Chapter 33: I Can Touch You Now

Neville could feel the circulation in his muscles starting to fall asleep, but there was nothing he could do. Pinned to a high and imposing headstone in this cemetery that was likely the façade of an ancient crypt, part of this grave's infrastructure had been magically conjured to pin him to the stone – specifically, a kind of metal/stone spear. He wasn't exactly sure of its texture, nor did he have time to care at the moment.

He was trying not to panic, yet everything around him seemed straight out of a horror movie. Or a nightmare from which he couldn't wake up. Of all the moments of situational danger in which he had found himself since he turned 11, this was by far one of the worst. Indeed, each danger somehow managed to top the one from the year before, to a point where it was starting to feel almost like clockwork. Down the trapdoor battling Quirrel, descending into the Chamber of Secrets to deal with the Basilisk and the ghostly memory of young Tom Riddle and a brainwashed Ginny… it all now seemed like tea and crumpets compared to this.

Everything had started to go wrong from the moment he'd entered the maze for the Third and final Task of the Triwizard Tournament… but now things were getting scary. Truly scary. And for all the warnings he had heard all year about how the Tournament was dangerous enough that people had actually died doing it, Neville knew Crouch, Dumbledore and the other organizers would agree that this was absolutely not part of the Task, and had never intended to be.

Against his better judgment as well as the interest of trying to maintain a composed constitution, such as he currently had one, Neville felt his eyes drawn done to the other victim, sprawled at his feet and also at the foot of this headstone. Cedric Diggory lay flat on his back, his eyes frozen and unseeing in their gaze heavenward. Neville could feel hot moisture pooling at the back of his eyes, but he couldn't wipe them away because he was pinned down. The moment he and Cedric – who by then had become something like a friend, rather than a rival – had touched the Triwizard Cup, they had been transported instantly far away from the maze and into this graveyard. Wormtail, a traitorous lackey of the Dark Lord himself who had once been a friend of Harry Potter's dad, suddenly appeared and (admittedly with some assistance) ambushed the pair.

The order had come in a hiss: Kill the spare. The flash of green light and Cedric being flung backward and out of the land of the living. Neville remembered screaming Cedric's name, though he hadn't really heard himself do it in the moment. It had felt like his ears were ringing.

Now, he was alone and trapped like the rat Wormtail himself was and turned into. Neville had been helpless to watch as the stout, meek little man had forcibly stabbed him and taken some of the blood from his arm, appearing gleeful in his radicalized delusions. Neville had watched as his own blood was added to a brew in a bubbling cauldron, one that had eventually helped to resurrect the Dark Lord himself and place him in a new body. A body that appeared more snake than man, and was truly the stuff of nightmares. With plenty of time to sit and think (albeit in a forced manner), Neville couldn't help but chillingly wonder if the diary in the Chamber of Secrets, the attempt at stealing the Stone, had all been connected, leading up to this moment. The more he considered it, the more it made horrifying sense: Voldemort had possessed Quirrel, he had brainwashed Ginny Weasley by conjuring his younger self from the pages of an object he had owned. He Who Must Not Be Named had been searching for a way to take ownership of a new body and pass back into the land of the living.

And now it was done, and there was nothing Neville could do to stop it as he watched Voldemort hold court amongst his rapturous followers, cloaked in hoods and in the surrounding shadows like thieves in the night. The Dark Lord spoke in a loud, but bizarrely high voice, though no less bone chilling and cruel. He was performative, this resurrected Voldemort, a master showman – maybe to the level of showboating. But wasn't that what charismatic narcissists, what madmen, did? Put of a show for their enthralled hangers-on until they could make anyone believe anything, believe in absurdities enough to get them to commit atrocities?

At present, Voldemort's monologuing was taken on all the airs of a bedtime story, a storytime for children except inverted in almost Burtonian fashion. The…. man (if that's truly what he was) clearly enjoyed the sound of his own voice as he reminded his groupies:

"You see, my brethren, when dear Alice Longbottom sacrificed herself for the life of her son, the act of love seeped into young Neville's bloodstream. I could not touch him! But with the blood of my enemy now thrumming through my veins, that obstacle is no longer present." He now whirled, almost floating back towards the headstone of the crypt with inhuman speed, waving a hand high. Indeed, Voldemort was putting on a show, and was clearly well aware for whom he was putting it on. "No matter. I can touch you…. now!"

Voldemort had to reach a bit to get to Neville, which might have been something to mock at in regards to how, with the bastard's new body, he hadn't managed to shop around for something taller. But at present the creature was currently pressing his thumb painfully into the very etching of the lightning scar on Neville's forehead. Liquid fire was spasming through the cut and Neville felt no reservations to scream as much and as loud as he wanted. Voldemort grinned wickedly, clearly enjoying the spectacle as much as he was enjoying orchestrating it.

"Come, come now, Neville, my lad," he tutted. "You deserve to be a part of this glorious display too! Step up, my boy; you can have the floor! I want my faithful to watch as we face each other, finally, as two and true equals!"

A flick of a wand white as bone and the spear thingy was being flung away from Neville's body, and he dropped to the ground. Flight won out in the weighing of Fight vs. Flight and he scrabbled away, diving behind a smaller headstone and willing his exhausted body to put as much distance between himself and Voldemort. Stonework exploded from a few graves down to his right, and against the exploding of rubble, Neville heard Voldemort groan.

"No, no, Neville, I don't think you quite get the idea of this game…"

Oh, he got it perfectly: this was a game of cat and mouse, but Neville wasn't about to play it Voldemort's way.

Another explosion, now getting closer and Neville rolled low to the ground, keeping to the shadows amongst the tombstones.

"COME ON OUT, NEVILLE LONGBOTTOM! I WANT TO SEE THE WHITES OF YOUR EYES WHEN YOU FACE ME! MEET YOUR DESTINY LIKE A MAN, LIKE A WIZARD! …. If that's truly what you are…." Some of the assembled Death Eaters let out low, rumbling chuckles, and Neville actually felt himself burning up with righteous anger over the clear reference to wonderings if he was a Squib and thus, an accidental Boy Who Lived. Right now, he felt more like the Boy Who Didn't Know When to Lay Down and Die, not because of skill, but because the universe for some reason seemed to have a good laugh using his life as a plaything.

In the short distance, Neville could see a soft glow: the Cup, still lying abandoned on its side where he and Cedric had arrived in the graveyard. If he could just get to it – sprint, roll, commando crawl, he could give a damn how he got there…. Maybe he could escape. Be transported back.

Only one thing made him pause: Cedric. He couldn't leave the broken body of his Triwizard rival. And if he couldn't leave him….

…. Then he would have to join him. And that meant having to face the darkest wizard in history and play by his demented rules.

Neville took a deep breath. His heart was trying to thump right out of his chest, violent tremors were overtaking his body… and yet still he somehow managed to keep his knees locked as he got up out of his crouch and stood, turning slowly to face his sworn enemy.

Voldemort looked surprised that Neville suddenly wasn't running, the way he had initially with the Basilisk, the last time they had technically met. Indeed, the literal snake seemed quite pleased.

"Excellent," he purred. "I presume you know what a wizard's duel is between gentleman, Longbottom?" He didn't even wait for an answer before continuing on, clearly assuming the query rhetorical, or if not, perhaps too full of himself and confidence in his impending victory to care. "Now, first: we bow…. to each other, Neville."

Neville set his jaw. He might be playing this game Riddle's way, but he would not bow like a servant to this monster, he would not….

Riddle's eyes narrowed into red slits and he lifted his wand with almost poised grace. "I said… bow….." The Imperius Curse washed over the boy, and though Neville gritted his teeth and grunted as he struggled, his body was nonetheless forced to bend at the waist.

"Good boy!... Now to set our paces and begin the countdown."

Yes. For that was the dueling tradition, except in the silly little Club second year, Neville hadn't been counting down to his impending, imminent death. Terrified but taking action anyway, if not for his own sake, then for Cedric's, Neville wasn't the least bit surprised that Voldemort would not duel like a gentleman and even complete a full countdown.

"1… Avada Kedavra!"

Desperate, Neville threw out the first spell that came into his head, and it seemed only fitting, at his inglorious end, that he would choose the lamest, most Squibbish spell imaginable as his last cast – indeed, his last words.

"Expelliarmus!"

It was almost a joke, really: how could anyone possibly disarm an opponent of a wand which had cast the Killing Curse, an Unforgivable both indefensible and un-defensible from?

And yet….

Suddenly, the two bolts of light from the two wands collided, then almost connected, holding fast in a kind of tug of war that spread its tingles across the expanse and all the way into Neville's wand so he could feel it shaking in his hand, like a very sensitive video game remote.

Even against the glare of two spells which seemed inexplicably fused together, almost like they had gotten stuck, Neville could see Voldemort's face roil with shock and confusion before it strained with exertion he hadn't planned to tap into. All he, Neville, could do was grit his teeth and hold on, still terrified and now shocked also. What was happening?

As Neville watched, growling and straining against the almost gravitational pull that had suddenly erupted between his and Voldemort's wands, amorphous, white bubbles sprang forth from where their spells met, whoosing out and down to earth around him before the ghostly apparitions morphed into people. People who Neville guessed had died at the hand of Voldemort's wand.

An old man he didn't recognize, but who dipped his head in respect. "You fight him, boy!"

Cedric Diggory himself, his earthly body still barely cold, but appearing calm and at peace.

"Neville: take my body back, will you? Take my body back to my parents." Neville could only nod dumbly.

And then, quite suddenly, for the first time since he'd watched Cedric be brutally murdered, Neville felt like he wasn't alone. And in a very supernatural way, he wasn't.

Glancing one way and then the other, he was astonished to see the spirits of his parents beside him.

"Neville! Neville!" the ghost of his father, Frank, shouted, looking just as he had in the Mirror of Erised three years before. "The connection is going to hold him off, but not forever! It will break eventually! When it does, we can give you a moment of time, but only a moment, do you understand me, son?!"

Neville nodded, trying not to cry, trying not to be one of those boys who needed his parents, but he had, all his life and never more than in this moment. He looked into the face of his mother and could feel her gentleness, her love. Her expression was still solemn, serious, but her voice was filled with soothing encouragement, giving him strength.

"Sweetheart, you're ready…. Let go!... Let go!"

And with a growl, Neville did and he threw his body into motion immediately. Get Cedric. Get to the cup.

Time seemed to slow down. He grabbed his friend and with incredible, inhuman strength hefted him at a sprint all the way back to the cup, throwing himself down beside it, flinging out a finger. Just one touch…..

The cup and the two boys disappeared instantly, just seconds ahead of Voldemort rising to his feet from where the blast of the broken connection had sprawled him.

The cemetery was ghostly empty, with nothing but the howl of the wind to greet him. His quarry was gone.

Voldemort's downright operatic scream was anguished almost to the point of petulance at having been foiled again.

"EEEEEEEEEYAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!"