Harry landed hard on his stomach and Cedric overbalanced, landing beside him with a huff as the Cup bounced away over damp grass.

The landing should have set off his leg, but it was his head that exploded in agony. He could smell Wormtail, and he knew Wormtail was with Voldemort-

"Expelliarmus!" Harry's wand was torn from his hand, and he heard Cedric fire off a Disarmer of his own, but then someone - Wormtail, Harry realised through the haze of pain - deflected it and Disarmed him too.

"Hello again, Harry," Wormtail's voice said. "Hello, Cedric." Harry retched - it felt like his head was being pulled open - and then, just as suddenly as it had come on, the pain stopped. Blood trickled down Harry's forehead and into his eye, but he blinked it away and pushed himself up into a sitting position. Cedric steadied him, scent afraid, and he was crouched at Harry's side, seemingly torn between wanting to put himself behind Harry, or in front of him:

Wormtail stood about ten feet away, his wand trained on the pair of them and a pair of wands in his other hand. It was dark, the only light in sight coming from a distant cluster of buildings and street lamps - a town? - through the windows of the large house at the top of the hill, and, closer by, from a small fire that was burning beneath an enormous cauldron. The firelight cast eerie shadows on the tombstones and statues around them-

Were they in a graveyard?

Was Voldemort going to kill Harry here and then tip him into a freshly dug grave? Was there already a tombstone here with his name on it?

"Let Cedric go," Harry said to Wormtail, with as much authority as he could muster. "He's not meant to be here, is he? The Cup only activated once I had contact with it, or, once I had contact with Cedric who had contact with it, anyway. Right?"

"He's not meant to be here," Wormtail agreed. "But unfortunately-"

"Please let him go. Please."

"So he can run back to Dumbledore?" Wormtail asked, and shook his head. "My Lord, shall I-"

Movement caught Harry's eye, and he recognised Nagini, Voldemort's snake, coiling over the shoulders of a statue of the grim reaper. And then, there, in the statue's arm, skin and swaddling as pale as the marble around him, sat Lord Voldemort.

He should have looked absurd, perhaps even comical, but though he was misshapen and not much larger than Stella, he rested there like a king on a throne, slitted red eyes taking Harry and Cedric in with menacing amusement.

"Kill him?" Voldemort asked silkily, voice high and cold. Cedric flinched back. Wormtail lifted his wand. "No," Voldemort said softly, and Wormtail turned to stare at him. "Bind them. Both of them."

"No," Harry said, as Wormtail's spell dragged him away from Cedric.

"Potter-" Harry was lifted off the ground and then bound by ropes to a tall headstone, and Cedric was flung into the arms of a mournful looking angel statue, who wrapped her arms around him to keep him in place.

Wormtail strode past the pair of them to tap the stone cauldron with his wand. Beneath it, the flames leapt, and the liquid inside it, gently simmering, began to bubble and spark. Cedric looked at Harry, panicked.

Harry's scar twinged and his vision wavered.

"My Lord….?" Wormtail approached the reaper and knelt, then stood and gathered Voldemort into his arms. Voldemort looked to Harry, held his gaze, as Wormtail carried him to the cauldron and lowered him into it. Voldemort disappeared with a hiss - of potion or of his own, Harry didn't know - and his head was on fire.

Something cool brushed his cheek and he flinched away as Nagini rubbed her head against him, her tongue flicking out to taste the air.

"Sssoon," she hissed.

"I hope he drowns," Harry hissed back, but his voice lacked the edge he would have liked; between the pain and the fear, and the cold - because while his head was hot and his leg was throbbing, he was shivering - he sounded rather weak and pathetic. Cedric was watching him with huge eyes.

"Bone of the father," Wormtail said in a tremulous voice, "unknowingly g-given, you will renew your son!" At Harry's feet, the earth split open, and out rose a fine dust. It looked like sand, but Harry knew it wasn't. The dust drifted through the air at Wormtail's command, and then fell onto the potion's mirror-like surface. It sparked and hissed and turned a bright blue.

From within it, Harry could hear the faint beating of a heart.

Let him die, he thought. Let him drown, or let Wormtail mess it up. Please.

"Flesh of the s-servant," Wormtail said, voice shrill, as he moved to stand over the cauldron, "willingly g-given, you will r-revive your master!" With a whimper, he drew a gleaming silver dagger and brought it down on the wrist of his hand - the one Harry'd maimed with Snape's Sectumsempra spell. Harry screwed his eyes shut and Wormtail screamed, but even then Harry heard the awful splash that followed, could smell the sharp tang of blood, and hear it drip-dripping onto the ground at Wormtail's feet. He could hear Cedric retching, and Wormtail was shuffling around, coming closer.

He was sobbing and panting and close enough that Harry could feel his breath.

"B-blood of the en-emy…" Harry's eyes flew open. The cauldron was a deep, bloody red, and Wormtail was right in front of him, still holding the silver dagger. Harry strained against the ropes. "-forcibly taken-"

"Potter!" Cedric said frantically. "No, Potter-"

"-you will resurrect your f-foe." Harry could do nothing as Wormtail used the hilt of the dagger to push back Harry's left sleeve. Then Wormtail flipped the dagger in his hand.

So sharp was its tip that Harry almost didn't feel it, but he watched as the skin of his forearm opened beneath it. It was cold and then hot as it began to bleed, and Wormtail held the blade of the knife there, then went to hold it over the cauldron.

Harry's scar pulsed as each drop of his blood hit the potion's surface.

Wormtail stumbled backward, weeping and cradling his stump, and the potion turned dazzlingly, blindingly white. Harry heard Voldemort's heart beat faster from within the cauldron, and though the potion was sparking again, and sizzling, and Wormtail was crying, and Cedric was breathing hard - perhaps even crying himself - it was almost all Harry could hear, thudding in his ears, inside his head, and in his chest, in time with his own heart, just as strong, just as desperate-

And then, it beat so loud the cauldron cracked, its contents spilling out into white mist and steam that swirled and darkened, and through it, Harry saw the hunched shape of Voldemort growing, pulling that blackness into itself, straightening into a tall, thin figure wreathed in black mist that settled over him and into robes as dark as pitch.

Blood trickled from Harry's scar down the side of his face, and from his arm down his fingertips. He pressed it against his chest and the ropes, angling it up to try to stop the bleeding.

Voldemort stepped slowly out of the ruined cauldron, bare feet pale against the grass, and then he lifted his head to look at Harry with slitted red eyes.

"Two lots of red sparks, but they've not pulled anyone out yet?" Sirius asked agitatedly, craning his neck to see over the stands.

"Maybe they changed their mind," Remus suggested, but he was pale and didn't have a lot of conviction in his voice. Sirius growled at him.

"Anything?" Sirius demanded.

"No," said Ron; he, the twins, Hermione, Luna, and Ginny were all poring over the Marauder's Map; Ron had brought it with him just in case, though it only showed the normal Quidditch pitch and not the maze - probably because the maze was only temporary, and so not recognised by the map's magic as part of it - and even if it had, it wouldn't have helped; the whole pitch was near black and illegible with the sheer number of names on it. It was as good as useless and they'd known that before today, but they were all nervous enough to give it a go anyway.

"Not yet," came a second response; Marlene, sounding grim, and rather tinny through Sirius' Sidekick. "His footprints aren't here anymore - I'm looking for the magic like you said, but they stopped a while back." Sirius' heart clenched. There was a pause, and then: "There's no guarantee it was Harry, Sirius, it could have been any of the others-"

"You know it wasn't Krum," he said.

"Yes," she admitted; she'd found Krum a few minutes ago. "But none of us have seen any of the others-"

"So maybe they're all involved," he said, throwing his hand up, though she couldn't see it.

"Fleur was fighting Krum when the first sparks went up," Marlene said placatingly. "So she wasn't involved in that, at least."

"Only if we trust Krum," Sirius said.

"We have no reason not to," Remus said, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Exactly. Sirius, the fact that we didn't find anyone is a good thing," Marlene said. "I haven't come across anyone in here who shouldn't be - other than me, I suppose - so the maze is still secure in that sense. And as for the sparks, if whoever put them up was dead, or too injured to move, they would have been there when I arrived. So even if they're hurt, they're mobile. They'll either walk themselves out of the maze, or they'll push through until the task ends, or they'll put sparks up again."

"That sounds like you're just going to leave them to it," Sirius said.

"Not exactly," Marlene said after a pause. He could hear her walking, hear the rustling of leaves. "I'm looking for the centre of the maze."

"What?" Sirius asked, and shared a look with Remus.

"Our vests make the hedges open up for us, but only until we're so far in, apparently…"

"What?" Sirius asked, sharply this time. "You'll let us know if anything changes?" he asked Dora, who was looking down at the map over Hermione's shoulder. She nodded, hair an anxious green. "Maybe even try to find Mad-Eye - he's meant to be here, and his eye might come in handy if we can get him deep enough into the maze." Sirius squeezed past Hagrid toward the stairs, eyes returning to his Sidekick. "What do you mean the hedges aren't opening?"

"The hedges stopped opening after a point," she said, and he could hear in her voice that she was frowning. "It's probably to discourage cheating - that way, we don't know exactly where the Cup is either."

But Sirius' instincts were screaming: wrong, that's wrong, that's not right-

"You don't think that's suspicious?!" he demanded, Remus on his heels. "You're there to make sure no one gets hurt, and yet they've restricted where you can go?!"

"I don't think it seems quite right," she said. "Which is why I'm going in the hard way." She huffed and he heard the crackle of a spell and a shriek. "Red Cap," she said, before either he or Remus could ask. "Maybe I'll find someone in the centre sections, or maybe I won't. But if I can find the Cup, then we'll know that no one's been there, and if it's gone, then we can start combing through the outer edges of the maze again."

"There's no one there," Sirius said, pausing to look out through a gap in the banners. He couldn't see anyone's heads moving around between the hedges. He jogged down the next flight.

"He's right," Remus said, close on his heels. "We can see the shallower parts of the maze from the stands."

"Are you running?" Marlene asked.

"Yes," Sirius said shortly.

"Running where? Why? Can you see something?"

"I'm going to break into the broomshed and steal a broom to get an aerial view," Sirius said grimly.

"You won't be able to," she said. "The inner section of the maze has an attention-repelling charm on it."

"You said this task was going to be safe," Sirius snapped, skidding to a stop. "But you can't easily access or see into the middle section?" Something was wrong, he was sure of it.

"I knew about the aerial attention-repeller," she said. "I don't think that's unreasonable. All a Champion would need is someone high enough to direct them through."

"Perhaps that's not," Remus said, "but the vests..."

"I didn't know about the vests," she said. "Relashio." A huff, more leafy sounds, and muffled cursing. "This maze is awful."

"New plan," Sirius said. "I'm going to burn the whole bloody thing down."

"With me and the other Champions in it?" Marlene said. "Please don't."

"Marl-"

"I know," she said, and there was a crack in her voice that made him think she'd been trying to be calm and rational for his sake. "I'm worried too, all right? We'll find him."

Voldemort watched Harry a little longer, then turned his attention on his new body - on his hands, his feet, his head.

"My wand," he said, and Wormtail, sobbing on the ground at the reaper's feet, withdrew it from his pocket and offered it to him. It sparked silver, green, and black at Voldemort's touch, like the magic Harry had seen in the cave all those years ago, and in his scar.

"My Lord," Wormtail whispered, shuffling forward on his knees, clutching his blood-soaked stump. "My Lord, please- you p-promised..."

"All in due time," Voldemort said. "Your other arm first." He held out a hand, pale and spider-like, and Wormtail sniffled and tugged up his sleeve before offering Voldemort his arm. The Dark Mark was tattooed there, as red as if it had been inked with blood. "They will know," he murmured, and pressed a long, white finger to it. Wormtail screamed at the same time as Harry did; Harry's scar had burned, and he suspected Wormtail was feeling a similar thing in his arm. The Mark had turned black. "And while we wait… What shall we do with you?"

He strode over to Cedric, studying him closely.

"The Hogwarts Champion," Voldemort said softly. Cedric didn't say anything. It was as if he had frozen, unable to look away from Voldemort. "Dumbledore's Champion."

"Leave him alone," Harry panted through the stabbing in his head. Voldemort drew his wand. "Don't! No!"

"Do you wish for me to spare him, Harry?" Voldemort asked, as he traced his wand over Cedric's jaw. Cedric's eyes followed it, and Harry could see he was shaking.

"Yes," Harry said. "You could let him go. You don't have to hurt him."

"Mercy…" Voldemort said, as if tasting the word. "Lord Voldemort could be merciful."

"Yes," Harry said desperately. "Send him back to Hogwarts. Alive. Let him go."

"Not that merciful," Voldemort said, with a chilling laugh.

"Not to Hogwarts then," Harry said, thinking quickly. "Somewhere else. Here." Cedric had no wand, and Harry doubted he had any more idea where they were than he did. Even if he could call the Knight bus, or find a Floo, by the time he got to Hogwarts or the Ministry, whatever was going to happen here tonight would already have happened. In all likelihood, Harry would be dead and Voldemort would have revealed himself to gloat. Any help Cedric tried to get, or any warning he tried to give would come too late. "Just… let him go."

"A gesture of good will," Lord Voldemort mused.

"Sure," Harry said. "Call it whatever you want, just-"

"Very well."

"What?" Harry asked stupidly, hopefully. Voldemort laughed and the sound was genuinely amused, and somehow all the more awful because of it.

"Let it not be said that Lord Voldemort is unreasonable or wasteful." Voldemort waved his wand and the stone angel released her grip on Cedric, who stumbled to his knees.

"Rise," Voldemort said, stepping back. Cedric did, jerkily; Harry could tell if it was by his own will, or Voldemort's.

"Run," Harry said. Cedric's eyes darted to Harry, then away again. Voldemort said nothing, did nothing. It was a trap, it had to be, Voldemort was going to wait until Cedric turned his back before trying to murder him, was just toying with them, trying to give them false hope. Harry knew it, but if Cedric was quick enough, lucky enough, maybe he could get away, and Voldemort wasn't about to chase him down, not when his Death Eaters were due at any moment, not when Harry was there. Voldemort might send others after Cedric, but it was dark.

He could hide, wait, survive.

There was a chance.

Cedric took a tiny step backward. Voldemort was still. Cedric's eyes flicked to Harry again, and Harry gave him a desperate, imploring look back. Cedric inched back another step, eyes moving over the rest of the graveyard, then over to the open grass and the flattened patch where they'd arrived.

"Harry said run," Voldemort said silkily, dangerously, and Cedric bolted. Not deeper into the graveyard where there was more cover, like Harry might have thought - and like Harry would have done himself - but back toward the open grass.

No, he thought, heart in his throat.

Voldemort watched Cedric, emanating amusement, and then stiffened, hissing. His wand came up, as Harry had known it would, but Cedric was quicker, luckier; he dove for the ground, for the Cup, of all things, and Harry realised why the moment the Cup bloomed blue and vanished, Cedric with it.

A stunned laugh escaped Harry and Voldemort turned slitted eyes on him, then put his back to where Cedric had been.

"Wormtail," he said.

"M-my Lord…"

"Your arm." Wormtail sagged and shuffled forward, stump outstretched.

"Thank you, my Lord, t-thank you…" Harry was no stranger to impressive magic, but despite his fear and his pain and the fact that this was Voldemort, his breath caught as liquid silver trickled from Voldemort's wand, twisting and writhing through the air, to attach itself -anchor itself - to Wormtail's stump. Wormtail gasped in pain and shrank back but couldn't get away from the inch after inch of silver disappearing into his wrist. Harry could see tendrils of it moving beneath his skin, up his forearm, spreading like veins. Then Voldemort's wand curled and the silver streamed out again, growing like a strange plant into five points that shimmered and formed into a gleaming silver hand.

Wormtail let out a breath and lifted his new hand with reverence.

"Thank you," he whispered. "My Lord, thank you-"

"Let us hope it can still hold a quill," Voldemort replied, and Wormtail shuffled back on his knees, still babbling, as dark shapes began to pop into the graveyard.

Some arrived alone, others in pairs, all dressed in the same dark, hooded robes, and all but five wore the same skeletal masks as at the World Cup.

Harry counted twenty-six in total, and all but one fell to their knees, kissing the hem of Voldemort's robes as he paced before them.

At the base of the reaper statue, Wormtail sat, scribbling frantically on a piece of parchment. Harry wondered if he was taking note of who had shown up, because there were indeed gaps in their ranks, as if to leave spaces for people who hadn't yet arrived.

"Welcome," Voldemort said. "It has been thirteen years, thirteen long years of waiting, and planning. For a time there, I suspected your loyalty had wavered, that you believed me gone and doubted my ability to return, though you have seen my power, my might, and knew that I had taken steps to protect myself from any mortal death… Do you believe me now?"

His words, though soft, incited a frantic response; more bowing, murmurs of reassurance and agreement, vigorous head-nodding. Harry's vision wavered, and he blinked a few times, forcing himself to stay upright - though the ropes wouldn't actually let him fall - and conscious.

"And yet, you must have doubted, for none of you searched for me, though there were whispers. Only Wormtail found me, and Crouch." Harry searched through the gathered Death Eaters, but Crouch didn't raise his hand, or draw any eyes, though a few looked around for him. Was he not there, Harry wondered? But if he wasn't, where was he?

At Hogwarts, with the Tournament?

"But, when I called you back into action last year, you responded… you had not lost faith in me after all… and, you have all arrived tonight… those of you that were able. Rise." In silence but for the rustling of robes, the prostrated Death Eaters stood. Voldemort's gaze lingered on a gap wide enough for two or three, between the originally standing man and the next one along. "The Lestranges should stand here, and soon shall once more. As shall others." His red eyes flicked over the masks. "And there should be a space here, for six." The first of the unmasked - a girl - went pale as a corpse. "Three dead in my service, one too cowardly to return, another who I believe has assigned his loyalties elsewhere, and, of course, Crouch, who remains my most faithful… But the space has been filled with new faces. You've done well, Lucius."

"My Lord," one of the Death Eaters said, in a very familiar voice, dropping swiftly to one knee, head bowed. Harry's heart clenched for Draco; this would come as no surprise to him, but that didn't mean it wouldn't hurt him.

"Phoebe Daunce, my Lord," the girl said, dropping to her knee as Mr Malfoy had. She sounded like she was coming from a long way away; there was a ringing in Harry's ears, now.

"Thorfinn Rowle," said the next, a boy. Harry'd heard his name at the Christmas Order meeting, and knew his face, vaguely, from his first year at Hogwarts. Rowle had been a Gryffindor Prefect.

"Laurence Gibbon."

"Azalea Fawley." That wasn't a name Harry had known.

"Solomon Jugson."

"You would join my Death Eaters?" Lord Voldemort murmured, going to loom over them.

"Yes, My Lord," Rowle said, not daring to look up.

"Please," Fawley said. More nodding. Harry couldn't tell if they were excited or terrified; he could smell a good deal of both coming from the gathered Death Eaters.

"Your arms."

All had obviously been briefed on this part, because each pulled back the sleeve of their robes and offered their bare left forearms to Voldemort.

He approached Daunce and pressed the tip of his wand to her skin. Harry's scar twinged and vision wavered once more. It was like watching something in a dream - a real dream, not like most of Harry's dreams. He saw Daunce gasp and hunch forward, clutching her arm. There was a pale mark spreading there. One by one Voldemort repeated the process for the others. One moment everything was sharp and clear, the next it was blurry and dull, and Harry wasn't sure how long had passed.

"You will serve me faithfully?" Voldemort asked. Harry's eyelids were heavy, and yet he'd never been more focused. "You shall not renounce me, shall not betray me?"

"No, my Lord," they murmured as one.

"Then accept my Mark," Voldemort said. "And all that comes with it."

They drew their wands and, with murmurs of, "Torris," tapped their skin. Harry watched as the Dark Marks appeared on their arm, as red as Wormtail's had been earlier. There were tears on Fawley's cheeks, but she didn't look unhappy.

Once more Voldemort walked along their line, pressing his wand to their new Marks, staining them black. Unlike Wormtail's, though, when he lifted his wand… something came with it. At first Harry thought it was skin, and perhaps it started that way, but as Voldemort drew it higher and higher, the- whatever it was - grew, and shaped itself into a mask like the other Death Eaters wore.

Harry was equal parts revolted and fascinated, not sure if this was a hallucination or not. Was it the spider's venom, he wondered, or was it blood loss; at some point his arm had dropped back to his side and was still dripping blood. There was a pool of it at his feet.

"And now," Voldemort said, once each of his new initiates had masked themselves and risen, "I have one more introduction to make." All eyes went to Harry, and Voldemort smiled. "Yes. Though I doubt he needs it. Harry Potter, my Champion." Nagini was back, slithering over the tombstone above Harry's head. "He has been kind enough to attend my rebirthing, and was essential to its success." Harry's stomach turned. "And now, I must leave you for a short while." Nagini moved off the stone and onto Harry, draping herself loosely over his shoulders. She was heavy, and cold. "My Champion and I are long overdue for a conversation." The ropes fell away from Harry as if that was their cue, though Nagini remained wrapped around him. His weight - plus Nagini's - settled fully onto his injured leg and he winced, then swayed a little. "Come, Harry." Harry couldn't run, not with her there - she'd constrict and he'd be suffocating, or she'd bite him and leave him to die - but that didn't mean he had to move.

Honestly, he wasn't sure he could. Voldemort's lip curled.

"I have made my gesture of goodwill this evening, Harry. Now, it is time for yours."

The Death Eaters were confused, uneasy - he could smell it - though they remained silent. There were twenty-six of them, and Wormtail and Voldemort himself, and only one of him. He had James' wand still tucked away, but no easy way to get it, and even if he did… then what?

Then what…?

He couldn't think, couldn't focus. His head was fuzzy and he hurt, and-

You functioned for months on no sleep, you can function now, and if you don't move, he'll kill you here.

He's going to kill me anyway, another part of him argued. Was he in shock? He thought he might be - he was beginning to feel a little numb. Why prolong it? Best to just let him get on with it.

He didn't rebel at the notion. He was ashamed to admit he actually considered it; if he died here, at least that would be the end of it. In the hazy, achy numbness of shock, it was hard to muster strong feelings about it. He wasn't afraid, wasn't anxious, or sad.

Vaguely, he thought if he waited long enough, he might even die of blood loss before Voldemort had the chance to do the honours.

But…

He wouldn't die defending a principle, or protecting someone - like his parents had - he'd just… die.

And where would that leave everyone else - his family and his friends? All their grief aside, all the questions and horror and - knowing Padfoot - self-blame aside, he'd be leaving them in a world where it was, quite possibly not possible to defeat Voldemort.

If he died now, it would be without a wand in his hand. It wouldn't be because he'd been bested, or because he'd made a costly mistake. It would be him putting the fact that he was tired and sore and didn't want to fight anymore over the futures of his friends and family.

It would be because he'd given up.

And that Harry baulked at, so strongly that it cut through his shock, made him present again, and focused. The pain came back as the numbness receded, but that was all right; pain meant he was alive. And the pain cleared his mind a little, enough to think.

He was outnumbered here, and if - or rather when - Voldemort decided to kill him, he knew it would be in front of an audience. Harry was his Champion; he wouldn't be allowed to have a private death.

Perhaps Voldemort really did want to talk.

And if it was just the two of them, then maybe Harry'd be able to draw his second wand, or make a run for it. Voldemort was powerful - Harry'd seen demonstrations of that tonight already - but he wasn't perfect; Cedric had escaped, after all. He'd be safely back with Dumbledore now, maybe trying to reverse-engineer the portkey to find Harry. Perhaps the Order was on their way.

Or perhaps not, but that was all right. At the very least, they would know Voldemort was back, and if Harry died here tonight, then they'd be able to guess with reasonable certainty what had happened to him.

If he died. Cedric had escaped. Maybe Harry could too. But it wouldn't be from here, from beneath Nagini and in front of a circle of Death Eaters.

He took a slow step toward Voldemort, who relaxed ever so slightly.