Disclaimer: I hold no rights over the Harry Potter series or the Danny Phantom series. Any and all direct quotes and texts belong to J. K. Rowling and are used for entertainment purposes only and not for profit or any additional benefits.

ΔOl

Chapter Thirty-Two: Flesh, Blood and Bone

The sickly feeling of spinning stopped just as fast as it started and Harry felt his injured leg collide heavily with the ground, making him collapse to his knees and the Tetrawizard Cup fly out of his hands. He raised his head.

"Where are we?"

Cedric shook his head, pulling Harry up to his feet. They had left the Hogwarts grounds completely; they had obviously travelled miles – perhaps hundreds of miles – for even the mountains surrounding the castle were gone. They were standing instead in a dark and overgrown graveyard; the black outline of a small church was visible beyond a yew tree on their right. A hill rose above them to their left. Harry could just make out the shape of a fine old house on his left.

Cedric looked down at the Tetrawizard Cup and then at Harry.

"Did anyone tell you the cup was a Portkey?" he asked.

"Nope," said Harry. He looked around the graveyard. It was completely silent and slightly eerie, "Do you think this is part of the task?"

"I don't know," Cedric replied, "Wands out, d'you reckon?"

"Yeah," Harry was glad that Cedric had made the suggestion rather than him.

Pulling out their wands, Harry kept looking around himself. He had a strange feeling of being watched.

Cedric's voice made him jump as he cupped a hand to his mouth and yelled, "Oi, Danny! Where are you?"

A soft rustle came from in the shadows. Harry squinted through the darkness as a shape drew nearer, walking steadily between the graves. The figure was much shorter than Danny, hunched over as if they were carrying something precious. Harry couldn't make out a face, they were wearing a heavy cloak that was pulled up over their head, obscuring them from sight. And – several paces nearer, the gap between them closing all the time – Harry saw the thing in the person's arms looked like a baby... or was it merely a bundle of robes?

"I don't think that's Danny," Harry whispered, glancing up to match Cedric's quizzical look. They both turned back to watch the approaching figure. It stopped beside a towering marble headstone, only six feet from them. For a second Harry and Cedric and the short figure stared at each other.

And then, without warning, Harry's scar exploded with pain. It was agony such as he'd never felt in his life. His wand slipped from his fingers as he crumpled to his knees; his hands wrenching at his forehead as if he could suffocate the pain; it was so strong that he couldn't see anything, he could barely hear.

From far away, above his head, he heard a high cold voice say, "Kill the spare."

A swishing sound and a second voice, which screeched the words to the night:

"Avada Kedavra!"

"Watch out!"

A blast of green light filtered through Harry's eyelids, followed shortly with a flash of white, making his eyes well up in tears with the burning sensation, and then he heard something heavy fall to the ground beside him, rolling across the grass to land with a dull thud, followed shortly by something else dropping a little further away. The pain in his scar reached such a pitch that he retched, and then, slowly, it disappeared. Frightened of what he was about to see, he opened his stinging eyes.

Cedric lay face-down,off to the side at the base of a tombstone; there was a dark liquid seeping onto the grave where his head lay. Danny lay a few feet further, eagle-spread on the ground.

They were dead.

For a second that contained an eternity, Harry stared into Danny's turned face, at his large blue eyes, blank and staring unseeingly at both Harry and Cedric's own unmoving body, his mouth lax and half-open, as if he'd simply gotten a nasty surprise. And then, before Harry's mind had accepted what he was seeing, before he could feel anything but numb disbelief, he felt himself being pulled to his unstable feet.

The short man in the cloak had put down his bundle, lit his wand, and (with a hiss of confusion in Danny's direction and a sharp kick in Cedric's side) was dragging Harry toward a marble headstone. Harry saw the name flickering in the wandlight before he was forced around and slammed against it.

TOM RIDDLE.

The cloaked man was now conjuring tight cords around Harry, tying him from the neck to ankles to the headstone. Cedric was lying a whiles away; he could see the gash on his head still seeping and Harry desperately wished that the wind tugging on the boy's shirt was his deep breathing. Harry struggled from the hooded figure's grasp, and the man hit him with a hand that had a finger missing. And Harry realised who was under the hood. It was Wormtail.

"You!" he gasped.

But Wormtail, who had finished conjuring the ropes, did not reply; he was busy checking the tightness of the cords, his fingers trembling uncontrollably, fumbling over the knots. Once sure that Harry was bound so tightly to the headstone that he couldn't move an inch, Wormtail drew a length of black material from the inside of his coat and stuffed it roughly into Harry's mouth; then, without a word, he turned from Harry and hurried away, tripping over Danny whose dull eyes didn't wince. Harry couldn't make a sound, nor could he see where Wormtail had gone; he couldn't turn his head to see beyond the stone; he could only see in front of him.

Danny's body was lying beside Cedric's some twenty feet away, Beyond them, glinting in the starlight, lay the Tetrawizard Cup with Harry's wand on the ground at Danny's feet. Wormtail's bundle of robes was close by, at the foot of the grave. It seemed to be stirring fretfully. Harry watched it, and his scar seared with pain again... and he suddenly didn't want to see what was in those robes…

He could hear noises at his feet. He looked down and saw a gigantic snake slithering through the grass, tongue flitting as it trailed past Danny, hissing furiously and spitting venom furiously before continuing to circle the headstone where he was tied. Wormtail grunted in the dark; it sounded as if he was dragging something heavy across the ground. Then he came back within Harry's range of vision, and Harry saw him pushing a stone cauldron to the gravesite. It was full of what seemed to be water – Harry could hear it slopping around – and it was larger than any cauldron Harry had seen; a great stone belly large enough for a full-grown man to sit in.

The thing inside the bundle of robes on the ground stirred more persistently. Now Wormtail was busying himself at the base with a wand, pointedly not looking in Harry or the thing's direction. Suddenly there were crackling flames beneath the cauldron. The liquid in the cauldron seemed to heat at an accelerated pace, bubbling and sending out fiery sparks, as though it was so hot that the liquid was aflame. Steam was thickening, blurring the outline of Wormtail tending the fire. The movements beneath the robe seemed more agitated. Harry heard the same high, cold voice from within the bundle,.

"Hurry!"

The whole surface of the water was alight with sparks now. It might have been encrusted with diamonds.

"It is ready Master."

"Now…" said the cold voice.

Wormtail pulled open the robes on the ground, revealing what was inside them, and Harry let out a yell that was strangled by the cloth gagging him.

It was as though Wormtail had flipped over a stone and revealed something ugly, slimy, and blind – but worse, a hundred times worse. The thing Wormtail had been carrying had the shape of a crouched human child, except that Harry had never seen anything less like a child. It was hairless and scaly-looking, a raw, reddish black. Its arms and legs were thin and feeble, and its face flat and snakelike, with gleaming red eyes.

The thing seemed almost helpless; it raised its thin arms, put them around Wormtail's neck, and Wormtail lifted it. As he did so, his hood fell back, and Harry saw the look of revulsion on Wormtail's weak, pale face as he carried the creature to the cauldron. For one moment, Harry saw the evil, flat face illuminated in the sparks dancing across the potion's surface. And then Wormtail lowered the creature into the cauldron; there was a hiss, and it vanished below the surface; Harry heard its frail body hit the bottom with a soft thud.

Let it drown, Harry begged, his scar searing, please… let it drown…

Wormtail was speaking. His voice shook; he seemed frightened beyond his wits. He raised his wand, closed his eyes, and spoke to the night.

"Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son!"

The surface of the grave at Harry's feet cracked. Horrified, Harry watched as a fine trickle of dust rose into the air at Wormtail's command and fell softly into the cauldron. The diamond surface of the water broke and hissed; sending sparks in all directions and turned a poisonous-looking blue.

And now Wormtail was whimpering. He pulled a thin, shining silver dagger from inside his cloak. His voice broke into sobs.

"Flesh - of the servant… w-willingly given… you will… revive… your master."

He stretched his right hand out in front of him – the hand with the missing finger. He gripped the dagger tightly with is left hand and swung it upward.

Harry realized what Wormtail was about to do a second before it happened – he closed his eyes as tightly as he could, but he could not block the scream that pierced the night, that went through Harry as though he had been stabbed with the dagger too. He heard something fall to the ground, heard Wormtail's anguished panting, then a sickening splash as something was dropped into the cauldron.

Harry couldn't stand to look… but the bright red light of the potion shone through Harry's closed eyelids…

Wormtail was gasping and moaning with agony. Then Harry felt Wormtail's anguished breath puff against his face. Wormtail stood right in front of him.

"B-blood of the enemy… forcibly taken… you will… resurrect your foe."

Harry could do nothing to prevent it, he was tied too tightly… Struggling hopelessly at the ropes binding him, he saw the shining silver dagger shaking in Wormtail's remaining hand. He felt its point penetrate the crook of his right arm and blood seeping down his torn sleeve. Wormtail, still panting with pain, fumbled in his pocket for a glass vial and held it to Harry's cut, so that a dribble of blood fell into it.

Staggering back to the cauldron with Harry's blood, he poured it inside. The liquid within turned a blinding white. Wormtail dropped to his knees beside the cauldron and slumped sideways onto the ground, cradling the bleeding stump of his arm, sobbing.

The cauldron glimmered as diamond sparks fluttered, so blindingly bright that it turned all else to velvety blackness. Nothing happened…

Let it have drowned, Harry thought, let it have gone wrong…

And then, suddenly, the sparks extinguished and a surge of white steam billowed thickly from the cauldron, obliterating everything in front of Harry, so that he couldn't see Wormtail or Danny or Cedric or anything but vapour… it's gone wrong, he thought… it's drowned… please… please let it be dead…

But then, through the fog, he saw, with an icy surge of terror, the dark outline of a man, tall and skeletally thin, rising from inside the cauldron.

The thin man stepped out of the cauldron, staring at Harry… and Harry stared back into the face that had haunted his nightmares for three years. Whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was flat as a snakes with slits for nostrils…

Lord Voldemort had risen again.

ΔOl

Yeah. Sorry. Kind of had to kill Danny. Despite what people thought, Danny isn't impervious to the death-spell. He is half-alive after all. Well… he was.

Sorry.

I missed last Wednesday's update, annoyingly. I didn't mean to, but next thing I knew it was Saturday evening and I had a whole half-chapter to edit and expand upon. Hopefully this makes up for it, but I doubt people will be very happy with me.

Review, I'll see you Wednesday. x