We have a new winner as longest Stages chapter...hot damn *blown away by word count*
HULLO AGAIN, GUYS. HAPPY 2017, which is only a few hours away-at least on my end. I don't know about you but I'm all too happy for the new year to come. While 2016 had its good moments, overall...it was just a mess. One big mess after another. But I am so fucking happy since I managed to bang out 25 chapters of Stages this year and fulfilled my goal of ending 4th year by the end of 2016.
Have to thank you all for the awesome love and support. You all are so sweet and awesome. For those of you who have read the books, most of this will pretty much be a re-read but I did throw in my own twists. For those of you who haven't, most will be new and extra stuff I don't believe the movie had covered but again has my own twists. I hope you all enjoy. Fair warning: ANGST WILL BE FELT, which is fitting since shit is about to get real from here on out.
Chapter 40: All That Glitters Not Always Gold (Part 2)
With the first task, Harry's heart pounded in a wild frenzy the moment he stepped onto the arena and saw the gigantic Horntail standing over him, eyes deadly, teeth sharp, and flames leaking from his mouth.
With the second task, everything was drawn to a blank the moment he found out his best friend was taken, held hostage underwater, and all he could think about was getting him back, battling his way through masses of thick seaweed, demonic creatures, and clingy merwomen with sharp claws until he saw Draco was safe again and then everything was drawn to a blank again. But this time, it was due to the tornado of feelings that hit his chest when he looked at hm.
With the third task, it was like a combination of the two initial reactions with Harry cursing every one of the judges on the panel and every member involved in the Tournament committee to the burning depths of hell as he ran for his dear life.
He knew the third task would be difficult. For the last task, there was little doubt in anyone's mind, much less the Champions, that Tournament committee was bound to come up with something that would really stun the crowd (which seemed incredibly stupid since the audience couldn't even watch them) and really challenge the Champions.
And dear Merlin, were they being challenged.
Harry felt like he was Alice trying to find her way out of Wonderland. If Wonderland was a dark, confusing maze featuring a confusing pathway that took him back near the beginning or led him to a path that was the complete opposite route from where he originally intended; multiple-limbed, sharp-teethed creatures who took snippets of his clothes and clawed scratches onto his skin before he stunned them; Dementors who crept over from every possible corner and held him in a icy grip he barely managed to escape from, bearing bruises and sluggish limbs from the encounter; and voices, a chorus of voices.
Some were as hauntingly beautiful as the mermaids' song that dulled his senses, some terrifying like animal shrieks and howls that rattled his bones, and some that were familiar. In the middle of running, Harry came across an echo that sounded like Sirius's laughing, causing him to run left. He turned right when he read Hermione urging to come near. He then paused when he heard his mother singing him an old lullaby, then broke out into a sprint, quickly realizing the voices were making him run around in circles.
And it seemed like the effects of the maddening maze were taking effects on all of them. A terrified scream led Harry through a mass of tall bushes and tangled vines, straight to Cedric, who was being by a Crucio hex from Krum of all people.
Cedric was jerking and twitching on the ground, Krum standing over him.
Harry pulled out his wand and pointed it at him just as Krum looked up. Krum turned around and ran.
"Stupefy!" Harry yelled.
The spell hit Krum in the back, knocking him onto the ground, where he fell face-forward on the grass and laid motionless. Harry dashed over to Cedric, who stopped twitching and laid there panting, his hands over his face.
"Are you all right?" Harry said roughly, grabbing Cedric's arm.
"Yeah," Cedric panted. "Yeah…I didn't believe it…he crept up behind me…I heard him, I turned around, and he had his wand…"
Cedric got up. He was still shaking. He and Harry looked down at Krum.
"I can't believe this…I thought he was all right." Harry mumbled. Maybe he and Hermione should have listened to Ron after all.
"So did I," said Cedric. "I think he got Fleur."
Harry turned his bewildered eyes over to Cedric. "Fleur?" She had been nothing but kind to all of them, especially to Krum. At the end of the first task, she was one who comforted the boy over his low scoring.
Cedric nodded grimly. "I heard her scream earlier. I thought it was an illusion or something, till I heard it again. And again. I was running over there when Krum came behind me."
"Dear god." Harry hoped she was all right. Based on what he remembered reading, Veela were able to heal fast, but it all depended how fatal the wound and how many times it was inflicted.
"Should we leave him there?" Cedric muttered.
"No," said Harry. "I reckon we should send up red sparks. Someone will come and collect him…otherwise he'll probably be eaten by a skrewt."
"He'd deserve it," Cedric muttered, but all the same, he raised his wand and shot a shower of red sparks into the air, which hovered above Krum, marking the spot where he lay.
The two then departed with a grim nod, acknowledging their group effort, Cedric disappearing into a mass of thick bushes, Harry continuing straight. He used the Four-point Spell to make sure he was moving in the right direction.
He and Cedric were the only ones left. His desire to reach the cup first burnt stronger than ever, but he could barely believe what he had seen Krum do. Moody told them first day of DADA class the use of an Unforgivable Curse on a fellow human meant a life-term sentence in Azkaban. Krum surely couldn't have wanted the Trizwizard Cup that badly…Harry speed up.
Every so often, he hit more dead ends, but the increasing darkness made him feel sure he was getting nearer the heart of the maze. Then, as he strode down a long, straight path, he saw movement once again, and his beam of wandlight hit an extraordinary creature, one which he had only seen in picture form in his Monster Book of Monsters.
It was a sphinx. It had the body of an over-large lion, great clawed paws and a long yellowish tail ending in a brown tuft, and the head of a woman. She turned her long, almond-shaped eyes upon Harry as she approached. He raised his wand, hesitating. He may have struck the merwoman but only after she attacked him. The sphinx gave no indication she was going to attack, not crouching into a spring but pacing from side to side of the path, blocking his path. Then she spoke in a deep, hoarse voice.
"You are very near your goal. The quickest way is past me."
"So…so will you move, please?" Harry asked, although he already knew the answer he'd get.
The sphinx didn't disappoint, delivering a solid, unmoving "No." She paced around the path, eyes pinned on him. "Not unless you answer my riddle. Answer on first guess-I let you pass. Answer wrongly-I attack. Remain silent-I will let you walk away unscratched."
But still not let him pass. Harry's stomach slipped several notches. Theo or Hermione was good at this sort of thing, not him. He weighed his chances. If he tried and failed, he'd be mauled. If the riddle was too hard, though, he could remain silent, get away from the sphinx unharmed, and try to find a different route to the path.
"Okay," he said. "Can I hear the riddle?"
The sphinx sat down upon her hind legs, in the very middle of the path, and recited:
"First think of the person who lives in disguise,
Who deals in secrets and tells naught but lies.
Next, tell me what's always the last thing to mend,
The middle of middle and end of the end?
And finally give me the sound often heard
During the search for a hard-to-find word.
Now string them together, and answer this,
Which creature would you be unwilling to kiss?"
Harry gaped at her.
"Could I have it again…more slowly?" he asked tentatively.
She blinked at him, smiled, and repeated the poem.
"All clues add up to a creature I wouldn't want to kiss?"
She merely smiled her mysterious smile. Harry took that for a "yes." He cast his mind around. There were plenty of animals he wouldn't want to kiss, his immediate thought a Blast-Ended Skrewt, but something told him that wasn't the answer. He'd have to try and work out the clues….
"A person in disguise," Harry muttered, staring at her. "who lies…er…that's be a-an impostor. No, that's not my guess! A-a spy! I'll come back to that….could you give me the next clue again, please?"
She repeated the next lines of the poem.
"'The last thing to mend,'" Harry repeated. "Er….no idea….'middle of middle'…could I have that last bit again?"
She gave him the last four lines.
"'The sound often heard during the search for a hard-to-find word,'" said Harry. "Er…that'd be…er…hang on-'er! Er's a sound!"
The sphinx smiled at him.
"Spy…er…spy…er…." said Harry, pacing up and down. "A creature I wouldn't want to kiss…a spider!"
The sphinx smiled more broadly. She got up, stretched her front legs, and then moved aside for him to pass.
"Thanks!" Harry grinned, and, amazed at his own brilliance, he dashed forward.
He had come close now; he had to be….His wand was telling he was bang on course; as long as he didn't meet anything too horrible, he might have a chance…
Harry broke into a run. He had a choice of paths up ahead. "Point me!" he whispered again to his wand, and it spun around, pointing him to the right-hand one. He dashed up this one and saw light ahead.
The Trizwizard Cup was gleaming on a plinth a hundred yards away. Suddenly a dark figure hurled out onto the path in front of him.
Cedric was going to get there first. Cedric was sprinting as fast as he could toward the cup, and Harry knew he would never catch up. Cedric was much taller, had longer legs-
Then Harry saw something immense over a hedge to his left, moving quickly along a path that intersected with his own; it was moving so fast Cedric was about to run into it, and Cedric, his eyes on the cup, had not seen it-
"Cedric!" Harry bellowed. "On your left!"
Cedric looked around just in time to hurl himself past the thing and avoid colliding with it, but in his haste, he tripped. Harry saw Cedric's wand fly out of his hand as a gigantic spider stepped into the path and began to bear down upon Cedric.
"Stupefy!" Harry yelled; the spell hit the spider's gigantic, hairy black body, but for all the good it did, he might as well have thrown a stone at it. The spider jerked, scuttled around, and ran at Harry instead.
"Stupefy! Impedimenta! Stupefy!"
But it was no use-the spider was either so large or so magical, that the spells were doing no more than aggravating it. Harry had one horrifying glimpse of the eight shining black eyes and razor-sharp pincers before it was upon him.
He was lifted into the air in its front legs; struggling madly, he tried to kick it; his legs connected with the pincers and next moment he was in excruciating pain. He could hear Cedric yelling "Stupefy!" too, but his spell had no more effect than Harry's. Harry raised his wand as the spider opened its pincers once more and shouted "Expelliarmus!"
It worked-the Disarming Spell made the spider drop him, but that meant Harry fell twelve feet onto his already injured leg, which crumpled underneath him. Without pausing to think, he aimed high at the spider's underbelly, as he had done with the skrewt and shouted "Stupefy!" just as Cedric yelled the same thing.
The two spells combined did what one alone had not: The spider keeled over sideways, flattening a nearby hedge, and strewing the path with a tangle of hairy legs.
"Harry!" he heard Cedric shouting. "You all right? Did it fall on you?"
"No," Harry called back, panting. He looked down at his leg. It was bleeding freely. He could see some sort of thick, gluey secretion from the spider's pincers on his torn robes. He tried to get up, but his leg was shaking badly and didn't want to support his weight. He leaned against the hedge, gasping for breath, and looked around.
Cedric was standing feet from the Trizwizard Cup, which was gleaming behind him.
"Take it, then," Harry panted to Cedric. "Go on, take it. You're there."
But Cedric didn't move. He merely stood there, looking at Harry. Then he turned to stare at the cup. Harry saw the longing on his face in its golden light. Cedric looked around at Harry, who was now holding onto the hedge to support himself. He took a deep breath.
"You take it. You should win. That's twice you saved my neck in here."
"Cedric-"
"I mean it," Despite the longing in his eyes, the firm tone in his voice was nonnegotiable. "You should win. After everything you've been through, it's the least you deserve."
What he deserved was a year-long, deep nap. A strong dosage of healing potions to ease the pain currently eating his leg. And-anxious gray eyes that was no doubt wide in panic with time ticking away and Harry not yet making it back.
As much as Harry wanted to win, as much as he would love to have the trophy, he wanted the whole bloody mess to do over and done with. First place be damned. As long as he made it out, proving to the naysayers and even to himself that he managed to survive the Tournament despite his reluctant participation, he was perfectly fine with that.
It then hit him that he had a better prize waiting for him at the finish line: the owner to those anxious gray eyes that would narrow in anger the second Harry came out, his thin pink lips forming into a o to release a stream of curses that would come to a halt when Harry kissed those lips again. And again and again, only pulling back to say those three incredible words that's been brewing inside him for months now.
"Take the trophy, Cedric, alright. You got there first, you earned it."
The stubborn Hufflepuff shook his head. "You take it, Harry."
"Will you stop being so bloody noble and go already?"
Cedric watched Harry steadying himself, holding tight to the hedge. He shook his head, saying, "It wouldn't be right. You told me about the dragons. I would've gone down in the first task if you hadn't told me what was coming."
"I had help on that too," Harry snapped, trying to mop up his bloody leg with his robes. "You helped me with the egg-we're square."
"I had help on the egg in the first place," said Cedric.
"We're still square," said Harry, testing his leg gingerly; it shook violently as he put weight on it. He must had sprained his ankle when the spider dropped him.
"You should've got more points on the second task. You stayed behind to get all the hostages. I should've done that."
"I was the only one thick enough to take that stupid song seriously!" Harry snapped again. "Just take the cup!"
Cedric glanced over at him and shifted his eyes back at Harry, shaking his head. "No."
"Diggory!" Harry was sure he was on the tipping edge of his patience. "Just go already!"
"Not until you take the cup." To prove his point, Cedric folded his hands and stood in place.
Harry gritted his teeth to hold in the curses buzzing in his mouth, feeling frustration bubble inside him like lava. He shifted his eyes over from the stubborn Hufflepuff over to the trophy that practically taunted him with its' gleaming shine. At the exact moment a shimmer of light flashed across it, an idea came to him, one that would solve both their problems.
"Both of us," Harry said.
"What?"
"We take it at the same time. It's still a Hogwarts victory. Both our Houses get the praise. And that way we both come out as winners."
Cedric stared at Harry. He unfolded his arms.
"You-you sure?"
"Yeah," Harry said. "Yeah….we've helped each other, haven't we? We both got here. Let's just take it together."
For a moment, Cedric looked as though he couldn't believe his ears; then his face spilt in a grin.
"You're on," he said. "Come here."
He grabbed Harry's arm below the shoulder and helped Harry limp toward the plinth where the cup stood. When they reached it, they both held a hand out over the cup's gleaming handles.
"On three, right?" Harry said. "One-two-three-"
He and Cedric both grasped a handle.
Instantly, Harry felt a prick somewhere behind his navel. His feet had left the ground. He could not unclench the hand holding onto the Trizwizard Cup; it was pulling him onward in a howl of wind and swirling color, Cedric at his side.
Harry felt his feet slam into the ground; his injured leg gave way, and he fell forward; his hand left go of the Trizwizard Cup at last. He raised his head.
"Where are we?" he said.
Cedric shook his head. He got up, pulled Harry to his feet, and they looked around.
They had completely left the Hogwarts grounds; they had obviously traveled miles-perhaps hundreds of miles-for even the mountains surrounding the castle were gone. They were standing instead in a dark and overgrown graveyard; the black outline of a small church was visible beyond a large yew tree to their right. A hill rose above them to their left. Harry could make out the outline of a fine old house on the hillside.
Cedric looked down at the Trizwizard Cup and then up at Harry.
"Did anyone tell you the cup was a Portkey?" he asked.
"Nope," Harry glanced around the graveyard. It was completely silent and slightly eerie. "Is this supposed to be part of the task?"
"I dunno," Cedric said, sounding slightly nervous. "Wands out, d'you reckon?"
"Yeah," Harry agreed.
They took out their wands. Harry kept looking around him. He couldn't shake off the strange feeling that they were being watched.
"Someone's coming," he said suddenly.
Squinting tensely through the darkness, they watched the figure drawing nearer, walking steadily toward them between the graves. Harry couldn't make out a face, but from the way it was walking and holding its arm, he could tell that it was carrying something. Whoever it was, he was short, and was wearing a hooded cloak pulled over his head to obscure his face. And-several paces nearer, the gap between them closing all the time-Harry saw the thing in the person's arms looked like a baby…or was it merely a bundle of robes?
Harry lowered his wand slightly and glanced sideways at Cedric. Cedric gave him a quizzical look. They both turned back to watch the approaching figure.
It stopped beside a towering marble headstone, only six feet from them. For a second, Harry and Cedric and the short figure simply looked at one another.
And then, without warning, Harry's scar exploded in pain. It was agony in its finest, most excruciating form as he never felt before. His wand slipped from his fingers as he put his hands over his face; his knees buckled; he was on the ground and he could see nothing at all; his head was about to spilt open.
From far away, above his head, he heard a high, cold voice say "Kill the spare."
A swishing noise and a second voice, which screeched the words to the night: "Avada Kedavra!"
A blast of green light blazed through Harry's eyelids, and he heard something heavy fall to the ground beside him; the pain in his scar reached such a pitch that he retched-
Green light filled the room, so bright that Harry could barely see anything. Except for Mummy's form standing in front of him, slowly swinging to the right as if she was pushed, streams of red as bright as her hair pouring out of her, raining down on him and the floor. Her screaming, echoing throughout the room like a horrible, soul-piercing crescendo, finally ended as she hit the floor.
The pain diminished as soon it appeared. Terrified of what he was about to see, he opened his stinging eyes.
Cedric was lying spread-eagled on the ground beside him, pale, motionless, hollow eyes staring up at the sky.
For a second that contained an eternity, Harry stared into Cedric's face, at his open gray eyes, blank and expressionless as the windows of a deserted house, at his half-open mouth, which looked slightly surprised.
No. It was only one word, the only thing that stood out clearly through the dizzying, numbing haze over taking him, spinning around and around like a wild top. No. No, no, no, no. no-
Before Harry's could fully grasped what had happened, before he could feel anything but numb disbelief, he felt himself being pulled to his feet.
The short man in the cloak had put down the bundle, lit his wand, and dragged Harry toward the marble headstone. Harry saw the name flickering in the wandlight-
TOM RIDDLE
Tom Riddle, the severed soul bound in the journal that caused mayhem second year. Tom Riddle who had been controlling Ginny and the basilisk. Tom Riddle, who proudly proclaimed that Voldemort was his past, present, and future.
Harry snapped back into reality just in time to bite the hand gripping onto his shoulder, bitter cooper spilling into his mouth, and stepped on the man's foot for extra measure. The grip on his shoulder loosened; the man left out a howl of pain as he cradled his injured hand. Harry used that moment of distraction to run, ignoring his twisted leg, running as if the devil was right behind him.
He was about halfway through the graveyard before he was frozen as if he were caught in a tight fist, arms pinned painfully to the sides and legs together, every muscle in his body stiff as stone.
"You little brat!" the man shrieked. "And to think your dad bragged that you stopped biting people when you turned two!"
His dad-Harry couldn't even finish the thought before he was brought back over to the headstone, slamming against the cold, hard marble. By the time painful red stars cleared away from his vision, the cloaked man conjured tight cords around Harry, tying him from the neck to ankles to the headstone. Harry could hear swallow, fast breathing from the depths of the hood; he struggled, and the man struck him, hitting him with a hand that had a missing finger.
A missing finger. Cold, paralyzing dread poured into Harry's body. There was one person he knew who that was missing a finger. Pettigrew.
"You!" he gasped.
But Wormtail, who finished conjuring up the ropes, didn't reply; he was busy checking the tightness of the cords, his fingers trembling uncontrollably, fumbling over the knots. Once sure that Harry was bound so tightly to the headstone that he couldn't move an inch, Wormtail drew a length of some black material from inside his cloak and stuffed it roughly into Harry's mouth. Then without another word, he turned from Harry and hurried away. Harry couldn't make a sound, nor could he see where Wormtail had gone; he couldn't turn his head to see beyond the headstone; he could only see what was right in front of him.
Cedric's body was lying twenty feet away. Some way beyond him, glinting in starlight, was the Trizwizard Cup. Harry's wand was on the ground at Cedric's feet. The bundle of roses that Harry thought was a baby was close by, at the foot of the grave. It seemed to be stirring fretfully. Harry watched it, and his scar seared with pain again…and he suddenly knew that he didn't want to see what was in those robes…he didn't want that bundle opened…
He could hear noise at his feet. He looked down and saw a gigantic snake slithering through the grass, circling the headstone where he was tied. Wormtail's fast, wheezy breathing was growing louder again. It sounded as though he was moving something heavy across the ground. Then he came within Harry's range of vision, and Harry saw him pushing a stone cauldron to the foot of the grave. It was full of what seemed to be water-Harry could hear it slopping around-and it was larger than any cauldron Harry had ever used; a great stone belly large enough for a fully-grown man to sit in.
The thing inside the bundle of the robes on the ground was stirring more persistently, as though it was trying to free itself. Wormtail busied himself at the bottom of the cauldron with a wand. Suddenly there were crackling flames beneath it. The large snake slithered away into the darkness.
The liquid in the cauldron heated quickly, the surface not only bubbling but sending fiery sparks, as though it were on fire. Steam was thickening, blurring the outline of Wormtail tending the fire. The movements beneath the robes became more agitated. And Harry heard the high, cold voice again.
"Hurry!"
The whole surface of the water was alight with sparks now. It might have been encrusted with diamonds.
"It is ready, Master."
"Now…" said the cold voice.
Wormtail pulled open the robes on the ground, revealing what was inside them, and Harry let out a scream that was strangled in the wad of material blocking his mouth.
It was as though Wormtail had flipped over a stone and revealed something ugly, slimy, and blind-but worse, a hundred times worse. The thing Wormtail had been carrying had the shape of a crouched human child, except that Harry had never seen anything less like a child. It was hairless and scaly-looking, a dark, raw, reddish-black. Its arms and legs were thin and feeble, and its face-no child ever had a face like that-flat and snakelike with gleaming red eyes.
The thing seemed almost helpless; it raised its thin arms, put them around Wormtail's neck, and Wormtail lifted it. As he did so, his hood fell back, and Harry saw the look of revulsion on Wormtail's weak, pale face in the firelight as he carried the creature to the rime of the cauldron. For one moment, Harry saw the evil, flat face illuminated in the sparks dancing on the surface of the potion. And then Wormtail lowered the creature into the cauldron; there was a hiss, and it vanished below the surface; Harry heard its frail body hit the bottom with a soft thud.
Let it drown, Harry thought, his scar burning almost past endurance. Please…let it drown.
Wormtail was speaking. His voice shook; he seemed frightened beyond his wits. He raised his wand, closed his eyes, and spoke to the night.
"Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son!"
The surface of the grave at Harry's feet cracked. Horrified, Harry watched as a fine trickle of dust rose into the air at Wormtail's command and fell softly into the cauldron. The diamond surface of the water broke and hissed; it sent sparks in all directions and turned a vivid, poisonous-looking blue.
By then, Wormtail was whimpering. He pulled out a long, thin, shining silver dagger from inside his cloak. His voice broke into petrified sobs.
"Flesh-of the servant-w-willingly given-you will-revive-your master!"
He stretched out his right hand out in front of him-the hand with the missing finger. He gripped the dagger very tightly in his left hand and swung it upward.
Harry realized what Wormtail was about to do a second before it happened-he closed his eyes tightly as he could, but couldn't block out the scream that pierced the night that went through Harry as though he had been stabbed with the dagger too. He heard something fall to the ground, heard Wormtail's anguished panting, and then a sickening splash, as something was dropped into the cauldron. Harry couldn't stand to look…but the potion had turned a burning red, the bright light of it shining through Harry's closed eyelids.
Wormtail was gasping and moaning in agony. Not until Harry felt Wormtail's anguished, foul breath on his face did he realize that Wormtail was right in front of him.
"B-blood of the enemy…forcibly taken….you will…resurrect your foe."
Harry couldn't do anything to stop it; he was tied too tightly…Squinting down, struggling helplessly at the ropes binding him, he saw the shining silver dagger shaking in Wormtail's remaining hand. He felt its sharp point thrust into the crook of his right arm, blood was seeping down the sleeve of his torn robes, and bit down hard to hold in the scream coiling in his throat, rattling his teeth. Wormtail, still panting in pain, fumbled in his pocket for a glass vial and held it to Harry's cut, so that thick drips of crimson fell into it.
He staggered back to the cauldron with Harry's blood. He poured it inside. The liquid within turned, instantly, a blinding white. Wormtail, his job done, dropped to his knees beside the cauldron, then slumped sideways and lay on the ground, cradling the bleeding stump of his arm, gasping and sobbing.
The cauldron was simmering, sending its diamond sparks in all directions, so blindingly bright that it turned all else to velvety blackness. Nothing happened…
Let it have drowned, Harry thought, let it have gone wrong…
And then, the sparks emanating from the cauldron were extinguished. A surge of white steam billowed thickly from the cauldron, obliterating everything in front of Harry, so that he couldn't see Wormtail or Cedric or anything but vapor hanging in the air…It's gone wrong, he thought…it's drowned…please…please let it be dead.
Bu then, through the mist in front of him, he saw, with an icy surge of terror, the dark outline of a man, tall and skeletally thin, rising slowly from inside the cauldron.
"Robe me," said the high, cold voice from the behind the steam. Wormtail, sobbing and moaning, still cradling his mutilated arm, scrambled to pick up the black robes from the ground, got to his feet, reached up, and pulled them one-handed over his master's hand.
The thin man stepped out of the cauldron, staring at Harry…and Harry stared back into the face that haunted his nightmares for years. Whiter than a skill, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was flat as a snake's with slits for nostrils….
Lord Voldemort.
Air wheezed out of Harry as if hands were clenched around his throat, his heart pounding wildly like it was about to burst from his chest.
Voldemort looked away from Harry and began examining his own body. His hands were like large, pale spiders; his long white fingers caressed his own chest, his arms, his face; the red eyes, whose pupils were slits, like a cats, gleamed still more brightly through the darkness. He held up his hands and flexed the fingers, his expression rapt and exultant. He took not the slightest notice of Wormtail, who lay twitching and bleeding on the ground, nor of the great snake, which had slithered back into sight and was circling Harry again, hissing. Voldemort slipped one of those unnaturally long-fingered hands into a deep pocket and drew out a wand. He caressed it gently too and then he raised it, pointing it at Wormtail, who was lifted off the ground and thrown against the headstone where Harry was tied. He fell to the foot of it and lay there, crumpled up and crying. Voldemort turned his scarlet eyes upon Harry, laughing a high, cold, mirthless laugh.
Wormtail's robes were shining with blood now; he had wrapped the stump of his arm in them.
"My Lord..." he choked, "my Lord...you promised...you did promise..."
"Hold out your arm," said Voldemort lazily.
"Oh Master...thank you, Master..."
He extended the bleeding stump, but Voldemort laughed again.
"The other arm, Wormtail."
"Master, please...please..."
Voldemort bent down and pulled out Wormtail's left arm; he forced the sleeve of Wormtail's robes up past his elbow, and Harry saw something upon the skin there, something like a vivid red tattoo - a skull with a snake protruding from its mouth - the image that had appeared in the sky at the Quidditch World Cup: the Dark Mark. Voldemort examined it carefully, ignoring Wormtail's uncontrollable weeping.
"It is back," he said softly, "they will all have noticed it...and now, we shall see...now we shall know..."
He pressed his long white forefinger to the brand on Wormtail's arm.
The scar on Harry's forehead seared with a sharp pain again, and Wormtail let out a fresh howl. Voldemort removed his fingers from Wormtail's mark, and Harry saw that it had turned jet black.
A look of cruel satisfaction on his face, Voldemort straightened up, threw back his head, and stared around at the dark graveyard.
"How many will be brave enough to return when they feel it?" he whispered, his gleaming red eyes fixed upon the stars. "And how many will be foolish enough to stay away?"
He began to pace up and down before Harry and Wormtail, eyes sweeping the graveyard all the while. After a minute or so, he looked down at Harry again, a cruel smile twisting his snakelike face.
"You stand, Harry Potter, upon the remains of my late father," he hissed softly. "A Muggle and a fool...very much like your dear mother. But they both had their uses, did they not? Your mother died to defend you as a child...and I killed my father, and see how useful he has proved himself in death..."
Voldemort laughed again. Up and down he paced, looking all around him as he walked, and the snake continued to circle in the grass.
"You see that house upon the hillside, Potter? My father lived there. My mother, a witch who lived here in this village, fell in love with him. But he abandoned her when she told him what she was...He didn't like magic, my father. He left her and returned to his Muggle parents before I was even born and she died giving birth to me, leaving me to be raised in a Muggle orphanage...but I vowed to find him...I revenged myself upon him, that fool who gave me his name...Tom Riddle..."
Still he paced, his red eyes darting from grave to grave.
"Listen to me, reliving family history..." he said quietly, "why, I am growing quite sentimental...But look, Harry! My true family returns..."
The air was suddenly full of the swishing of cloaks. Between graves, behind the yew tree, in every shadowy space, wizards were Apparating. All of them hooded and masked. One by one they moved forward...slowly, cautiously, as though they could hardly believe their eyes Voldemort stood in silence, waiting for them. Then one of the Death Eaters fell to his knees, some crawling toward Voldemort and kissing the hem of his black robes.
"Master...Master..." he murmured.
The Death Eaters behind him did the same; each of them approaching Voldemort on his knees and kissing his robes, before backing away and standing up, forming a silent circle, which enclosed Tom Riddle's grave, Harry, Voldemort, and the sobbing and twitching heap that was Wormtail. Yet they left gaps in the circle, as though waiting for more people. Voldemort, however, did not seem to expect more. He looked around at the hooded faces, and though there was no wind rustling seemed to run around the circle, as though it had shivered.
"Welcome, Death Eaters," said Voldemort quietly. "Seven years...seven years since last we met. Yet you answer my call as though it were yesterday, we are still united under the Dark Mark, then! Or are we?"
He put back his terrible face and sniffed, his slit-like nostrils widening.
"I smell guilt," he said. "There is a stench of guilt upon the air."
A second shiver ran around the circle, as though each member of it longed, but did not dare to step back from him.
"I see you all, whole and healthy, with your powers intact - such prompt appearances!-and I ask myself...why did this band of wizards never come to the aid of their master, to whom they swore eternal loyalty?"
No one spoke. No one moved except Wormtail, who was upon the ground, still sobbing over his bleeding arm.
"And I answer myself," whispered Voldemort, "they must have believed me broken, they thought I was gone. They slipped back among my enemies, and they pleaded innocence, and ignorance, and bewitchment ..."
No one dared breathe a word, but the tension, the guilt earlier on intensified tenfold.
"And then I ask myself, but how could they have believed I would not rise again? They, who knew the steps I took, long ago, to guard myself against mortal death? They, who had seen proofs of the immensity of my power in the times when I was mightier than any wizard living?"
One of them, the same one Harry remembered kissing the hem of Voldemort's robes, was shaking like a leaf, struggling to keep it together.
"And I answer myself, perhaps they believed a still greater power could exist, one that could vanquish even Lord Voldemort...perhaps they now pay allegiance to another...perhaps that champion of commoners, of Mudbloods and Muggles, Albus Dumbledore?"
At the mention of Dumbledore's name, the members of the circle stirred, and some muttered and shook their heads. Voldemort ignored them.
"It is a disappointment to me...I confess myself disappointed..."
The shaken man suddenly flung himself forward, breaking the circle. Trembling from head to foot, he collapsed at Voldemort's feet.
"Master!" he shrieked, "Master, forgive me! Forgive us all!"
Voldemort began to laugh. He raised his wand.
"Crucio!"
The Death Eater on the ground writhed and shrieked; Harry was sure the sound must carry to the houses around...Let the police come, he thought desperately...anyone...anything...
Voldemort raised his wand. The tortured Death Eater lay flat upon the ground, gasping.
"Get up, Avery," said Voldemort softly. "Stand up. You ask for forgiveness? I do not forgive. I do not forget. Seven long years...I want seven years' repayment before I forgive you. Wormtail here has paid some of his debt already, have you not, Wormtail?"
He looked down at Wormtail, who continued to sob.
"You returned to me, not out of loyalty, but out of fear of your old friends. You deserve this pain, Wormtail. You know that, don't you?"
"Yes, Master," moaned Wormtail, "please, Master...please..."
"Yet you helped return me to my body," said Voldemort coolly, watching Wormtail sob on the ground. "Worthless and traitorous as you are, you helped me...and Lord Voldemort rewards his helpers..."
Voldemort raised his wand again and whirled it through the air. A streak of what looked like molten silver hung shining in the wand's wake. Momentarily shapeless, it writhed and then formed itself into a gleaming replica of a human hand, bright as moonlight, which soared downward and fixed itself upon Wormtail's bleeding wrist.
Wormtail's sobbing stopped abruptly. His breathing harsh and ragged, he raised his head and stared in disbelief at the silver hand, now attached seamlessly to his arm, as though he were wearing a dazzling glove. He flexed the shining fingers, then, trembling, picked up a small twig on the ground and crushed it into powder.
"My Lord," he whispered. "Master...it is beautiful...thank you...thank you..."
He scrambled forward on his knees and kissed the hem of Voldemort's robes.
"May your loyalty never waver again, Wormtail," said Voldemort.
"No, my Lord...never, my Lord..."
Wormtail stood up and took his place in the circle, staring at his powerful new hand, his face still shining with tears.
Voldemort moved on, and stopped, staring at the space - large enough for two people - that separated two of his followers.
"The Lestranges should stand here," said Voldemort quietly. "But they are entombed in Azkaban. They were faithful. They went to Azkaban rather than renounce me...When Azkaban is broken open, the Lestranges will be honored beyond their dreams. The dementors will join us...they are our natural allies...we will recall the banished giants...I shall have all my devoted servants returned to me, and an army of creatures whom all fear..."
He walked on, passing each of his followers silently that trembled even more frantically when he passed by. All except the man near the far end. Voldermort stopped before him, his crimson eyes narrowing into cold slits.
"Look at me."
The man slowly raised his head, the starlight glinting against his mask.
"You are hanging by a very thin thread. Ensure that it doesn't snap." The venom dripping from Voldermort's lips could kill on the spot.
The man bowed his head, causing strands of long, pale hair to escape from inside his hood, spilling onto his shoulder. Pale, unmistakable, platinum blonde hair.
Harry's chest began to close in around his heart like a cage, the bones breaking apart into sharp spikes. No…no….
The man glanced over at Harry, as if he could sense his gaze, his hair following the direction of the chilled wind, his pale-colored eyes glinting from his mask.
There was only one person he knew who had hair that long, hair that pale. Just as he knew only one person could have dove-gray eyes.
Uncle Lucius…
Harry's heart dropped, his stomach surged forward, the two of organ colliding and entangling into a tight, burning knot, sending frigid shockwaves through his numb body until his insides were solid ice.
The man lowered his head.
Voldemort, blind to the demoralizing exchange, continued on and had reached the largest gap of all. He stood surveying it with his blank, red eyes, as though he could see people standing there.
"And here we have six missing Death Eaters...three dead in my service. One, too cowardly to return...he will pay. One, who I believe has left me forever...he will be killed, of course...and one, who remains my most faithful servant, and who has already reentered my service."
The Death Eaters stirred, and Harry saw their eyes dart sideways at one another through their masks.
"He is at Hogwarts, that faithful servant, and it was through his efforts that our young friend arrived here tonight...Yes," said Voldemort, a grin curling his lipless mouth as the eyes of the circle flashed in Harry's direction. "Harry Potter has kindly joined us for my rebirthing party. One might go so far as to call him my guest of honor."
There was a silence. Then the Death Eater to the right of Wormtail stepped forward, speaking from under the mask.
"Master, we crave to know...we beg you to tell us...how you have achieved this...this miracle...how you managed to return to us..."
"Ah, what a story it is, Koilas," said Voldemort. "And it begins - and ends - with my young friend here."
He walked lazily over to stand next to Harry, so that the eyes of the whole circle were upon the two of them. The snake continued to circle.
"You know, of course, that they have called this boy my downfall?" Voldemort said softly, his red eyes upon Harry, whose scar began to burn so fiercely that he almost screamed in agony. "You all know that on the night I lost my powers and my body, I tried to kill him. His mother died in the attempt to save him - and unwittingly provided him with a protection I admit I had not foreseen...I could not touch the boy."
Voldemort raised one of his long white fingers and put it very close to Harry's cheek.
"His mother left upon him the traces of her sacrifice...This is old magic, I should have remembered it, I was foolish to overlook it...but no matter. I can touch him now."
Harry felt the cold tip of the long white finger touch him, and thought his head would burst with the pain. Voldemort laughed softly in his ear, then took the finger away and continued addressing the Death Eaters.
"I miscalculated, my friends, I admit it. My curse was deflected by the woman's foolish sacrifice, and it rebounded upon myself. Aaah...pain beyond pain, my friends; nothing could have prepared me for it. I was ripped from my body, I was less than spirit, less than the meanest ghost...but still, I was alive. What I was, even I do not know...I, who have gone further than anybody along the path that leads to immortality. You know my goal- to conquer death. And now, I was tested, and it appeared that one or more of my experiments had worked...for I had not been killed, though the curse should have done it. Nevertheless, I was as powerless as the weakest creature alive, and without the means to help myself...for I had no body, and every spell that might have helped me required the use of a wand...
"I remember only forcing myself, sleeplessly, endlessly, second by second, to exist...I settled in a faraway place, in a forest, and I waited...Surely, one of my faithful Death Eaters would try and find me...one of them would come and perform the magic I could not, to restore me to a body...but I waited in vain..."
The shiver ran once more around the circle of listening Death Eaters. Voldemort let the silence spiral horribly before continuing.
"Only one power remained to me. I could possess the bodies of others. But I dared not go where other humans were plentiful, for I knew that the Aurors were still abroad and searching for me. I sometimes inhabited animals - snakes, of course, being my preference - but I was little better off inside them than as pure spirit, for their bodies were ill-adapted to perform magic...and my possession of them shortened their lives; none of them lasted long...
"Then...four years ago...the means for my return seemed assured. A wizard - young, foolish, and gullible - wandered across my path in the forest I had made my home. Oh, he seemed the very chance I had been dreaming of...for he was a teacher at Dumbledore's school...he was easy to bend to my will...he brought me back to this country, and after a while, I took possession of his body, to supervise him closely as he carried out my orders. But my plan failed. I did not manage to steal the Sorcerer's Stone. I was not to be assured immortal life. I was thwarted...thwarted, once again, by Harry Potter..."
Silence once more; nothing was stirring, not even the leaves on the yew tree. The Death Eaters were quite motionless, the glittering eyes in their masks fixed upon Voldemort, and upon Harry.
"The servant died when I left his body, and I was left as weak as ever I had been," Voldemort continued. "I returned to my hiding place far away, and I will not pretend to you that I didn't then fear that I might never regain my powers...Yes, that was perhaps my darkest hour...I could not hope that I would be sent another wizard to possess...and I had given up hope, now, that any of my Death Eaters cared what had become of me..."
One or two of the masked wizards in the circle moved uncomfortably, but Voldemort took no notice.
"And then, not even a year ago, when I had almost abandoned hope, it happened at last...a servant returned to me. Wormtail here, who had faked his own death to escape justice, was driven out of hiding by those he had once counted friends, and decided to return to his master. He actually did something I would not have believed a useless lump like him could achieve: he escaped Azkaban, slipping right under the guards' noses. He then sought me in the country where it had long been rumored I was hiding...helped, of course, by the rats he met along the way. Wormtail has a curious affinity with rats, do you not, Wormtail? His filthy little friends told him there was a place, deep in an Albanian forest, that they avoided, where small animals like themselves had met their deaths by a dark shadow that possessed them...
"But his journey back to me was not smooth, was it, Wormtail? For, hungry one night, on the edge of the very forest where he had hoped to find me, he foolishly stopped at an inn for some food...and who should he meet there, but one Bertha Jerkins, a witch from the Ministry of Magic.
"Now see the way that fate favors Lord Voldemort. This might have been the end of Wormtail, and of my last hope for regeneration. But Wormtail - displaying a presence of mind I would never have expected from him - convinced Bertha Jerkins to accompany him on a nighttime stroll. He overpowered her...he brought her to me. And Bertha Jerkins, who might have ruined all, proved instead to be a gift beyond my wildest dreams...for - with a little persuasion - she became a veritable mine of information.
"She told me that the Trizwizard Tournament would be played at Hogwarts this year. She told me that she knew of a faithful Death Eater who would be too willing to help me, if I could only contact him. She told me many things...but the means I used to break the Memory Charm upon her were powerful, and when I had extracted all useful information from her, her mind and body were both damaged beyond repair. She had now served her purpose. I could not possess her. I disposed of her."
Voldemort smiled his terrible smile, his red eyes blank and pitiless.
"Wormtail's body, of course, was ill adapted for possession, as all assumed him dead, and would attract far too much attention if noticed. However, he was the able-bodied servant I needed, and, poor wizard though he is, Wormtail was able to follow the instructions I gave him, which would return me to a rudimentary, weak body of my own, a body I would be able to inhabit while awaiting the essential ingredients for true rebirth...a spell or two of my own invention...a little help from my dear Nagini," Voldemort's red eyes fell upon the continually circling snake, "a potion concocted from unicorn blood, and the snake venom Nagini provided...I was soon returned to an almost human form, and strong enough to travel.
"There was no hope of stealing the Sorcerer's Stone anymore, for I knew that Dumbledore would have seen to it that it was destroyed. But I was willing to embrace mortal life again, before chasing immortality. I set my sights lower...I would settle for my old body back again, and my old strength.
"I knew that to achieve this - it is an old piece of Dark Magic, the potion that revived me tonight - I would need three powerful ingredients. Well, one of them was already at hand, was it not, Wormtail? Flesh given by a servant...
"My father's bone, naturally, meant that we would have to come here, where he was buried. But the blood of a foe...Wormtail would have had me use any wizard, would you not, Wormtail? Any wizard who had hated me...as so many of them still do. But I knew the one I must use, if I was to rise again, more powerful than I had been when I had fallen. I wanted Harry Potter's blood. I wanted the blood of the one who had stripped me of power seven years ago...for the lingering protection his mother once gave him would then reside in my veins too...
"But how to get at Harry Potter? For he has been better protected than I think even he knows, protected in ways devised by Dumbledore long ago, when it fell to him to arrange the boy's future. Dumbledore invoked an ancient magic to ensure his safety and kept him hidden well, where my magic couldn't touch him...Then, of course, there was the Quidditch World Cup...I thought his protection might be weaker there, away from his hiding spot and Dumbledore, but I was not yet strong enough to attempt kidnap in the midst of a horde of Ministry wizards. And then, the boy would return to Hogwarts, where he is under the crooked nose of that Muggle-loving fool from morning until night. So how could I take him?
"Why...by using Bertha Jerkins' information, of course. Use my one faithful Death Eater, stationed at Hogwarts, to ensure that the boy's name was entered into the Goblet of Fire. Use my Death Eater to ensure that the boy won the tournament - that he touched the Trizwizard Cup first - the cup which my Death Eater had turned into a Portkey, which would bring him here, beyond the reach of Dumbledore's help and protection, and into my waiting arms. And here he is...the boy you all believed had been my downfall..."
Voldemort moved slowly forward and turned to face Harry. He raised his wand.
"Crucio!"
It was pain beyond anything Harry had ever experienced; his very bones were on fire; his head was surely splitting along his scar; his eyes were rolling madly in his head; he wanted it to end...to black out...to die...
And then it was gone. He was hanging limply in the ropes binding him to the headstone of Voldemort's father, looking up into those bright red eyes through a kind of mist. The night was ringing with the sound of the Death Eaters' laughter.
"You see how foolish it was to believe that this boy could ever have been stronger than me," said Voldemort. "But I want there to be no mistake in anybody's mind. Harry Potter escaped me by a lucky chance. And I am now going to prove my power by killing him, here and now, in front of you all, when there is no Dumbledore to help him, and no mother to die for him. I will give him his chance. He will be allowed to fight, and you will be left in no doubt which of us is the stronger. Just a little longer, Nagini," he whispered, and the snake glided away through the grass to where the Death Eaters stood watching.
"Now untie him, Wormtail, and give him back his wand."
Wormtail approached Harry, who scrambled to find his feet, to support his own weight before the ropes were untied. Wormtail raised his new silver hand, pulled out the wad of material gagging Harry, and then, with one swipe, cut through the bonds tying Harry to the gravestone.
There was a split second, perhaps, when Harry might have considered running for it, but his injured leg shook under him as he stood on the overgrown grave, as the Death Eaters closed ranks, forming a tighter circle around him and Voldemort, so that the gaps where the missing Death Eaters should have stood were filled. Wormtail walked out of the circle to the place where Cedric's body lay and returned with Harry's wand, which he thrust roughly into Harry's hand without looking at him. Then Wormtail resumed his place in the circle of watching Death Eaters.
"You have been taught how to duel, Harry Potter?" said Voldemort softly, his red eyes glinting through the darkness.
At these words Harry remembered, as though from a former life, the dueling lessons with Severus earlier on when he began learning magic, then the dueling club at Hogwarts he had attended briefly two years ago...The best spell he learned was the Disarming Spell, "Expelliarmus" but what use would it be to deprive Voldemort of his wand, even if he could, when he was surrounded by Death Eaters, outnumbered by at least thirty to one? He had never learned anything that could possibly fit him for this. He knew he was facing the thing against which Moody had always warned...the unblockable Avada Kedavra curse - and Voldemort was right - his mother was not here to die for him this time...He was quite unprotected...
"We bow to each other. Harry," said Voldemort, bending a little, but keeping his snakelike face upturned to Harry. "Come, the niceties must be observed...Dumbledore would like you to show manners...Bow to death, Harry..."
The Death Eaters were laughing again. Voldemort's lipless mouth was smiling. Harry did not bow. He was not going to let Voldemort play with him before killing him...he was not going to give him that satisfaction...
"I said, bow," Voldemort said, raising his wand - and Harry felt his spine curve as though a huge, invisible hand were bending him ruthlessly forward, and the Death Eaters laughed harder than ever.
"Very good," said Voldemort softly, and as he raised his wand the pressure bearing down upon Harry lifted too. "And now you face me, like a man...straight-backed and proud, the way your father died...
"And now - we duel."
Voldemort raised his wand, and before Harry could do anything to defend himself, before he could even move, he had been hit again by the Cruciatus Curse. The pain was so intense, so all-consuming, that he no longer knew where he was...White-hot knives were piercing every inch of his skin, his head was surely going to burst with pain, he was screaming more loudly than he'd ever screamed in his life -
And then it stopped. Harry rolled over and scrambled to his feet; he was shaking as uncontrollably as Wormtail had done when his hand had been cut off; he staggered sideways into the wall of watching Death Eaters, and they pushed him away, back toward Voldemort.
"A little break," said Voldemort, the slit-like nostrils dilating with excitement, "a little pause...That hurt, didn't it. Harry? You don't want me to do that again, do you?"
Harry didn't answer. He was going to die like Cedric, those pitiless red eyes were telling him so...he was going to die, and there was nothing he could do about it...but he wasn't going to play along. He wasn't going to obey Voldemort...he wasn't going to beg...
Biting his lip so badly, blood filled his mouth, Harry looked around for a way out. A weak spot he could charge through. His eyes, against his will, landed on the Death Eater at the far end who was given the harsh warning from Voldemort earlier, the only one silent among his fellow laughing brethren, watching Harry closely, carefully.
"I asked you whether you want me to do that again," said Voldemort softly. "Answer me! Imperio!"
And Harry felt, for the third time in his life, the sensation that his mind had been wiped of all thought...Ah, it was bliss, not to think, it was as though he were floating, dreaming...just answer no...say no...just answer no...
I will not, said a stronger voice, in the back of his head, I won't answer...
Just answer no...
I won't do it, I won't say it...
Just answer no...
"I WON'T!"
And these words burst from Harry's mouth; they echoed through the graveyard, and the dream state was lifted as suddenly as though cold water had been thrown over him - back rushed the aches that the Cruciatus Curse had left all over his body - back rushed the realization of where he was, and what he was facing...
"You won't?" said Voldemort quietly, and the Death Eaters were not laughing now. "You won't say no? Harry, obedience is a virtue I need to teach you before you die...Perhaps another little dose of pain?"
Voldemort raised his wand, but this time Harry was ready; with the reflexes born of his Quidditch training, he flung himself sideways onto the ground; he rolled behind the marble headstone of Voldemort's father, and he heard it crack as the curse missed him.
"We are not playing hide-and-seek, Harry," said Voldemort's soft, cold voice, drawing nearer, as the Death Eaters laughed. "You cannot hide from me. Does this mean you are tired of our duel? Does this mean that you would prefer me to finish it now, Harry? Come out, Harry...come out and play, then...it will be quick...it might even be painless...I would not know...I have never died..."
Harry crouched behind the headstone and knew the end had come. There was no hope...no help to be had. And as he heard Voldemort draw nearer still, he knew one thing only, and it was beyond fear or reason: He was not going to die crouching here like a child playing hide-and-seek; he was not going to die kneeling at Voldemort's feet...he was going to die upright like his father, and he was going to die trying to defend himself, even if no defense was possible...
Before Voldemort could stick his snakelike face around the headstone. Harry stood up...he gripped his wand tightly in his hand, thrust it out in front of him, and threw himself around the headstone, facing Voldemort.
Voldemort was ready. As Harry shouted, "Expelliarmus!" Voldemort cried, "Avada Kedavra!"
A jet of green light issued from Voldemort's wand just as a jet of red light blasted from Harry's - they met in midair - and suddenly Harry's wand was vibrating as though an electric charge were surging through it; his hand seized up around it; he couldn't have released it if he'd wanted to - and a narrow beam of light connected the two wands, neither red nor green, but bright, deep gold. Harry, following the beam with his astonished gaze, saw that Voldemort's long white fingers too were gripping a wand that was shaking and vibrating.
And then - nothing could have prepared Harry for this - he felt his feet lift from the ground. He and Voldemort were both being raised into the air, their wands still connected by that thread of shimmering golden light. They glided away from the tombstone of Voldemort's father and then came to rest on a patch of ground that was clear and free of graves...The Death Eaters were shouting; they were asking Voldemort for instructions; they were closing in, reforming the circle around Harry and Voldemort, the snake slithering at their heels, some of them drawing their wands -
The golden thread connecting Harry and Voldemort splintered; though the wands remained connected, a thousand more beams arced high over Harry and Voldemort, crisscrossing all around them, until they were enclosed in a golden, dome-shaped web, a cage of light, beyond which the Death Eaters circled like jackals, their cries strangely muffled now...
"Do nothing!" Voldemort shrieked to the Death Eaters, and Harry saw his red eyes wide with astonishment at what was happening, saw him fighting to break the thread of light still connecting his wand with Harry's; Harry held onto his wand more tightly, with both hands, and the golden thread remained unbroken. "Do nothing unless I command you!" Voldemort shouted to the Death Eaters.
And then an unearthly and beautiful sound filled the air...It was coming from every thread of the light-spun web vibrating around Harry and Voldemort. It was a sound Harry recognized, though he had heard it only once before in his life: phoenix song.
It was the sound of hope to Harry...the most beautiful and welcome thing he had ever heard in his life...He felt as though the song were inside him instead of just around him...It was the sound he connected with his family: his aunt, Sirius, Remus, Draco. It was almost as though a friend were speaking in his ear...
Don't break the connection.
I know. Harry told the music, I know I mustn't...but no sooner had he thought it, than the thing became much harder to do. His wand began to vibrate more powerfully than ever...and now the beam between him and Voldemort changed too...it was as though large beads of light were sliding up and down the thread connecting the wands - Harry felt his wand give a shudder under his hand as the light beads began to slide slowly and steadily his way...The direction of the beams movement was now toward him, from Voldemort, and he felt his wand shudder angrily...
As the closest bead of light moved nearer to Harry's wand tip, the wood beneath his fingers grew so hot he feared it would burst into flame. The closer that bead moved, the harder Harry's wand vibrated; he was sure his wand would not survive contact with it; it felt as though it was about to shatter under his fingers -
He concentrated every last particle of his mind upon forcing the bead back toward Voldemort, his ears full of phoenix song, his eyes furious, fixed...and slowly, very slowly, the beads quivered to a halt, and then, just as slowly, they began to move the other way...and it was Voldemort's wand that was vibrating extra-hard now...Voldemort who looked astonished, and almost fearful...
One of the beads of light was quivering, inches from the tip of Voldemort's wand. Harry didn't understand why he was doing it, didn't know what it might achieve...but he now concentrated as he had never done in his life on forcing that bead of light right back into Voldemort's wand...and slowly...very slowly...it moved along the golden thread...it trembled for a moment...and then it connected...
At once, Voldemort's wand began to emit echoing screams of pain...then - Voldemort's red eyes widened with shock - a dense, smoky hand flew out of the tip of it and vanished...the ghost of the hand he had made Wormtail...more shouts of pain...and then something much larger began to blossom from Voldemort's wand tip, a great, grayish something, that looked as though it were made of the solidest, densest smoke...It was a head...now a chest and arms...the torso of Cedric Diggory.
If ever Harry might have released his wand from shock, it would have been then, but instinct kept him clutching his wand tightly, so that the thread of golden light remained unbroken, even though the thick gray ghost of Cedric Diggory (was it a ghost? it looked so solid) emerged in its entirety from the end of Voldemort's wand, as though it were squeezing itself out of a very narrow tunnel...and this shade of Cedric stood up, and looked up and down the golden thread of light, and spoke.
"Hold on, Harry," he said.
His voice was distant and echoing. Harry looked at Voldemort...his wide red eyes were still shocked...he had no more expected this than Harry had...and, very dimly. Harry heard the frightened yells of the Death Eaters, prowling around the edges of the golden dome.
More screams of pain from the wand...and then something else emerged from its tip...the dense shadow of a second head, quickly followed by arms and torso...an old man Harry had seen only in a dream was now pushing himself out of the end of the wand just as Cedric had done...and his ghost, or his shadow, or whatever it was, fell next to Cedric's, and surveyed Harry and Voldemort, and the golden web, and the connected wands, with mild surprise, leaning on his walking stick...
"He was a real wizard, then?" the old man said, his eyes on Voldemort. "Killed me, that one did...You fight him, boy..."
But already, yet another head was emerging...and this head, gray as a smoky statue, was a woman's...Harry, both arms shaking now as he fought to keep his wand still, saw her drop to the ground and straighten up like the others, staring...
The shadow of Bertha Jerkins surveyed the battle before her with wide eyes.
"Don't let go, now!" she cried, and her voice echoed like Cedric's as though from very far away. "Don't let him get you, Harry - don't let go!"
She and the other two shadowy figures began to pace around the inner walls of the golden web, while the Death Eaters flitted around the outside of it...and Voldemort's dead victims whispered as they circled the duelers, whispered words of encouragement to Harry, and hissed words Harry couldn't hear to Voldemort.
And now another head was emerging from the tip of Voldemort's wand...and Harry knew when he saw it who it would be...he knew, as though he had expected it from the moment when Cedric had appeared from the wand...knew, because the man appearing was the one he'd thought of more than any other tonight...
The smoky shadow of a young woman with long hair fell to the ground as Bertha had done, straightened up, and looked at him...and Harry, his arms shaking madly now, looked back into the ghostly face of his mother.
"Your dad's coming, sweetheart..." He could make out the gentle smile on face."He wants to see you...it will be all right...hold on..."
And he came...first his head, then his body...tall and untidy-haired like Harry, the smoky, shadowy form of James Potter blossomed from the end of Voldemort's wand, fell to the ground, and straightened like his wife. He walked close to Harry, looking down at him, and he spoke in the same distant, echoing voice as the others, but quietly, so that Voldemort, his face now livid with fear as his victims prowled around him, could not hear...
"When the connection is broken, lion, we will linger for only moments...but we will give you time...you must get to the Portkey, it will return you to Hogwarts...do you understand, Harry?"
"Yes," Harry gasped, fighting now to keep a hold on his wand, which was slipping and sliding beneath his fingers.
"Harry..." whispered the figure of Cedric, "take my body back, will you? Take my body back to my parents..."
"I will," said Harry, his face screwed up with the effort of holding the wand.
"Do it now," whispered his father's voice. "be ready to run...do it now..."
"NOW!" Harry yelled; he didn't think he could have held on for another moment anyway - he pulled his wand upward with an almighty wrench, and the golden thread broke; the cage of light vanished, the phoenix song died - but the shadowy figures of Voldemort's victims did not disappear - they were closing in upon Voldemort, shielding Harry from his gaze -
And Harry ran as he had never run in his life, knocking two stunned Death Eaters aside as he passed; he zigzagged behind headstones, feeling their curses following him, hearing them hit the headstones - he was dodging curses and graves, pelting toward Cedric's body, no longer aware of the pain in his leg, his whole being concentrated on what he had to do -
"Stun him! "He heard Voldemort scream.
Ten feet from Cedric, Harry dived behind a marble angel to avoid the jets of red light and saw the tip of its wing shatter as the spells hit it. Gripping his wand more tightly, he dashed out from behind the angel -
"Impedimenta!" he bellowed, pointing his wand wildly over his shoulder at the Death Eaters running at him.
From a muffled yell, he thought he had stopped at least one of them, but there was no time to stop and look; he jumped over the cup and dived as he heard more wand blasts behind him; more jets of light flew over his head as he fell, stretching out his hand to grab Cedric's arm...
"Stand aside! I will kill him! He is mine!" shrieked Voldemort. Harry's hand had closed on Cedric's wrist; one tombstone stood between him and Voldemort, but Cedric was too heavy to carry, and the cup was out of reach -
Voldemort's red eyes flamed in the darkness. Harry saw his mouth curl into a smile, saw him raise his wand.
"Accio!" Harry yelled, pointing his wand at the Trizwizard Cup. It flew into the air and soared toward him. Harry caught it by the handle -
He heard Voldemort's scream of fury at the same moment that he felt the jerk behind his navel that meant the Portkey had worked - it was speeding him away in a whirl of wind and color, and Cedric along with him...They were going back. They were going ba-
Harry felt himself slam flat into the ground; his face was pressed into grass; the smell of it filled his nostrils. He had closed his eyes while the Portkey transported him, and he kept them closed now. He did not move. All the breath seemed to have been knocked out of him; his head was swimming so badly he felt as though the ground beneath him were swaying like the deck of a ship. To hold himself steady, he tightened his hold on the two things he was still clutching: the smooth, cold handle of the Trizwizard Cup and Cedric's body. He felt as though he would slide away into the blackness gathering at the edges of his brain if he let go of either of them. Shock and exhaustion kept him on the ground, breathing in the smell of the grass, waiting...waiting for someone to do something...something to happen...and all the while, his scar burned dully on his forehead...
A torrent of sound deafened and confused him; there were voices everywhere, footsteps, screams...He remained where he was, his face screwed up against the noise, as though it were a nightmare that would pass...
Then a pair of hands seized him roughly and turned him over.
"Harry! Harry "
He opened his eyes.
He was looking up at the starry sky, and Sirius was crouched over him, Remus by his other side. The dark shadows of a crowd of people pressed in around them, pushing nearer; Harry felt the ground beneath his head reverberating with their footsteps.
"Kiddo! Speak to me!" Sirius grabbed the front of his bloody, torn shirt and shook him. "Are you alright?"
He had come back to the edge of the maze. He could see the stands rising above him, the shapes of people moving in them, the stars above.
Harry let go of the cup, but he clutched Cedric to him even more tightly. He raised his free hand and seized Sirius's wrist while Sirius's face swam in and out of focus. He felt a cool hand, most likely Remus, brushing against his burning forehead.
"He's back," Harry whispered. "He's back. Voldemort."
"What?"
"What's going on? What's happened?"
"Harry's back! He's okay!"
"Wait a minute-is that Diggory?!"
"He's dead!"
"Cedric's dead!"
Any trace of excitement over their returning Champions was a cold, distant memory when eyes took in their conditions, one badly injured, the other pale and still, excited cheers erupting to horrific screams and weeping.
In the midst of the madness, Harry was brought up, his head spinning; vision and hearing swaying back and forth like the unsteady motion of a boat. In the midst of the madness, he could make out the heartbreaking screams of a father that was painful to listen to as the mother's weeping.
"Cedric! Cedric! Where's my son? What happened to my son?"
It was like he was at the mercy of Voldemort's wand, the heartbreaking screams cutting him deeper than any of the curses.
"Harry!"
Bottom lip quivering, Harry turned his tear-filled eyes to see Draco elbowing and pushing his way through the crowd, trying to get to him.
"Harry!"
Just as he predicted, those gray eyes were wide in anxiety. Seeing that familiar eye color that glinted through the silver mask, seeing that familiar platinum-blonde hair filled his body with unbearable, grueling pain.
With the remains of his tattered, mangled heart completely torn to shreds, Harry turned away from Draco and buried his face against Sirius's chest, keeping it there.