As Harry ran through the maze he wasn't feeling any of the emotions he thought would be normal in his situation. The maze was a maddening experience to be sure, even when the walls weren't literally collapsing in on you they had a way of making you seem trapped. Vulnerable.
But no, all he felt was confusion. Voldemort had entered his name into this competition, he was sure of it. But nothing had happened. He was grateful for that considering the tasks alone were hard enough without secret plots to contend with. But this waiting had put his teeth on edge.
He ran towards the end of the path he was currently on and decided that now was when he needed to be the most alert. This was the last opportunity his enemies would have to take advantage of the Tournament. If he let anyone get the drop on him here, he would die. It was game time.
He slowed down as he neared the end of the path and saw that he'd found it. The cup was right there, sitting on top of the stone platform it'd been placed on.
'All this trouble for a stupid cup.' thought Harry. I've risked my life and made an enemy out of my peers for something I'm not even going to be allowed to keep after this is all over. 'I hope Filch enjoys dusting the useless thing.'
He looked around cautiously, aware that if ever something was going to happen it would be now. He felt ready… No. He didn't feel ready. He really didn't. But he wanted this to finally stop. He wanted the stares, the suspicions, the games, the danger, he wanted everything to just stop. For people to finally leave him alone. He wanted his life back.
Nothing appeared to be immediately concerning when he entered, so he walked up to the dais and took hold of the cup making sure to keep his eye's on every inch of the clearing as he possibly could. The stomach dropping lurch he felt the moment he did so came as an unwelcome shock.
OoOoO
Harry's body hit the ground of the Graveyard with a solid thump, the Cup in his hand being sent rolling away from him in the confusion. Harry knew the moment he saw the dark graveyard he'd landed in that he wasn't meant to end up here. It had finally begun.
Getting up he half crouched half ran over to duck behind the gravestone nearest to him, looking wildly in all directions. It was then that he saw one Peter Pettigrew lurking through the gravestones a little ways off looking like he was searching for something. He had a few guesses for exactly what that might be.
He still felt a ball of red hot rage in his chest whenever he thought about Peter. It was this man that sold out the friends who would've fought to the death for him. He had taken his parents lives and a decade of his godfather's freedom.
Harry was acting on instinct during the next few minutes, having settled on a plan almost without any conscious thought. He watched Peter from behind the corner of his protective gravestone, wand at the ready by his side, waiting. And the moment Peter turned his back to him Harry felt his stomach jump up into his throat as he jerked up and cast his recently learned stunner at the unsuspecting mans back.
Wary, Harry didn't wait to see if his spell had worked. Immediately running over to the tombstone nearest to him like Moody had taught him. 'Always keep them guessing.' Harry thought.
He dipped his head out from the gravestone slightly, and he felt some small measure of relief at seeing a lump on the ground where Pettigrew once stood. It wasn't over yet, but all his training was starting to show results.
Pulling his head back he allowed his thoughts to race for a few moments while he calmed down his shaking. He had no way of knowing if anybody else was out there looking for him. And if there were he doubted his ambush tactic would work so perfectly again. But the worst thing was the knowledge that he couldn't do anything about any of his fears. He couldn't apparate away, didn't know the Disillusionment charm, and had no way of scanning for other people. 'Not very heroic Potter. We trained for this, how could I let myself be so unprepared?' he thought to himself.
He resolved to take things as they came, and just wait it out to see what happens next. But as the tense young man crouched behind the stone minutes slowly ticked by without anything happening. The anxiety was making him feel sick so he cautiously poked his head around the gravestone again looking for… anything really.
Waiting wasn't getting him anywhere so he climbed to his feet and started moving in the direction he thought Peter had come from. But as he neared the man collapsed on the ground he paused for a moment. Peter would be down for hours unless someone came for him. It's should've been fine to just leave him here until Auror's came, but it didn't sit well with Harry.
Harry crouched down next to where Peter lay and whispered with a smile, "Time for some family justice, marauder style."
OoOoO
Walking forward again he made sure all the while to keep the gravestones between him and whoever he might run into up ahead. It was minutes later that he caught a glimpse of something.
A large snake was coiled on the ground just across from him in the grass, hissing right at him.
The thing was huge, about the size of the snake he'd seen all those years ago at the zoo. Unfortunately his nerves were too tightly bound for him to be rational or to try and speak with it.
A panicked "Diffindo" could be heard in the cemetery, louder perhaps than Harry would've preferred. Taking a moment to calm his nerves a once again trembling Harry berated himself for having killed the snake. He needed to be smart if he was going to survive the night, not going around cutting the heads off of random animals as he found them. He could've just walked around the poor thing.
Turning away from the corpse so he could think of other things he let his thoughts distract him for a moment. There was something very wrong with this situation and it didn't feel right to Harry at all. Voldemort still has loyal followers, men bound to him by dark magic. And yet he'd only encountered a backstabbing sewer rat and one unfortunate snake. He didn't understand why this place wasn't crawling with death eaters, or why he was being allowed the chance to sneak around unchallenged.
But he shook it off and started walking again. The foggy night was stifling in that he could only see vague outlines of shapes, and sounds seemed to be muffled by the dense walls of dark mist surrounding him. He felt like he was in the maze all over again, like the world was going to come crashing down on him at any moment.
He was worried about whether help would arrive on time. As far as he knew it wasn't an easy thing to track illegal portkeys, it was possible it would be hours before he saw a friendly face again.
Distracted as he was he almost didn't understand what he was looking at when he noticed what looked to be a child crawling away from him at the very edge of his vision.
Quickly crouching behind another gravestone he watched the cloaked baby's struggle while searching for anything else in the area. He had to wonder if this was a trap meant to take advantage of his kind nature. If it wasn't he was certainly going to look like a prick for having ignored a helpless kid struggling in a cemetery full of strangely absent dark wizards.
Seeing they appeared to be alone Harry whispers "Silencio" at his feet, spelling them to be silent as he approached the pitiful creature on the ground. He wouldn't know what was going on until he got closer, trap or not.
The first thing he noticed as he got closer was that the child appeared to be very ill, being deathly pale and too skinny to be a healthy little toddler. The next thing he became aware of was it's hate filled mutterings about useless servants.
'Oops' thought Harry feeling extremely euphoric, 'I may have just overheard something wonderful.'
Quickly looking around one more time, he speeds up slightly and overtakes the hateful sounding baby. And to his delight he knew for certain what he was looking at the instant he saw it's face. It was a baby Voldemort!
"Potter" Voldemort whispered, looking up at the boy with an expression on it's face Harry had never expected to see in his lifetime. Was that… fear?
OoOoO
What followed would always be a blur when Harry thought back on it. Harry along with a subdued Voldemort were portkeyed back to the tournament grounds using the same cup that had kidnapped him. Harry vaguely remembered that his thoughts at the time were working in the vein of having a cheeky little present to give to all those who had spat on him throughout the year.
He blamed the adrenaline for those thoughts.
Dumbledore, the ministry officials, the guests in the stands, all of them had the same expression when he appeared suddenly at the entrance to the maze. And when they saw what Harry held in his hands? Now that was something he remembered clearly. It had soothed the boy's soul at the time to have finally shut everyone up for once.
The next thing he knew he was being escorted through the shouting crowd by a team of Aurors, Dumbledore stunned to be amongst those kept away from the overwhelmed child. He honestly couldn't remember how he'd gotten to the ministry. He didn't remember walking up the Hogwarts stairs to borrow Dumbledore's Floo, but at the same time he didn't remember grabbing a hold of any portkeys. Perhaps they had apparated him?
In any case they had brought him to a floor in the Ministry of Magic he'd never seen before, and he found himself surrounding by what he assumed were Unspeakables.
Voldemort had been taken from him shortly after arriving. He remembered the woman guiding him, Levina Monkstanley if he was remembering correctly, having a very charming Russian tint to her voice while she explained what was going to happen as they walked down a hallway towards a cafeteria.
He had just finished speaking to what seemed to be her superiors about what had happened in the maze. The men he spoke to were clearly more familiar with their visitors being a bit more reluctant to talk than Harry, but he appreciated the effort to be calming nonetheless.
Harry regretted how nobody had thought to rely on the Unspeakables before. If Dumbledore hadn't let his ego guide him Voldemort's threat could've been handled before he was even born. He learned that night that Unspeakables planned for nearly every eventuality. Eventualities like Dark Lords attaining immortality.
He was walking down the hallway after a very long day, half dead on his feat. Unless somebody has been forced into a life and death competition, followed shortly by another fight for their lives in a dark cemetery, then to end things off had to deal with the powers that be for another four hours, they didn't have the right to complain about how long their day was in his opinion.
"Momentarily Voldemort will be brought somewhere off the coast of the Philippines. Back in 1875 the muggles found an unknown trench in the ocean with a truly startling depth, and seeing it as an opportunity we quickly spelled in a false bottom to trick the muggles and to hide the prison that would soon be built."
Levina gave an encouraging smile to Harry and continued. "For the past two centuries there's been so many spells worked into the walls of that trench that it is undoubtedly one of the most magical locations on this planet. You see Harry, sometimes there are monsters that simply can't be killed. Dark, evil things. But things that need to be removed nonetheless. This trench is where we put them. And Voldemort won't have the privilege of being the prisons only resident." she said with her kind smile twisting into something more of a smirk.
Stopping and looking at the boy next to her, she continued with the smirk still in place.
"It may please you to know that Voldemort won't know peace for a very long time. Not with the water pressure bearing down on him endlessly, not with the cries and roars of creatures that shouldn't exist to see the light of day, and certainly not with the endless dark solitude his new home will provide."
"So the only question left to ask is… What are you going to do now?
A/N: Please take pity on me in your reviews as this was my first attempt at writing. Don't expect skilled, experienced writing from me for quite a while.