Warning: This chapter is very dark. A corpse is desecrated, beating hearts are crushed, and curses are laid against someone's soul. These events occur just before and during the spring holiday in 1995.

Bad Memories and Futures

It was early March and while the weather had warmed slightly, winter still held England in its grip. Called to the edge of his wards by a 'knock', Lucius Malfoy appeared in warm furs with a warming spell in a bubble around him. He was prepared to dismiss any wizard interrupting his afternoon.

After a second of disbelief, Lucius simply stared at the figure standing outside his wards. Barty Crouch, Jr. died twelve years earlier in Azkaban. And yet, here the wizard stood demanding entry into Malfoy Manor. Besides the wizard, a huge viper coiled up with her tongue flickering out. The snake was twenty feet long and three feet round in the center. It had to be a magical creature to be out in the winter and to be such a large size in England.

"Let us in Malfoy. It's cold and Our Lord must have a warm place to sleep tonight," declared the wizard who looked like Barty Crouch, Jr.

The second voice shook Lucius to his core – it came from the viper. "Let usss in Luciusss! I insssist you sssend your wife away to protect her gentle disposition. Your wife never approved of our work in any cassse."

"How is it you? Is this real?" Lucius asked. "Is it really you…My Lord?"

The snake flicked out its tongue trying to taste the scent of Lucius Malfoy in the air. "Why are you afraid Luciussss?"

"You died," Malfoy replied before he pointed at Crouch and said, "Barty died, and his body was pitched into the North Sea. His father shared the photograph with every member of the Wizengamot!"

"I am immortal! I cannot die!" hissed the viper.

Lucius called an elf and gave orders to escort Narcissa to 'the other location now.' With his wand in his hand, Lucius faced the snake and dead wizard, not certain what to do. He could kill them with his wards if they didn't leave. The snake's mouth could not make the sound of laughter properly, but the Dark Lord was entertained.

"Barty, have your elf bring our guessstsss," the viper ordered. The wizard called another elf that popped away and back. She arrived with two persons; a filthy man who resembled a rat who was stupefied, and Barty Crouch, Sr. who stood with the stupid grin characteristic of being under the imperious command.

"Do you remember Peter Pettigrew?" asked Barty, motioning to the rat-man. "He's been living in his rat Animagus for the past thirteen years and just escaped being captured by Sirius Black at Hogwarts last spring."

Motioning toward the serpent, Barty continued, "He fled to Albania to hide but came into contact with the Dark Lord in his current host. With some persuasion, Peter and Our Lord journeyed slowly back to England and rescued me."

"How?" Lucius asked. "How are you still alive?"

"My loving mother used Polyjuice to take my place in Azkaban. She was dying and sacrificed her last weeks to save me. But my father kept me a prisoner in the basement for the same thirteen years Peter lived as a rat."

"The day the Dark Lord and Peter arrived in Britain, they apparated to my home and the rat-man called for Winky and convinced her to help him free me. When Daddy returned home at the end of the day, I smacked him with the imperious curse."

"You were under the curse of thirteen years…how is your mind?" asked Lucius.

"Fractured, just like my magical core," admitted Barty Crouch, Jr. "My elf's magic holds me together but within another month, I'll be insane and less than a muggle when my core drains away. That is why we must speak to you and begin to act today."

Lucius Malfoy stared at the other wizard with pity – losing your magic and becoming a muggle was worse than death. Then he asked, "Why is Pettigrew tied up? You just said that he rescued Our Lord and freed you?"

"I invaded the rat's brain for the truth of all matters relating to his thirteen years hiding as a rat. He betrayed Our Lord!" Barty shouted. "Pettigrew stole the book entrusted to your father and took it to Hogwarts."

Growing wide-eyed and fanatical, Barty continued, "I saw the memory of him throwing the treasure up the stairs of the girl's dormitory in the Gryffindor Tower. Some stupid girl wrote in the book and died. But Harry Potter destroyed the book with the Sword of Gryffindor!"

His eyes wide with shock for the fate of the book to be known, Lucius tried taking deep breaths and finally asked, "The book? The book my father had?"

"Did your wards allow Death Eaters inside?" asked Barty.

"Yes." Lucius protested. "Wait here…"

The wizard apparated inside his house and made the effort of tearing his library apart to make it look as if he'd searched for the book. He returned to the edge of the wards via apparition and knelt before the viper.

"My Lord, the book you entrusted to my father is indeed gone."

The viper hissed, "As punishment for allowing Pettigrew to steal the book, you will procure all the items needed for my resurrection and you will act as officiant at the ritual to get my body back."

Lowering the wards and permitting the insane wizards inside his wards, Lucius Malfoy grabbed hold of his mental occlumency shields and reinforced them with all his might.

"We shall proceed at the Spring Equinox," the viper said. "But first, I must have a homunculus form to deliver for Magic to transfigure into a wizard."

"A homunculus, My Lord?"

"Yes, a baby. There's a small ritual that Barty, this viper, and Peter will conduct as soon as Barty finds a newly dead baby."

"Infanticide?"

"No, no, it shouldn't be killed but dead naturally."

"Magical or muggle?"

"It doessssssn't make a difference," the viper's hisses said. "I have too much power to worry about sssssuch thingsssss."

Lucius nodded and offered two house elves as possible spies to go into muggle hospitals to find the body of a newborn.

SCENE CHANGE

Barty and Dark Lord Viper gave Lucius a long list of expensive, rare, or forbidden items to gather for the potion to be used in the ritual. Consulting with Severus Snape without telling him what he planned to do, Lucius spent almost two hundred thousand galleons with shady providers in Knockturn Alley for dragon bone dust and other rare ingredients. With Malfoy's vicious reputation, none of the suppliers dared to provide less potent or substitute items.

Lucius turned to his account manager at Gringotts to source the most difficult item – a stone cauldron large enough for a man's body. The cauldron had to be carved from a single boulder and the inside surface had to be polished with the dust created by grinding vampire fangs.

The goblin had not been pleased with the rushed status of the request – such a cauldron did not exist in any goblin stronghold currently and would require at least six months to carve. Axeblade's displeasure was magnified when a human associate reported that the dwarves in Bern had such an item available in five days' time. The cauldron had been carved from a single boulder by giants living in the mountains of Norway and only needed the polishing to be completed.

Malfoy agreed to the rush order fees instantly and after paying almost twenty thousand galleons, Axeblade and his goblin associates delivered the cauldron to Lucius on 17 March 1995.

SCENE CHANGE

When asked by Dark Lord Viper to name a 'willing servant' who would provide the living appendage for the ritual, Lucius immediately named Dolores Umbridge.

"Who is this witch?" asked the dark lord. Malfoy described the evil acts the witch undertook to rise to her current position of undersecretary to Minister Fudge, the people she had crushed during her rise to power, and the bills she kept introducing to the Wizengamot – imprisonment of werewolves, more restrictions on muggle-borns, hunting licenses for muggles (muggle baiting was outlawed in 1895), and taunts against the goblins.

"The goblins? She is evil if she's attempting to provoke another goblin rebellion," Dark Lord Viper commented.

"Very well," Dark Lord Viper replied. "And who for the blood of an enemy? I'd love to get blood from Potter but with the wards around Hogwarts, I have no hope of reaching him."

"Alastor Moody, My Lord. He killed more Death Eaters than any four other Aurors combined. He openly broke with Dumbledore about using deadly force in battles with your followers," Lucius said.

"Didn't you and your friends take his eye in one battle?"

"We did My Lord, though I am the only one of your followers who survived."

"Get him that afternoon," Dark Lord Viper commanded. "Then no one will think to look for him for at least twenty-four hours."

CHANGE SCENERY

After being forced from her home in early March, Narcissa Malfoy never spoke with her husband again though the house elves kept her updated on the visitors infesting Malfoy Manor.

'The house will have to be burned to the ground and the land sowed with salt to remove the stain from the family's magic,' she decided. Writing a letter to her son, she ordered him to remain at Hogwarts for the upcoming spring holiday. He wrote that he would comply, but only reluctantly.

In her next letter, she ordered him to keep his trunk packed at all times. And if she appeared at the school and shared their secret passwords, he was to come with her instantly and without hesitation.

'Our lives could hang in the balance and every second matters. Say nothing to no one! I am sorry if this scares you, my dragon, but know that I love you with all my heart and be prepared if I come for you.'

CHANGE SCENERY

It was only two days later that Hibby, one of the house-elves, returned to Malfoy Manor with the body of a still-born child from a hospital somewhere in muggle England. Without hesitating to consider what he was doing to his own soul, Lucius took the body to the Dark Lord.

"How long hasss it been dead?" asked the Viper with the Dark Lord's voice.

"This morning…less that twelve hours."

"We sssshall move inssstantly," hissed the voice. "Barty, bring Pettigrew. Luciusss take me to…I sssshall give you the location when you touch my head."

Finding it hard to not shudder or shake with fear, Lucius centered his thoughts and touched the skin of the giant viper. The location was a wooded area in the north of England and the wizard side-apparated the snake with him. There Barty waited patiently with Peter who was agitated like always .

Slight Change

As soon as they gathered, Lucius was left to guard Pettigrew while Barty and the Viper approached a shack in the thicket of trees and overgrown shrubbery to retrieve a treasure. While they waited, Peter looked at Lucius and said, "Lucius Malfoy, I curse you with long life."

Raising one eyebrow but not replying, Malfoy listened carefully as Pettigrew continued, "Barty told me what they're going to do to me. With my death, I curse you to live more than a normal lifespan for a wizard. I tried to help the Dark Lord when you sent that treasure of his to Hogwarts."

"Weasley threw the book away and Potter had it hidden inside his trunk. I knew it had to be back in the girl's hands to finish the enchantment, so I waited until four in the morning. I transformed back into this shape, took the diary, and threw it as far as I could up the stairs of the girl's dormitory. That's the memory that Barty found when he plundered through my mind."

Peter smiled, "The little witch was enthralled by the treasure again by lunch that same day and Potter had no clue where the book had disappeared to. But Barty wouldn't listen when he raped my mind. All he saw was me throwing the book up the stairs."

Lucius remained silent while Peter moved his gaze from Malfoy to the viper and Crouch in the ruins of the shack. "Remember my curse, Lucius Malfoy! A century from now while you're still alive, remember I am the wizard who cursed you."

Change Again

There was an ear-piercing scream from the shack and Lucius almost bolted; only fear of the Dark Lord Viper's revenge if he ever learned the truth about the diary kept him frozen in place. In the distance, he saw Barty kneeling on the rotting boards and the viper crawling over him, the tongue caressing the face of the wizard who was in excruciating pain.

Eventually, Barty staggered to his feet and followed the viper back to the other two wizards. There Barty drew out the corpse of the still-born child and the viper curled around it. Lucius noticed the wizard's left hand was rotting away, with a fast-moving curse that already encompassed the man's entire hand and wrist. Lifting his right hand with his wand ready, Barty cast an obscure spell at Peter that blasted him into ten thousand pieces that flew in every direction – except they froze in place after less than one second, leaving Pettigrew resembling a jigsaw puzzle before it was assembled.

Barty stepped closer and reached inside the pieces of Peter to grasp the man's still beating, whole heart. Turning to Dark Lord Viper and the corpse of the stillborn child, Barty stood over the snake and squeezed the blood out of the beating heart. The dark blood dripped down into the open mouth of the viper and onto the child.

"I give my life for My Lord Voldemort!" declared Barty before he pronounced the same obscure spell again and he exploded into a thousand parts.

"His heart! Lucius, get his heart and squeeze the blood into my mouth!" commanded Dark Lord Viper.

Hurrying forward, Lucius reached among the floating bits of Barty and withdrew the man's beating heart. He squeezed the organ and the blood once again dropped into the snake's mouth and on the tiny body lying in the viper's coils.

Then the viper's fangs bit into the small body of the child, piercing the head and torso. When the viper withdrew, Lucius watched a thick bit of smoke, dark and ugly, slip from the viper and into the body of the child. Glancing away, Lucius first found himself caught by the eyes of Peter Pettigrew, still frozen in place with the other parts of the spell that blew him apart. The eyes were aware of what they were seeing, and Lucius felt a dark curse settle onto his soul.

Looking toward Barty Crouch, Lucius found the fragments of the wizard's face were frozen in a smile – Barty was happy to have given his life for the Dark Lord's return.

Taking the baby with the squeaky voice in his arms and touching the head of the viper who no longer talked, Lucius returned to his manor home. The viper went into the nearby forested area to hunt, and a nervous elf took the infant into the house to bathe, dress, and feed.

One of his house-elves reported that Hibby had died only an hour before. Stealing the corpse of the still-born child destroyed the elf's interest in living.

While the homunculus baby slept, Lucius returned to the site in northern England and banished every piece of Barty Crouch, Jr., and Peter Pettigrew lingering in the air and on the ground. Then he returned to his manor and drank Fire Whiskey. The next morning, March 20, was the equinox and Lucius moved the viper and the baby to an abandoned muggle manor house. Then he moved all the items needed for the ritual to a nearby churchyard and cast heavy muggle repelling and notice-me-not spells around the area. Then Lucius returned to his manor home and attended meetings in the ministry until closer to the time of the equinox.

END SCENE