'He's back, he's back!' Harry thought panickily as he watched Voldemort rise from the caldron where his newly made body had been formed. His eyes stayed trained on the man as Wormtail robed him, sweat running down his face and back making him feel clammy and wet. Limbs were stuck in terror as the bane of his existence returned to the world fully after being nothing but a shade for over a decade and began to hold court with his death eaters there in the grave yard. He had to get out of there.
"Welcome my friends, how long has it been since I last stood before you?" Voldemort hissed at his followers. "How long has it been since you all turned tail and forgot about your Master?" His tone raising as he paced down the row in front of his death eaters, wand held high as he used it to snatch off all their mask. "Malfoy, MacNair, Dolohov, Nott, Goyle, Crabb, Avery…" On and on he went until he reached the last person in his inner circle. "You all were living comfortable lives while I suffered an existence worse than death, life as a parasite" His gaze roamed over the cowering forms of his men. "You left those that choose not to abandon our cause to rot away in Azkaban, what do you have to say for yourselves." Voldemort shouted.
"M-My Lord, I beg your forgiveness, we all thought you were dead, never to return." Avery sniveled and stepped forward, only to be dropped down to his knees with the flick of his master's wand. His robes pooled around him as he sobbed for his master's forgiveness.
"Yes, I could see why one would think that I had been gone for good, yet there was one that held faith." His gaze shot to the cowering form of Wormtail. "The must pathetic of you all was the only one that searched high and low for me until he found me. Come forward Wormtail, let me reward you for your loyalty." The short stubby man stumbled forwards, through the mossy ground until he stood before the towering frame of Voldemort. "Hold out you hand…" When the simpering man did as he was told Voldemort whispered an incantation that Harry had never heard and before his eyes Wormtail's missing hand grew back into one that gleamed in the moon light.
"Oh, thank you Master!" Wormtail dropped to his knees and began kissing the edge of his master's robes in glee.
"This, my friends, is how I reward loyalty. To think that my most faithful would believe that I, Lord Voldemort could perish at the hands of a mere babe is very disappointing." His eyes shot in Harry's direction, narrowing at the grounded boy. "Harry Potter, the boy who just won't die, the boy that every wizard and witch believe to be their savior." With each word that he spoke he came closer and closer to Harry until he was standing over him.
The face that Harry saw wasn't one that he expected, in truth he'd thought that Voldemort would look something like the creature he saw in his visions, twisted and deformed. No, the person before him looked like and older version of Riddle from the diary, the version that nearly look Ginny's life. Never one to back down from a fight, no matter how scared he was Harry met the man's gaze head on. "You won't win Tom, you keep losing because that's what you are, a loser." He grunted out, the pain that radiated through his body from the events of the maze and then coming here was nearly unbearable, if it wasn't for the adrenaline pumping through his veins he didn't think he would have been able to say just those few words.
Voldemort let out a deep and menacing cackle, his hazel eyes with red tint and specks danced in amusement. "That Gryffindor bravery gets me every time, even in the face of death you lions have to roar. It's a shame you were born to die Harry Potter, you would have made a great follower." Voldemort eyes changed with a simple blink, gone was the amusement to be replaced with pure malice. Long thin fingers reached out and yanked Harry up by the collar of his shirt. His first mind was to touch the man, much like he did Quirrell in hopes to burn him to death, but nothing happened when their skin touched. Well nothing in Harry's favor, for when he touched Voldemort he could see himself through the man's eyes, it was like the visions he'd had many times at night when he could see into the man's mind. He knew the moment that Voldemort was aware of their connection because he felt the man rooting around in his mind, looking at his thoughts, watching his memories and then finally looking at his own self through the eyes of Harry Potter. "What are you?" He asked.
Harry struggled in the grasp, desperate to remove himself before the monster decided that he wanted to experiment further, but he couldn't break Voldemort's hold on him. "I'm the one that going to kill you, you bastard." He barked out through gritted teeth as he clawed at the man's hand, but Voldemort was completely unfazed, Harry's words seemed to go in one ear and out the other. "Let go of me!" Harry screamed.
Voldemort once again let out a cackle, this time it seemed to freeze everyone in place. A long finger ran down Harry's lightening bolt scar before pressing into it. "No, Harry Potter, I don't think I'll let you go…" He dropped Harry down and casted a wandless binding spell on him, keeping him from moving. "My followers, there has been a change of plans, Harry Potter is no longer the enemy, in fact he will be one of my most prized possessions." Mummers sounded throughout the crowd of death eaters. "I know, I know, I have spent most of my years attempting the death of this boy and each time I have failed. Now I know why. You see in my youth I was obsessed with cheating death, so I dabbled in some of the foulest dark magic there is, I made a Horcrux."
A series of gasps went around the crowd, they all seemed to know what this Horcrux thing was, all except Harry, he laid there in the wet dirt, doing his best to try and break the binding spell all the while listening to this madman speak. His eyes darted around, searching for something that could help him only to land on Cedric's dead form. His heart ached at the sight of the dead boy, a boy that had come to be his friend in the recent months of bonding over the tasks presented to them. How he wished he'd never told the boy to grab the cup with him…. The cup! That's it, all he had to do was get to the cup then he could touch it and hopefully get back to the school and warn everyone. All he had to do was inch over and touch the portkey in hopes that he would be taken back to the school grounds. He's let the madman talk and his cronies listen to the tale while he slowly but surely shifted his body closer and closer towards the key.
"I must confess that I was weak, I feared death. Not only did I make one Horcrux friends, but I made multiple of them, ensuring that I would always be tethered to this world." Voldemort continued with his speech. "I thought I had only managed to make six, but it seems my friends that there was another. The night I went to kill the Potter boy I created the seventh one. With the killing cursed rebounding off the boy and hitting me it latched itself to the only living thing left in that room…. Harry Potter." Voldemort said gleefully, glancing over at his Horcrux as he tried to make what he probably thought was a stealth like escape.
Harry froze, his limbs tensing up when he heard the words coming out of Voldemort's mouth, he could be possible one of these Horcrux things could he? Like that diary, no that was impossible, Voldemort was just trying to mess with his head as usual. "You're liar, Tom." He shouted.
"Am I Harry? What reason would I have to lie to you, my dear Horcrux?" He asked. "I could easily kill you now where you lay, bound by my magic. Yet I'm whiling my men with this tale? No, Harry Potter you're mine." Voldemort chuckled. "All this time, all these tests the old man has been sending you on, its so clear now, he wanted my own soul to kill me." He sneered.
Harry knew he was referring to Dumbledore and refused to believe that the man he thought of as a mentor would do such a thing, set him up knowing that he could possibly die. "You're just hateful, Dumbledore is stronger than you, he's the only wizard you fear so you'll say anything to discredit his name." Harry shouted. The eyes of the death eaters were bouncing back and forth between the two as if they were watching a quidditch match.
Voldemort looked down at him with narrowed eyes, a smirk on his lips. "Use your brain Harry, I know that you must be smart since you have a piece of me in you. Everything you have been doing is because Dumbledore has set you on that path. The corridor with the hound, the mirror, and the stone were just the start, he used your curious nature against you." Voldemort looked at him thoughtfully." Tell me my Horcrux, did your dear Dumbledore tell you the prophecy, you know the one about you and me?"
Harry's eyes met he capture's in disbelief, there couldn't be a prophecy about them two, could there? The people in his life would have told him about it, right? He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out, he was unable to defend Dumbledore because he wasn't sure now if he should. Did he believe this madman? No, but he couldn't deny that the few points he was making made him question everything he thought he knew. "I'll ask him when I get back to the school, and he'll prove you to be the liar that you are."
"You aren't going back to school, Harry." Voldemort yanked his bound body to its feet. "Why would I let something so precious go?" He asked, Harry was smart enough to know that it was a rhetorical question. "No, you'll be coming with me and I'm going to educate you on a few truths and lies." He tucked Harry under his arm and spun to look at his followers. "My friends, I have Harry Potter in my possession, he shall not be harmed, spread the word that if anyone harms a hair on his head they will die in the most brutal way. Oh, and inform our allies that the war has been won." A shudder with through the group of death eaters as their master spoke, then the crowd with crazy with cheers.
"What should we do with him My Lord?" Wormtail stepped up and asked, his new hand pointing at Cedric's discarded body. Harry felt his eyes pool with tears as he watched the stubby man that used to be friends with his father kick at Cedric's body.
"Tie the portkey to him and send it back to the school, I want the world to know that no one is safe and that I now have Harry Potter" Voldemort replied while looking down at Harry's crying face. "Let's go home, shall we?"
Harry felt the familiar tug of apparition, his eyes were still on Cedric, and all he could think of was if he would see his parents again.