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As always chapters 20 and 21 are already written. find them at pat re on under the name Lowten.

Chapter 19

One moment Harry felt like the world was a storm of wind and chaos, and the next second he slammed down in the graveyard at Little Hangleton. He didn't bother trying to keep his feet, instead using the fall to quickly move away from where he had landed in case there was a spell coming his way quickly. His instinct was right on the money, as Crouch shot a stunning spell right at where Harry landed, missing him by inches. As Harry was wearing his family's invisibility cloak, he quickly but cautiously started backing away from Crouch, making sure to put gravestones between them when he could.

"Where are you, Potter? It's time for you to have your role in my master's rebirth!" The man sounded half crazy, but Harry guessed that's what being kept a prisoner under the Imperius curse for over a decade would do to you. Crouch started firing off stunners at random, and one flew right over Harry's head and would have hit him if he had been standing up, rather than crouching behind a gravestone as he tried to work out his plan. He could try taking Crouch out, but Harry knew that Wormtail, LeStrange, and Voldemort were also out there, and as soon as he used any kind of combat spell he would give away his position with the light from the spell. He also couldn't just sit still because the damned snake would be able to smell him. While they wouldn't kill him yet (they needed his blood after all), it wasn't part of Harry's plan for Voldemort to get a new body tonight.

He looked around to see if he could spot LeStrange or Wormtail, suspecting that Bellatrix would be helping Crouch because she was a better fighter than Wormtail while someone would need to act as Voldemort's babysitter since the bastard was still a weird baby. However, he couldn't see her, which meant she was probably disillusioned waiting for her opportunity to get him. One thing he did spot was the oversized cauldron where they planned to finish the potion. There was a figure over there doing something Harry couldn't make out from where he was, but he assumed it was wormtail doing some last minute adjustments to the potion.

Harry then got an idea on how he could deal with Crouch without being spotted. He looked around the graveyard for a large rock and moved so that Crouch was directly between Harry and the rock and silently summoned the rock, pouring as much magic into the spell as he could. The rock came flying and bounced off the back of Crouch; although Harry was able to get the angle to hit the man who was looking for him with some force on it, he couldn't control how high the rock flew. While Harry had a mental image of the rock hitting Crouch in the back of his head and knocking him out, in reality the stone hit Crouch in the back just below his left shoulder.

Although there wasn't an unconscious or even a dead Crouch laid out on the ground, there was still a loud crack and a satisfying scream of pain from the man, followed by a string of swearing that was surprisingly creative. Sometimes Harry wondered if there was a higher power like fate on his side or if he was just lucky. Of course, whenever he wondered that, he was often soon reminded that he had just as many (if not more) problems in his life as he had things go right. In this case, Harry just happened to look behind him and was lucky enough to see Nagini, Voldemort's snake and horcrux, slithering along the ground as it came trying to find him.

Harry didn't hesitate, he doubted that he would have another shot this good. He raised his wand and shouted "Sectumsempra" as he flicked his wand across the body of the snake. A white light lanced from the tip of his wand and struck along the body of the snake, cutting a deep gash in its side. Blood started to spill from the wound, but Harry didn't have the time to appreciate taking down another horcrux, as the flash of white light from his wand had told everyone else in the graveyard exactly where he was. He dove to the side, not even stopping to look around him, and avoided the stunner immediately thrown his way. With Crouch now knowing where he was, Harry had no reason to conceal where he was, so as he crouched behind a gravestone for cover, he called out "So, Crouch, how long have you had your father under the Imperius? Was that how you got my name in the Goblet?"

"Oh, worked that much out did you? My father had me under the Imperius curse for over twelve years - twelve years of nothing but staring at a wall or being forced to read books on why the Death Eaters were wrong. But during the commotion at the World Cup, his control slipped. I was able to snack my father's wand from him, and from then on it was his turn to live as as a slave." While Crouch was distracted Harry crept clockwise around the man, hoping to get a clear shot. "Did you know my master was there at the World cup? Well, close by anyway, he had Auntie Bellatrix looking for an opportunity to grab you. Bella saw me only for a second when I opened my invisibility cloak to Imperio my father, and she took me to our lord to tell him all about the Triwizard Tournament that was planned. I was forced for years to listen to my father prattle on about what he was doing in the Ministry, so I had years of intelligence to give to my lord, and my lord used it to craft his plan to catch you."

Harry was still assessing the situation throughout Crouch's monologue. If he was far enough away from Crouch, then there was the chance that he could get a shield charm up in time. All Harry would have done then is give way his advantage, and he would then have to take Crouch in a straight duel. He had no clue how good a dueler Crouch was, but given he had once watched the man silently transfigure Malfoy into a ferret, he doubted the man would be an easy victory if Harry didn't take him by surprise. However, even invisible he could still be heard, and the grass under his feet could still be seen as it was compressed by his feet, so he had to be cautious.

"As for getting your name in the Goblet, originally I was going to kidnap a teacher and replace them in the school. However, no opportunity presented itself, so we tasked my father with putting your name in the Goblet. Your name was the first one entered, it was done even before the Goblet of Fire was in the school. Now why don't you give up like a good little boy? I even promise not to kill you."

Harry had a dry mental laugh at that last line. Sure, Crouch wasn't going to try to kill him, Voldemort wanted that pleasure for himself. He was close enough now he raised his wand so only the tip would be poking out of the folds of his invisibility cloak and thought 'Petrificus totalus' as hard as he could. Harry got lucky, the Death Eater's arms fell to his sides, his legs snapped together, and he fell forward, face planting into the hard earth that hadn't seen any rain for a few weeks with the rapid approach of summer. Harry squatted down next to the petrified Death Eater and looked him over, picking up the man's wand and pocketing it just in case, before saying, "You talk too much." Then, he stunned the man.

Harry was starting to think that Bellatrix wasn't here, she hadn't attacked him yet and she wasn't over with Voldemort and Wormtail. Wormtail was starting to look nervous and was looking around all twitchy, as he wasn't much of a fighter and Voldemort would probably punish Wormtail if he failed. Little did Wormtail know it was Harry that the man had to be afraid of. Harry and Hermione had had long discussions over what Wormtail's fate should be. With Sirius already free and a Kiss-on-sight order out for Wormtail, Harry had advocated hard for what Hermione had dubbed 'righteous vengeance'. He wanted to end the man, preferably slowly and painfully. Hermione, on the other hand, had advocated for handing the man over to the DMLE. According to her, he would regret killing Wormtail after he had done it, not because the man didn't deserve it but because it would change him in some way.

Harry had agreed to consider Hermione's point of view, but he hadn't made a decision yet. A part of him really wanted to kill the man who had ratted out his parents to Voldemort, yet he trusted Hermione, and if anyone knew him better than he knew himself, it was her. A part of Harry wanted things to go wrong, for it to be a choice of Wormtail or him, just like it had been that first time with Quirrell. However, part of him still wondered if he had actually been the one to kill Quirrell, the burn he had given the man was bad, but he was sure Madam Pomfrey could have fixed it up. Burns, even painfully bad ones, were relatively simple to fix.

Now that Harry was able to take the time to look, he could also see how agitated Tom was; things weren't going according to the plans of the monster inside the body of a sickly toddler. Harry could try to sneak over there under his cloak and end this quickly, yet something was telling him that he shouldn't use the cloak for this. Instead, he dropped behind the large grave marker that had a statue of death on it, the very same one that he had been tied to this night years ago from his perspective. As he did, he felt his scar prickle and he realised why using the cloak against Voldemort was a bad idea. If he could tell when Voldemort was near, and Voldemort had used that same connection to raid Harry's mind in the past, it was entirely possible Voldemort would know Harry was there.

As if to confirm his suspicions, a voice broke the air just as Harry was reaching to pull off the cloak. "Harry Potter. I know you are there, I can sense you. Come out and face your destiny."

Harry couldn't help it, he laughed. With the prophecy and Voldemort still having a horcrux in play, it was too early to be talking about destiny. He called out, "One second, I'll be right there!" as he stuffed the cloak back into his backpack; he didn't want to risk leaving that behind.

One he was ready, Harry rounded the statue wand in hand ready to react, only to see that Voldemort was alone, propped up by bundled cloth on a hastily conjured table. Harry reacted quickly, and in a gamble chose the Protego charm. A shivering field of energy surrounded him, reflecting the stunner that had just been fired from behind him directly back at Peter Pettigrew, who had been trying for a sneak attack. Harry was more mad by how quickly the man had gone down than at the attack. How could such an incompetent smear of dragon shit be the one that was responsible for leading Voldemort to his parents? It was just wrong; Harry wanted to make the man pay, but he had knocked himself out and now he couldn't justify slitting the rat's throat during a duel. He wanted to rage at this, but instead had to focus on his main objective for tonight. Harry decided to borrow a play from Dumbledore's book for dealing with Voldemort. "Good evening, Tom. Lovely night for a party, isn't it?"

He had to struggle to keep himself from smiling as Voldemort's face contorted with rage. "So Dumbledore has told you my berth name, which I abandoned long ago."

"Dumbledore? No, though I can see where you got that idea. In his position, it would have made sense to train me and give me information on you. But no, Dumbledore hasn't taught me anything." That was technically true, this Dumbledore hadn't taught Harry anything. He slowly walked around the small clearing, which really was little more than two paths between the graves, just wide enough that two men on either side of a coin could walk unobstructed. As he walked, he kept watching Voldemort, his wand at the ready to react to any hostile actions from the so-called Dark Lord. The bundle of cloth kept turning, keeping Voldemort facing Harry.

"Then where did you learn such information?" He seemed genuinely curious.

"Oh, I came across an old diary. It had a lot to say about you." Harry saw what little colour was in the skin of the mockery of life in front of him fade away. "Your diary was quite chatty for a while: muggle father, in fact that's his old home up there isn't it? You killed him instead of letting your Slytherin 'friends' find out you were half muggle - after all, your squib of a mother wasn't around anymore to back up your claim of being the Heir of Slytherin." Harry knew he was winding up Voldemort, but he also knew that Voldemort couldn't risk killing him right now. Not only was Harry still needed for the restoration ritual, he has just revealed that he had a horcrux in his possession. Voldemort needed to discover just what Harry knew about the horcruxes and who Harry had told about them. He was relatively safe for the moment.

"How did you come by my diary? I confess I left it somewhere where I don't think you would be welcome." The tension and displeasure was evident in his voice.

Harry had no reason not to say. "Lucius Malfoy planted it on a little first year girl. I think he planned to get her family in trouble. But I found it first and saved the girl before your diary could get its hooks in her."

"And what did you do with the diary once you were finished with it?" If Harry didn't already know that the diary was a horcrux, he would have guessed that it was important just from how desperate Tom sounded to hear what had happened to it. Harry had agitated him well past his capacity to remain subtle.

"Why are you so interested? Is the diary important? You seem far more concerned for it than you do about your followers whom I just took down," Harry asked.

"You will tell me NOW!" Tom screamed at Harry, waving his wand threateningly.

"Oh, will I now?" Harry taunted.

That was a stroke too far for Voldemort, and he raised his wand at Harry "Crucio!"

This was just what Harry had been waiting for. His plan was quite simple, he needed to disarm Voldemort. However, a disarming charm was probably one of the easiest spells to block. He needed Voldemort's wand to be busy casting something else. He was sure Voldemort wouldn't kill him when there was still a chance to finish the ritual, and he added even more reason to keep him alive by revealing he had the diary horcrux, a piece of Voldemort's very soul. Of course, if Harry had revealed he had destroyed it, then he doubted Voldemort would have even hesitated to try and kill him. Harry had been hoping that Voldemort would try the Imperius first, make him revive Wormtail and Crouch, then tie himself to the grave so that they could finish the restoration ritual. This time around, Voldemort had no way of knowing that Harry could completely throw off the curse, so it would have made sense. Unfortunately, Harry had pushed Voldemort too far to be thinking completely straight, so he had sent the torture curse, probably intending to teach him a lesson. Harry, while he wasn't expecting a Crucio, was expecting something, so as soon as Voldemort shot a curse at him he flung himself to the side and cast an Expelliarmus at Voldemort.

Both spells flew through the air. The Crucio curse found its mark first, catching Harry on his arm even as he tried to avoid the spell. Harry's world turned to nothing but pain, it was as though someone had exposed every single nerve ending Harry had, then thrown him into a vat of acid. Harry had no concept of time or hope, he just wanted the pain to end. Luckily, his relief came after only a moment, as his Expelliarmus spell was already fully formed and on its way to Voldemort before he was hit. Even after Harry had been overwhelmed by the pain, the spell continued to do as it was intended and struck Voldemort right in the chest. Voldemort's wand flew out of his hand, and without his wand the Dark Lord couldn't keep directing magic into his curse.

Harry had no memory of how he ended up on the floor, though he was sure he could peace it together easily enough given the curse he had just been hit with. It has been a long time since Harry had experienced pain like that, and he hoped it would be even longer until he experienced it again. He rallied his will and used it to climb to his feet. Before he did anything else, Harry summoned Voldemort's wand, and after a few moments of consideration he used a sticking charm to affix the wand to his arm. The sticking charm would keep the wand from being summoned or swiped from his pocket. He then mentally kicked himself for forgetting about the wands of the other two wizards and summoned Wormtail's and Crouch's as well and stuck them to his arm as well before lowering his sleeve.

Harry glanced over at Voldemort and saw that he was looking at Harry's sleeve with a cold calculating look in his eyes. He had a sudden flash of a possible future where Babymort reached up his sleeve and, without even trying to draw the wand, gripping it's handle and casting the killing curse. Harry quickly used the same charm and stuck the cuff of his sleeve to his wrist to prevent such access. Voldemort started to rant, which was mildly entertaining for about a minute. He was going on about being immortal, that it didn't matter what Harry did to this body, and it was only a matter of time until he returned, and then he would see Harry suffer for daring to oppose Lord Voldemort, the rightful heir of the noble house of Slytherin. Harry got bored of listening to the mad ramblings and cast a silencing charm on Voldemort, then cast the stunning spell on Wormtail and Crouch again. They were supposed to stay unconscious for at least an hour if you didn't apply the counter charm, but Harry wasn't going to risk it. Harry also bound Wormtail up in ropes and hit him with an Incarcerous spell, then floated the bodies over and set them down next to Voldemort. He levitated the Triwizard trophy, which was also the portkey back to Hogwarts, over to where the unconscious Death Eaters laid at the feet of their helpless master. Next, Harry brought the body of Nagini over and watched Voldemort go into a silent rage at seeing what he had done to the horcrux and familiar.

Harry ignored the tantrum and rummaged in his backpack for a potion flask that he had brought. He used the bottle to take a sample of the potion Voldemort was going to use, but as he didn't want to touch the potion he used the Wingardium Leviosa spell to dip the flask into the liquid. He put in the stopper, cleaned up the flask with a spell, and put the sample into his backpack. Harry didn't know what he was going to do with the sample, but if nothing else it was evidence that Voldemort planned to do something here. He then vanished the remaining potion and shrunk down the cauldron until it fit in Harry's backpack.

Portkeys require skin contact to transport a person, and the Triwizard portkey was set up to respond to touch. Harry had a difficult time getting two unconscious men and an uncooperative toddler as well as himself to touch the Cup at the same time, but he was finally able to do it, and for the second time in under an hour he felt the hook in his middle as he was pulled through a tunnel of wind.

-ϟϟϟ-

Harry arrived back at the school, landing on what was evidently meant to be the winners platform. Unlike the last time when everyone had assumed that Harry had just been teleported out of the maze to the platform and started celebrating, this time it was a sense of relief that washed through the crowd. He didn't know why, but apparently the whole school had already been told about the kidnapping. Almost as soon as Harry had recovered from his landing (if you were feeling charitable), two people in red auror robes came running up to him. "Mr. Potter, can you tell us what happened?" He was surprised to see Kingsley Shacklebolt was asking the question.

Harry took a second to compose himself before saying. "I was kidnapped by Peter Pettigrew," he gave Wormtail a kick as he said that, "and Barty Crouch Jr." Junior also got his own kick. "They planned to use my blood in a restoration ritual to restore Voldemort here," he lifted up Babymort, "to a full body rather than just a parasite inhabiting the body of a homunculus. To cut a long story short, Junior claims his father is under the Imperius and they used him to enter my name into the tournament."

Dumbledore was finally able to catch up with a very distressed looking Minister Fudge, who had lost nearly all his support. A lot of the men who were sent to Azkaban for rioting at the World Cup were his political supporters, and with Lucius dead he wasn't getting the money he used to get votes in the Wizengamot anymore. Fudge was holding on to his job by a thread, and he knew it. Any kind of scandal, and Fudge would be out of the Minister's office and would be very lucky to head up the Department for Magical Catastrophes again.

Dumbledore and Fudge both demanded to know what had happened, so Harry decided to throw the Minister a bone. "The penalty for escaping Azkaban is the Dementor's Kiss, right?" Harry asked. "So I say we do that quickly but with full public scrutiny, it will be a win for you in the press. It's a pity we didn't get LeStrange as well, but two dangerous supporters of Vol- uh, You-Know-Who removed from posing a danger to the public. And while we are at it, let's give this bit of shit to them as well." Harry indicated the still silenced Voldemort in his hands, but before he could say anymore he was interrupted by what might just be the strongest hug Hermione had ever given him. His bushy haired girlfriend had finally pushed past everyone to get to Harry, and now that she had she had no intention of letting him go.

A/N

Don't worry guys, this is not the big bad boss fight. This was just a preliminary round, don't forget the cup and Bellatrix are still out there and Harry is still a horcrux. Voldemort is still coming back and Harry will kick his ass.

This fic is so close to having 3000 followers on this site and that's amazing I love all you who are following this fic of mine. please consider leaving a review I always get a thrill reading them.

Edit: we passed 3000 followers. Yay!

The user who put this fic over that milestone was Hadrian Targaryen.