Lose Heart and Gain Wisdom

This Danny will not be some botched up second Harry nor will I only focus on one and abandon the other. I love BOTH of them, okay. I will not use the trope where some OC will just strangely adopt Danny into their family. Also, please, avoid the use of 'voldy'. I like Voldemort, kay? His character potential, not the apparent madman he's portrayed as and that nickname is just so… cringy*. I try to avoid it as best as I can so don't expect any bashing. I side with no good or evil, or "gray". About pairings, it's still Danny and a nap.

. o . 0 . o .

Severus. You are ill. [story]

"Indeed." [normal talk]

You need rest! [thoughts, flashbacks]

(I agree.) [leaked thoughts from Harry to Tom and vice versa through their horcrux link]

$In the hospital wing!$ [parsle speak]

Here we diverge. [ghost speak]


I've been stuck in a cage with my doubt

.

Apples

Aren't

Always

Appropriate

Apologies

.

"Well, don't you seem upset?" His old transfiguration teacher spoke up from beside him. It was still so funny to him, to think that he was actually a professor alongside his old teachers. Old carcasses, they were.

The two of them were tending to the unconscious form of the half-Veela champion. The girl had been caught by Tangelas, plant creatures Pomona Sprout raised along with Hagrid for defensive purposes. Tangelas disguise themselves inside thick bushes and shot their vines to catch unsuspecting prey. The girl was lucky someone was kind enough to shot a Periculum for her (Priori Incantatem hadn't indicated the spell had came from her wand).

"I'm always upset."

McGonagall raised a brow. "It must be a new level of upset if I can detect a difference from your usual one."

Barty kept himself from schooling his expression. Old as she was, he knew she was trained to flick her wand in an instant. He wasn't risking his throat changing and suffocating with her freaky Transfiguration skills. "Acromantulas, Tangelas, Vileplumes, Arboks – you think Potter can stand up to them all?"

After fourteen years, her always thinking of Harry as 'Harry' made her mind think of James when he mentioned 'Potter'. McGonagall reminded herself that Potter senior was gone, again. "He stood up to half of those in his first and second year, I'm quite sure he'll come through."

"Through sheer dumb luck if the boy's words are truth!"

"He'll brave through it, Alastor!"

"He'll curse without letting 'em know anything, I hope! No use being brave if he ain't clever enough to live past it!" Barty growled slightly. For a second, he had almost slipped to say cunning instead of clever. Right to the face of the Gryffindor Head.

"I shall remind you he defeated a 60 foot long Basilisk before, he can survive this silly maze."

Ah, darn. He had forgotten about that. Potter wasn't one to brag at all, he found out fast enough and the Basilisk thing was either a very embellished tale or a very simple fact.

"It's just bad feeling, Minerva. Bad feeling."

He harrumphed – startling the half goblin professor standing beside him – and waited. Hopefully, the boy can die from the creatures he had smuggled into the maze. If not, the boy will surely be dead on his Lord's hands.

. o . 2 . o .

Harry wasn't particularly skilled in apparating, so he knew the moment he touched the cup he would be landing in a painful position – just not directly at the deadly bush that had a mind on its own and is currently trying to swallow him alive.

His hand was still touching the cup and the other with his wand. Where's Cedric's body?! A vine shot out and its barbed end nearly poked his eye out. Harry barely dodged so it merely skinned his forehead. His glasses had fallen from the sudden explosion when his and Voldemort's spell connected. His vision – blurry as it was – could barely make out his legs let alone his Cedric.

A flash of yellow appeared in the corner of his eye and Harry let go of the cup, using his right hand to grab it – a fabric, probably Cedric's shirt. He mustered up whatever power he had left and yelled out "Crepitus!" The vines burst into ashes and Harry jumped away from it.

He landed on his back, and heard a loud and painful thump. Cedric's body, ouch. I can't continue. Harry thought bitterly. I can't continue because of my lack of glasses. He knew his bad eyesight was a weakness. He just never thought it would be fatal like this. He looked at the body beside him, the legs twisted almost unnaturally because of the graceless fall. He pointed his wand upwards and prepared to cast a red flair when, suddenly, his hand felt like they were frozen and bitten at the same time.

"Bloody hell!" His right hand was yanked by something down and his wand fell from his grasp. His fingers felt like they could be chopped off and he wouldn't even feel the blood spurting out. It felt as if he had stuck his hand in a freezer for years. It didn't feel like it was bitten anymo—

Shit! His left ankle was freezing. Icicles were forming on the skin and there was a telltale sign of a bite mark. He scooted away from whatever had bitten him, switched his wand to his left hand and cast a widespread Aguamenti.

There, at a spot not far from him, shimmered a little cloudy white creature. Depending on the circumstances it could be a very cute ghost or a really scary one, and right now, it was very scary. Its eyes were beady and dark blue and its grinning mouth flickered in and out of sight. The marking around its eyes turned a lighter blue and its head became enclosed in a blue raindrop shaped structure. The little ball ghost's lower body grew and darkened like a strom cloud.

As soon as the comparison passed his mind, thunder rumbled and a stormy rain descended on the maze. The water hit him hard and Harry was forced to run away from it to – somewhere, it's not like he can clearly see anything!

Something long and thin shot out towards him and it was thanks to his experience in dealing with the Whomping Willow blind in third year that he managed to avoid the vine from wrapping around his neck. The dodge threw him off balanced though, and he slipped through the wet ground. He felt his back falling to hit the ground, and his elbow touch something hard and smooth and cold and — instead of the painful frostbites he had gotten, this time it felt like he had sunk his elbow into a grilling pan full of hot oil.

"Argh!" Its that ghost thing again! It bit him again. The storm, he thought. The rain will heal – abruptly, the rain stopped. Harry's vision wasn't filled with the cloudy gray sky anymore, now the sky is blue and bright and shit the sun.

There's still some water left. The ground was still wet. He didn't have his wand, so he reached deep. He breathed deep and concentrated on the water around him. Wet, muddy, dirty—pure water. He felt his magic reach out to the water, surrounding it like it does to feathers when he needed to spell out Wingardium leviosa in first year, and he controlled them to wash over his blistering elbow.

He can't continue on fighting, not while he was blind like this. Harry needed to take the flickering creature out. An idea popped into his head, and without thinking any further, his good elbow pushed his body up and he ran close to the maze wall. He saw something bright and wispy from the corner of his eyes and he knew it has to be the ghost-like creature trying to catch him again. As predicted, another barbed vine shot out of the wall, and Harry threw his body weight down to the ground. He heard a squished sound, and something slimy and hot dripped onto his jeans – and he knew that the creature was now injured.

Harry turned his head, and he could make out its form now. It was no longer lighter blue, its skin was red and the raindrop covering had shifted to be a translucent orange orb, cracked open by the vine and the ball-like creature inside impaled.

He felt relief, then pity, then tiredness and then his body fell down to the ground.

(Black hair, male, if he has a pair of those green eyes I swear to Morgana—)

That sounded like Tom, he thought airily.

Harry knew no more.

. o . 2 . o .

Voldemort knew for a fact that no one had come here during his confrontation with Harry Potter. He had set up wards around the graveyard and the mansion to keep people out. He didn't want another muggle eavesdropper like Frank Bryce to decide he can pop into his domain all willy nilly. He hadn't put up a ward for portkeys considering that it was the way to capture Potter, but he should have put more caution and put up a ward after the boy had been teleported. Assured that the boy will die doesn't mean an absolute truth. Had he really lost his sanity that he could be so careless?

He had had the unknown boy put into one of his guest bedrooms. The Riddle Manor, as imposing as it was, did not have any dungeons. But he can keep prisoners in one of the many rooms inside and lock them up with wardstones. Lucius had apparated back into his office in the ministry, his door having been locked and his colleague believing Lucius has been working on his paperwork. Goyle headed back to his manor, same goes for MacNair. Crabbe had been quiet, but nothing unusual. Wormtail though, had been temporarily demoted to be Nagini's errand boy.

$I shall eat him.$

$No.$ Tom repeated for what was probably the fifth time that night. The moment she spotted the boy she's been insistent on feasting on him. $I need to figure him out before I do – or let you do – anything permanent.$

$I have not have any decent meat.$

$That's because you laze about and order my minion around to get them for you.$

$Hmm…$

$Stop that, your thinking face looks painful.$

Nagini, as usual, continued on whining.

$Fine, fine! I'll have Wormtail fetch you some plump rats.$

$I don't like that a rat is catching rats for me.$

$He's the only one dumb enough to do your errands.$

His followers had flinched in fear – disconcerted after thirteen years worth of absence of listening to parsletongue. If only they knew half of what he talks about with Nagini, the whiny reptile. Twylusks were one of the rarest breed and most poisonous snake there is, but there were times when Voldemort wished that he had chosen another breed of snake.

And now he was alone in a room — Nagini having slithered off somewhere — with a mystery sleeping in the bed.

(Black hair, male, if he has a pair of those green eyes I swear to Morgana I'll reduce him to a corpse.)

The matter of the boy's appearance was disconcertening. He looked almost exactly like Potter. Everything from the lean built, to the height, to the pale skin and to the messy hair – everything but the distinct lack of angry red scar. This child's forehead was clean of dark magic. It was too big of a leap to assume that the backlash – the Priori incantatem – had somehow created a clone of the Potter boy but what else can explain this boy's presence?

If it's a Doppleganger though, it was an imperfect one. His magical capacity was miniscule, nothing as vast and wild as Potter's but not small enough to be a squib.

He dipped his head in thought. His plan to kill the Boy-Who-Lived had failed today. But there is still an opportunity he can take advantage of.

He won't be giving that old man any time to prepare.

. o . 2 . o .


Author's Notes

Yeaaaa, that happened. I mean, come on, Portkeys — when activated — take you to a place where its coordinates were 'set' on the portkey. I don't think Barty nor Voldemort were planning to let Harry return, considering they don't put any mind on the cup (the book's title's star was pretty much forgotten during middle parts of the graveyard scene), so it doesn't make sense for Harry and Cedric to return outside the maze, at that spot. Maybe it's the wards put up after the champions entered the maze, but why that spot exactly? Because it may have been Harry's? But Harry's starting mark in the tournament was random and not planned. Plus, Cedric's body was with him. Because only Harry's alive? Eh, probably, but why that spot, and, too late. I think of portkeys as two way trip of two locations only. And if the portkey was only set to transport people to the graveyard, they'll return to the exact same spot the portkey had been placed prior to the teleportation – in this case, right in the middle of that fracking creepy maze. Aside from that, I like maze stories, like the Maze Runner. I wanted to bring it back and improve on it.

I miss playing Pokemon so damn much, I had to include Castform there. It's my favorite Pokemon! — After Pikachu, obviously, and after Gardevoir, and after Beautifly, but before Eevee's evolutions and Ninetails.

*According to Urban dictionary there is a difference in meaning: cringy is when something is just so unpleasant that it makes you literally cringe. cringey: embarrassing or making feel uncomfortable.

Did you like Nagini? I like her. :3


Recommendation (Awesome fiction I've read while editing this chapter!)

The Guardian Games: The Odds of Five and the sequal The Wrath of Five written by SharKohen. A shepherd boy the Capitol loves. A charming blonde with 70 feet worth of hair. A career who wouldn't kill. A determined redhead eager to make her mark. A cryokinetic mutant who'd do anything to protect her sister.