Chapter One: Game Over
Harry Potter was never the sort of person to plan ahead, there was no point. Trouble always found him no matter how much he tried to avoid it and that was never more true than it was right now. But this time, trouble could be found in the form of masked pursuers and their flying curses that he kept dodging as he tried to heed his ghostly father's advice to get back to the Triwizard Cup. Trouble was the panicked look on Cedric Diggory's face as he watched from the tree to which he was bound. Why hadn't anyone ever told him that portkeys could be a two-way ticket? If he had known he would have just taken the Cup back to Hogwarts as soon as he realized he was in a graveyard before Voldemort's decrepit form could give the order for Pettigrew to 'Stun them.'
Cedric's face turned from a look of panic to sheer horror. Harry didn't have even a second to wonder why. The jet of light that Cedric had seen collided with the back of Harry's right knee and a second one hit his wand hand. The sound of the joint popping was like a gunshot to the victims. In the same moment, Harry's wand slipped out from between his injured fingers, taking with it the last of their hope. Harry fell right onto his broken knee in the space of a single heartbeat. He locked eye contact with Cedric whose face mirrored that of his own: eyes wide and mouth open in a silent scream. Harry's plan had been to get to Cedric and summon the Cup. There was no plan B, there was no alternative. There was no hope, and they both knew it.
The pain returned with a vengeance, his near escape had given rise to a new level of hatred from Voldemort and it was evident in his curses. Harry lay on the ground, writhing and screaming, vaguely recognizing Cedric's incessant pleas for mercy. But Voldemort had none. But Cedric didn't know that. Cedric didn't know that Voldemort had been raised in an orphanage without any care and compassion. Cedric didn't know that Voldemort had taken pleasure from torturing kids at a young age. Or that he had set the basilisk on fellow students. Cedric didn't know that the more he begged, the worse the curses got. He had no idea he was adding fuel to the fire that was burning Harry from the inside out. But Harry didn't care. "Shut up!" The shrill scream stopped everyone, including Voldemort.
"Is there something you want to say, Harry?" Voldemort almost smiled down at him, something sickly sweet and disgusting. "All you have to do is say the word, and all of the pain will be gone."
"Tom, go to Hell. Hate to break it to you, but I'm not suicidal. And, Cedric, shut up!" The curses would be starting up any second now. Hopefully Cedric would hurry up and learn to keep his pie hole shut.
"Harry! I'm trying to help you! And who is Tom?"
"You're NOT helping! Just shut up! Maybe he should curse you while I beg for mercy, see how you like it! Just shut up and then…" But Harry stopped, he put his head back down in the dewy grass and stared up at the starless skies. 'And then…' Then what was there? Waiting while Voldemort broke him? Voldemort wasn't going to let him get away. He wasn't going to get a second chance. There would be no happy ending to this madness. One way or another it was all going to end tonight. Harry just took a deep breath and closed his eyes, willing everything to be over, bracing himself for the curses, but they didn't come. He cracked his eyelid open just enough to see something that made his blood freeze, something almost comical.
Voldemort was smiling.
With a wordless gesture, Harry was brought to his feet and floated towards the tree next to Cedric. Handcuffs were placed on each of his wrists, the interlocking chain stretching all the way around the large tree.
"You know something, Potter? You are absolutely right."
"I am?" Harry's cursed and befuddled brain could not have interpreted that correctly. Voldemort would never agree with him. "Wait, right about what?"
"You see, Potter, I never expected two victims here tonight. I was only counting on you. But my most faithful servant has provided me with two boys: a spare, if you will."
"I won't." Why not just say it now? Whatever Voldemort wanted, he wasn't going to do. There would be no discussion, no compromise.
"Won't what, Potter?"
"Whatever you want me to do to Cedric won't get done."
"You seem to be missing the point, Potter. It's not what you'll do that matters. Its what people think you'll do."
"Sorry?"
Harry studied his enemy, watched his every movement, bracing himself for some kind of trick, but nothing happened. He kept staring, not at Harry but at Cedric. Cedric was squirming as those red eyes studied him, like a predator stalking his prey as he twirled his wand between his fingers….Harry's eyes snapped back to the wand and the hand holding it. A flesh colored glove was gripping a very familiar wand…it looked almost like his in fact. Well that shouldn't surprise him. Ollivander had said their wands were twins, surely there was bound to be a resemblance. But then he scanned the flattened grass where he had been on the ground just moments before…but it wasn't there. Voldemort was nodding slowly as understanding dawned on Harry's face.
"No! No! No!" Harry shook his head as though to shake it off. Harry chanced a glace at his fellow champion, who was struggling to shake the chains off, his eyes still on his wand that was lying undisturbed in the grass a few feet away. If Cedric had learned enough wandless magic he could get to his wand and then what? What plan was being concocted in that head of his? Get to his wand and then what? Apparate away and leave Harry? Summon the Cup…which would still leave Harry? But Cedric wasn't going to make it. Even Harry knew that, if he could get to his wand he would have already done so. Cedric's frantic shaking was that of a desperate man with no options.
"No, please don't! I didn't mean it!"
"Avada -!"
"NO!" Harry was screaming now, his voice broken and hoarse. "NO!" The situation quickly spun out of control. He had only been joking, he hadn't been serious. He could see Cedric trembling from head to toe even in the darkness. Voldemort's – no, Harry's – wand, was just inches from his chest. Voldemort was standing just out of reach of Cedric's kicking feet.
"You don't need to hurt him! Let him go! He's the 'spare'! You don't need to kill us both!"
"I don't intend to!" That shallow whisper scared Harry more than the shrillest scream.
"What?"
"It's your wand. Everyone at the school already thinks you attacked your fellow students. They just didn't have the proof. Well now, they'll have their proof and then some. You didn't beg for death when you had the chance, Potter. Now you'll wish you had."
"They won't believe it!" It was Cedric talking now, his eyes fixed on the wand. "Harry's too nice. He's got no reason to. It won't work."
"No reason, is that what you think? My most faithful servant tells me you both have affections for the same girl. You get the girl and Potter gets angry. It's the oldest motive in the book. A murder weapon-" He raised the wand. "A motive: the girl. All the public will know is that the two of you had a dispute not only over the trophy and prize money, but also the girl. Money, fame and a girl: triple motive. And you've been gone for nearly an hour, how's that for an opportunity!"
"No!" Harry's trembling was starting to rival Cedric's. His voice was shaking almost as much as his limbs. "Please. I'm the one you were after. Please don't kill him." The tears were leaking out of his eyes. He blinked them back, determined not to show any weakness, but he was reaching his breaking point. They both knew it.
"You want mercy? You missed your chance, Potter. You will regret this night for the rest of your life. One by one your friends will condemn you to Hell. For the rest of your life you will rot in misery. Left with nothing but your worst memories of dying screams, you will yearn for an escape. How long you will torture yourself in despair will be up to you, but you WILL beg for death. Perhaps then you will get your mercy."
Harry had never felt more was powerless in all his life. He was screaming incessantly for mercy he knew wouldn't come. But they were damned anyway: damned if he begged and damned if he did nothing. He had nothing to loose but his dignity...and what value did that have at a time like this?"No! No, please –"
"Avada Kedavra!"
That bright green light and the rush of speeding death had been something that Harry never thought he'd live to remember.
The curse hit Cedric squarely in the chest. The force of it knocked his head hard against the tree trunk. His eyes rolled upward, as the light seemed to leave them…or perhaps that was a trick of his own tears. Cedric's body slumped towards the ground, as he hung by his wrists. His body was untied and laid in the flattened grass that Harry had occupied just moments before…or perhaps it had been hours. Time seemed to have stood still, it didn't matter anymore.
The Triwizard Cup magically floated across the graveyard and settled next to Cedric's prone form.
He could run, as soon as the chains were removed. But run where? He was totally surrounded. Running would only make him look guilty. One of the men present would claim to have "found" Cedric. If he ran, he would look guilty. All he had to do was show his thankfully intact memories, perhaps even drink some of the Veritaserum Snape had threatened him with. He wouldn't run - that would solidify Voldemort's plan - that would ruin his last hope. His wand was placed in the breast pocked of his Triwizard uniform. As his wrists were uncuffed, all of the men turned their wands on him, tracking his movements as he limped slowly towards the first dead body he could remember seeing. "I'm sorry, Cedric. It's my fault. I'm so sorry."
Harry slowly lay down next to Cedric, careful of his injured limbs and took hold of Cedric's arm. He was still warm. Slowly, rather reluctantly, he grasped the cold, smooth handle of the Triwizard Cup. The one trophy he had fervently come to desire over the last several months had become a death trap, but there was still hope. All was not yet lost.
** To Be Continued
Author's Note: I'm sure some of you are quite mad – I'm currently ducking rotten tomatoes – but I hope you'll agree that this rewrite was in order. There was too much telling and not enough showing in the last draft. I have a chapter almost completely written of Harry being interrogated and two of his Arrival in Azkaban, one featuring Sirius's reaction to all of this. So lots of action coming, that's my promise and I hope you enjoyed your little preview to my new draft. So reviews, I love reviews *insert happy face* Is the new version better? Oh and please note the username change to Analyn 100.
