JohnMonty - You're going to need to wait and see.
MikeL59 - She is a survivor.
The Hell of Fourth Year.
Despite her best efforts and despite being prepared for this for the last few months ever since she'd been entered into this mess so she could get out of it, Charlotte was surprised to find herself feeling so nervous. After everything she had been through and what she had done since the year began - she'd never expected her time at Hogwarts to be blown to buggery after the theft of the Mona Lisa and the Crown Jewels where she had felt she'd reached the height of her career as a thief, before her name had come out of the Goblet of Fire - Charlotte still genuinely wished her reaction and what she'd done after her name had come out was different although whether or not she would have encountered the Founders would have happened or not if that mad bitch hadn't destroyed her eye.
She had left Hogwarts and returned to her windmill, yes, but it was only because she was still attending classes the students had been able to stress her out before she had lost her eye and she'd decided to give the school up for the disaster it was. Once she had done that, Charlotte had become determined to get through the Tournament, but each time she went through the Tasks, she felt nervous and this was no exception, except this time she felt even more nervous since this night there was going to be even more dangerous.
Charlotte stood to the side from the other Champions although she'd given Cedric a quick good luck kiss - just because she planned on getting ahead of the other Champions did not mean she didn't wish Cedric did well - dressed in a solid, long-sleeved white shirt topped by a fleece jogging jacket and black shorts and trainers, complete with her sunglasses while she waited for the Tournament's final task to officially begin.
She had spent the entire day getting some rest and some last-minute training in, while she ignored the things where the Champions' family turned up to wish them luck - she didn't have a family, and the only two people who were close to her father had spent a month ignoring her on top of the impressive track record they'd set for her care - so she could focus on the task.
On the thought of Sirius and Remus, Charlotte didn't feel angry. Not anymore. She just felt a melancholic pain inside of her. Pity. They had proven that despite whatever they'd said to her in the past they were not going to be involved in her life, and truthfully, if they were going to go for that attitude then she wasn't going to have anything to do with them. Granted, a part of her wanted to reach out to them and make it clear to them she wasn't going to tolerate betrayal from them ever again, but she wasn't going to take the risk.
Even if she did offer them forgiveness, what was to stop them doing it again? Both men, despite knowing Dumbledore was manipulating them if they'd accepted that truth, were not trustworthy and it went back years. No, it was better just to cut them loose so she could concentrate on her future. It was painful, but Charlotte could not have two people in her life who were just going to hurt her again and again down the line. It was not worth the pain.
"Welcome everyone to the Third Task of the Triwizard Tournament!" Charlotte nearly jumped at the sound of Ludo Bagman's obnoxious voice as it boomed out over the Quidditch pitch which had been temporarily modified to work with the Third Task - she had to hand it to the organisers, they had really thought this one out a little better than the last two. Well, as far as the location went.
The Quidditch pitch's once pristine flat ground was perfect for the enormous maze which had been growing for the last month or so. It wasn't a difficult piece of Herbological magic to work with; all the organisers had needed to do was to work with Sprout, plant the hedges which made up the maze, and then magically manipulate them and their growth so then the organisers had the perfect maze, with the Triwizard Trophy in the centre. The hedges were incredibly tall now, and there were mirrors orbiting them so then everyone worldwide would see what was happening in the maze.
It was better than just sitting around staring at a maze for god knew how long, waiting for this mess to be over with.
The only thing Charlotte was worried about, and she knew Cedric felt the same way, was what Hagrid's little contribution to the Third Task was. While she was repelled by Hagrid's "Great Man Dumbledore" hero-worship, Charlotte did like the enormous keeper of grounds at the school, but she found his hobby and fascination in enormous, dangerous magical creatures a bit too much. She still had memories from how Norbert had nearly torn off her fingers when she'd tried to feed the little bastard (Nightstar might have gone through a similar phase as a kitten, but Charlotte preferred Nightstar since her cat didn't breathe fire, and she didn't have poison as part of her arsenal of body weapons), to say nothing of what other unpleasant things Hagrid was fascinated by. Okay, she liked Buckbeak the Hippogriff, and she had no regrets saving his life from Malfoy's truly unintelligent stunt to get the unfortunate creature executed to get one over Hagrid.
Charlotte paid the barest attention to the Bagman - she didn't understand what the point of the order of the Champions was, what did it matter if you went in alphabetical order of the order of where you were in this competition? After making a last-minute check over her additional tools and weapons, Charlotte flicked her wrists, and her wands snapped into position and a smirk crossed her mind as she thought about her plan….
Once it was her turn, Charlotte raced for the hedge wall, using her wand to levitate her upwards until she was high enough to get to the top of the hedges of the maze.
"And…. Our youngest Champion has managed to get to the top of the maze!" Charlotte paid little attention to Bagman's commentary while she applied the necessary charms to her feet to let her run along the top. "I'm not sure, personally, but isn't that not against the rules?"
Charlotte snorted to herself, and she began to run over the top of the hedges, using her wand to conjure bridges so she could cross the distance in half the time, all the time deeming it laughable somebody as carefree and nonchalant as Bagman would care about rules. Rules were nothing more than suggestions, and in something like the Triwizard Tournament, they were more flexible; besides after she'd learnt how Hagrid had stocked the maze with lord knew what, she didn't want to go in. The other champions would have to fend for themselves (she felt some degree of sympathy for Cedric, but she had to hope he'd be okay), and besides she needed to get to the centre of the maze before the others.
She needed to reach the centre.
She needed to finish the Tournament, certain that only then would she find out what Voldemort had planned so he could be stopped once and for all before there were too many needless deaths.
This needed to be ended, once and for all.
One way or another, Voldemort was going to die, tonight.
XXX
Reaching the centre of the maze was easy; with her creating one bridge after another, all she needed to do was to race across the hedges without once needing to look down, and even better it didn't take her too long to reach the centre. Charlotte was about to jump down off of the hedge - she would have done it normally after she'd become used to partially shifting into her cat form, so it had become almost automatic for her partially transform and use her cat format absorb some of the impacts of a landing before she remembered that there was a mirror orbiting her, and if she exhibited any kind of strange behaviour then people would become too suspicious.
Using her wand instead, Charlotte levitated herself down and she raced towards the Triwizard trophy. It was enormous, almost gaudy which was a trademark of the magical world, really, glowing like a wizard had captured some of the light from the moon and imbued it into the metal of the trophy.
Charlotte approached it slowly, her face expressionless.
It was a portkey.
When she had developed her sunglasses, she had worked with Ravenclaw and Slytherin into making them capable of seeing through many different enchantments and spells while ensuring the sunglasses provided her with the double-vision a normal person possessed with two eyes, instead of one. They had also imbued the sunglasses with the means of telling her what kind of spells were on an object like the trophy in front of her.
She supposed it made a lot of sense, a portkey on the trophy.
There was no sign of Voldemort anywhere, and besides that, he wasn't the type to hide away in a maze. Voldemort liked thinking he was the king of the world, he wouldn't be hiding away like some common little crook in a maze, of all places. No, he was somewhere else.
She didn't care.
She kept her wand in her hand, and she walked to the trophy and took hold of one of its handles…and she closed her eye as the sickening sensation of a hook snagging her in the navel came over her….
XXX
The portkey journey landed her in a dark graveyard. Charlotte winced as she picked herself off of the moist grass and looked around, thankful the sunglasses she wore gave her night vision on top of everything else. She turned around in a circle on the spot, before she spotted something which caught her eye. Something round, something you wouldn't expect to find in a spooky old graveyard like this…
Charlotte curiously walked over to the round object, and she stopped when she saw a massive stone cauldron in what seemed the very centre of the graveyard.
She knew enough about potions to know cauldrons were made of many different materials in order to stabilise a potion or to grant them simple and basic properties because of the material. Pewter was the most basic and most commonly used since the potions taught at school weren't complicated enough to warrant more complex cauldrons.
Iron was also used and was used in potions which required strength. Gold, silver, and copper all possessed their own properties and could pass them on while creating a stabilised potion…but any kind of stone was a different kind of material, but it provided more natural stability than any metal. Whatever Voldemort was planning, whatever potion he had in mind for tonight, it needed a cauldron of enormous strength which indicated the potion about to be brewed was complex and dangerous and needed to be stabilised in a strong vessel.
That alone made her tempted to spill the potion over, but before she had the chance to even level her wands, she heard something distantly behind her and she was just turning, a plan already forming inside her head….when everything went blank.
XXX
When Charlotte woke up, gasping in pain after she had used her skill with the mind arts to give the appearance of someone knocked unconscious when in fact she wanted whoever was here to get what they'd wanted from her but ensuring if there was something wrong she would be in a position to wake up she wondered why she seemed to be looking down at the rest of the graveyard before she realised she was actually being held in place by one of the larger gravestones. Looking over her shoulders and at what was holding her in place, Charlotte appreciated the irony when she realised she was being held above the ground by a stone statue of the grim reaper - the irony was painful, really, but she wondered what it said about muggles that they needed to remind themselves of the death in a graveyard.
But as she looked down into the graveyard, she wished she wasn't secured where she was, but there was nothing she could do about it now since she saw she wasn't alone in the graveyard. Discounting the sight of Peter Pettigrew while she hoped the incompetent idiots who'd built up their careers on the cowardly little wizard's so-called 'death' were suffering because the man they had held up to be a hero for the light was alive and working for Voldemort and since he was in the Dark Lord's presence, there should be no reason for Fudge to disbelieve it although Charlotte knew the Minister likely was despite the fact the investigation shoved into the fools' face by the ICW had revealed more and more of Fudge's badly thought out decisions during his questionable tenure as the Minister of Magic in Great Britain, who wasn't important to Charlotte even if Pettigrew was the one who had caused so much pain in her life, she just wished she had maimed the snivelling little bastard during their last meeting, the bigger cheese was standing tall in the graveyard near the stone cauldron.
Standing tall and lean, his near-white bald head shining softly in the moonlight, stood the wizard who had murdered her entire family, making her into an orphan when he should know how it felt. Charlotte had known she would be meeting him again this year after what seemed like a lifetime since now and the moment her name came out of that stupid Goblet.
The wizard turned and studied her with narrow red eyes she had seen only in her nightmares.
Lord Voldemort was back.
Charlotte said nothing while she observed Voldemort summon his followers, the ones who had survived the ICW purge and she knew there were quite a few of them, and go off into a nostalgic monologue about his past (she hoped the mirror was still functioning above, and everyone was hearing what the bastard was saying; if the truth didn't cause more cracks in the things Voldemort preached after what Crouch junior had spilt at the aftermath of the second task, she did not know what would), detailing how his mother had used a love potion on a wealthy muggle who lived nearby in this part of the country before he threw her and the unborn son he would never want out of his life, which he would soon regret as soon as the grown-up Tom Riddle found him and killed him, and his other muggle relatives.
By the time Voldemort was finished with that part of his sick past, Charlotte prayed the magical world's darker side which viewed Voldemort as some kind of prophet were now realising how much of a fraud he was. Okay, Voldemort was a powerful and dangerous fraud, but he was still conning the blood supremacist movement simply because he'd needed a bunch of extremists who were willing to go all the way to allow him to gain the power he wished.
But the curious thing was none of the Death Eaters mentioned the mirror, and Charlotte was left wondering why that was. She didn't know if the Death Eaters wanted to let Voldemort dig an even bigger hole for himself, or if they'd agreed to take him on all together although she couldn't see it working; Voldemort was a dangerous wizard, she had read accounts of how he was able to take on multiple opponents at once, using a combination of his magical power and his mental abilities to keep seven or eight steps ahead. She watched and listened as Voldemort named every single one of his followers, punishing them for not trying to find and help him after he'd been torn out of his body years ago, and again she was hopeful people like Fudge, Bones, Dumbledore, and everyone else was watching this, and realising this was the true Lord Voldemort.
He was not a saviour.
He wasn't a Winston Churchill (the idea of comparing Voldemort to Churchill filled her with disgust, especially since Voldemort mirrored Adolf Hitler, but Churchill had been a beacon for hope in the world as more and more of Europe had fallen to the Nazi war machine) for the blood supremacist movement.
He wasn't someone to idolise.
Lord Voldemort was a monster. He tortured and injured everyone around him, and even now, watching these so-called noble, respected pureblood's bowing and crawling over to kiss the hem of Voldemort's robes, Charlotte still wondered if any of the Death Eaters had been bothering to even watch the end of the Tournament. There were a few of them, surely they had wanted to watch some of it?
Finally, Voldemort turned around and stared at her with a smile. "And here she is, the one who supposedly defeated me, and yet…. There was something odd about the way her parents fought me at Godric's Hollow."
Charlotte looked at him in surprise, noting the emphasis he had placed on the word parents, remembering that this was not the first time Voldemort had spoken like this; the first time had been during that mess with the Philosopher's Stone. Back then Voldemort had just made an offhand comment which hadn't made any immediate sense, and she'd dismissed it because of the confrontation. And now again… What was it about her parent's deaths that surprised him? There was no way on Earth somebody like Voldemort would regret what happened, he was insane and he had never been sorry for anything in his life; she'd gotten that impression from her last encounters with him, and her opinion was hardly likely to change with this.
"My Lord?" Charlotte had no problems recognising the voice of Lucius Malfoy, and she knew nobody who knew the blond tosser would have problems either. And if there were still die-hard believers in the myth of them being mentally controlled, well only those with more IQ points to their brains should know they didn't sound out of it.
Voldemort half-turned in Malfoy's direction. "I have fought against Lily and James Potter three times before in the past," he softly explained while glancing up at Charlotte, his expression curious. "And each time, they managed to escape me; however, I knew they were talented and powerful, that's why I tried to offer them a place by my side in my inner circle. I was even willing to overlook Lily's heritage to have her expertise on board, but unfortunately, they never accepted. But I gained a good insight into their skills; the James Potter I had known prior to that night was a faster opponent, however, the man I encountered at Godric's Hollow seemed….lacking," Voldemort clearly had problems coming up with anything better to say about the events of that night, however, he'd made his point.
"And Lily… I would have expected her to find a way to escape; she was a powerful, smart, and dedicated witch who was capable of solving puzzles and problems by putting her mind to it. What did I find instead, a woman holding a baby just standing in the nursery of the cottage? It made no sense, although at the time I ignored it so I could focus on my task and kill you, my dear Charlotte," Voldemort lifted his gaze to stare at the girl, but Charlotte had been left stunned by what Voldemort was saying to her.
While she had always loved her parents once she had learnt the truth of their deaths which was nothing like the disgusting lies told to her by Vernon and Petunia who had used their murders to push forward how gross they were as human beings although she had always questioned if the Dursleys were telling the truth once she realised they were telling lies about her, and she didn't like the way the magical world viewed their deaths as heroic or some kind of sacrifice, as people like Dumbledore termed it, Charlotte had always been curious about something important, and she'd come away with important questions.
Why hadn't her parents escaped the country, never mind the house they were living in at the time of Voldemort's attack?
Why had they put all of their truth in a man who had their own agenda?
Lily and James must have known their lives were in danger; if she'd been in their position, and she had a child, she would have gone out of her way to escape, so why hadn't they? She loved her parents ever since she'd discovered they'd loved her enough to protect her, unlike what the Dursleys would have had her believe, but at the back of her mind, Charlotte had always asked herself why the Potters had just stayed in Britain when it was clearly so dangerous. Charlotte had discovered during her time in the magical world the lengths her parents had taken to hide, and they had been betrayed as a result.
But hearing this while she remained immobilised by the statue - she'd get herself free in a few moments in a way which would prove to everyone watching she was a powerful and dangerous witch, and not one to be taken lightly - Charlotte hung there as she contemplated the tantalising if horrific meanings this revelation could have.
Scenario One; Lily and James, at some point, had been put under spells by Dumbledore to remain in Britain as a contingency to ensure they couldn't escape and would keep her in a single place for Voldemort to attack and when the Dark Lord arrived, they would be the magical equivalent of groggy which would explain why Voldemort was making this observation.
Scenario Two; She had been kidnapped on Dumbledore's orders and handed over to two people under Dumbledore's employ, but as soon as the idea popped into her mind it made no sense when she considered the blood magic side of things although there were possibilities there which didn't make her automatically discount it.
Scenario Three; The most mundane possibility of all - Voldemort had caught Lily and James at a time where they were at their most complacent.
Scenario Four; The most horrifying… Vernon and Petunia were right, and her parents hadn't cared about her, and they had decided to dump her as soon as they realised she was more trouble than she was worth. If that were true…
Scenario Five; Similar to the fourth scenario, Lily and James were in fact alive but they had no memory of her, it had all been erased from her, and the couple who'd died that Halloween night had either been clones or they had been subpar compared to the real thing but they had managed to use the blood magic protection regardless.
Scenario Six; The simplest scenario of all, Voldemort was merely trying to get under her skin and yet at the same time, this was not the first time Voldemort had talked about her parents like this. But at the same time, she could just claim it was psychological warfare on Voldemort's part in order to weaken her resolve.
So many possibilities, so many ideas which were fascinating, although at the same time she would need to find out for herself. But such speculation would need to think about this later, and she knew precisely where to go in order to discover the truth. Charlotte lifted her gaze and found Voldemort staring at her with a mixture of curiosity and contempt.
"Ah, you can tell she's working things out," Voldemort said to his followers while he never took his gaze off of her, "contrary to what so many people believe, and what Dumbledore would prefer, Charlotte Potter, I have found, has a logical mind. She is also a problem solver who comes up with solutions to various issues; the way she was able to defeat the First and Second Tasks of the Tournament is proof of that, and you can see she is working out what happened that night. Aren't you, Charlotte?"
Charlotte didn't bother to answer, believing the question to be rhetorical. There were so many ideas of what had happened that night and what had happened to her parents at the same time, and in any case, she didn't see any need to answer the question since the answer was likely written across her face.
It was.
Voldemort cackled and he turned to his followers. "She is working it out," he said simply.
Once he was finished with her for the moment, Voldemort turned away and made a speech of how he had survived. Using words the same way an artist would use brushes, Voldemort painted an almost poetic tale of how he'd been prepared to kill her and end the Potter family once and for all. Only to be torn out of his body and forced to live the empty life as a wraith, taking on animals as hosts in order to survive and regain some of his strength although he was forever weak.
Voldemort talked about how he'd been forced to hide in the Albanian forests before Quirrell turned up and he took the opportunity to possess him, especially when he learnt Dumbledore was going to be hiding the Philosopher's Stone at the castle - Charlotte perked up at the mention of the deceased Defence teacher who'd given her her first taste of the subject, but her interest was centred on the mention of the Stone. She had assumed Quirrell had learnt what the school would be guarding when he returned to the castle, she hadn't realised he had known beforehand, so why had he suddenly buggered off to Albania?
It didn't take her long to work out the answer, and it nearly made her laugh her head off. Dumbledore must have been preparing the traps which were so laughably easy to bypass, especially for three kids, two of which were so full of themselves it wasn't funny - Weasley believed he was special as if believing fate herself would kiss him and make him the next Merlin.
Or Dumbledore.
In contrast, Hermione Granger, while her so-called intellect which was actually the gorging on books and then vomiting the information out as if to see just how much she could get out, believed she held all the answers to life's questions, and if she didn't…well, there were always libraries or bookshops.
But now Charlotte was wondering just how long Dumbledore had spent working on those traps and persuading Flamel to part with his precious Stone in the first place. If she were being persuaded to part with something precious to her, such as her burglary tool collection or her mother's diary from when she was twelve, she would need a lot of time to be reassured she'd get it back. But the Philosopher's Stone had been destroyed; Charlotte hadn't believed for a moment it had been destroyed. She didn't know if Flamel had given Dumbledore a fake or if he had more one Stone in his possession, but you don't just part with something that makes you virtually immortal. She had always wondered about where Flamel had hidden the Stone. Gringotts was top-notch when it came to security, she knew from experience when she'd hidden those Mona Lisa copies in her mum's vault, but she didn't know for certain if Flamel would use a vault there and it somehow got out what was inside it; it seemed too messy for her liking. If she herself hid something that held that kind of value, then Charlotte would likely go somewhere which didn't hold any kind of place in her heart and hide it there.
No. She was sure the real Stone still existed, but she was suspicious Quirrell would take that knowledge suddenly to Albania only for Voldemort to return to Britain and try to steal it.
Why did she get the feeling there was more to this than met the eye? Charlotte was convinced now Dumbledore had deliberately sent an unpossessed Quirrell to Albania with the knowledge of the stone, and Voldemort had not bothered to investigate the coincidence, his desperation to survive clouding his intellect.
Charlotte kept silent during the rest of the monologue, but when Voldemort slowly began to turn to her, she knew it was time to end this.
She called her wands to her, and they snapped into place. With a flick of her wand, Charlotte freed herself before she let out a howl like an angry cougar, and she threw herself to the ground.
Stunned, the Death Eaters and their master were caught unaware, and they raised their wands, ready to do battle…
And then Charlotte did something that took many of them by surprise.
She smiled a mad, bloodthirsty grin that split her face. "Tell me something…have you ever danced with the devil, in the pale moonlight?"
With that, she flicked her wands, and suddenly the Death Eaters collapsed to the ground. Voldemort had almost jumped in surprise when he had seen his few remaining followers collapse to the ground, and he looked down closely at the nearest body. The Death Eater - Crabbe - seemed to be alive, for the most part, just unconscious but unless he had the time and the inclination to check, he couldn't be sure, but he could definitely see Crabbe's enormous barrel of a chest rising and falling steadily.
He turned to Charlotte, making sure to keep his wand at the ready while he went through his mind for his best tactics hard-won over the years.
"Why did you stun them?" He asked curiously.
Charlotte shrugged. "I didn't want them in the way," she said softly. "Besides, I feel you'd prefer fighting me without them blundering into the path of your curses?" She added in an offhand way, clearly not caring one way or another.
Voldemort didn't really care either, and he got into a duelling stance. "You've been taught how to duel, I presume?" He sneered.
"Oh, fuck that," Charlotte fired off a number of devastating blasting curses, followed by a small salvo of basic defensive spells. "Get on with it! Stop being so theatrical, and fight."
Voldemort gritted his teeth, promising himself to make the little slut pay for that. He clenched his hand around his wand handle, his occlumency ordered mind picking out a number of spells he could use to draw this fight out. One way or another, tonight was going to be the last night of his feud with Charlotte Potter, which started the moment he learnt of a prophecy linking him with her. It would be challenging, naturally; this was one of the practical reasons he had deliberately sought to kill the girl as an infant before she became too skilled and too powerful, but no matter. He would defeat her, and everyone would see the last true hope of stopping him fall at his wand.
Until the next time...
