Y/n felt his feet slam into the ground before his, Harry and Cedric's legs gave way, and they fell forward, his hand let go of the Triwizard Cup at last. He raised his head.
"Where are we?" Harry said.
Cedric shook his head. He got up, pulled Harry to his feet, and they looked around.
"Nowhere good, that is for certain..." Y/n said as Cedric helped him up next. "Thank you."
They had left the Hogwarts grounds completely, they had obviously traveled miles... perhaps hundreds of miles... for even the mountains surrounding the castle were gone. They were standing instead in a dark and overgrown graveyard. The black outline of a small church was visible beyond a large yew tree to their right. A hill rose above them to their left. Y/n could just make out the outline of a fine old house on the hillside.
Cedric looked down at the Triwizard Cup and then up at Y/n and Harry.
"Did anyone tell you the cup was a Portkey?" he asked.
"Nope." said Harry looking around the graveyard. It was completely silent and slightly eerie. "Is this supposed to be part of the task?"
"No...I do not think so." Y/n said nervously.
"Wands out, d'you reckon?" Cedric asked also nervous.
"Yeah." said Harry, glad that Cedric had made the suggestion rather than him.
They pulled out their wands. Harry kept looking around him. He had, yet again, the strange feeling that they were being watched.
"Someone's coming." he said suddenly.
Squinting tensely through the darkness, they watched the figure drawing nearer, walking steadily toward them between the graves. Y/n couldn't make out a face, but from the way it was walking and holding its arms, he could tell that it was carrying something. Whoever it was, he was short, and wearing a hooded cloak pulled up over his head to obscure his face. And several paces nearer, the gap between them closing all the time... Y/n saw that the thing in the person's arms looked like a baby...or was it merely a bundle of robes?
Harry lowered his wand slightly and glanced sideways at Y/n. Y/n shot him a confused but cautious look. Then both turned back to watch the approaching figure.
It stopped beside a towering marble headstone, only six feet from them. For a second. Harry, Y/n and Cedric and the short figure simply looked at one another.
And then, without warning, Harry's scar exploded with pain. He dropped his wand as it slipped from his fingers and he put his hands over his face, his knees buckled, he was on the ground.
"What have you done to him!" Y/n said raising his wand to the figure.
From far away, he heard a high, cold voice say. "Kill the spare and bind the other...."
A swishing noise and a second voice, which screeched the words to the night. "Avada Kedavra!"
A blast of green light blazed past Y/n's eyes, and he heard something heavy fall to the ground beside him. He turned his head to see Cedric was lying spread-eagled on the ground beside him.
He was dead.
"No..." Y/n said in despair. For a second that contained an eternity, Y/n stared into Cedric's face, at his open gray eyes, blank and expressionless as the windows of a deserted house, at his half-open mouth, which looked slightly surprised. And then, before his mind had accepted what he was seeing, he could hear Harry groaning and turned to see his friend being pulled up into the air.
"Leave him alone!" Y/n shouted angrily raising his wand.
The short man in the cloak had put down his bundle, his wand now turned to Y/n and he summoned ropes from his wand that quickly ensnared themselves around Y/n.
"Finite Inca..." But before Y/n had a chance to cast a counter curse he found his mouth now bound with ropes to stop him talking. The ropes dragged him back and bound him to a headstone stone as he was sat having to watch as the figure turned their wand back to Harry and dragged him toward a marble headstone. Y/n saw the name upon it flickering in the wandlight before Harry was forced around and slammed against it.
TOM RIDDLE
The cloaked man was now conjuring tight cords around Harry the same way he had done with Y/n, tying him from neck to ankles to the headstone. Harry could hear shallow, fast breathing from the depths of the hood, he struggled, and the man hit him...hit him with a hand that had a finger missing. And Harry realized who was under the hood. It was Wormtail.
"You!" he gasped.
But Wormtail, who had finished conjuring the ropes, did not reply. He was busy checking the tightness of the cords, his fingers trembling uncontrollably, fumbling over the knots. Once sure that Harry was bound so tightly to the headstone that he couldn't move an inch, Wormtail drew a length of some black material from the inside of his cloak and stuffed it roughly into Harry's mouth then, without a word, he turned from Harry and hurried away.
Neither Harry nor Y/n could make a sound, nor could they see where Wormtail had gone. They could see only what was right in front of them.
Cedric's body was only a feet away from Y/n. Some way beyond him, glinting in the starlight, lay the Triwizard Cup. He could see Harry's wand was on the ground at Cedric's feet. The bundle of robes that they had thought was a baby was close by, at the foot of the grave. It seemed to be stirring fretfully. Y/n watched it, but he knew that he didn't want to see what was in those robes... he didn't want that bundle opened...
He looked away from it to see a gigantic snake slithering through the grass, circling the headstone where Harry was tied. Wormtail's fast, wheezy breathing was growing louder again. It sounded as though he was forcing something heavy across the ground. Then he came back within Y/n and Harry's ranges of vision, and they saw him pushing a stone cauldron to the foot of the grave. It was full of what seemed to be water... Y/n could hear it slopping around and it was larger than any cauldron he had ever used in potions, a great stone belly large enough for a full grown man to sit in.
The thing inside the bundle of robes on the ground was stirring more persistently, as though it was trying to free itself. Now Wormtail was busying himself 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 seemed to heat very fast. The surface began not only to bubble, but to send out fiery sparks, as though it were on fire. Steam was thickening, blurring the outline of Wormtail tending the fire. The movements beneath the robes became more agitated. And they 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. Master." Wormtail said.
"Now..." said the cold voice.
Wormtail pulled open the robes on the ground, revealing what was inside them, and Y/n who was too shocked and horrified to make a noise heard Harry let out a yell that was strangled in the wad of material blocking his mouth.
It was as though Wormtail had flipped over a stone and revealed something ugly, slimy, and blind... but worse, a hundred times worse. The thing Wormtail had been carrying had the shape of a crouched human child, except that Y/n had never seen anything less like a child. It was hairless and 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...flat and snakelike, with gleaming red eyes.
The thing seemed almost helpless, it raised its thin arms, put them around Wormtail's neck, and Wormtail lifted it. As he did so, his hood fell back, and Y/n saw the look of revulsion on Wormtail's weak, pale face in the firelight as he carried the creature to the rim of the cauldron. For one moment, they saw the evil, flat face illuminated in the sparks dancing on the surface of the potion. And then Wormtail lowered the creature into the cauldron, there was a hiss, and it vanished below the surface, and they could hear its frail body hit the bottom with a soft thud.
Y/n tried to struggle against his bonds now but they proved too tight.
Wormtail was speaking. His voice shook, he seemed frightened beyond his wits. He raised his wand, closed his eyes, and spoke to the night.
"Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son!"
The surface of the grave at Harry's feet cracked. Horrified, Harry watched as a fine trickle of dust rose into the air at Wormtail'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.
And now Wormtail was whimpering. He pulled a long, thin, shining silver dagger from inside his cloak. His voice broke into petrified sobs.
"Flesh...of the servant... w...willingly given... you will... revive...your master."
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 upward.
Y/n realized what Wormtail was about to do a second before it happened and he watched as the man cut off his own hand and let out a scream that pierced the night, the hand dropped to the ground, and Y/n could hear Wormtail's anguished panting, then a sickening splash, as he picked up his hand and dropped into the cauldron. The potion had turned a burning red.
Wormtail was gasping and moaning with agony. But Y/n could see he was making his way towards Harry now and once again he tried fighting back against the ropes to no avail.
"B...blood of the enemy...forcibly taken...you will...resurrect your foe."
Y/n tried to thrash around now but he could do nothing to prevent it, he was tied too tightly to his own headstone. He saw the shining silver dagger shaking in Wormtail's remaining hand. He saw its point penetrate the crook of Harry right arm and blood seeping down the sleeve of his torn robes.
Wormtail, still panting with pain, rumbled in his pocket for a glass vial and held it to Harry's cut, so that a dribble of blood fell into it. He staggered back to the cauldron with Harry's blood. He poured it inside. The liquid within turned, instantly, a blinding white. Wormtail, 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.
The cauldron was simmering, sending its diamond sparks in all directions, so blindingly bright that it turned all else to velvety blackness. Nothing happened...
And then, suddenly, the sparks emanating from the cauldron were extinguished. A surge of white steam billowed thickly from the cauldron instead, obliterating everything in front of Y/n and Harry so that they couldn't see Wormtail or Cedric or anything but vapor hanging in the air.
But then, through the mist in front of him, Y/n saw, with an icy surge of terror, the dark outline of a man, tall and skeletally thin, rising slowly from inside the cauldron.
"Robe me." said the high, cold voice from behind the steam, and Wormtail, sobbing and moaning, still cradling his mutilated arm, scrambled to pick up the black robes from the ground, got to his feet, reached up, and pulled them one-handed over his master's head.
The thin man stepped out of the cauldron, staring at Harry...and Harry stared back into the face that had haunted his nightmares for three years.
Y/n couldn't help but feel fear as he saw him Whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was flat as a snakes with slits for nostrils...
Lord Voldemort had risen again.
Voldemort looked away from Harry and began examining his own body. His hands were like large, pale spiders, his long white fingers caressed his own chest, his arms, his face, the red eyes, whose pupils were slits, like a cats, gleamed still more brightly through the darkness. He held up his hands and flexed the fingers, his expression rapt and exultant. He took not the slightest notice of Wormtail, who lay twitching and bleeding on the ground, nor of the great snake, which had slithered back into sight and was circling Harry again, hissing. Voldemort slipped one of those unnaturally long-fingered hands into a deep pocket and drew out a wand. He caressed it gently too, and then he raised it, and pointed it at Wormtail, who was lifted off the ground and thrown against the headstone where Harry was tied. He fell to the foot of it and lay there, crumpled up and crying. Voldemort turned his scarlet eyes upon Harry, laughing a high, cold, mirthless laugh.
Wormtail's robes were shining with blood now, he had wrapped the stump of his arm in them.
"My Lord..." he choked. "My Lord...you promised...you did promise..."
"Hold out your arm." said Voldemort lazily.
"Oh Master...thank you, Master..."
He extended the bleeding stump, but Voldemort laughed again.
"The other arm, Wormtail."
"Master, please...please..."
Voldemort bent down and pulled out Wormtail's left arm, he forced the sleeve of Wormtail's robes up past his elbow, and Harry saw something upon the skin there, something like a vivid red tattoo... a skull with a snake protruding from its mouth, the image that had appeared in the sky at the Quidditch World Cup, the Dark Mark. Voldemort examined it carefully, ignoring Wormtail's uncontrollable weeping.
"It is back." he said softly. "They will all have noticed it...and now, we shall see...now we shall know..." He pressed his long white forefinger to the brand on Wormtail's arm.
Wormtail let out a fresh howl and Voldemort removed his fingers from Wormtail's mark, and Harry saw that it had turned jet black.
A look of cruel satisfaction on his face, Voldemort straightened up, threw back his head, and stared around at the dark graveyard.
"How many will be brave enough to return when they feel it?" he whispered, his gleaming red eyes fixed upon the stars. "And how many will be foolish enough to stay away?"
No...surely he couldn't mean... Y/n felt his blood go cold.
Voldemort began to pace up and down before Harry and Wormtail, eyes sweeping the graveyard all the while. After a minute or so, he looked down at Harry again, a cruel smile twisting his snakelike face.
"You stand, Harry Potter, upon the remains of my late father." he hissed softly. "A Muggle and a fool...very like your dear mother. But they both had their uses, did they not? Your mother died to defend you as a child. I killed my father, and see how useful he has proved himself, in death..."
Voldemort laughed again. Up and down he paced, looking all around him as he walked, and the snake continued to circle in the grass.
"You see that house upon the hillside, Potter? My father lived there. My mother, a witch who lived here in this village, fell in love with him. But he abandoned her when she told him what she was...He didn't like magic, my father...He left her and returned to his Muggle parents before I was even born. Potter, and she died giving birth to me, leaving me to be raised in a Muggle orphanage...but I vowed to find him...I revenged myself upon him, that fool who gave me his name...Tom Riddle..."
Still he paced, his red eyes darting from grave to grave almost coming to the one Y/n was still bound to.
"Listen to me, reliving family history..." he said quietly. "Why, I am growing quite sentimental...But look! My true family returns..."
'Please...do not be here...' Y/n begged in his mind.
The air was suddenly full of the swishing of cloaks. Between graves, behind the yew tree, in every shadowy space, wizards were Apparating. All of them were hooded and masked. And one by one they moved forward...slowly, cautiously, as though they could hardly believe their eyes Voldemort stood in silence, waiting for them. Then one of the Death Eaters fell to his knees, crawled toward Voldemort and kissed the hem of his black robes.
"Master...Master..." he murmured.
The Death Eaters behind him did the same, each of them approaching Voldemort on his knees and kissing his robes, before backing away and standing up, forming a silent circle, which enclosed Tom Riddle's grave, Harry, Voldemort, and the sobbing and twitching heap that was Wormtail. Yet they left gaps in the circle, as though waiting for more people. Voldemort, however, did not seem to expect more. He looked around at the hooded faces, and though there was no wind rustling seemed to run around the circle, as though it had shivered.
"Welcome, Death Eaters." said Voldemort quietly. "Thirteen years...thirteen years since last we met. Yet you answer my call as though it were yesterday, we are still united under the Dark Mark, then! Or are we?"
He put back his terrible face and sniffed, his slit-like nostrils widening.
"I smell guilt." he said. "There is a stench or 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 him.
"I see you all, whole and healthy, with your powers intact... such prompt appearances! and I ask myself... why did this band of wizards never come to the aid of their master, to whom they swore eternal loyalty?"
No one spoke. No one moved except Wormtail, who was upon the ground, still sobbing over his bleeding arm.
"And I answer myself." whispered Voldemort. "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 Lord Voldemort...perhaps they now pay allegiance to another...perhaps that champion of commoners, of Mudbloods and Muggles, Albus Dumbledore?"
At the mention of Dumbledore's name, the members of the circle stirred, and some muttered and shook their heads. Voldemort ignored them.
"It is a disappointment to me...I confess myself disappointed..."
One of the men suddenly flung himself forward, breaking the circle. Trembling from head to foot, he collapsed at Voldemort's feet.
"Master!" he shrieked. "Master, forgive me! Forgive us all!"
Voldemort began to laugh. He raised his wand.
"Crucio!"
The Death Eater on the ground writhed and shrieked.
Voldemort raised his wand. The tortured Death Eater lay flat upon the ground, gasping.
"Get up, Avery." said Voldemort 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. Wormtail here has paid some of his debt already, have you not, Wormtail?"
He looked down at Wormtail, who continued to sob.
"You returned to me, not out of loyalty, but out of fear of your old friends. You deserve this pain, Wormtail. You know that, don't you?"
"Yes, Master." moaned Wormtail, "Please. Master...please..."
"Yet you helped return me to my body." said Voldemort coolly, watching Wormtail sob on the ground. "Worthless and traitorous as you are, you helped me...and Lord Voldemort rewards his helpers..."
Voldemort raised his 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 downward and fixed itself upon Wormtail's bleeding wrist.
Wormtail'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 shining fingers, then, trembling, picked up a small twig on the ground and crushed it into powder.
"My Lord." he whispered. "Master...it is beautiful...thank you...thank you..."
He scrambled forward on his knees and kissed the hem of Voldemort's robes.
"May your loyalty never waver again, Wormtail." said Voldemort.
"No, my Lord...never, my Lord..."
Wormtail stood up and took his place in the circle, staring at his powerful new hand, his face still shining with tears. Voldemort now approached the man on Wormtail's right.
"Lucius, my slippery friend." he whispered, halting before him. "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, Lucius... Your exploits at the Quidditch World Cup were fun, I daresay...but might not your energies have been better directed toward finding and aiding your master?"
"My Lord, I was constantly on the alert." came Lucius Malfoy'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 Mark, when a faithful Death Eater sent it into the sky last summer?" said Voldemort lazily, and Mr. Malfoy stopped talking abruptly. "Yes, I know all about that, Lucius... You have disappointed me... I expect more faithful service in the future."
"Of course, my Lord, of course....You are merciful, thank you..."
Voldemort moved on, and stopped, staring at the space...large enough for four people that separated Malfoy and the next man.
"The Lestranges and Grindelwalds should be standing here." said Voldemort quietly. "But they are entombed in Azkaban. They were faithful. They went to Azkaban rather than renounce me... When Azkaban is broken open, the Grindelwalds and Lestranges will be honored beyond their dreams. The dementors will join us...they are our natural allies...we will recall the banished giants...I shall have all my devoted servants returned to me, and an army of creatures whom all fear..."
He walked on. Some of the Death Eaters he passed in silence, but he paused before others and spoke to them.
"Macnair...destroying dangerous beasts for the Ministry of Magic now, Wormtail tells me? You shall have better victims than that soon, Macnair. Lord Voldemort will provide..."
"Thank you, Master...thank you." murmured Macnair.
"And here." Voldemort moved on to the two largest hooded figures. "We have Crabbe... you will do better this time, will you not, Crabbe? And you, Goyle?"
They bowed clumsily, muttering dully.
"Yes, Master..."
"We will, Master..."
"The same goes for you, Nott." said Voldemort quietly as he walked past a stooped figure in Mr. Goyle's shadow.
"My Lord, I prostrate myself before you, I am your most faithful..."
"That will do." said Voldemort.
He had reached the largest gap of all, and he stood surveying it with his blank, red eyes, as though he could see people standing there.
"And here we have six missing Death Eaters...three dead in my service. One, too cowardly to return...he will pay. One, who I believe has left me forever...he will be killed, of course... and one, who remains my most faithful servant, and who has already reentered my service."
The Death Eaters stirred, and Harry saw their eyes dart sideways at one another through their masks.
"He is at Hogwarts, that faithful servant, and it was through his efforts that our young friends arrived here tonight..."
"Yes." said Voldemort, a grin curling his lipless mouth as the eyes of the circle flashed in Harry's direction. "Harry Potter has kindly joined us for my rebirthing party. One might go so far as to call him my guest of honor."
There was a silence. Then the Death Eater to the right of Wormtail stepped forward, and Lucius Malfoy's voice spoke from under the mask.
"Master, we crave to know...we beg you to tell us...how you have achieved this...this miracle... how you managed to return to us..."
"Ah, what a story it is, Lucius." said Voldemort. "And it begins and ends with my young friend here."
He walked lazily over to stand next to Harry, so that Y/n and the eyes of the whole circle were upon the two of them. The snake continued to circle.
"You know, of course, that they have called this boy my downfall?" Voldemort said softly, his red eyes upon Harry, whose scar began to burn so fiercely that he almost screamed in agony. "You all know that on the night I lost my powers and my body, I tried to kill him. His mother died in the attempt to save him...and unwittingly provided him with a protection I admit I had not foreseen... I could not touch the boy."
Voldemort raised one of his long white fingers and put it very close to Harry's cheek.
"His mother left upon him the traces of her sacrifice. This is old magic, I should have remembered it, I was foolish to overlook it...but no matter. I can touch him now."
Y/n saw Harry looked to be intense pain as the long white finger touched him. Voldemort laughed softly in his ear, then took the finger away and continued addressing the Death Eaters.
"I miscalculated, my friends, I admit it. My curse was deflected by the woman's foolish sacrifice, and it rebounded upon myself. 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 meanest 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. 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 that 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 Death Eaters 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 Death Eaters. Voldemort 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 wizard, young, foolish, and gullible wandered across my path in the forest I had made my home. Oh, he seemed the very chance I had been dreaming of for he was a teacher at Dumbledore's school... he was easy to bend to my will he brought me back to this country, and after a while, I took possession of his body, to supervise him closely as he carried out my orders. But my plan failed. I did not manage to steal the Philosopher's Stone. I was not to be assured immortal life. I was thwarted...thwarted, once again, by Harry Potter..."
Silence once more, nothing was stirring, not even the leaves on the yew tree. The Death Eaters were quite motionless, the glittering eyes in their masks fixed upon Voldemort, and upon Harry.
"The servant died when I left his body, and I was left as weak as ever I had been." Voldemort 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 wizard to possess...and I had given up hope, now, that any of my Death Eaters cared what had become of me."
One or two of the masked wizards in the circle moved uncomfortably, but Voldemort took no notice.
"And then, not even a year ago, when I had almost abandoned hope, it happened at last...a servant returned to me. Wormtail here, who had faked his own death to escape justice, was driven out of hiding by those he had once counted friends, and decided to return to his master. He sought me in the country where it had long been rumored I was hiding...helped, of course, by the rats he met along the way. Wormtail has a curious affinity with rats, do you not, Wormtail? His 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 his journey back to me was not smooth, was it, Wormtail? For, hungry one night, on the edge of the very forest where he had hoped to find me, he foolishly stopped at an inn for some food and who should he meet there, but one Bertha Jorkins, a witch from the Ministry of Magic..."
"Now see the way that fate favors Lord Voldemort. This might have been the end of Wormtail, and of my last hope for regeneration. But Wormtail displaying a presence of mind I would never have expected from him, convinced Bertha Jorkins to accompany him on a nighttime stroll. He overpowered her...he brought her to me. And Bertha Jorkins, who might have ruined all, proved instead to be a gift beyond my wildest dreams...for... with a little persuasion she became a veritable mine of information."
"She told me that the Triwizard Tournament would be played at Hogwarts this year. She told me that she knew of a faithful Death Eater who would be only too willing to help me, if I could only contact him. She told me many things...but the means I used to break the Memory Charm upon her were powerful, and when I had extracted all useful information from her, her mind and body were both damaged beyond repair. She had now served her purpose. I could not possess her. I disposed of her. "
Voldemort smiled his terrible smile, his red eyes blank and pitiless.
"Wormtail's body, of course, was ill adapted for possession, as all assumed him dead, and would attract far too much attention if noticed. However, he was the able-bodied servant I needed, and, poor wizard though he is, Wormtail was able to follow the instructions I gave him, 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 Nagini." Voldemort's red eyes fell upon the continually circling snake. "A potion concocted from unicorn blood, and the snake venom Nagini provided...I was soon returned to an almost human form, and strong enough to travel."
"There was no hope of stealing the Philospher's Stone anymore, for I knew that Dumbledore would have seen to it that it was destroyed. But I was willing to embrace mortal life again, before chasing immortality. I set my sights lower...I would settle for my old body back again, and my old strength.
"I knew how 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, Wormtail? Flesh given by a servant...My father's bone, naturally, meant that we would have to come here, where he was buried. But the blood of a foe...Wormtail would have had me use any wizard, would you not, Wormtail? 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 Harry Potter's blood. I wanted the blood of the one who had stripped me of power thirteen years ago...for the lingering protection his mother once gave him would then reside in my veins too...
"But how to get at Harry Potter? For he has been better protected than I think even he knows, protected in ways devised by Dumbledore long ago, when it fell to him to arrange the boy's future. Dumbledore invoked an ancient magic, to ensure the boy's protection as long as he is in his relations' care. Not even I can touch him there. Then, of course, there was the Quidditch World Cup. I thought his protection might be weaker there, away from his relations and Dumbledore, but I was not yet strong enough to attempt kidnap in the midst of a horde of Ministry wizards. And then, the boy would return to Hogwarts, where he is under the crooked nose of that Muggle-loving fool from morning until night. So how could I take him?"
"Why...by using Bertha Jorkins's information, of course. Use my one faithful Death Eater, stationed at Hogwarts, to ensure that the boy's name was entered into the Goblet of Fire. Use my Death Eater to ensure that the boy won the tournament...that he touched the Triwizard Cup first before it was returned to await the other...the cup which my Death Eater had turned into a Portkey, which would bring him here, beyond the reach of Dumbledore's help and protection, and into my waiting arms. And here he is... the boy you all believed had been my downfall..."
Voldemort moved slowly forward and turned to face Harry. He raised his wand.
"Crucio!"
Y/n's bonds dug deep into his skin as he tried with all his might to pull free, his friend was being tortured!
And then it was gone. Harry was hanging limply in the ropes binding him to the headstone of Voldemort's father, looking up into those bright red eyes through a kind of mist. The night was ringing with the sound of the Death Eaters' laughter.
"You see, I think, how foolish it was to suppose that this boy could ever have been stronger than me." said Voldemort. "But I want there to be no mistake in anybody's mind. Harry Potter escaped me by a lucky chance. And I am now going to prove my power by killing him, here and now, in front of you all, when there is no Dumbledore to help him, and no mother to die for him. I will give him his chance. He will be allowed to fight, and you will be left in no doubt which of us is the stronger. Just a little longer, Nagini." he whispered, and the snake glided away through the grass to where the Death Eaters stood watching.
"But first we must also welcome our other guest, must we not?" Voldemort and the circle of Death Eaters all turned now to look at Y/n still bound by ropes to a headstone. "After all I am sure you are wondering why you are here? When who was really needed was Harry..." Voldemort said.
While Y/n had been wondering this he was more worried and focused on trying to figure out a way he and Harry could escape but right now, their prospects were bleak. They were surrounded by death eaters and Voldemort himself, the man who had killed Harry's parents and brought Y/n's own under his leadership. No amount of spells they had learned could have prepared them for this. Y/n had truthfully given thought to the idea of trying to use his animagus form in a bid to escape, but he couldn't leave Harry behind to save his own life. Even if he were to manage escaping he had no idea where he and Harry were. The cup they had turned into a portkey was their only chance.
"I have heard that you are a talented wizard Y/n... I would expect nothing less from someone from a pure blood family. Both your own, and your brother's names were placed in the goblet by my loyal Death Eater. Fate has chosen which Grindelwald boy is before us tonight...You've proven yourself well in the trials you have faced so far, but I want to see how will you fare against my death eaters? Can you endure without breaking like so many others?"
The Death Eaters all seemed to come to attention at being mentioned.
"I want you to join us Y/n... Like you're mother and father did, Two of my most loyal servants... To teach you to reach your full potential like they did."
Y/n knew Voldemort didn't have his best interests at heart, he would be just another pawn on the chessboard for this foul being's goals. He didn't want to be anything like his parents and he would never join Voldemort but the binds in his mouth stopped him from saying this outloud.
"Now untie them, Wormtail, and give them back their wands." Voldemort commanded.
Wormtail who scrambled to find his feet walked out of the circle to the place where Cedric's body lay and returned with Harry's wand, which he thrust roughly into Harry's hand without looking at him. Wormtail then raised his new silver hand, pulled out the wad of material gagging Harry, and then, with one swipe, cut through the bonds tying Harry to the gravestone.
There was a split second, perhaps, when Harry might have considered running for it, but his injured leg shook under him as he stood on the overgrown grave.
The Death Eaters all turned and moved to form a tight circle around Y/n now, so that the gaps where the missing Death Eaters should have stood were filled. Wormtail once again used his silver hand to cut the ropes that bound Y/n then resumed his place in the circle of watching Death Eaters.
Y/n was quick to throw the ropes off him and pick up his wand looking at the band of Death Eaters not sure which would move first. He raised to his feet slowly.
"You both have been taught how to duel?" Y/n heard Voldemort say softly.
At these words Y/n remembered, the dueling club at Hogwarts he had attended briefly two years ago but it had proved to be utterly useless since Lockheart was leading it. He knew he was facing the things against which Moody had always warned... the unforgivable curses...
A Death Eater stepped forward now and drew their wand as Y/n pointed his own to them.
"We bow to each other don't we Y/n... Come on Harry." instructed Voldemort, bending a little, but keeping his snakelike face upturned to Harry.
The Death Eater in front of Y/n bowed to him now.
"Come, the niceties must be observed...Dumbledore would like you both to show manners...Bow to death, Harry. . . . "
The Death Eaters were laughing. Voldemort's lipless mouth was smiling. But Neither Y/n nor Harry bowed to their opponents. They were not going to let Voldemort toy with them before killing him...they were not going to give him that satisfaction...
"I said, bow." Voldemort said, raising his wand and Harry felt his spine curve as though a huge, invisible hand were bending him ruthlessly forward, and the Death Eaters laughed harder than ever.
"Crucio!" a Death Eater in the circle cast hitting Y/n with the spell and he dropped to the ground letting out an awful cry of pain.
"Leave him alone!" Harry shouted still being forced to bow.
"Come now Harry...you should worry about yourself." Voldemort said causing the Death Eaters to laugh some more.
Y/n felt as if he was about to die, the pain was so intense, so all-consuming, that he no longer knew where he was... it felt like knives were stabbing every inch of his skin. His grip on his wand was so tight he thought it would surely snap in half. His mind was beginning to go blank...he needed something to ground him, but what? His eyes strained looking around and then he saw it...the bracelet Hermione had given him. He would focus on her. He had to survive and get back to her.
The Death Eater finally relented now as he lifted his wand and Y/n felt the immediate pain die away. But the effects lingered as he felt his entire body aching and covered in a cold sweat as he panted breathlessly.
"Very good Grindelwald...so many lose their minds quickly." said Voldemort softly before turning his attention back to Harry, as he raised his wand the pressure bearing down upon Harry lifted too. "And now you face me, like a man Harry...straight-backed and proud, the way your father died...And now...we duel."
Voldemort raised his wand, and before Harry could do anything to defend himself, before he could even move, he had been hit again by the Cruciatus Curse. Harry was screaming more loudly than he'd ever screamed in his life but Y/n could do nothing about it he was barely just recovering when another Death Eater cast the Cruciatus Curse on him.
This wasn't a duel...it was a torture session. Did Voldemort simply wish to see how much he could endure? Y/n wouldn't allow himself to become the man's source of entertainment. "Stupefy..." He strained out holding his wand towards his attacker catching them off guard as the spell connected with them and knocked them back.
"This one's got some fight in him. Definitely a Grindelwald." One of the Death Eaters laughed, as another went to revive the one who had been it with Y/n's counter attack.
Y/n was pushing himself up now.
"But our master wants to see how much he can endure, and we must not fail..." Another one of the Death Eaters said drawing their wand. "Diffindo." They cast pointing at Y/n's rising back.
Y/n just fell back to the floor letting out a painful groan. It felt like his back had just been whipped.
"Diffindo!" Another Death Eater on the other side of the circle cried with more enthusiasm than the first. Y/n gritted his teeth as he felt another slash cut into his back.
"Diffindo."
"Diffindo!"
"Diffindo..."
Just as Y/n was beginning to grow numb a Death Eater pointed their wand to his face and cast a spell he did not hear and quickly his face burned in agony.
His free hand quickly rose to cover his eye. He had to force himself to focus on the bracelet Hermione had given him once again to make sure he kept his fighting resolve, that he would not give in.
"A little break." said Voldemort as he stopped casting the Cruciatus curse on Harry nearby, the slit-like nostrils dilating with excitement. "A little pause for you both I think..."
The Death Eaters lowered their wands from Y/n now under Voldemort's words.
"That hurt, didn't it. Harry? You don't want me to do that again, do you?" Voldemort asked him but Harry didn't answer. "I asked you whether you want me to do that again." said Voldemort softly. "Answer me! Imperio!"
'Do not give in Harry...' Y/n thought as he lay there in agony, His back undoubtedly had been shredded to pieces by the constant use of Diffindo. He felt he might as well have been mauled by a werewolf at this point. The hand covering his eye had become wet, no doubt from his own blood. He knew that whatever spell he had just been cast on his face was the kind of curse that would most likely leave a permanent mark.
"I WON'T!" He then heard burst from Harry's mouth as the words echoed through the graveyard.
"You won't?" said Voldemort quietly, and the Death Eaters were not laughing now watching. "You won't say no? Harry, obedience is a virtue I need to teach you before you die...Perhaps another little dose of pain?"
Voldemort raised his wand, but this time Harry was ready, with the reflexes born of his Quidditch training, he flung himself sideways onto the ground and rolled behind the marble headstone of Voldemort's father, and he heard it crack as the curse missed him.
"We are not playing hide and seek, Harry." said Voldemort's soft, cold voice, drawing nearer, as the Death Eaters laughed again. "You cannot hide from me. Does this mean you are tired of our duel? Does this mean that you would prefer me to finish it now, Harry? Come out, Harry...come out and play, then...it will be quick...it might even be painless...I would not know...I have never died..."
"You might as well have died..." Y/n said struggling to his feet and Voldemort turned his head to look at the boy. "You thought...that I would follow you like my parents? Never...I will never serve under you. I would rather die...than fall under your foul influence." Y/n spat on the ground defiantly.
"A pity to waste such talented blood...but if you are unwilling to serve then you are of no use to Lord Voldemort ..." Voldemort said raising his wand to Y/n but Harry threw himself around the headstone now, facing Voldemort.
Voldemort quickly turned and was ready. As Harry shouted, "Expelliarmus!"
"Avada Kedavra!" Voldemort cried.
A jet of green light issued from Voldemort's wand just as a jet of red light blasted from Harry's that met in midair to form into a golden light.
"You dare to speak to the Dark Lord in such a way...Crucio!" A Death Eater cried and Y/n dropped to the floor shaking violently in agony, with the injuries he had already sustained it felt like it lasted for an eternity until the spell was stopped. He took a moment to raise his head to see why it had been but when he did he saw Harry's feet had lifted from the ground. He and Voldemort were both being raised into the air, their wands still connected by that thread of shimmering golden light. They glided away from the tombstone of Voldemort's father and then came to rest on a patch of ground that was clear and free of graves.
The Death Eaters surrounding Y/n forget him now as they thought him to be too weak and fatigued to fight back. They were now moving and shouting, asking Voldemort for instructions. They were closing in, reforming the circle around Harry and Voldemort, the snake slithering at their heels, some of them their wands still drawn...
Y/n slowly pushed himself up. This would be his only chance to put some distance between himself and the Death Eaters at least. He put his wand in his mouth, closed his eyes, and focused as his form changed into the black cat. This form was small and allowed him to quietly dash quickly past the headstones using the cover of night to blend into the darkness as he made his way over to a gravestone near Cedric's body.
The golden thread connecting Harry and Voldemort splintered, though the wands remained connected, a thousand more beams arced high over Harry and Voldemort, crisscrossing all around them, until they were enclosed in a golden, dome-shaped web, a cage of light, beyond which the Death Eaters circled like jackals, their cries strangely muffled now...
"Do nothing!" Voldemort shrieked to the Death Eaters. "Do nothing unless I command you!"
And then an unearthly and beautiful sound filled the air...It was coming from every thread of the light-spun web vibrating around Harry and Voldemort. It was a sound Harry recognized, though he had heard it only once before in his life: phoenix song.
It was the sound of hope to Harry... the most beautiful and welcome thing he had ever heard in his life...He felt as though the song were inside him instead of just around him. It was the sound he connected with Dumbledore, and it was almost as though a friend were speaking in his ear.
'Don't break the connection.'
'I know.' Harry told the music, 'I know I mustn't...' but no sooner had he thought it, than the thing became much harder to do. His wand began to vibrate more powerfully than ever and now the beam between him and Voldemort changed too, it was as though large beads of light were sliding up and down the thread connecting the wands. Harry felt his wand give a shudder under his hand as the light beads began to slide slowly and steadily his way. The direction of the beams movement was now toward him, from Voldemort, and he felt his wand shudder angrily.
As the closest bead of light moved nearer to Harry's wand tip, the wood beneath his fingers grew so hot he feared it would burst into flame. The closer that bead moved, the harder Harry's wand vibrated, he was sure his wand would not survive contact with it, it felt as though it was about to shatter under his fingers...
He concentrated every last particle of his mind upon forcing the bead back toward Voldemort, his ears full of phoenix song, his eyes furious, fixed...and slowly, very slowly, the beads quivered to a halt, and then, just as slowly, they began to move the other way and it was Voldemort's wand that was vibrating extra-hard now. Voldemort who looked astonished, and almost fearful...
One of the beads of light was quivering, inches from the tip of Voldemort's wand. Harry didn't understand why he was doing it, didn't know what it might achieve...but he now concentrated as he had never done in his life on forcing that bead of light right back into Voldemort's wand... and slowly...very slowly...it moved along the golden thread...it trembled for a moment and then it connected.
At once, Voldemort's wand began to emit echoing screams of pain... then Voldemort's red eyes widened with shock as a dense, smoky hand flew out of the tip of it and vanished...the ghost of the hand he had made Wormtail.. more shouts of pain...and then something much larger began to blossom from Voldemort's wand tip, a great, grayish something, that looked as though it were made of the solidest, densest smoke. It was a head... now a chest and arms...the torso of Cedric Diggory.
If ever Harry might have released his wand from shock, it would have been then, but instinct kept him clutching his wand tightly, so that the thread of golden light remained unbroken, even though the thick gray ghost of Cedric Diggory emerged in its entirety from the end of Voldemort's wand, as though it were squeezing itself out of a very narrow tunnel, and this shade of Cedric stood up, and looked up and down the golden thread of light, and spoke.
"Hold on. Harry." it said.
Its voice was distant and echoing. Harry looked at Voldemort...his wide red eyes were still shocked. He had no more expected this than Harry had and, very dimly. Harry heard the frightened yells of the Death Eaters, prowling around the edges of the golden dome.
Y/n who was back in his normal form behind a headstone next to Cedric's real body could only watch in shock.
More screams of pain from the wand...and then something else emerged from its tip. The dense shadow of a second head, quickly followed by arms and torso, an old man Harry had seen only in a dream was now pushing himself out of the end of the wand just as Cedric had done and his ghost, or his shadow, or whatever it was, fell next to Cedric's, and surveyed Harry and Voldemort, and the golden web, and the connected wands, with mild surprise, leaning on his walking stick.
"He was a real wizard, then?" the old man said, his eyes on Voldemort. "Killed me, that one did...You fight him, boy..."
But already, yet another head was emerging and this head, gray as a smoky statue, was a woman's. Harry, both arms shaking now as he fought to keep his wand still, saw her drop to the ground and straighten up like the others, staring.
The shadow of Bertha Jorkins surveyed the battle before her with wide eyes. "Don't let go, now!" she cried, and her voice echoed like Cedric's as though from very far away. "Don't let him get you, Harry...don't let go!"
She and the other two shadowy figures began to pace around the inner walls of the golden web, while the Death Eaters flitted around the outside of it...and Voldemort's dead victims whispered as they circled the duelers, whispered words of encouragement to Harry, and hissed words Harry couldn't hear to Voldemort.
And now another head was emerging from the tip of Voldemort's wand and Harry knew when he saw it who it would be...he knew, as though he had expected it from the moment when Cedric had appeared from the wand...knew, because the man appearing was the one he'd thought of more than any other tonight.
The smoky shadow of a tall man with untidy hair fell to the ground as Bertha had done, straightened up, and looked at him...and Harry, his arms shaking madly now, looked back into the ghostly face of his father.
"Your mother's coming..." he said quietly. "She wants to see you...it will be all right...hold on..."
And she came, first her head, then her body. A young woman with long hair, the smoky, shadowy form of Lily Potter blossomed from the end of Voldemort's wand, fell to the ground, and straightened like her husband. She walked close to Harry, looking down at him, and she spoke in the same distant, echoing voice as the others, but quietly, so that Voldemort, his face now livid with fear as his victims prowled around him, could not hear...
"When the connection is broken, we will linger for only moments...but we will give you both time...you must get to the Y/n and the Portkey, it will return you both to Hogwarts...do you understand, Harry?"
"Yes." Harry gasped, fighting now to keep a hold on his wand, which was slipping and sliding beneath his fingers.
"Harry..." whispered the figure of Cedric. "Take my body back, will you? Take my body back to my parents..."
"I will." said Harry, his face screwed up with the effort of holding the wand.
"Do it now." whispered Harry's father's voice. "Be ready to run...do it now..."
"NOW!" Harry yelled as he pulled his wand upward with an almighty wrench, and the golden thread broke, the cage of light vanished, the phoenix song died but the shadowy figures of Voldemort's victims did not disappear, they were closing in upon Voldemort, shielding Harry from his gaze
"Stupefy!" Y/n cried as a stunning spell hit one of the Death Eaters blocking Harry's way and Harry looked in his direction.
"Come on Harry!" Y/n cried out to him. "Stupefy!" He cast again at the group of Death Eaters before narrowly ducking under a jet of green light that came his way.
And Harry ran as he had never run in his life, knocking aside the two Death Eaters Y/n had stunned aside as he passed, he zigzagged behind headstones, feeling their curses following him, as Y/n fired curses back towards them, he was dodging curses and graves, pelting toward Y/n.
"Stun him!" Y/n heard Voldemort scream.
Ten feet from Y/n and Cedric, Harry dived behind a marble angel to avoid the jets of red light and saw the tip of its wing shatter as the spells hit it.
"Harry you grab a hold of Cedric and I will summon the cup it is our only chance!" Y/n quickly shouted to him.
"Got it!" Harry said. Gripping his wand more tightly he dashed out from behind the angel. "Impedimenta!" Harry bellowed, pointing his wand wildly over his shoulder at the Death Eaters running at them. From a muffled yell, he thought he had stopped at least one of them, but there was no time to stop and look, he jumped over the cup and dived as he heard more wand blasts behind him, more jets of light flew over his head as he fell, stretching out his hand to grab Cedric's arm.
Y/n quickly dropped beside him now and linked his wand arm through one of Harry's.
"Stand aside! I will kill them!" shrieked Voldemort. Harry's hand had closed on Cedric's wrist, one tombstone stood between them and Voldemort whose red eyes flamed in the darkness. Harry saw his mouth curl into a smile, saw him raise his wand.
"Accio Cup!" Y/n yelled, pointing his wand at the Triwizard Cup. It flew into the air and soared toward him and Y/n caught it by the handle with his free hand.
They heard Voldemort's scream of fury at the same moment that Y/n felt the jerk behind his navel that meant the Portkey had worked... it was speeding them away in a whirl of wind and color, and Cedric along with him...They were going back...