No one answered Harry's shock.
Only a voice slithered out from the ragged bundle cradled in the arms of the supposed Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.
Choose whatever you want.
A voice so hoarse beyond human limits, as though every drop of hatred in the world had been wrung out and distilled into sound, rasped:
[At last… you are mine, Harry Potter.]
Lord Voldemort.
Harry knew it instantly. A guttural snarl tore from his throat as he thrashed against the ropes binding him.
[Hehehe… look at you,] the voice crooned, thick with gloating delight. [So wretched. So alone. Your little friends—gone.]
"You can't even walk!" Harry spat. "You have to be carried like a swaddled infant!"
[Silence!] Voldemort hissed, the word cracking like a whip.
Then the sneer returned, colder than graveyard frost.
[Enjoy your tongue while it still works, boy. Soon I will be reborn through you… and then I will kill you with my own hands.]
Inside the bundle, what passed for Voldemort's mind swelled with triumph. Soon. Soon the world would kneel. Even that meddlesome old man wouldn't be able to stand against his full power…
His lipless gaze slid toward the motionless figure in the pure-white mask.
He had never intended to share the throne with anyone.
Blame yourself for overreaching, old fool.
[Enough chatter,] Voldemort snapped. [Begin the ritual, Barty.]
But Barty Crouch Jr. did not move.
Not until the masked man gave the tiniest tilt of his head.
Only then did the Death Eater shuffle forward, trembling, toward the massive cauldron squatting among the tombstones.
Harry's brow creased. Why was a loyal Death Eater waiting for permission from Mr. Lamp?
Something was deeply, terrifyingly wrong.
The bundle hit the potion with a wet thud.
The surface of the gray-green liquid rippled, then surged upward like a hungry mouth. A stench of scorched rubber and rotting flesh rolled over the graveyard.
Ethan Vincent wrinkled his nose, more theatrical than genuine.
Yet his lips curved into a smile that had nothing to do with kindness.
At long last—after an entire school year of meticulous, gleeful preparation—it was time.
Old Voldy's Iron-Cauldron Stew was officially on the menu.
"Bones of the father, unknowingly given… you will renew your son."
Barty's voice was flat, puppet-like, as he flicked his wand. Soil erupted before an ancient tombstone. A brittle, rotting bone rose into the air, burst into crimson flame, and dropped into the cauldron.
The potion hissed, delighted.
"Flesh of the servant, willingly given… you will revive your master."
Harry watched in horror as Barty drew a silver dagger and, without hesitation, severed his own left arm just below the elbow. Blood sheeted onto the grass.
Harry jerked against his bonds, a wordless scream caught in his throat.
Barty turned that vacant, fanatic face toward him.
"Blood of the enemy… forcibly taken… you will resurrect your foe."
The dagger rose, dripping.
Regret—sharp, useless, and far too late—slammed into Harry like a Bludger. If he'd kept his head, if he hadn't charged blindly after the Cup…
Warm blood from the dagger's tip slid across his forearm, raising gooseflesh.
But the cut never came.
Harry looked up.
The white mask hovered inches away, silent as moonlight.
Ethan's voice drifted out, lazily, almost affectionate.
"Realizing your mistake a bit late, aren't you, reckless little Gryffindor?"
Harry swallowed hard. "…Just kill me and get it over with."
Ethan hummed a jaunty tune instead—something that sounded suspiciously like the Hogwarts school song played at half speed—and reached into the gaping wound on Barty's neck, and plucked free a fat, pale mushroom sprouting there like a grotesque flower.
He flicked it into the cauldron.
Whoosh!
The potion screamed—a thin, reedy wail—and flashed from sickly green to arterial red.
"Next," Ethan murmured, as casually as if reading a shopping list, "one Tier-3 Purple Epic artwork: Queen of Hearts' Rose Maze…"
A single crimson rose, veins of pigment still wet, followed the mushroom.
The liquid drank it greedily. Green vanished entirely beneath a tide of scarlet.
"Then we infuse it with a generous helping of radiant Light magic—none of that gloomy rubbish."
He lifted his wand like a conductor's baton. Golden light—pure, blinding, holy—poured from the tip, bathing the graveyard in summer-noon brilliance.
Harry's brain short-circuited.
You're a Dark wizard. Why do you have magic that looks like it belongs to a unicorn's baptism?!
The déjà vu was crushing. The incomprehensible actions, the cryptic muttering… it was exactly like—
Harry's eyes narrowed behind cracked glasses.
He needed to see the face under that mask. Needed it the way drowning men need air.
Ethan began to chant.
Not Latin. Not any language Harry had ever heard. The syllables twisted, ancient and wrong, tasting of dust and starless voids. Wind shrieked through the graves. Black clouds swallowed the moon.
And then the ground itself opened one blood-red eye.
Light exploded from the cauldron—crimson, viscous, alive—painting every tombstone in wet gore.
Harry forgot how to breathe.
"Last ingredient," Ethan said softly, almost tenderly. "A Dark Soul."
He sounded on the verge of giggling.
"But the silly thing's already in the pot."
[Soul Cauldron Ritual — conditions satisfied.] [Commence Refinement.]
BOOM.
A column of fire—white-hot at the core, blood-red at the edges—roared skyward, punching a hole through the clouds.
[AAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!]
The scream that followed was not human.
Inside the inferno floated a thing curled like a fetus, skin sloughing away in purple-blue sheets, revealing bone beneath. An old man's face melted, reformed, melted again.
Harry couldn't look away.
He couldn't imagine pain like that.
He didn't have to imagine; the screams did it for him.
[WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!] Voldemort's voice was raw, shredded. [THIS ISN'T—THIS ISN'T THE RITUAL—MR. LAMP—!!!]
Ethan lifted one hand and gently turned Harry's face away, as though shielding a child from something unpleasant.
Then, in full view of the burning horror that had once been the Dark Lord, he removed the mask.
The face beneath was handsome—cruelly, impossibly so. Diamond-blue eyes danced with manic glee, lips curved in a grin that was equal parts charming and psychotic.
Voldemort's melting eyes locked onto it.
For one heartbeat the screaming stopped.
The next heartbeat it returned, louder, deeper, carrying every ounce of terror a bodiless soul could feel.
[ETHAN VINCENT!!!]
The name tore through the night like a death knell, shaking the very gravestones.
Ethan gave a tiny, courteous bow.
"Evening, Tom. Lovely weather for a barbecue, isn't it?"
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