Voldemort was ready. As Harry shouted, "Expelliarmus!" Volde-

mort cried, "Avada Kedavra!"

A jet of green light issued from Voldemort's wand just as a jet of red light blasted from Harry's — they met in midair — and suddenly Harry's wand was vibrating as though an electric charge were surging through it; his hand seized up around it; he couldn't have Released it if he'd wanted to — and a narrow beam of light connected the two wands, neither red nor green, but bright, deep gold.

Harry, following the beam with his astonished gaze, saw that

Voldemort's long white fingers too were gripping a wand that was shaking and vibrating.

And then — nothing could have prepared Harry for this — he

felt his feet lift from the ground. He and Voldemort were both

being raised into the air, their wands still connected by that thread of shimmering golden light.

At once, Voldemort's wand began to emit echoing screams of

pain . . . then — Voldemort's red eyes widened with shock — a

dense, smoky hand flew out of the tip of it and vanished . . . the ghost of the hand he had made Wormtail . . . more shouts of pain . . . and then something much larger began to blossom from Voldemort's wand tip, a great, grayish something, that looked as though it were made of the solidest, densest smoke. . . . It was a head . . . now a chest and arms . . . the torso of Cedric Diggory.

Then came the old man from Harry's dreams. Then Bertha jorkins. Everybody who died off voldemort's wand.

And now another head was emerging from the tip of Voldemort's wand . . . and Harry knew when he saw it who it would be . . . he knew, as though he had expected it from the moment when Cedric had appeared from the wand . . . knew, because the woman was the one he'd thought of more than any other Tonight. . . .

The smoky shadow of a young woman with long hair fell to the

ground as Bertha had done, straightened up, and looked at him . . . and Harry, his arms shaking madly now, looked back into the ghostly face of his mother.

"Hold on harry. Your father's coming next. It will be alright." she said quietly.

And he came . . . first his head, then his body . . . tall and

untidy-hair like Harry, the smoky, shadowy form of James Potter blossomed from the end of Voldemort's wand, fell to the ground.

"When the connection is broken we will give you a moment. You need to take the portkey and it will take you back to Hogwarts. Ready harry?" James said.

"Yes" harry gasped slightly unsure.

"You'll find us where we left, harry." Lily said smiling which gave harry hope.

"Harry . . ." whispered the figure of Cedric, "take my body back,will you? Take my body back to my parents. . . ."

"I will," said Harry, his face screwed up with the effort of hold-

ing the wand.

"Do it now," whispered his father's voice, "be ready to run . . .

do it now. . . ."

"NOW!" Harry yelled; he didn't think he could have held on for

another moment anyway — he pulled his wand upward with an almighty wrench, and the golden thread broke;

He heard Voldemort's scream of fury at the same moment that

he felt the jerk behind his navel that meant the Portkey had

worked — it was speeding him away in a whirl of wind and color, and Cedric along with him. . . . They were going back.