with gleaming red eyes. Seriously, the phrase "a face that only a mother could love" really is an understatement here!

The thing seemed almost helpless; it raised its thin arms as Wormy passed it to his wife, and the thing put its arms around her neck. After he had let it go, Wormy's head fell back, and I saw the look of revulsion on his weak, pale face in the firelight, as his wife carried the creature to the rim of the cauldron. For one moment, I saw the evil, flat face illuminate in the sparks dancing on the surface of the potion. And then Womry's wife lowered the creature into the cauldron; there was a hiss, and it vanished below the surface; I heard its frail body hit the bottom with a soft thud.

Let it drown, I thought, my scar burning almost past endurance, please ... let it drown ...

Wormy's wife was dancing around the cauldron, chanting words in a language I did not understand, words that were loud enough to be heard over the spitting of the fire and the spitting of the sparks. As she did this, Wormy spoke. His voice shook, and he seemed frightened beyond his wits. He had his own wand, which he raised, closed his eyes, and spoke to the night. "Bone of the mother, unknowingly given, you will renew your daughter!"

The surface of the grave at my feet cracked. Horrified, I watched as a fine trickle of dust rose into the air at Wormy's command, and fell softly into the cauldron. The diamond surface of the water broke and hissed; it sent sparks in all directions, and turned a vivid, poisonous-looking blue.

Wormy was whimpering at this point. He pulled a long, thin, shining silver dagger from inside his robes. His voice broke into petrified sobs. "Flesh - of the servant - w-willingly given - you will - revive - your mistress!"

He stretched his right hand out in front of him - the hand with the missing finger. He gripped the dagger very tightly in his left hand, and swung it upwards.

I realised what Wormy was about to do a second before it happened - I closed my eyes as tightly as I could, but I could not block the scream that pierced the night, that went through me as though I had been stabbed with the dagger too. I heard something fall to the ground, heard Wormy's anguished panting, then a sickening splash, as something was dropped into the cauldron. I couldn't bear to look ... but the potion had turned a burning red, the light of which shone through my closed eyelids ...

Wormy was gasping and moaning with agony, as his wife continued to dance and chant faster around the cauldron. Not until I felt Wormy's anguished breath on my face did I realise that Wormy was right in front of me.

"B-blood of the enemy ... forcibly taken ... you will ... resurrect your foe."

I could do nothing to prevent it, I was tied too tightly ... squinting down, struggling helplessly at the robes that had me bound, I saw the shining silver dagger shaking in Wormy's remaining hand. I felt its point penetrate the crook of my right arm, and saw the blood seeping down the sleeve of my torn robes. Wormy, still panting in pain, fumbled in his pocket for a glass phial and held it to my cut, so that a dribble of blood fell into it.

He staggered back to the cauldron with my blood. He poured it inside. The liquid within turned, instantly, a blinding white. Wormy, his job done, dropped to his knees beside the cauldron, then slumped sideways and lay on the ground, cradling the bleeding stump of his arm, gasping and sobbing, as his wife continued to dance and chant at an incredibly fast pace.

The cauldron was simmering, sending its diamond sparks in all directions, so blindingly bright that it turned all else to velvety blackness. Nothing happened ...

Let it have drowned, I thought desperately, let it have gone wrong ...

And then, as Wormy's wife stopped dancing and chanting, and knelt before the cauldron, with her arms spread out on the ground before her in a clear sign of worship, the sparks emanating from inside the cauldron were suddenly extinguished. A surge of white steam billowed thickly from the cauldron instead, obliterating everything in front of me, so that I couldn't see Wormy, his wofe or Georgia or anything but vapour hanging in the air ... it's gone wrong, I thought ... it's drowned ... please ... please let it be dead ...

But then, through the mist in front of me, I saw, with an icy surge of terror, the dark outline of a woman, tall and skeletally thin, with thin locks of death-white hair that was uneven in places, and came to just above her shoulders, rising slowly from the cauldron.

"Robe me," said the high, cold voice from behind the steam, and Wormy's wife got up from her kneeling position, strode over quickly to where her husband's snivelling form lay and cast him a disgusted look before she picked up the red robes from the ground, stood up straight again, reached up, and pulled them over her mistress' head.

The thin woman then stepped out of the cauldron, staring at me ... and I stared back into the face that had haunted my nightmares for my first three years at Dragon Mort. Whiter than a skull with wide, livid scarlet eyes, and a nose as flat as a snake's, with slits for nostrils, and uneven, limp hair, whiter than death, that came to just around her shoulders ...

Lady Zira had risen again.

AN: I know this has nothing to do with the story, but RIP to Charmian Carr, who played Liesl in The Sound of Music earlier this week.