Chapter 37
The Love Destroyers
KIARA
Zira looked away from me, and began examining her own body. Her hands were like large, pale spiders; her long white fingers caressed her own chest, her arms, her face; the red eyes, whose pupils were slits, like a cat's, gleamed still more brightly through the darkness. She held up her hands, and flexed the fingers, her expression rapt and exultant. She took not the slightest notice of Wormy, who lay twitching and bleeding on the ground, nor Wormy's wife, who was standing next to her husband and was gazing at Zira with admiration and attentiveness; and nor did Zira pay any attention to the great snake, which had slithered back into sight, and was circling me again, hissing. Zira slipped one of those unnaturally long-fingered hands into a deep pocket, and drew out a wand. She caressed it gently, too; and then she raised it, and pointed it at Wormy, who was lifted off the ground, and thrown against the headstone where I was tied; he fell to the foot of it and lay there, crumpled up and crying. I thought I saw Wormy's wife look at him with a hint of concern in her eyes, but I couldn't be sure. I was then brought back to reality by Zira, who turned her scarlet eyes upon me, laughing a high, cold, mirthless laugh.
Wormy's robes shone with blood; he had wrapped the stump of his arms in them. "My Lady ..." he choked, "my Lady ... you promised ... you did promise ..."
"Hold out your arm," said Zira lazily.
"Oh, mistress ... thank you, mistress ..."
He extended his bleeding stump, but Zira laughed again, as Wormy's wife tutted. "The other arm, Wormy."
"Mistress, please ... please ..."
Zira bent down, and pulled out Wormy's left arm; she forced the sleeve of Wormy's robes up past his elbow, and I saw something upon the skin there, something like a vivid red tattoo - a long red s, shaped like a snake, with a bunch of miniature S's coming off it - the same image that had appeared in the sky at the Quidditch Friendly: the Death Trail. Zira examined it carefully, ignoring Wormy's uncontrollable weeping.
"It is back," she said softly, "they will have noticed it ... and now, we shall see ... now we shall know ..."
She pressed her long, white forefinger to the brand on Wormy's arm.
The scar on my forehead seared with a sharp pain again, and Wormy let out a fresh howl: Zira removed her finger from Wormy's Trail, and I saw that it had turned jet-black.
A look of cruel satisfaction on her face, Zira straightened up, threw back her head, and stared around at the dark graveyard.
"How many will be brave enough to return when they feel it?" she whispered, her gleaming red eyes fixed upon the stars. "And how many will be foolish enough to stay away?"
She began to pace up and down before Wormy, Wormy's wife and I, her eyes sweeping the graveyard all the while. After a minute or so, she looked down at me again, a cruel smile twisting her snake-like face.
"You stand, Kiara Pride-Lander, upon the remains of my late mother," she hissed softly. "A Muggle and a fool ... very like your dear mother - as well as your father, despite him being a pure blood. But they had their uses, did they not? Your father placed a protection in you when you were born ... and I killed my mother, and see how useful she has proven herself, in death ..."
Zira laughed again. Up and down she paced, looking all around me as she walked, and the snake continued to circle in the grass.
"You see that house upon the hillside, Pride-Lander? My mother lived there. My father, a wizard who lived here in this village, fell in love with her. But she abandoned him when he told her what he was, but only until after I was born ... she didn't like magic, my mother ...
"She had me and then left me with my father, and returned to my parents without so much as a thought for me. My father took me to a Muggle orphanage, and died shortly after giving my name ... but I vowed to find my mother ... I revenged myself upon her, that fool who, gave me her name ... Dizra Maliay ..."
Still she paced, her eyes darting from grave to grave.
"Listen to me, reliving my family history ..." she said quietly. "Why, I am growing quite sentimental ... But look, Kiara! My true family returns ..."
The air was suddenly full of the swishing of cloaks. Between graves, behind the yew tree, in every shadowy space, witches were Apparating. All of them were hooded and masked. And one by one they moved forwards ... slowly, cautiously, as though they could hardly believe their eyes. Zira stood in silence, waiting for them. Then one of the Love Destroyers fell to her knees, and kissed the hem of her red robes.
"Mistress ... mistress ..." she murmured.
The Love Destroyers behind her did the same; each of them approached Zira on her knees, and kissing her robes, before backing away and standing up, forming a silent circle, which enclosed Dizra Maliay's grave, Zira, the sobbing and twitching heap that was Wormy, his wife and me. Yet they left gaps in the circle, as though waiting for more people. Zira, however, did not seem to expect more. She looked around at the hooded faces, and though there was no wind, a rustling seemed to run around the circle, as though it had shivered.
"Welcome, Love Destroyers," said Zira quietly. "Thirteen years ... thirteen years since we last met. Yet you answer my call as though it was yesterday ... we are still united under the Death Trail, then! Or are we?"
She put back her terrible face and sniffed, her slit-like nostrils widening.
"I smell guilt," she said. "There is a stench of guilt upon the air."
A second shiver ran around the circle, as though each member of it longed, but did not dare, to step back from her.
"I see you all, whole and healthy, with your powers intact - such prompt appearances! - and I ask myself ... why did this band of witches never come to the aid of their mistress, to whom they swore eternal loyalty?"
No one spoke. No one moved except Wormy, who was upon the ground, still sobbing over his bleeding arm.
"And I answer myself," whispered Zira, "they must have believed me broken, they thought I was gone. They slipped back among my enemies, and they pleaded innocence, and ignorance, and bewitchment ...
"And then I ask myself, but how could they have believed I would not rise again? They, who knew the steps I took, long ago, to guard myself against mortal death? They, who had seen proofs of the immensity of my power, in the times when I was mightier than any wizard living?
And I answer myself, perhaps they believed a still-greater power could exist, one that could vanquish even Lady Zira ... perhaps they now pay allegiance to another ... perhaps that champion of commoners, of Mudbloods, Sackbrains and Muggles, Susan Crighton?"
At the mention of Crighton's name, the members of the circle stirred, and some muttered and shook their heads.
Zira ignored them. "It is a disappointment to me ... I confess myself disappointed ..."
One of the women suddenly flung herself forwards, breaking the circle. Trembling from head to foot, she collapsed at Zira's feet.
"Mistress!" she shrieked. "Mistress, forgive me! Forgive us all!"
Zira began to laugh. She raised her wand. "Crucio!"
The Love Destroyer on the ground writhed and shrieked; I was sure the sound carried to the surrounding houses ... let the police come, I thought desperately ... anyone ... anything ...
Zira raised her wand. The tortured Love Destroyer lay flat upon the ground, trembling.
"Get up, Aakster," said Zira softly. "Stand up. You ask for forgiveness? I do not forgive. I do not forget. Thirteen long years ... I want thirteen years' repayment before I forgive you. Wormy and his wife here have paid off some of their debt already, have you not?"
She looked down at Wormy, who continued to sob, and then up at Wormy's wife, who was still watching Zira attentively.
"Unlike your wife, Wormy, you returned to me, not out of loyalty, but out of fear of your old friends. You deserve this pain, Wormy. You know that, don't you?"
"Yes, mistress," moaned Wormy, "please, mistress ... please ..."
Zira raised her wand again and whirled it through the air. A streak of what looked like molten silver hung shining in the wand's wake. Momentarily shapeless, it writhed and then formed itself into a gleaming replica of a human hand, bright as moonlight, which soared down and fixed itself upon Wormy's bleeding wrist.
Wormy's sobbing stopped abruptly. His breathing harsh and ragged, he raised his head and stared in disbelief at the silver hand, now attached seamlessly to his arm, as though he were wearing a dazzling glove. He flexed the strong fingers, then, trembling, picked up a small twig on the ground, and crushed it into powder.
"My Lady," he whispered. "Mistress ... it is beautiful ... thank you ... thank you ..."
He scrambled forwards on his knees and kissed the hem of Zira's robes.
"And what about you?" Zira said, turning her attentions on Wormy's wife. "What would you like as a reward?"
"My Lady, you have already rewarded me," Wormy's wife said, "by teaching my husband a lesson. I therefore ask for nothing, and I hope that my husband's loyalty shall never waver again, as you can be assured that I will be faithful to you until I die."
"I hope your loyalty will never fade, Alice," said Zira. "And I am glad you approve of my punishment on your husband. And seeing as there is nothing more I can do to reward you, come forth and join us."
Wormy stood up and quickly stepped aside, as his wife dashed in front of Zira, fell to her knees and kissed the hem of her robes. Then she stood up, and she and Wormy took their places in the circle, Wormy staring at his powerful new hand, with his face shining with tears, and his wife was staring at Zira gleefully. Zira took no more notice of them, and approached the woman on Wormy's wife's right.
"Nerissa, my slippery friend," she whispered, halting before her. "I am told that you have not renounced the old ways, though to the world you present a respectable face. You are still ready to take the lead in a spot of Muggle-torture, I believe? Yet you never tried to find me, Nerissa ... your exploits at the Quidditch Friendly were fun, I daresay ... but might not your energies have been better directed towards finding and aiding your mistress?"
"My Lady, I was constantly on the alert," came Nerissa Malty's voice swiftly from beneath the hood. "Had there been any sign from you, any whisper of your whereabouts, I would have been at your side immediately, nothing could have prevented me - "
"And yet you ran from my Trail, when a faithful Love Destroyer sent it into the sky last summer?" said Zira lazily, and Mrs Malty stopped talking abruptly. "Yes, I know all about that, Nerissa ... you have disappointed me ... I expect more faithful service in future ."
"Of course, my Lady, of course ... you are merciful, thank you ..."
Zira moved on, and stopped, staring at the space - large enough for two people - which separated Malty and the next woman.
"Katalina Outsider - as I am told she is called now - and her husband should stand here," said Zira quietly. "But she is in Azkaban ... for I told Katalina to possess one of Crighton's children, for information about her mother ... what she found out, I shall know when the time comes ... for Katalina is faithful. She went to Azkaban rather than renounce me ... when Azkaban is broken open once more, Katalina will be honoured beyond her wildest dreams, and her husband, Nuka, shall be welcomed officially into our ranks. The Stingers will join us ... they are our natural allies ... we will recall the banished giants ... I shall have my devoted servant returned to me, and an army of creatures whom all fear ..."
She walked on. Some of the Love Destroyers she passed in silence, but she paused before others, and spoke to them (just so you know, I had no idea about who that child of Crighton's was that was possessed, until the Great Battle of Dragon Mort).
"Magro ...destroying dangerous beasts for the Ministry of Magic now, Wormy and his wife tell me? You shall have better victims than that soon, Magro. Lady Zira will provide ..."
"Thank you, mistress ... thank you," murmured Magro.
"And here," Zira moved on to the two largest hooded figures, "we have Crate ... you will do better this time, will you not, Crate? And you, Gabber?"
They curtseyed clumsily, muttering dully.
"Yes, mistress ..."
"We will, mistress ..."
"The same goes for you, Necchi," said Zira quietly, as she walked past a stooped figure in Mrs Gabber's shadow.
"My Lady, I prostrate myself before you, I am your most faithful - "
"That will do," said Zira.
She had reached the largest gap of all, and she stood surveying it with her blank, red eyes, as though she could see people standing there.
"And here we have seven missing Love Destroyers ... four dead in my service. One, too cowardly to return ... she will pay. One, who I believe has left me for ever ... she will be killed, of course ... and one, who remains my most faithful servant, and who has already re-entered my service."
The Love Destroyers stirred; I saw their eyes dart sideways at each other through their masks.
"She is at Dragon Mort, that faithful servant, and it is through her efforts that our young friend arrived tonight ...
"Yes," said Zira, a grin curling her lipless mouth, as the eyes of the circle flashed in my direction. "Kiara Pride-Lander has kindly joined us for my rebirthing party. One might go so far as to call her my guest of honour."
There was a silence. Then the Love Destroyer to the right of Wormy's wife stepped forward, and Nerissa Malty's voice spoke from under the mask.
"Mistress, we crave to know ... we beg you to tell us ... how have you achieved this ... this miracle ... how you managed to return to us ..."
"Ah, what a story it is, Nerissa," said Zira. "And it begins - and ends - with my young friend here."
She walked lazily over to stand next to me, so that the eyes of the whole circle were upon the two of us. The snake continued to circle.
"You know, of course, that they have called this girl my downfall?" Zira said softly, her red eyes upon me, and my scar began to burn so fiercely that I almost screamed in agony. "You all know that on the day I lost my powers and my body, I tried to kill her. Her father placed a powerful protection in her the moment he held the little baby Kiara in his arms; for after what happened to his son, he did not wish to lose his daughter ... and I knew that Nala was pregnant, for after I asked two of my followers to place Kopa's body somewhere far away from the Pride-Lands, and they took him away, Simba and Nala showed up. They were shocked by what had happened, for there was blood on the ground, and when Simba touched his wife's stomach, that's how I knew that there was another way to try and get the Pride-Landers to join me. But I digress. Kiara's father provided her with a protection I had not foreseen ... I could not touch the girl."
Zira raised one of her long white fingers, and put it very close to my cheek. "Her father's greatest protection in her was something I had no idea about until years later ... this is old magic, I should have remembered it, I was foolish to overlook it ... but no matter. I can touch her now."
I felt the cold white tip of the finger touch me, and I thought my head would burst from the pain.
Zira laughed softly in my ear, then took the finger away, and continued addressing the Love Destroyers. "I miscalculated, my friends, I admit it. My curse was deflected by the man's foolish protection and it rebounded upon me. Aaah ... pain beyond pain, my friends; nothing could have prepared me for it. I was ripped from my body, I was less than spirit, less than the merest ghost ... but still, I was alive. What I was, even I do not know ... I, who have gone further than anybody, along the path that leads to immortality - well, except for Lord Voldemort, of course. Anyway, you know my goal - to conquer death. And now, I was tested, and it appeared that one or more of my experiments had worked ... for I had not been killed, though the curse should have done it. Nevertheless, I was as powerless as the weakest creature alive, and without the means to help myself ... for I had no body, and every spell which might have helped me required the use of a wand ...
"I remember only forcing myself, sleeplessly, endlessly, second by second, to exist ... I settled in a faraway place, in a forest, and I waited ... surely, one of my faithful Love Destroyers would try and find me ... one of them would come and perform the magic I could not, to restore me to a body ... but I waited in vain ..."
The shiver ran once more around the circle of listening Love Destroyers. Zira let the silence spiral horribly before continuing. "Only one power remained to me. I could possess the bodies of others. But I dared not go where other humans were plentiful, for I knew that the Aurors were still abroad and searching for me. I sometimes inhabited animals - snakes, of course, being my preference - but I was little better off inside them than as pure spirit, for their bodies were ill-adapted to perform magic ... and my possession of them shortened their lives; none of them lasted long ...
"Then ... four years ago ... the means for my return seemed assured. A witch - young, foolish and gullible - wandered across my path in the forest I had made my home. Oh, she seemed the very chance I had been dreaming of ... for she was a teacher at Crighton's school ... she was easy to bend to my will ... she brought me back to Britain, and after a while, I took possession of her body, to supervise her closely as she carried out my orders. But my plan failed. I did not manage to steal the Mirror of Wishes. I was not to be assured immortal life. I was thwarted ... thwarted, once again, by Kiara Pride-Lander ..."
Silence once more; nothing was stirring, not even the leaves on the yew tree. The Love Destroyers were quite motionless, the glittering eyes in their masks fixed upon Zira, and upon me.
"The servant died when I left her body, and I was left as weak as ever I had been;" Zira continued. "I returned to my hiding place far away, and I will not pretend to you that I didn't then fear that I might never regain my powers ... yes, that was perhaps my darkest hour ... I could not hope that I would be sent another witch to possess ... and I had given up hope, now, that any of my Love Destroyers cared what had become of me ..."
One or two of the masked witches in the circle moved uncomfortably, but Zira took no notice.
"And then, not even a year ago, when I had almost abandoned hope, it happened at last ... two servants returned to me: Wormy and his wife here, who faked their own deaths to escape justice, were driven out of hiding by those they had once counted friends, and decided to return to their mistress. They sought me in the country where it had been long rumoured I was hiding ... helped, of course, by the rats they met along the way. Wormy has a curious affinity with rats, do you not, Wormy? Seeing as his wife is more cat-like, she hid herself carefully, as her husband's filthy little friends told him there was a place, deep in an Albanian forest, that they avoided, where small animals like themselves had met their deaths by a dark shadow that possessed them ...
"But your journey back to me was not so smooth, was it, Absters? For, hungry one night, on the edge of the very forest where they had hoped to find me, they foolishly stopped at an inn for some food ... and whom should they meet there, but one Bernard Jenkins, a wizard from the Ministry of Magic?
"Now see the way that fate favours Lady Zira. This might have been the end of the Absters, and of my last hope for regeneration. But Wormy - displaying a presence of mind I would never have expected from him, with a little help from his wife, of course - convinced Bernard Jenkins, who might have ruined all, proved instead to be a gift beyond my wildest dreams ... for - with a little persuasion - he became a veritable mine of information.
"He told me that the Triwizard Tournament would be played at Dragon Mort this year. He told me that he knew of a faithful Love Destroyer who would be only too willing to help me, if I could only contact her. He told me many things ... but the means I used to break the Memory Charm upon him were powerful, and when I had extracted all useful information from him, his mind and body were both damaged beyond repair. He had now served his purpose. I could not possess him. I disposed of him."
Zira smiled her terrible smile, her red eyes blank and pitiless.
"The Absters' bodies, of course, were both ill-adapted for possession, as all assumed them dead, and either of them would attract far too much attention if seen. However, they were the able-bodied servants I needed, and, poor wizard though he is, Wormy had help from his wife, and therefore they were able to follow the instructions I gave them, which would return me to a rudimentary, weak body of my own, a body I would be able to inhabit while awaiting the essential ingredients for true rebirth ... a spell or two of my own invention ... a little help from my dear Namzo," - Zira's red eyes fell upon the continually circling snake - "a potion concocted from unicorn blood, and the snake venom Namzo provided ... I was soon returned to an almost human form, and was strong enough to travel.
"There was no hope of stealing the Mirror of Wishes anymore, for I knew that Crighton would have seen to it that it was destroyed. But I was willing to embrace mortal life again, before chasing immortal. I set my sights lower ... I would settle for my old body back again, and my old strength.
"I knew that to achieve this - it is an old piece of Dark Magic, the potion that revived me tonight - I would need three powerful ingredients. Well, one of them was already at hand, was it not, Wormy? Flesh given by a servant ...
"My mother's bone, naturally, meant that we would have to come here, where she was buried. But the blood of a foe ... Wormy would have had me use any wizard, would you not, Wormy? Any wizard who had hated me ... as so many of them still do. But I knew the one I must use, if I was to rise again, more powerful than I had been when I had fallen. I wanted Kiara Pride-Lander's blood. I wanted the blood of the one who had stripped me of power thirteen years ago, for the lingering protection her father once gave her, would then reside in my veins, too ...
"But how to get at Kiara Pride-Lander? For she has been better protected than I think she even knows, protected in ways devised by Crighton long ago, when it fell to her to arrange the girl's future. Crighton invoked an ancient magic, to ensure the girl's protection as long as she is in her relation's care. Not even I can touch her there ... then, of course, there was the Quidditch Friendly ... I thought her protection might be weaker there, away from her relations and Crighton, but I was not yet strong enough to attempt kidnap in the midst of a horde of Ministry wizards. And then, the girl would return to Dragon Mort, where she is under the crooked nose of that Muggle-loving fool from morning until night. So how could I take her?
"Why ... by using Bernard Jenkins' information, of course. Use my one faithful Love Destroyer, stationed at Dragon Mort, to ensure that the girl's name was entered into the Goblet of Fire. Use my Love Destroyer to ensure that the girl won the Tournament - that she touched the Triwizard Cup first - the Cup which my Love Destroyer had turned into a Portkey, which would bring her here, beyond the reach of Crighton's help and protection, and into my waiting arms. And here she is ... the girl you all believed had been my downfall ..."
Zira moved slowly forward, and turned to face me. She raised her wand. "Crucio!"
It was pain beyond anything I have ever experienced; my very bones felt like they were on fire; I felt like my head was surely splitting along my scar; my eyes were rolling madly in my head; I wanted it to end ... to black out ... to die ...
And then it was gone. I was hanging limply in the ropes binding me to the headstone of Zira's mother, looking up into those bright red eyes through a kind of mist. The night was ringing with the sound of the Love Destroyers' laughter.
"You see, I think, how foolish it was to suppose that this girl could ever have been stronger than me," said Zira. "But I want there to be no mistake in anybody's mind. Kiara Pride-Lander escaped me by a lucky chance. And I am now going to prove my power by killing her, here and now, in front of you all, when there is no Crighton to help her, and no parents to die for her. She will be allowed to fight, and you will be left in doubt which of us is the stronger. Just a little longer, Namzo," she whispered, and the snake glided away through the grass, to where the Love Destroyers stood watching.
"Now untie her, Wormy, and give her back her wand."
