Chapter 1

The Boy-Who-Died

"Robe me, Wormtail."

The high pitched voice pierced Harry's ears and scratched at his soul.

The man who had achieved his dream, immortality, conjured a mirror with nothing but a negligent wave of his hand. Red gleaming eyes observed each other through the surface of the mirror.

Harry breathed deeply, desperately trying to free himself from the statue.

Because the Dark Lord had just risen from the dead.

"What a splendid evening it has been. Don't you agree, Peter?"

Wormtail whimpered while remaining bowed to his Lord.

"My my… you seem to have hurt your hand! Show it to me."

Peter presented the stump with a hopeful look in his eyes.

"Your other hand, Peter."

He whimpered but quickly bared his other arm with the Dark mark.

Nodding in satisfaction, Voldemort took a moment to study his wand, before touching it to the mark.

Wormtail screamed.

Green light emanated from the mark as Dark Lord's terrible magic exacted its due from his absent servents.

Voldemort removed his wand. Wormtail abruptly stopped screaming and collapsed in a heap at his feet.

Seconds ticked by.

And then Harry started hearing pops coming from all around the graveyard.

Harry lost count at 47.

"Rise, my friends."

As one, the kneeling Death Eaters rose and formed a neat circle around the Dark Lord, moving with practiced ease as though they had performed this song and dance for a long long time. Several breaks in the circle caught Harry's eye.

Voldemort started moving inside the circle, eventually coming to stop in front of "Lucius! I am most honoured that you did join us. I was rather afraid that your overflowing coffers and your family had turned you from our cause."

"Never, my lord. It is but a privilege to serve a wizard such as you."

"And yet, you have failed me."

Harry instantly caught the hissing in his voice. He was speaking Parseltongue.

"Indeed, Lucius, indeed. Do you still have what I entrusted you with several years ago?"

His voice was deceptively calm. Harry could almost see Malfoy falling deeper into the hole.

He hesitated, but replied, "I have used it as instructed, my lord."

Voldemort's eyes narrowed.

"Instructed, dear Lucius? Which master, other than I, are you serving?"

"None my lord. You yourself instructed me."

This baffled Voldemort for some reason.

"I… instructed you? Show me."

Malfoy quickly removed the mask covering his face.

Harry saw Voldemort look into Malfoy's eyes for a couple of moments. Then He pulled away from his eyes, and Malfoy slumped forward. He had started breathing heavily.

"Interesting… a very unique development indeed. I had not anticipated such behaviour from… but no matter." Voldemort shook his head, focusing on Malfoy. "You have acted well, given the circumstance."

That was high praise, coming from the Dark Lord.

"I am but a humble servant, my Lord." Malfoy bowed.

Voldemort nodded and moved to the next death eater.

"Dolohov! You have been fortunate enough to get an office adjacent to the Minister's!"

"Fortune had nothing to do with it, my Lord."

"Indeed. It would seem you were too busy with your political machinations, perhaps you did not have time to contact me, did you?"

The graveyard was deathly silent.

"None of you," he said, turning around and stalking towards the center of the circle, "Not one of you tried to search for me. Not even a cursory search was done through the country, was it?"

No one dared to say a word.

"For 11 years I suffered. I was less than a spirit. An existence so vile it pains me to even think of it. I had just enough power to possess small animals, but they never lasted very long.

"I suffered so many years, thinking that one day, one of my most trusted followers would look for me. That they would find me."

He conjured a couch right there, and casually sat down, surveying the Death Eaters. "What excuses have you concocted?"

No one said anything. Harry saw Dolohov start to shake in his boots, but he remained standing, stiff as a board.

"Dolohov!"

He bowed his head.

"Convince me to not kill you. To not make an example out of you."

Harry saw his face cycle through several emotions. Finally set to... determination?

"I really must apolog—Avada Kedavra!" he suddenly screamed, his spelled aimed directly at the Dark Lord.

Voldemort didn't even blink at that, summoning a bit of rock in the path of the spell.

"Crucio." The Dark lord did not shout. He didn't even intone. He merely whispered.

Dolohov screamed. And screamed.

And screamed.

No one was foolish enough to try and save him.

And then the spell abruptly stopped.

"Kill me!" Dolohov screamed, "Kill me Lucius!" He tried to clutch at Malfoy's robes, who continued ignoring him. "Kill me! Please!"

His shouts went unanswered.

Voldemort summoned another rock. Without even casting a spell, the rock broke apart into thousands of pointed shards.

They zipped through the air and hit Dolohov. He screamed again.

But then Harry noticed, watching closely, that the shards we're slowly burrowing into his skin, drilling him through bones, muscles and fat.

None of those shards went near his head.

His screams continued for a time.

Finally, Voldemort stood up, apparently satisfied.

"I believe I have shown you the thought of attacking me is not just foolish, it's useless. As we are on a bit of a time constraint, I'll have to end the entertainment now."

A green curse sailed through the air, granting Dolohov his freedom.

"After all," Voldemort continued, as if he hadn't just killed his own minion, "we have already ignored our guest of the evening for far too long, it beggars politeness that we do address him." He laughed. It sounded more like a snake hissing when it had trapped its prey and was amusing itself by watching it squirm.

Which was, fairly accurate.

"Gentlemen, I present to you, Harry Potter, The Boy-Who-Lived!"

As one, the group turned towards Harry, his vulnerable form flailing on the statue. He studied their faces, for lack of anything else to do. Many faces showed surprise, as if they had just noticed that he existed. Lucius' face was full of contempt, still probably angry about the loss of his House Elf.

Mentally, Harry gave a resigned sigh. He knew it was coming from the moment Voldemort had called his followers. Hopes that they would simply ignore him were so far into the realm of fantasy, they may as well have been from the "Boy-Who-Lived" story books lining the shelves at the Flourish and Blotts.

He shook his head, now was not the time to get distracted.

"Yes indeed, the very Harry James Potter, in flesh. Since he was the reason I lost my previous body, I only thought it fitting to invite him to the ceremony when I received my new one." He smirked.

Harry looked back at him, not able to say much but filling all the hatred he had in his stare.

"You know, the wizarding world couldn't even acknowledge the saviours that had saved them."

Confusion warred with anger for the control of Harry's expression, and he finally settled for a disdainful curiosity.

"Oh yes," Voldemort continued, as if telling a great legend or myth, "Their saviours died that night on the Halloween of 1981. I am, of course, talking about James and Lily Potter."

Now Harry wasn't the only one confused in the group.

"Oh yes, their plan was absolutely ingenious. You see, I had a long time to ponder every last action taken by them. Every little detail."

His eyes looked at Harry, but they weren't focused on him, as if he was just a tool to help him remember someone else. Or in this case, two someones specifically.

"The fact that James hadn't had his wand on him when I entered through the door. The legendary Auror, one of the best in the force, did not have his wand on him at a time when he was hiding." He shook his head, "I should have known."

"He had activated various traps in his house, all in an effort to distract me. When I finally stood before him, all his defences exhausted, he begged for me to take his life, but spare those of his family. I killed him, and moved on."

Voldemort got the reaction he had been hoping for. Harry had sagged on the stone and had started crying. No longer was he trying to free himself.

His followers were confused, but he couldn't care less about them.

"I had climbed up the stairs, and had walked into the child's nursery. Lily Potter stood defiantly between me and the child. She offered me herself to save his life."

An intake of breath told him that Harry had indeed still been listening. "Oh yes," Voldemort took great pleasure in seeing the boy broken down like this, no curse could do what this story had done. "She offered herself to me, to do with as I may please, just to see you safe and free," he continued his tale, "but I had no desires of the carnal nature, even back then."

The Death Eaters chuckled.

"No, I couldn't care any less. I told her to step aside. But she did not. She too offered me her life in exchange for the child's life. In almost exactly the same words James had. I really should've known." He shook his head, still not over his mistakes of a decade ago.

"I killed her, and aimed my wand at the child," he whispered.

"I fired the Killing Curse."

Many indrawn breaths from around him. Many of his followers hadn't quite believed that Harry indeed had survived the spell. They believed he had just survived some dark cutting or blasting curse. But their very lord had confirmed it.

"The Potters had set up some sort of sacrificial ritual in his nursery. They had sacrificed their lives, and even the Killing Curse couldn't overcome two such sacrifices so ripe in time. They had been young, and so had had a long life ahead of them, which they had willingly sacrificed by not attacking me directly.

"Thus, the boy lived.

"The curse rebounded on me, and I did not have any time to summon anything to intercept the curse in its path. My body was destroyed."

A collective indrawn breath.

"I believe you already know the rest." His followers nodded.

Harry only hung his head, all the defiance gone. His parents had done so much for him, his mother had offered her dignity and, and, (his breath hitched) even her body to the Dark Lord. And all that had ended up doing was delay the inevitable. He had no doubt at all that Voldemort was going to kill him tonight.

Now all that he didn't know was how long he was going to be tortured.

"If only I had uttered a "no" to their sacrifices, when they had asked me to spare him, the ritual wouldn't have worked. Because I hadn't denied their request, and had indeed killed them, the ritual concluded that I had accepted, and had extracted its cost from me.

"It had been an insane gamble, that had somehow worked. I hadn't ever thought to research upon love based sacrifices. A mistake that I shall endeavour to rectify as soon as we are done here."

All was silent for a moment.

"Harry Potter." His voice whispered into his ear, making him shiver. Voldemort stalked towards the boy. The sleeves of his robes withdrew to reveal long, thin, bony hands and fingers, one of which he extended towards Harry's forehead.

He touched.

Harry screamed.

"The protection is gone! I can touch you now!" He traced a horizontal line along the crease of Harry's forehead.

Harry continued screaming, the pain from his scar becoming unbearable.

Voldemort retreated.

The statue holding him seamlessly slid back into place, and his body was dumped into a pile at the feet of the statue.

Voldemort smirked.

"I believe a duel is in order, just so these fellows here can witness with their own eyes that you are nothing compared to me."

Harry was rather dissociated from his present. He only now realised that his wand was in his hand. Not that it mattered much in the end.

He stood up gingerly, all the cuts and scratches from travelling the maze making themselves known in his pained gasp, but he stood nonetheless.

"First we bow, pure formality I assure you," Voldemort said in amusement.

Harry felt a push behind his back that didn't recede until he had bowed to his waist.

"And now, we duel."

Harry didn't bother with any spells. He wanted it all to end quickly.

Voldemort smirked momentarily at his non action, then said, "Crucio!"

Pain like Harry had never imagined coursed through his body, making him twitch and scream to no avail. Every one of his wounds opened up as if he had got them just now, even the scars resulting from his time with his Aunt. The Basilisk's fang. Falling from the broom and having his legs regrown.

They all added up and multiplied, coursing through his body in waves so that he couldn't get accustomed to them even if he tried.

His voice grew hoarse from screaming, but his mind could hardly care about that little titbit.

And then the curse was lifted.

He gingerly opened his eyes to look around. The Death Eaters were laughing at him. It had taken some time trying to spot Voldemort, who was merely smiling down at him.

"Kill me," Harry's hoarse voice carried itself to Voldemort.

Voldemort's eyes scanned him.

"I think that's enough punishment for your adventure in your first year," he spoke, "Indeed, it would much rather suit me to see you dead than tortured. You couldn't even lift your wand against me, so I can't see you as a threat. And I am not in the habit of having loose ends floating around… they have a tendency to trip you up at the worst of times."

And then Voldemort lifted his wand and said, "Avada Kedavra."

And everything went white.

OoOoOoOoO

AN: this quarantine has revived many abandoned fics and given me time to work on my own ideas a lot. So I would be lying if I said that I hated it entirely. Still, trapped in a home is not how I like to live, so I guess it balances out.

Hope you guys are doing well. Indeed, if any of my readers are from the essential services, hats off to you sir/ma'am. You're saving our collective lives, putting yours on the line. If there are indeed gods, you're them. Thank you.

This story has not ended, indeed I'm planning on writing a much grittier retelling of the books from fifth year onwards. This Voldemort is much more charismatic, and knows the basic rule in the Art of War, "You have won or lost long before you step into the warzone." He knows how to break and crumble his enemies. And he doesn't need his magic to do so.

Also, Harry's "get-out-of-death-free" card has expired. He must forever now tread even more carefully.

The plot will also start changing fairly quickly. I'll avoid bashing any characters, so Good!Weasleys and Dumbledore. Snape is still a bastard though.

All that said, stay home and stay safe.