"Hahaha... Victor Malfoy."
Voldemort's laughter echoed through the graveyard as his eyes moved between Harry and Victor, drinking in the sight of them both — one bound and helpless, the other standing on his feet as if that still meant something.
There was no surprise left in his expression now, only a slow, cruel delight, the particular pleasure of a man who has just been handed an unexpected toy.
"So you have come after all," Voldemort said softly, savoring each word. "How very foolish."
He raised his wand and flicked it almost lazily, as though Victor weren't worth the effort of a proper aim.
The spell struck him squarely in the chest and sent him flying backward into a gravestone, the impact driving the breath from his lungs.
"Victor!" Harry shouted.
Voldemort barely spared him a glance. His attention stayed on Victor as the boy pushed himself upright, slow and unsteady.
"You have been a persistent nuisance," he said, his voice mild, almost conversational — the tone of a man discussing an insect he intends to enjoy pulling apart.
"I had wondered why you were so determined to interfere with matters that did not concern you."
Victor wiped blood from his mouth.
Voldemort's lips curled into a thin, satisfied smile.
"Do you know what I find amusing, Victor Malfoy? You walked willingly into my hands."
"After everything you must have heard about me — after everything you have surely imagined — you still believed yourself capable of standing against me."
He took another slow step forward, unhurried, the way a predator closes distance on something already caught.
"Perhaps I should thank you. It has been a very long time since someone offered himself to me so willingly."
A pause, his gaze flicking briefly, cruelly, to Harry. "Harry Potter squealed rather satisfyingly before you arrived. I wonder if you will do the same."
Victor straightened.
Voldemort's amusement thinned into something colder. "Do not mistake my amusement for mercy."
His wand rose.
"Avada Kedavra!"
The curse shot across the graveyard.
Victor thrust his hand forward. Blue magical energy burst from his palm and met the Killing Curse halfway.
Green and blue light crashed together, sparks scattering across the grass, the ground trembling beneath the strain of the collision.
Voldemort's eyes narrowed — not in alarm, but in the sharpening interest of a man who has just found his toy more entertaining than expected.
He had expected Victor to dodge. He had not expected a fourteen-year-old to answer the Killing Curse with wandless magic.
"Interesting," he murmured, and there was real pleasure in the word.
He twisted his wand. The curse bent, curling around Victor's spell.
Victor's eyes widened. He dropped flat, and the Killing Curse passed over him, close enough to stir his hair, before shattering a tombstone behind him.
Victor rolled and came up on one knee.
"Expelliarmus!"
A burst of blue magic shot toward Voldemort, who deflected it with a lazy flick of his wand — unbothered, almost bored, the way a man idly bats away a fly he has already decided to kill later.
Another blast followed. Then another.
Voldemort stepped between them with unhurried precision, letting the spells pass close enough to test him before answering with a curse of his own.
"Crucio!"
Victor threw up both hands. Blue magic absorbed part of the curse, but enough broke through to send white-hot pain lancing through his shoulder.
He staggered.
Voldemort smiled — a real smile now, something almost fond. "That is better."
He didn't attack again immediately. He wanted to watch this part. He always did.
"Get up."
Victor glared at him, breathing hard.
Voldemort's smile widened, unhurried, savoring the defiance the way a man savors the last of a good wine. "Come now. You were so confident a moment ago."
Victor pushed himself upright.
Voldemort flicked his wand almost carelessly, and Victor was blasted backward again, crashing through a low gravestone, rolling across the grass.
Harry strained against the ropes. "Leave him alone!"
Voldemort finally looked at Harry, and something in his gaze made the boy go still. "Be quiet." He said it softly, without heat — which was somehow worse.
His wand turned back to Victor, who was already rising.
Voldemort laughed, low and delighted. "You see, Harry? He refuses to stay down." He tilted his head, studying Victor the way one studies a particularly stubborn insect before deciding how best to end it.
"Admirable, in a way. Let us see how much of that courage remains once it stops being useful to you."
Victor answered by slamming his palm against the ground.
The earth beneath Voldemort erupted. He leapt aside as jagged stone tore upward, and Victor followed immediately with another blast.
Voldemort deflected it — but Victor had already crossed the distance between them, fist driving forward.
Voldemort caught his wrist.
For a moment they stood face to face, and Voldemort's expression was almost curious, almost gentle, the way a man looks at something small that has just tried to bite him.
"You should never have come here," he said quietly.
Victor's fist trembled against his grip. "You kidnapped my brother."
Something in Voldemort's face went cold and still. Whatever amusement had been there vanished, replaced by something far older and far uglier.
"And you thought that gave you the right to challenge me?"
He hurled Victor across the graveyard.
Victor twisted midair, landed badly, skidded through the dirt, and forced himself upright.
Voldemort raised his wand, no longer smiling. "Avada Kedavra!"
Victor threw himself aside. The curse tore past him and blasted the earth apart where he'd been standing.
He rolled and came to a stop beside Harry.
Fuck. This feels like fighting a final boss. Why won't this guy stop spamming Killing Curses? No wonder people called him the Dark Lord.
Harry stared at him. "Victor, are you all right?"
"Not really."
He glanced toward the maze, then at the Triwizard Cup lying nearby. Better get Harry out of here.
He reached down and grabbed Harry's hand.
"Victor, what are you doing?"
"Getting you out."
He pulled Harry toward the Cup and touched it.
Voldemort's expression twisted — the composed cruelty cracking into something sharper, angrier, the look of a man watching his plaything try to slip away right as the game was getting good.
"No."
His wand flashed.
The curse struck them just as the Portkey activated.
Harry felt the familiar hook behind his navel — but this time something was wrong.
The curse had hit them at nearly the same instant, and for one terrifying moment he felt like he was being pulled in two directions at once.
The graveyard vanished. Darkness twisted around them.
Voldemort's furious face was the last thing Harry saw before the Portkey tore them away.
*****
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