Chapter 1. At the graveyard
"Robe me."
Wormtail, a pathetic shivering mess without a hand, immediately robed newly resurrected Dark Lord in the simple black robes.
Voldemort began examining his new body. Whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was flat as snakes with slits for nostrils. His unnaturally long fingers slipped into deep pockets and drew out a wand, which he caressed gently.
"My Lord..." Wormtail choked, "my Lord... you promised... you did promise..."
Voldemort silently rose his wand at Wormtail and without a glance at his direction cast some spell that stopped rat's bleeding. Harry wasn't sure that it was what Wormtail was asking for, but at least it was something.
'So, is he insane or not?' Harry eyed him carefully from his tied up position at the tombstone, not sure what to expect from possibly unstable the most feared Dark Lord of all time. After all, it was the first time he met him after that fateful Halloween night (unlike his brother John, who met Voldemort at the end of the first year, even if it was just a weird wretch at the back of Professor Quirrell head).
Voldemort finally turned to the twins, both tied up and unable to move. John's hand was bleeding, because his blood was used in the ritual and Harry, well, he was just dragged here for the company, because why the hell not to grab the cup at the same time, so the brothers would win the Triwizard Tournament together. And now he was about to die because of that. His only hope was that John's unnatural lack would expend for both of them and they would somehow escape from wherever this is.
"The Potter Twins... The Boy Who Lived and his brother, both of them... What an excellent present for my resurrection." Voldemort came closer to them, with ill anticipation in his vividly scarlet eyes.
Suddenly he froze. His eyes moved from John to Harry, to John again and then to John's bleeding hand. There was a silent pause, while Voldemort's face betrayed nothing.
And then he threw back his head and laughed. It was high, insane laugh, and surprisingly genuine.
Twins looked at each other in slight bewilderment. 'So I guess he's insane after all. What a pity.' Harry mused. 'Well, at least it increased our chances to escape from here.'
Voldemort finally stopped laughing and turned back to them.
"Oh, this is priceless!" he chuckled again, looking between them with honest amusement in his eyes.
Harry had no idea what was so funny about their situation, but he wasn't insane Dark Lord to be able to understand this.
Voldemort, still insanely chuckling, turned to John and pointed his wand to his chest.
Brothers visibly tensed. 'This is it, now he just kill him and that's all, we're done...' Harry panicked, frantically trying to come up with something, anything to help them, to stop the insane Dark Lord... But there was no time.
"The Boy Who Lived..." Voldemort drawled and again small laugh escaped his lipless mouth.
"You monster!.." John sneered at him but didn't manage to say anything else as red light hit him in the chest and he hanged there stunned.
'What?' Harry looked at his brother in shock. 'Stupefy? He just stunned him? Why?! What for?'
Meanwhile, red eyes of a madman moved to him.
"...and his brother." Finished Voldemort, with strange amusement in his voice.
Harry just glared at him. Somewhere Wormtail released strangled confused whimper. Apparently, he wasn't the only one who doesn't understand what was going on here.
"Harry Potter... The older brother of the Boy Who Lived," again some amused chuckles. "Forgotten, hidden behind the fame of his brother. But still, rightful Hogwarts champion, fairly chosen by the Goblet of Fire from all the students, including his own brother. Fourteen years old, beating older champions from other schools, and finishing at the cup despite all the cheats my spy made for your brother to ensure his winning. What a huge potential you must have."
Voldemort was now eyeing him somewhat curiously, his wand moved aside hair strands from Harry's forehead, exposing lightning scar. The Dark Lord looked at it briefly and then returned to studying his face.
Voldemort still has to probe Legilimency at him, even if he was staring right at his eyes, which was surprising. But anyway Harry tried to enforce his Occlumency shields even more than he already did. Voldemort seemed to be less insane than before, but Harry wasn't sure what to think about it yet.
'Why does he flatter me? Is he trying to... recruit me?' Harry eyed the Dark Lord suspiciously, who opened his lipless mouth again.
"Join me."
'Well, fuck. He is.' Harry stared at him with wide-eyes. 'And it's not like I really have a choice. He just kills me if I refuse.'
He glanced at his brother, who still hanged there lifeless and didn't hear anything. Wormtail looked confused but didn't dare to interfere. Harry turned back to Voldemort who just looked at him in expectation.
He would be able to return from here alive. Maybe even manage to get his brother with him.
There wasn't any choice, really. It even didn't matter why Voldemort wanted him on his side.
"What should I do?" Harry finally said, voice hoarse.
Voldemort smiled.
"Smart boy. Ravenclaw, isn't it?" Harry just frowned slightly at this, because no, it was just common sense, not his Ravenclaw nature. But it was a common sense again that he chose not to comment on this bait.
"Well," Voldemort's smile grew wider, flashing his teeth. "You will only be useful as a spy for now, which means I can't mark you. We don't want anyone to know about your true allegiance, now do we?" He took step back, tilting his head slightly, pondering something. He then turned to John and Harry froze, not daring to speak anything.
"And you can't return alone or with just a corpse of your brother, as it would bring unnecessary suspicions. How inconvenient." Voldemort stated flatly. Despite his words, he didn't look that much disappointed that he just decided to let the Boy Who Lived live again.
Harry couldn't keep his sign of relief. Voldemort glanced back at him and smirked.
"On the other hand," he began and Harry froze again. "I can't just wake him up and apparate you back to Hogwarts. Albeit it would be most entertaining." And he left a short insane laugh.
"The cup," Harry suggested after short consideration. "Pseudo-Moody couldn't rewrite original portkey, just cast another over it. So if we touch the cup, it should return us back to Hogwarts. We just need a convenient opportunity to grab it."
Voldemort looked at him and raised a hairless brow in silent question. Harry decipher it in a couple of seconds.
"It's obvious who your spy is. He always tried to subtly help John with tasks, he held a strange fondness for Dark Arts and there are ingredients for Polyjouce stolen from Potions lab."
He figured it all after the second task, really. And also that the point of all this is to prepare his brother as a ritual ingredient of some sort. He knew that some dark rituals required sacrifices that went through special preparations. Which usually were just torturing, but sometimes the requirements were more complex (in this particular situation, Harry was musing, it was to emphasize "enemy" qualities in John and to make a fighter from him). So it was clear that the actual tournament was just used as preparation and that's why Pseudo-Moody helped John instead of messing up with him and let him die. And also that this ritual was likely to help the Dark Lord to gain his body back, in one way or another, because it was obviously the most pressing matter for him. And that the culmination should happen at the last task because it's the end of the tournament and so also the end of preparation. He just thought that it would be something during the task itself and didn't expect kidnapping thought the winning cup!
That was his Ravenclaw nature. Not just the common sense he demonstrated earlier.
"Smart boy," Voldemort smirked at him. "That settled then. I arrange a mock duel between us and you grab the cup to take you both back. I'll contact you about your allegiance later."
He then turned around and without further ado fired Obliviate at Wormtail.
"Forget everything between stunning John Potter and waking him up," Voldemort commanded in cold voice and turned back at said Potter. "Now, I can't innervate him and then just obliviate. Someone would surely check him for memory gaps. So, let's wake him up in a way that he won't remember being stunned at all."
Before Harry realized how exactly Voldemort was going to achieve it, the Dark Lord already raised his wand and with sick smile calmly said, "Crucio."
John twitched and screamed in unbearable pain, while Voldemort just laughed. And it wasn't this insane strangely genuine laugh anymore, no, it was evil and cold and not in a slightest funny.
"No, stop! Stop this!" Harry couldn't hold himself, yanking against ropes toward his brother in a helpless atempt to stop his torture.
Voldemort just ignored him and continue laughting madly and holding the spell. After what seemed to be an eternity but in fact was no more than a minute, he stoped.
"You are pathetic," Voldemort hissed in John's face, while he was panting trying to regain himself, tears dropping down his face. "And this is the Saviour of the Wizarding World? You are a weak exuse for a wizard, not able to defend himself, captured like a little child. You are worse than your brother, who was at least rightfuly chosen for this stupid childish tournament. Look at youself, where is your Gryffindor corage now, when are you crying like a baby in a face of your enemy?"
Harry looked at them in horror, but couldn't stop himself from thinking that it was, in fact, perfect set up. John was stunned with silentStupefy when Voldemort was close enought for him not to see the color of the spell, and then he woke up under Crucio with Voldemort in almost the same position. Of course under effects of Torturing Curse he won't notice that there was a period of darkness, that Voldemort's position was not quite the same. His subconscious would just assume that he was hit with Crucio in the first place and modify memory and his own perception to match this assumprion. Not even pensive memory would reveal what actually happened.
"You thought you defited me thirteen years ago? That you may do it again?" Meanwhile, Voldemort continue his mocking, absolutely ignoring the second, unimportant brother. "But that wasn't you. That was your mother who gave up her pathetic life to protect her pathetic children. I must confess, she was quite smart for a mudblood she was." Voldemort sneered as both brothers twitched at the insult. "Powerful bit of blood magic that protected you from any harm from me. Sirious Dark Arts it is, who knew that after all she was a dark witch?" He chuckled cruely. "And Dumbledore, the fool, must have told you it was love! Hasn't he? You even more fool to believe that your mother, a mudblood, was so spectial, that her love did something that never did any other mother who died for her children. No, it was Dark Arts, not some stupid love."
Voldemort laughted and insane glint appeared in his scarlet eyes.
"But that doesn't matter anymore," he hissed right in John's face. "For I used your blood in my resurraction and now the protection is gone. I can hurt you, as you surely noticed, and I can touch you without being burned." At the last words, he mockingly patted John on his cheek and it felt so wrong, to see the monster making fun of caring.
Harry begun to think that he was mocked too and that he was just going to die now, when Voldemort finally took step back and said.
"Now we should see, do you worth anything at all without your mothers blood wards." With a wave of his hand, twins were free of constraining cords and falled down the tombstone. Harry quickly glanced at the name on it, as he hadn't had the opportunity to do it before. 'Tom Riddle' it said. 'Voldemort was named after his father, his muggle father? How interesting. I bet he's ashamed. No wonder he made up a new name for himself.'
"Wormtail, give them back their wands."
While Wormtail cowerdly approached them, Voldemort moved away, making room for the duel.
With his holly wand back, Harry quickly glanced back at the cup. It would be so easy now, just grab John, summon the cup and they gone... But John was already stroding towards Voldemort, his mahogany wand pointed right at him, righteous anger on his face.
"Have you even been taught how to duel, John Potter?" said Voldemort softly, red eyes glinting through the darkness. He was clearly amused and didn't try to hide it.
"What do you think you're doing?" hissed Harry, approaching his brother as quickly as he could with a wounded leg and grabing brother's hand. John irritably shake it off. Harry tried again but John just angrily and quite harshly released himself.
"He insulted our mother and ourselves! He's alone, not counting Wormtail who's worthless, and surely weakened after the ritual. We should try, it's our chance!" John wishpered, quickly strading away, increasing the distance between them.
"Bloody Gryffindor," cursed Harry under his breath, hurring after him.
Voldemort just laught at them.
"First we bow to each other, John," he said with the same soft voice, bending a little. John harshly bowed. "Good. And now you face me, straight-backed and proud..." John just continued to stand where he was, glaring at Voldemort. "Excellent, you're very good at this, John. And now we duel."
Harry only just catched up with John, when the first spell left Voldemort's wand. 'Well, it would be suspicious if I leave here unscratched,' and with this thought Harry stand in the way of a curse, defending his brother.
Of course it was Cruciatus again.
The pain was so intense, so all-consuming, that he no longer knew where he was. White-hot knives were piercing every inch of his skin, his head was surely going to burst with pain, he was screaming more loudly than he'd ever screamed in his life -
And then it stopped. Harry rolled over and scrambled to his feet. He was shaking uncontrollably and just wagually noticed that there were spells flying around. John was naivelly trying to disarm the most feared Dark Lord of all time, while the said Dark Lord was laughing manically and lazily firing some cutting curses, not really aiming them and just enjoing himself.
Harry finally remebered what he should have done a long time ago, grabbed John's leg, aimed the wand and with quiet "Accio" they were gone.