The events in this chapter occur at 04:14 PM on Monday, March 20, 1995, the Spring Equinox.

SCENE CHANGE $$$

The cemetery outside a deserted muggle church was deserted in the afternoon hours. With the help of Dolores Umbridge who summoned Alastor Moody for a meeting in the ministry, Lucius Malfoy was able to kidnap first Moody and then Dolores. His house-elves moved the two participants for the ritual from the ministry while Lucius attended a meeting with Fudge and then departed through the public floo in the Atrium.

"Let me go, Malfoy!" demanded Dolores. "I know where you buried your skeletons! You can't do this to me!"

The homunculus in the muggle baby carrier declared, "Umbridge, you are now one of my favorite followers in the ministry! You served me with your wicked machinations and corruption. Be proud that you're playing a role in the resurrection of your lord!"

"I'm not Bellatrix Lestrange! Let me go!" the witch screamed as she twisted in the muggle ropes that held her close. Realizing who Lucius intended to resurrect, Dolores grew desperate. "I'll see you kissed for this Malfoy! And your wife and stupid son too!"

"No one will kiss anyone!" the homunculus baby squeaked. "That's very unsanitary!"

Also tied up but held upright by a large headstone with the name Riddle on it, Alastor Moody watched everything carefully with his single eye. They'd taken the magical eye but left him the peg leg and he waited until the proper moment to reveal that the leg was also a focus of Moody's magic – he'd only get one shot at Malfoy, and he needed to determine if the homunculus had enough power to cast a spell.

"Dolores, you just explained why I chose you as the 'faithful servant' for the ritual," Lucius explained. "You know where my indiscretions and mistakes are buried. If you are weakened by this ritual, you'll keep your mouth quiet."

"So…you're not going to kill me?" she asked hopefully, her lips quivering, and her hands clenched tightly, her pink fingernails digging into the flesh of her palms.

The homunculus laughed and Lucius replied, "Our Lord will need all his faithful servants once he returns in full power."

"So, what do we do?" she asked. "Do you take my virginity on an alter while he watches?"

Moody bit his lips to keep from laughing at the look of horror on Malfoy's face and the scream of obscenities from the homunculus after the witch's question.

"Start the ritual, Lucius!" commanded the homunculus Dark Lord.

"We must wait until the moment of balance, my lord," Lucius replied. "Just two minutes more."

The large cauldron bubbled with the potion liquids and ingredients that Lucius spent several hundred thousand galleons gathering. The stone cauldron had cost almost twenty thousand alone – newly carved by giants in Norway from a single boulder. The interior had been smoothed by dwarves polishing the rough stone with dust made from vampire fangs. (The dwarves had cut their expenses by using the dust of whole vampires rather than just their fangs and believed no simple wizard would know the difference.)

At the moment of balance – equal darkness and light in the world – Lucius raised his wand and summoned the bones of the father. The wizard was surprised when a complete skeleton was pulled from a coffin rather than the dust left after cremation. Dolores didn't understand but Moody did; the retired Auror took great enjoyment announcing, "The Dark Lord's daddy was a muggle! Malfoy, your mighty lord is a mud-blood!"

Lucius Malfoy hesitated for a moment – Riddle wasn't the name of a magical family he had ever known about.

"Ignore him, Lucius! Continue!" commanded the homunculus in the baby carrier.

"The Dark Lord can't be a mudblood!" cried Dolores, trying to gain favor. "Release me and I'll finish the ritual!"

Lucius snarled at the witch, grabbed Umbridge's left arm, and cut off her hand with one swipe of a magically sharp knife. While the witch screamed, Malfoy grabbed the hand and declared, "Flesh of the willing servant!"

Then he dropped the hand with the lurid fingernails into the cauldron.

Next, Malfoy went to Alastor Moody and stabbed the man in the arm, gathering blood in a small bottle as it flowed over the knife blade, the same knife he'd used to cut off the hand of Dolores Umbridge.

"Blood of the unwilling enemy," Lucius declared as he poured the blood into the cauldron. The huge potion bubbled faster with the ritual words and ingredients.

"Now Lucius! Now!" the homunculus declared. "Put me in the cauldron."

Taking the form of the baby from the carrier, Lucius stripped it of the blanket and nappy before lowering the scaly form into the bubbling potion. He stepped back and called out, "Rise Lord Voldemort! Rise!"

Alastor Moody chose that moment to act. He raised the peg leg and cast the strongest bombard spell he could from that unusual magical focus. Just as the resurrected Dark Lord began to rise from the bubbling cauldron, Lucius Malfoy slammed against the stone side, pushing it over, spilling everything on the ground while he fell backward and lay still on the ground. At the same moment, Moody used the peg leg again to cast the greatest magical pulse he could. This pulse was a signal used by Aurors in distress to summon other Aurors to provide aid.

On the far side of the cauldron, the Dark Lord struggled to stand. The larger homunculus gazed about for a moment and then realized something had gone wrong. He wasn't very tall and was certainly rounder than he expected.

"Lucius! Lucius where are you?" Voldemort shouted before he slipped in the spilled potion. Tom Riddle's new homunculus managed to walk around the stone cauldron by holding onto the edge. On the opposite side, he found the unconscious Malfoy and the silent Moody staring at him as though memorizing each second. Grabbing Malfoy's outer robes, Tom Riddle covered his overweight, naked body.

The blood had stopped flowing from the stump of Dolores Umbridge's arm, her sightless eyes staring at the night sky. Muttering curses against all wizards in Magical Britain, Lord Voldemort searched Malfoy's pockets for his wand.

'Pettigrew had it when we returned to England. Barty gave it to Lucius,' Tom remembered. 'His screams were delicious when Barty chopped him into pieces.'

'And poor Barty's screams hurt my ears when he put on my cursed ring to power the first ritual to create the baby form. But he was a loyal follower and gave his life willingly,' he remembered as he found his wand. Caressing the wood and narrowing his eyes, Tom wondered, 'Who else has remained loyal?'

Glancing at Lucius, he saw the wizard still breathed, but too many bones were broken for Malfoy to be any help.

Turning toward the Auror hanging from the monument to his muggle father, Tom considered blasting the man into a thousand pieces. As he raised his wand, the crack of multiple apparitions around him broke the air. Tom growled but spun to escape by apparition when Moody's leg – the peg leg – rose and fired a reducto spell at the Dark Lord.

Twenty-four Aurors arrived and began securing the area immediately. With spells from three feet away, two Aurors placed Malfoy into stasis. The Lead Auror, Rufus Scrimgeour arrived and began issuing commands. Moody was lowered to the ground and provided with a small swallow of a pepper up. Scrimgeour's Patronus, a large lion, flew away. A dozen Unspeakables appeared within ten minutes. After another fifteen minutes, everything – Lucius Malfoy, Umbridge's body, the cauldron, the coals, and debris from the ritual, all disappeared before the wizards vanished as quietly as possible. The injured Moody was taken to the DMLE infirmary and additional healers were summoned from Saint Mungos.

SCENE CHANGE &&&

In the office of Amelia Bones, Director of the DMLE, the witch listened carefully to the report from the Head Auror, Rufus Scrimgeour.

"Lucius Malfoy managed to conduct a partially successful resurrection ritual of the Dark Lord Voldemort. Alastor Moody's eyewitness account would prevent the Malfoy from claiming he was under the imperious spell again."

This news pleased the witch greatly and she motioned Rufus to continue with facts from the investigation: The Unspeakables put multiple projects in stasis while analyzing the potion and the ritual Malfoy completed. Dolores Umbridge was dead. Lucius Malfoy was paralyzed and unconscious (while still in the custody of the Department of Mysteries). Alastor's memory was being viewed by every Auror in the DMLE, and every member of her staff – civilian and Auror were required to swear on their magic to not speak, write, or hint of the night's events with anyone. One secretary lost her magic (temporarily) when she tried to slip out of the department and travel to the offices of the Daily Prophet.

CHANGE SCENE

As soon as daylight returned, the Unspeakables returned to Little Hangleton and surveyed the entire area. There was evidence of at least two wizards dying in recent days in the brush near a hovel collapsing from rot and age. The nearby deserted muggle manor house showed evidence of recent magical inhabitation and a large maledictus was dispatched with extreme prejudice when it was discovered sleeping while digesting a muggle.

There was no news in the Daily Prophet, no special edition, and no announcement that day or the next. The Unspeakables met with Director Bones and Head Auror Scrimgeour before the team prepared to meet with Minister Fudge. A second person, one of the Senior Aurors almost lost his magic when he went to lunch in the ministry dining hall and bumped into Headmaster Albus Dumbledore. Attempting to question the nervous Auror – Shacklebolt – Dumbledore skimmed the man's mind and demanded some details.

The large wizard began to convulse as his magic was torn from his core. However, Amelia Bones arrived in the dining room while Dumbledore tried to get information out of the wizard. The director ordered Dumbledore to surrender himself for questioning, but Dumbledore called his phoenix and escaped. This ended Shacklebolt's pain, and he quickly denounced his membership in the Order of the Phoenix.

"Idiot," Bones said of Dumbledore. "The old fool almost cost a good Auror his magic and then his life because of conflicting oaths. If he'd waited until the briefing this afternoon, he'd received the information without costing someone else their magic."

She turned to Rufus and said, "Find out who else is in Dumbledore's bird club. I want them confined in cells that only you or I can open. No visitors, no messages in or out."

"Yes, director," the Scrimgeour agreed.

Scenery Change

Late in the afternoon, Cornelius Fudge called Albus Dumbledore on the floo. When the headmaster declined to attend the conference in the minister's office, Amelia joined the minister on the floo call and informed the old wizard that if he failed to attend this conference, he would regret not hearing the latest information regarding Tom Riddle.

"Tom Riddle? What do you mean?" asked Albus. However, Amelia terminated the floo call abruptly and Dumbledore immediately reestablished it to come through. In Fudge's office, he was directed to sit beside the minister and listen.

Continually interrupting the presentation and not believing a word of the story laid before them, Cornelius Fudge decided he was too old to continue with public office, while Albus Dumbledore sincerely wished that the young people – like Alastor, Amelia, and Rufus – would listen to him more often.

An Unspeakable discussed the composition of the potion while both government leaders looked pale hearing, "There were several mistakes in this ritual. Auror Moody's blood was the absolute worst enemy for Riddle and Malfoy to have picked."

"But Moody is a dangerous wizard, even in his retirement," Dumbledore opined.

"Yes, but the man doesn't have a liver or either kidney. He is only alive because his daughters brew the expensive potions that keep him alive. The new body of the Dark Lord may be missing some critical organs or what he does have is being poisoned by the medicinal potions that were present in Moody's blood."

A second Unspeakable added, "There was a second mistake by Malfoy. He used the same knife to collect the donation from Undersecretary Umbridge that he used to stab Moody. There was cross-contamination by the blood from Dolores Umbridge with the blood of an enemy."

"Lucius only earned Acceptable on his NEWTs for potions," Dumbledore reminded everyone.

Fudge asked, "Where is Lucius?"

"He's in our care, Minister Fudge," the first Unspeakable said. "And he'll stay with us."

"But I'm sure he was under the imperious – again," Cornelius whispered.

Alastor Moody snorted, "Did you watch my memory, Cornelius? Lucius Malfoy was not under the imperious at any time! He helped capture me. He selected your undersecretary as the follower to sacrifice some body part because he wanted to remove a witch who blackmailed him."

Surrendering any notion of saving Lucius (and his career), Cornelius said, "I believe we should hide this story…these events from the public."

"I agree with the minister," Dumbledore said.

The first Unspeakable replied, "The Department of Mysteries disagrees. If you suppress this information, when Dark Lord Voldemort moves against Magical Britain, the people will tear both of you to pieces."

"What do you mean?" asked Fudge.

The unspeakable motioned toward the pensive and said, "Think what the goblins will say when they see a memory of this meeting where you both said to hide the information. What will the Daily Prophet publish every day for a week – Fudge and Dumbledore hid the truth!"

"What do you propose?" Dumbledore said, smoothly altering his position on the news.

Amelia Bones said, "Before nightfall, we hold a press conference and release photos of the image of the Dark Lord's new form and his family history. His father was a muggle without any magic, making him less than a half-blood."

"Should I nominate Dolores for an Order of Merlin?" asked Cornelius.

"No," replied everyone in the room.

The news released was slightly different from the story shared with Cornelius and Albus.

Upon his resurrection, the Dark Lord crawled out of the cauldron on a pair of squat legs and a rounded figure. Malfoy was thrown about by the Dark Lord's spells as soon as Lord Voldemort received his wand. Aurors arrived in force at the scene because of the amount of magic being displayed in a muggle area and the DMLE came out of apparition with wands firing. The dark lord apparated away seeking aid from other Death Eaters. Lucius Malfoy vanished and had not been seen since.

The photos provided to each reporter of Dolores losing her hand, Lucius summoning the skeleton of a muggle, and the dumpy form of the Dark Lord, were printed multiple times that spring in Magical Britain and some European newspapers and magazines.

It was telling that Minister Fudge refused to speak on the matter except to say, "I have no information on the status or whereabouts of Mr. Malfoy."

CHANGE SCENE