Harry felt his feet slam into the ground, the leg he injured by facing the blast ended skrewt gave way, and he feel forward; his hand let go of the Triwizard Cup at last. He raised his wand.
“Where are we?” he said. Warrington said he didn’t know, but drew his wand regardless. Harry looked around, feeling like 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 beneath the graves. Harry couldn’t make out a face, but from the way it was walking and the position of his arms. The figure looked like he was carrying something. It looked like…a baby or maybe just a bundle of robes.
Harry lowered his wand slightly. Both he and Warrington stalked the figure with their eyes. The figure stopped beside a towering marble headstone only six feet away from them. Warrington reached Harry’s shoulder to pull him down, and out of the man’s sight, but it was too late because without warning Harry’s scar exploded with pain.
It was agony such as he had never felt in all his life, his wand slipped from his fingers as he put his hands over his face; his knees buckled; he was on the ground and he could see nothing at all; his head was about to split open. Then maybe it would be over.
“Potter….what’s,” said Warrington. “Harry?” And then a cold voice, “Take care of the spare.”
But instead of a blast of green light and Avada Kedavra, the dark figure whistled and called, “Here boy!”
And Warrington hit Harry across the back of the head.
Then before he could ask Warrington what was going on, Mad-Eye Moody had him by the collar of his shirt. Harry felt for a moment as if everything would be okay, someone was there to save him after all, until he was thrown into a nearby headstone. The name reflecting clearly in the moonlight.
Cords of rope shot from Moody’s wand and tied him to the headstone.
But Moody paid him no mind as he made sure the cords were tightly wrapped around Harry’s body, making sure he couldn’t get away.
“Cassius?” Harry asked, eyeing his wand in the other boy’s hand.
Moody pushed a stone cauldron to the foot of Harry’s encasement. It seemed to be full of water. The bundle of robes was stirring persistently. The water in the cauldron started bubbling, a flame had been lit underneath, and the glow of it lit Moody’s ghastly face.
“Hurry!” the cold voice sounded once again. The whole surface of the water now glowed with sparks and Moody said, “It is ready, Master.”
It was like when he was at Pivet Drive, growing the hedges and cleaning out the winter dead to allow for Aunt Petunia’s new roses. The old ones never seemed to make it.
He’d go to move the rocks surrounding the flowers to plant the new ones. He’d lift the neat looking rocks and from underneath would spring all manner of crap. Rolli-pollis and earthworms wriggling around in the dirt beneath. Aunt Petunia would always tell him to crush them, but he never could.
But Harry wished he could crush this thing. It was in the shape of a human child, but hairless and scaly looking. Its arms and legs were thin and feeble. And its face was flat and snakelike with gleaming red eyes. Moody cradled the creature like any mother does a child then dropped the creature into the cauldron. Harry prayed that it would drown and that he’d never have to see those eyes again.
Moody then raised his wand, closed his eyes, and began to enchant. “Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son!” Harry held tight by the ropes, struggled as much as he could as Moody drew a thin, long, shining silver dagger from his cloak. “Flesh of the servant willing given, you will revive your master,” he said confidently, as the sharp knife fell down on his hand and he cut it off.
Moody’s hand fell into the cauldron. Harry’s screams filling the graveyard. Then he was in front of him. “Blood of the enemy forcibly taken, you will resurrect your foe.”
Harry could do nothing to prevent it, he was tied too tightly. Squinting down, struggling hopelessly against the ropes wrapped around him, the tip of the silver dagger stabbed into the crook of his right arm and blood seeped from the meeting of dagger and skin. Moody dripped a bit of Harry’s blood into the cauldron, and the water sparked brighter. For a brief moment, Harry convinced himself the thing was dead, but then as he watched with an icy surge of terror, the outline of a man emerged from inside the cauldron. Moody, ignoring his bleeding stump, offered his master a robe. But the thin man didn’t even acknowledge him. He stared at Harry and Harry stared back into the face of his nightmares.
Whiter than a skull with wide, livid, scarlet eyes and a nose that was flat as a snakes, with slits for nostrils, Voldemort had risen again.
Voldemort looked away from Harry and began examining his new body. Harry could barely stand to watch as Voldemort eyed his new body exultantly. Moody, who must be getting weaker by the minute offered up his undamaged arm. The Dark Mark waited patiently for Voldemort’s wand. Voldemort eyed it greedily.
His eyes full of longing as Moody slowly bled to death.
“It’s 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 Moody’s arm.
The scar on Harry’s forehead seared with a sharp pain again. A look of cruel satisfaction on his face, Voldemort surveyed the graveyard.
“How many will be brave enough to return when they feel it?” he whispered. “And how many will be foolish enough to stay away?”
He turned towards Harry. “You stand, Harry Potter, upon the remains of my late father, a muggle and a fool, very like your dear mother. Some things and people are only useful in death.” Voldemort gestured to his side.
“You see that house upon the hillside, Potter? My father lived there. My mother, a witch who lived in the 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…., but I’m growing sentimental. Blood doesn’t always make family….But look, Harry! My true family returns.”
The air was suddenly full of swishing cloaks. Every wizard hooded and masked. 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 Eater behind him did the same; each of them approaching Voldemort on their knees and kissing his robes, before backing away, and standing up, forming a silent circle, which encircled Harry and his headstone. Harry tried to catch Warrington’s attention but the boy wasn’t looking anywhere near him.
Distinct gasps were left in the circle as they seemed to wait for more people.
“Welcome, Death Eaters,” said Voldemort quietly. “Thirteen years, thirteen years since last we met. Yet you answer me as though it were yesterday. United under the Dark Mark 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 of guilt upon the air. I see you all, whole and healthy with your powers intact though such prompt appearances. I was gone and you slipped back among my enemies, pleaded innocence, ignorance, bewitchment.”
The Death Eater’s shuddered.
“And then I ask myself, but how could they have believed that I would not rise again. They, who knew the steps I took long ago to guard myself against mortal death? They, who had seen proof of the immensity of my power in the times when I was more powerful than any wizard living? And I answer myself, perhaps they believed a still greater power could exist. Did they shift their power to a new allegiance, perhaps that champion of commoners, of Mudbloods, and Muggles Albus Dumbledore?”
The members of the circle shook their heads, no, vehemently. One of the men broke and flung himself toward Voldemort, collapsing at his master’s feet.
“Master!” he shrieked. “Master, forgive me. Forgive us all.”
Voldemort began to laugh. He raised his wand.
The Death Eater writhed and shrieked wildly. Voldemort removed the curse.
“Get up, Avery,” said Voldemort softly. “Stand up. You ask for forgiveness. I do not forgive. I do not forget. Thirteen long years and so I want thirteen years repayment before I forgive you. And you, Lucius!”
The hood was removed from his face, revealing Draco’s father.
“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. I heard of your exploits at the Quidditch World Cup, but might not your energies have been better directed toward finding and aiding your master?”
“My Lord, I was constantly on alert. 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. Yes, I know about that. You have disappointed me. I expect more from faithful servants in the future.”
“Course, my Lord, of course you are merciful, thank you….”
Wizard after wizard was unmasked. MacNair, Buckbeak’s would be executioner. His dormmate’s and classmate’s fathers. Did they know as little about their sons as they knew about them? Did Vincent’s father know that he had a long standing crush on Tracey Davis and that he was such a good dancer that even Pansy had stolen him for a dance at the Yule Ball? Did Greg’s dad know that he slept with his curtains open and he wrote a letter to his mother every Sunday and that he was as big of a Cannon’s fan as Ron was? Did Nott’s dad have any clue how much his son had admired his old Defense professor who happened to be a werewolf? And did Malfoy’s father know just how much he had helped his Lord’s enemy this year? That his son had cheered for him in the stands? That he had snuck out with him and that they had shared the prefect’s bathroom to solve the riddle for the second task? That he helped him solve and train for the tasks, or how strongly he smells like mint after a shower?
But then again, maybe they did know. Maybe Greg, Vincent, Malfoy, and Theo, maybe even Blaise and Millicent knew that their parents were just waiting for their master to come back and murder Harry in this graveyard? Did they have the faith that their parent’s hadn’t? Would they be eager to have one less bed taking up their space in the dorm?
“He is at Hogwarts,” Harry heard Voldemort say. “And my faithful servant has led Harry Potter to us to celebrate my rebirth.”
All of the Death Eaters seemed to want to ask him something. Lucius Malfoy spoke up.
“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. This boy who was supposedly my downfall. He was protected by his mother’s sacrifice…an old kind of magic I had not foreseen. I could not touch the boy. I was foolish to overlook such ancient magic, but no matter,” Voldemort said approaching Harry. “Because I can touch him now.”
Harry felt the cold tip of one white finger touch him, and thought his head would burst with the pain. 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. Ahhh….. pain beyond pain as I was ripped from my body. I was less than spirit, less than the meanest ghost…but still, I was alive. You knew my goal….to conquer death, and when I was tested, it happened that one or more of my experiments worked…for I had not been killed, though the curse should have done it. I settled in a far place, a forest. I was powerless as the weakest creature, my body without a wand. I settled 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….”
A shiver ran once more around the circle of Death Eaters. Voldemort let them stew in the horrible silence.
“I had one power remaining that I could possess the bodies of others. Four years ago, a wizard, young, foolish, gullible…wandered across my path in the forest I had made my home. A teacher at Dumbledore’s school. His will was easy to bend to mine, but alas, I was thwarted…thwarted once again by Harry Potter. The servant died when I left his body…. I was weak as I had ever been, but with what little strength remained in me I called out to a faithful servant, and while he wasn’t then convinced that he felt what he did. He started looking, enquiring, listening. Then when he was free, he found me via the body of another, and sent for me. Things were quite in our favor when we learned of the tournament. It was easy for my servant to enchant one of the other competitors. Come here boy.”
Warrington walked stiffly towards Voldemort, and it was then that Harry noticed the blank look in the boy’s eyes. He was under the imperious curse.
Voldemort circled Warrington like a snake preparing to strike.
“What help you have been, dear child. Trust me when I say that you will be rewarded.”
Voldemort turned to Harry, arm around Warrington in a possessive manner.
“Who was it that directed Harry, here, toward the prefect’s bathroom?”
“Me, master,” the boy answered robotically.
“Who was it that urged the small house elf to deliver gillyweed to the boy?”
“Me, maser,” the boy answered again.
That was it. Warrington, under the spell of the imperious curse had been directing Harry all year long. He had been the one keeping him on track for the tasks, and who had helped him succeed. It was that reason that Warrington had stalled slightly in the pursuit of the cup. Because he was directed to by someone else.
“See, Potter? Everyone wants to be ruled. My Slytherins especially. What that mangy old hat was trying to accomplish when he placed you in the vipers den, I’ll never know.” Voldemort laughed cruelly, stroking Warrington’s hair.
The boy seemed to pull away slightly, but Voldemort held his head tighter.
“Too bad my servant wanted to have too much fun, playing with you and your little boyfriend, that one will be the first to go,” Voldemort cooed, the rest of his followers shaking in agreement.
“A gift to loyal followers, two birds with one stone,” Voldemort said. “The death of the boy, and a future for you.” Warrington’s hand tightened slightly.
Harry doubted that any of the others saw it, but he did.
“Ely,” Harry said, breaking Voldemort’s rant. “Remember him, Cassius, Ely. He’s your boyfriend. You love him and he loves you. You’re going to get out of here, and make your own life remem….”
“Silence!” Voldemort cried, lashing out at Harry with his wand.
Harry’s head hit the back of the tombstone.
“Do you think he can break free of my curse? Do you think that he is strong enough for that? Love may have beaten me once Potter, but it will not do so again.”
Voldemort then turned back to his followers seeming to forget Warrington entirely.
“An old piece of Dark Magic has revived me tonight, three ingredients. Flesh of a servant and my father’s bone were easily at hand. But the blood of a foe? Any wizard who hated me would have been enough, but I wanted to rise to former glory more powerful than when I had fallen. I wanted the blood of the one who had stripped me of power thirteen years ago…Harry Potter……for then the lingering protection his mother gave him would then reside in my veins too. My faithful Death Eater entered the boy’s name into the Goblet of Fire, ensured he won the tournament, and touched the Cup first. The Portkey activated and brought him beyond the reach of Dumbledore’s help and protection, and into my waiting arms, and here is the boy you all believed had been my downfall…”
Voldemort moved slowly forward and turned to face Harry. He raised his wand.
It was pain beyond anything Harry had ever experienced; his very bones were on fire; his head was surely splitting along his scar; his eyes were rolling madly in his head; he wanted it to end…to black out….to die…
He hang limply on the tombstone of Voldemort’s father. The night rang with the sound of the Death Eater’s laughter.
“Now, so as there is no doubt as to who is stronger, let’s put on a little show. A duel so I can kill him once and for all, and show that I am still the most powerful wizard living. Give him back his wand.”
Warrington who had received instruction from Voldemort eyed Harry who was still shaking from the after effects of the torture curse. On shaky legs himself, Warrington reached out and handed Harry his wand.
“Please,” Harry whimpered. “Please, Warrington….ple….”
And the once slight tremor in the boy’s hand became more pronounced as his hand stopped a few inches from Harry’s form.
“mem….ber…” Warrington mumbled. “E…ly…Not…Ely…”
“What are you saying boy?” mocked Voldemort. “Begging for the little spunk? Don’t worry,” laughed Voldemort. “You’ll get to see him again. Maybe you’ll even be the one to slit the little half blood’s throat.”
Something shifted in Warrington’s eyes, and Harry could see that he had been freed.
Harry’s wand was dropped by side as Cassius turned and shot a curse straight at Voldemort’s head.
The wad of material gagging Harry was removed, and then he was cut from the headstone all thanks to Warrington’s wand. Warrington should have left him lie. It was what any weak willed Slytherin would do, at least in Voldemort’s view. But his house was anything but weak, and instead of helping Harry and running, Warrington was shot in the back with a jolt of green light by Mad Eye Moody.
Warrington’s body hit the ground beside him, the pain in his scar reached such a pit that he retched. Cassius Warrington was spread eagle on the ground. The Slytherin was dead. Harry stared into the face of his competitor, his school mate, Ely’s boyfriend, someone’s child, someone’s friend, and heard the scream of someone in Voldemort’s circle.
The cloaked figure rounded on Moody, but he wasn’t Moody any longer, he was starting to transform into someone else. Holding his wand with one hand to fight off the rouge death eater, and drinking from his flask with the other, the not Moody laughed manically.
Harry considered running in the confusion, but his injured leg stopped that consideration.
Voldemort quickly stepped between the two men, casting a barrier between them.
He eyed the cloaked figure who was fighting against the restraint of some of the others. In sight of Voldemort holding his wand, ready for battle, the men in the circle fell to their knees. He turned to Not Moody.
“You! You will go back to the castle, and finish what you started.” Moody disapparated on the spot. “And you,” he said turning to the man who was shaking violently.
“Your son died in my service. He will not be forgotten. And neither will the disturbance of an over eager follower. Do you understand?”
The man on the ground uttered a shallow, “Yes, my lord.” Before he was allowed to kiss his leaders robes, and the circle were allowed to rise. “Perhaps as payment you would like to play with our newest toy before we get started.”
“I just want that boy. The other one. I want him dead for what he has done to my son.”
Voldemort approached the man, moving his hand under his chin.
“And you shall,” Voldemort promised quietly. “We shall all get the revenge that we have been waiting for, and that starts now.”
“You have been taught hot to duel, Harry Potter?” said Voldemort softly. Harry remembered, “Expelliarmus” the disarming spell that could disarm Voldemort of his wand, but he’d still be out numbered thirty to one against the Death Eaters. He had never learned anything to prepare him for this. And he doubted anyone at Hogwarts would fare much better.
His mother was not here to die for him this time…he was quite unprotected.
“We bow to each other, Harry,” said Voldemort. “The niceties must be observed…. Dumbledore would like you to show manners….Bow to death, Harry…..”
Voldemort must have seen the defiance playing out on his bloody face as the Death Eaters laughed cruelly at him. It felt as if a huge invisible hand started to bend him ruthlessly forward.
Voldemort was going to play with him before eating him.
“Very good,” said Voldemort softly, and as he raised his wand the pressure bearing down upon Harry lifted. “And now, face me, like a man! Straight back and proud, the way your father died….. And now, we duel.”
Before Harry could do anything he was hit with the cruciatus curse once again. White hot knives piercing every inch of his skin, he screamed louder than he ever had in his whole life…
He staggered sideways into the wall of watching Death Eaters. They pushed him away, back toward Voldemort. Voldemort taunted him. Harry didn’t answer. He was going to die like Cassius. He was going to die and there was nothing he could do about it, but he wasn’t going to play along. He wasn’t going to dance for Voldemort, he would not beg.
“I asked you whether you want me to do that again?” said Voldemort softly, speaking of the last cruciatus. “Answer me! Imperio!”
And Harry felt, for the third time in his life, the blissful clean slate of an imperioused mind.
“Just answer……Just do it. Just answer no….”
The words burst from Harry’s mouth and echoed through the graveyard.
“You won’t?” said Voldemort quietly, and the Death Eaters were not laughing now, they were regarding him in a new way.
“You won’t say no? Harry, obedience is a virtue and one I need to teach you before you die…. Perhaps another little dose of pain?” Voldemort raised his wand, but this time Harry was ready, he flung himself sideways onto the ground; he rolled behind the marble headstone of Voldemort’s father. He heard it crack as the curse missed him.
“Does this mean you are tired of our duel Harry?” Voldemort taunted. “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….”
Harry crouched behind the headstone and knew the end had come. There was no hope….no help to be had. And as he heard Voldemort draw nearer still, he knew beyond fear or reason, that he was not going to die crouching here in a faux game of hide and seek with Voldemort. He was not going to die kneeling at Voldemort’s feet…he was going to die upright like his father, and he was going to die trying to defend himself like his mother had fought so valiantly to defend him.
Before Voldemort could sneak his head around the tombstone, Harry stood up…he gripped his wand tightly in his hand, faced Voldemort and cried, “Expelliarmus!” the same time Voldemort cried, “Avada Kedavra!”
A jet of green light issued from Voldemort’s wand just as a jet of red light blasted from Harrys….they met in mid-air…and suddenly Harry’s wand was vibrating. He clutched at it with two hands, where in the middle neither the red or green lights were wining, but a golden light was being born between the two wands.
The now golden thread connecting Harry’s and Voldemort’s wands splintered, a thousand more beams arched until they were enclosed in a golden, dome shaped web. The Death Eater’s scrambled to help their master.
“Do nothing!” Voldemort shrieked at them. Harry saw his red eyes wide with astonishment at what was happening.
“Do nothing unless I command you!” he shouted.
Harry wanted to break, but he held on. At once it seemed Voldemort’s wand began to emit echoing screams of pain, then, something large began to blossom from Voldemort’s wand tip, a great, grayish something….it was dense smoke then it was a head then a chest and arms, a torso…the form of Cassius Warrington. Harry would have released the hold on his wand had it been any other circumstance. The thread of golden light connecting the two of them stayed connected, unbroken between his and Voldemort’s wands even as the thick ghost emerged in its entirety from the end of Voldemort’s wand.
“Don’t you dare let go, Potter!” it said. Its voice distant and echoing. Harry looked at Voldemort, his wide eyes said that he had no more expected this than Harry had.
The Death Eaters prowled outside of the dome, waiting to get into it to help their master when another ghost burst out of Voldemort’s wand.
“He was a real wizard then?” the old man said, his eyes on Voldemort. Harry remembered him from his dreams….”Killed me, that one did…You fight him boy.” He heard the man say, but already another head was emerging and this head grey as a smoky statue was a woman’s. She fell out onto the ground then straightened like the others.
The shadow of Bertha Jorkins surveyed the battle as if she spoke from far away.
“Don’t let him get you, Harry! Don’t let go!” Voldemort’s latest victims circled the web surrounding them and the Death Eaters. The smoky shadow of a young woman with long hair fell to the ground and straightened as Bertha Jorkins had done. Harry’s arms shook madly as he looked into the face of his mother.
“Your father’s coming,” she said quietly. “Hold on for your father…. It will be all right Harry…hold on.”
And he did…first his head then his body. Tall and untidy hair like Harry, the smoky, shadowy form of James Potter blossomed then fell out the end of Voldemort’s wand. He walked close to Harry. Harry wanted to reach out to him, but knew he couldn’t. His parents could no more embrace him now than they had ever done.
“When the connection is broken, we will linger for only moments, but we will give you time…you must get to the portkey, it will return you to Hogwarts…do you understand, Harry?”
“Yes,” Harry gasped, fighting to keep a hold of his wand that was slipping between his fingers.
“Harry,” whispered Warrington, “take my body back, take it back, show them all. And…and tell Ely, that he’s the exact opposite of what I hate the most. Please, Potter, please,”
“I will,” said Harry. He promised.
“Do it now,” whispered his father’s voice. “be ready to run….do it now…”
“Now!” Harry yelled; he pulled the wand upward with an almighty wrench, and the golden thread broke; the cage of light vanished, but the shadowy figures of Voldemort’s victims did not disappear, they were closing in upon Voldemort shielding Harry from his gaze. And Harry ran as he had never run in his life, knocking two Death Eaters aside as he passed. They offered no resistance. Spells and curses zipped past his head. He heard Voldemort scream, “Stun him!”
Then he heard a quiet voice over the chaos.
“Stand aside! I will kill him! He is mine!” shrieked Voldemort. Voldemort raised his wand, sick smile flashing for only Harry to see.
“Accio!” Harry yelled, pointing his wand at the Triwizard Cup. He felt the jerk behind his navel as soon as the cup touched his hand. Voldemort’s scream of fury followed Harry out of the graveyard. They were going back.
