Victor stayed in the hospital wing until Madam Pomfrey finished examining Draco. After checking him over, she gave Victor a reassuring nod.
"There's nothing seriously wrong with him. He's unconscious, but his condition is stable. He should wake up."
Victor finally relaxed. "Good."
He left Draco in the hospital wing and returned to the Forbidden Forest. Moody's body was still lying where he'd left it.
Victor crouched beside him and searched through his robes. "Since you were planning to take me to Voldemort, you must have had a Portkey."
He already knew the plan. The Triwizard Cup had been turned into a Portkey — Harry was supposed to touch it at the end of the Third Task and be transported straight to the Little Hangleton graveyard.
But Victor couldn't use the Cup himself. If he interfered with it, Harry might never reach the graveyard, and Voldemort's resurrection wouldn't happen the way it was supposed to.
There had to be another Portkey on Crouch Jr.
He searched the pockets and found nothing, then noticed something strange about the inside of Moody's coat. "An Extension Charm?"
He ran his hand over the fabric, felt the extra space hidden beneath it, and reached in, pulling out several objects one by one and dropping them onto the ground.
Bottles. Bits of equipment. A scattered pile with no obvious answer among them.
"Brilliant. Now I have to find the right one without accidentally sending myself somewhere."
He picked them up one at a time, touching each carefully. Nothing happened with the first few. He kept working through them, keeping the rest within reach in case he needed to try again.
***
Harry hit the ground hard.
He barely had time to register that he was no longer in the maze before a pair of hands seized him and dragged him toward a nearby gravestone.
"Let me go!"
He fought desperately, but the hand of a statue already wrapped around him. His back struck the cold stone, his arms pulled behind him and bound tight.
Harry looked around the graveyard in horror — dark, deserted, old gravestones scattered across uneven ground.
Then he saw the man nearby.
"Peter Pettigrew."
Pettigrew moved around the graveyard nervously, hurrying toward a cauldron, carrying something in his hands.
"What are you doing?"
Pettigrew ignored him. "Quiet, Harry Potter." He turned toward a large stone tomb. "Tonight, the Dark Lord will return."
Harry's stomach dropped.
Pettigrew approached the grave and pulled out of grave. "Bone of the father, unknowingly given." He dropped a bone from the grave into the cauldron. The potion hissed violently.
Harry struggled against the ropes. "Why are you doing this?"
Pettigrew turned to him, frightened. "Because I must." He raised his wand, hesitated. "Master will return. He will be strong again." Then he turned back to the cauldron. "Flesh of the servant, willingly sacrificed."
Harry watched in horror as Pettigrew cut off his own hand and dropped it into the boiling potion, screaming from the pain before stumbling backward.
"Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken."
He approached Harry with the knife.
"No!"
Harry struggled, but Pettigrew grabbed his arm and cut it. Harry cried out as Pettigrew collected the blood, added it to the cauldron, and finally lowered the small, misshapen form of Voldemort into the mixture.
The potion churned violently. Smoke poured over the graveyard as something moved inside the cauldron.
Pettigrew backed away. "Master?"
A pale hand emerged from the potion. Then another. A tall, skeletal figure rose slowly from the cauldron, his wet body glistening in the moonlight. He stepped onto the ground and stood silently a moment, looking down at his restored hands.
Pettigrew dropped to his knees immediately. "My Lord."
Voldemort flexed his fingers, looking around the graveyard. "Where is my wand?"
Pettigrew scrambled to retrieve it. "Here, my Lord."
Voldemort took it, examined it, then turned his red eyes toward Harry.
Harry stared back, fear gripping his chest.
Voldemort smiled faintly. "Harry Potter."
"After all these years..." he said quietly. "The boy who survived."
He stepped closer, bare feet pressing into the damp grass, studying him. For years Harry had existed in his mind only as the boy he couldn't kill. Now he stood before him with nowhere to run.
Voldemort reached out slowly and pressed his fingers against Harry's forehead, directly over the scar.
"Now I can touch you," he whispered.
Harry's scar exploded with pain.
"AAAH!"
He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to wrench his head away, but the ropes held him fast against the stone. The pain was unlike anything he'd felt before, burning through his forehead and spreading through his skull.
Voldemort withdrew his hand, watching his reaction with quiet satisfaction. "Yes," he murmured. "The protection is gone."
Harry breathed hard, trying to steady himself.
Voldemort turned away, looking out over the graveyard. "How long it has been since I possessed a body of my own."
A sudden gust swept through the graveyard, disturbing the grass, kicking dust across the old tombstones. Voldemort turned sharply toward the sound, wand already raised.
A figure stood several yards away.
Victor.
For a moment, Voldemort simply looked at him.
Then he laughed.
"Ha... hahahaha!"
*****
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