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The cup was a portkey.
Of course, it was a portkey. Why hadn't she seen it coming? How else would they know who grabbed the cup first unless it had first been enchanted to bring the winner back to the start of the maze?
Carina and Harry hit the soft ground with various groans of protest and pain, and the cup tumbled to the ground a few feet away. Carina slowly pushed herself up onto her elbows, staring down at the dark grass below her. It was too dark. The Quidditch Pitch grass was a light green. She bit back a whimper as she got to her knees and looked around. The surrounding area was dark, and Carina couldn't see the castle in the distance.
"Where are we?" she heard Harry ask.
Carina turned around to see Harry pushing himself up onto his hands and knees, trying not to put weight on his injured leg. Then Carina noticed the headstones and a small church by a yew tree.
"Not at Hogwarts," Carina said quietly. She stood, biting her lip with a grunt of pain. Her entire body ached, only accentuated by the pain in her chest, arm, and knees. She walked over to Harry and helped him up, letting him lean on her as they looked around. "Did anyone tell you the cup was a portkey?"
"Nope," Harry answered, eyeing the silent and eerie graveyard. "Not sure what I was expecting though. Is this supposed to be part of the task?"
"I'm not sure." Carina reached for her wand. "Wands out just in case."
"Yeah." Harry pulled his wand out as well, happy she was the one to suggest it.
Carina held her wand out and inched forward. Her pace was slow to allow Harry to grow used to not having her support him. "I'm going to have a look around. Hopefully find out where we are."
Something didn't sit right with him as he watched her walk toward the nearest headstone. She was moving to read it when Harry noticed something in the distance and warned, "Someone's coming."
They readied their wands as a short, cloaked figure drew steadily near, walking through the graves in their direction. Carina couldn't make out his face as it was shrouded in a hood in the already dark graveyard, but the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. She didn't like the situation one bit and highly doubted something so different and strange would be part of a Triwizard Tournament task.
The strange figure was also carrying something. It looked like. . . a baby?
Carina's expression twisted in confusion as her wand arm lowered and she looked back at Harry. He seemed just as confused as she did.
The figure stopped at a tall marble headstone, facing in their direction. Carina wondered if the person was just as curious about them as they were of the stranger. But then Harry reached up to his forehead, grimacing in pain, and he collapsed onto his knees. Panicked, Carina started toward him to see what was wrong when she heard an eery voice from behind her.
"The Lestrange girl. Keep her alive."
Carina barely had the chance to turn around and raise her wand, only to see a bright red light then utter darkness. Her body was flung back a few feet, landing directly by Harry's side. His eyes widened as he stared down at her.
No, that definitely couldn't be part of the tournament. What had he heard Krum say? He couldn't let Carina get to the cup first. It wasn't Krum, Carina had been sure and Harry trusted her judgment, so someone might have bewitched him. The Imperius Curse. Perhaps it was the same person who put Harry's name in the Goblet of Fire. Like Professor Moody had suggested, maybe the person really was hoping Harry would die in the tournament.
The pain from Harry's scar lessened as he was dragged to his feet by the stranger who had stunned Carina. He felt limp and numb aside from the pain shooting up his leg and what remained from his head. The stranger dragged him limping over to a marble headstone, and he just barely grabbed the name before being slammed against it.
TOM RIDDLE
Ropes tied Harry to the headstone, binding him tight and unable to move as he looked over at Carina's lifeless body and prayed she woke up. Part of him was shrouded in panic while the other was guilt for being the cause of her being in the mess.
But then he remembered what the unnatural voice had said. Keep her alive. That paired with the name Tom Riddle, Harry had a bad feeling.
Voldemort.
Which only made him recognizing the cloaked figure even easier, particularly with the missing finger. Wormtail. "You!" he cried out. But Wormtail didn't react, continuing to adjust the ropes to make sure he was completely incapacitated, then Wormtail pulled something from his robes and shoved it in Harry's mouth. Cloth to keep him quiet.
Wormtail shuffled away from Harry who lost sight of him.
Harry struggled against the ropes and tried to say something through the bundle of cloth, but there was nothing he could do as rope ate into his skin.
Carina, please wake up, Harry thought, repeating it in his head. His wand laid discarded at her feet and the Triwizard Cup sat in the grass nearby. What Harry had thought was a baby wrapped in a robe sat at the foot of the grave, and his scar exploded in pain once again. He no longer thought it was a baby. The little noises it made were accompanied by a hissing sound from a snake circling the headstone at Harry's feet.
Harry wished he was the one unconscious.
Wormtail returned shortly after, pushing a large cauldron filled with some sort of liquid across the graveyard to the foot of the grave. After starting a fire beneath the cauldron with his wand, Wormtail waited for the liquid to heat, and soon it was bubbling and sending out tiny sparks.
"Hurry!" the disembodied voice said.
"It is ready, Master," Wormtail replied.
"Now. . ."
Wormtail picked up the object from inside the robe, revealing a slimy, crouched, nude figure with bright red eyes and a snake-like face. The pain in Harry's forehead became unbearable as he let out a scream, muffled by the cloth. Wormtail set the thing in the bubbling liquid.
There was nothing Harry wanted more than for it to drown.
But Wormtail began speaking, raising his wand. "Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son!" The surface of the grave at Harry's feet cracked open, and a stream of dust followed the path of Wormtail's wand, flowing into the cauldron. Wormtail then pulled a dagger from his cloak after putting his wand away. "Flesh of the servant, willingly given. You will revive your master." Harry clenched his eyes shut as Wormtail sliced through his hand, the dismembered limb plummetting into the potion with a cry of pain.
Harry opened his eyes again to see the potion turn a deep red, but he couldn't linger on it for long as Wormtail stopped right in front of him. "Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken. You will resurrect your foe."
He struggled helplessly as Wormtail sliced through the skin on his arm and used a vial to collect his blood. Wormtail stumbled back to the cauldron and poured the blood inside then staggered back away from the cauldron, giving it room.
The light from the diamond surface and the brilliant sparks turned to darkness before white steam flowed from the surface until Harry could no longer see anything around him, not the grave, not Wormtail, not Carina. Then the mist began to dissipate, revealing a dark outline of a man standing inside the cauldron.
"Robe me," Harry heard a cold voice say.
Wormtail scrambled to grab the discarded robe, still whimpering in pain as he threw it over his master.
The thin man stepped out of the cauldron, pale as the moon, eyes as red as blood, and a snake-like head. And he was staring directly at Harry. Lord Voldemort.
The Lestrange Girl. Keep her alive.
The words echoed through her mind over and over again in the utter darkness. Why spare her? What use could she possibly be? One more potential Death Eater, perhaps? Having a bargaining chip for the Malfoys? Not wanting to waste pure-blood life? Using the resources she would have access to now that she was of age? Needing someone to harbor criminals like her father, aunt, and uncle? She was tired. She just wanted it all to end.
Not a single inch of her body lacked pain or fatigue. Head throbbing. Heart pounding. Blood pulsing. Skin pricking. Joints aching. Arm stinging. Fingers twitching. Chest flaming.
There was only one word that could even remotely accurately describe how Carina felt at that moment.
Agony. Pure agony.
Peeking her eyes open only made her hurt more. She had to strain them to keep them open, but even then it took time for them to adjust to the low light of the graveyard. And her ears filled with shrieks of pain, causing her eyes to snap open, wide and alert, yet she still couldn't will her injured body to move with little more than a quiet hiss as she tried to lift her arm and her eyes couldn't seem to focus on anything, hazy and clouded.
"Get up, Avery," a voice said softly after the screams turned to gasps. "Stand up. You ask for forgiveness? I do not forgive. I do not forget. Thirteen long years. . . I want thirteen years' repayment before I forgive you. Wormtail here has paid some of his debt already, have you not, Wormtail?"
The words were almost foreign to Carina. She didn't recognize the voice. Avery? Forgiveness? Thirteen years? Wormtail?
She heard quiet sobbing as the voice continued nearby. "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," a new voice said, one far less smooth and littered by quivering words. "Please, Master. . . please."
"Yet you helped return me to my body. Worthless and traitorous as you are, you helped me, and Lord Voldemort rewards his helpers."
Lord Voldemort.
The name chilled her to the bone, and through her immense pain, she realized what was going on. The Dark Lord had returned, and the figure who had stunned her earlier had used Harry to do it. That was why they needed him. Voldemort planned on killing him.
It had been "thirteen years" since Voldemort had been presumed dead and defeated by Harry. "Avery" was Claiborne Avery, the head of the Avery family and a good friend of the Lestranges, particularly Rodolphus and Bellatrix, and like a few other old families who had sided with Voldemort, he had escaped persecution by claiming to have been under the Imperius Curse. Because of them escaping persecution, they wouldn't receive "forgiveness" for not searching out their fallen master.
Carina still didn't know who this "Wormtail" was though. That she hadn't figured out, but the name sounded familiar.
Then she wondered who else was in the graveyard. Avery was there. Was Crabbe? Goyle? Nott?
Was Lucius?
He had gone to visit Hogwarts for the tournament to see her for the last task. Was he still at Hogwarts or had he excused himself once he heard the call of his master? Was he standing in the same graveyard she was laying in?
The sobbing stopped and a few quiet moments. It was followed by the second voice she had heard, who she assumed to be Wormtail. "My Lord, Master. . . it is beautiful. Thank you. . . thank you."
"May your loyalty never waver again, Wormtail," Voldemort said.
"No, My Lord. Never, My Lord."
Carina tried to roll over onto her side without making a sound, but she was breathless when successful, only to freeze when Voldemort started speaking again.
"Lucius, my slippery friend."
He was there. Her godfather was there. Right there in the graveyard mere feet away from where she laid in pain and exhaustion. Of course, he was there, she just didn't want to know. She didn't want to be there. She didn't want to be in the presence of the Dark Lord or his Death Eaters. She wanted to go home.
She wanted Fred.
"I am told that you have not renounced the old ways," Voldemort continued, standing in front of the hooded Malfoy, "though to the world you present a respectable face. You are still ready to take the lead in a spot of Muggle-torture, I believe? Yet you never tried to find me, Lucius. Your exploits at the Quidditch World Cup were fun, I daresay, but might not your energies have been better directed toward finding and aiding your master?"
And so Lucius being responsible for torturing the Muggle family had been confirmed in Carina's ears. She never hated being a Lestrange more than at that moment, knowing her family could resort to torturing children. Adults were one thing but children, they were another. And it wasn't out of desperation or anger. They saw it as fun.
"My Lord, I was constantly on alert." That was Lucius's voice alright. She'd know it anywhere. His smooth, swift voice spouting excuses. "Had there been any sign from you, any whisper of your whereabouts, I would have been at your side immediately." Somehow, Carina had a small sliver of doubt in that. "Nothing could have prevented me-"
"And yet you ran from my mark when a faithful Death Eater sent it into the sky last summer?" Voldemort interrupted, though he didn't sound antagonistic, only bored with Lucius' excuses. "Yes, I know all about that, Lucius. You have disappointed me. I expect more faithful service in the future."
She had to get out of there. Where was her wand? Carina's eyes began darting around the grass around her, sure to not move a muscle lest she drew attention to her injured form.
"Of course, My Lord, of course," Lucius groveled. "You are merciful, thank you."
Voldemort moved on, stopping in front of a large, empty space in the circle that his Death Eaters had formed. The space was big enough for three people. "The Lestranges should stand here, 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." He paused and turned his head back to Lucius. "You've been raising the daughter, yes?"
"Yes, My Lord," Lucius said. "A fine witch who would serve you well."
Voldemort waved his hand lazily. "Yes, I've heard the reports of her talents, but is she like her mother or her father?"
"Father, My Lord."
"Good." Voldemort moved on but Carina stayed focused on their words.
Is she like her mother or her father?
Father.
He's the last person she wanted to be like. Locked away in Azkaban for torturing two people into insanity. Granted, she wouldn't be surprised to learn if it was mostly Bellatrix who had done so rather than her father, uncle, or Barty Crouch Jr considering how psychotic she was known to be, but the sentiment remained. He was still responsible.
Her eyes found her wand through the darkness, lying in the grass at least a yard away. She had to get to it.
"Macnair," she heard Voldemort say. "Destroying dangerous beasts for the Ministry of Magic now, Wormtail tells me? You shall have better victims than that soon, Macnair. Lord Voldemort will provide."
Macnair. Walden Macnair. The Ministry's beast executioner. He didn't have any family and was a half-blood that enjoyed killing. Lucius had talked about how he was supposed to execute Hagrid's hippogriff that had "attacked" Draco. He had never been over to the Malfoy Manor and Lucius never spoked very highly of him either, looking down upon his chosen job but not in the same way he did others like Arthur Weasley.
"And here we have Crabbe. . . you will do better this time, will you not, Crabbe? And you, Goyle?"
"Yes, Master."
"We will, Master."
Their voices were dull and muttered, Carina almost hadn't heard them in the quiet graveyard as she slowly inched toward her wand, wincing as the long cut on her chest started to bleed again. She didn't know what she was going to do once she got the wand, but she'd be damned if she didn't have it on her person. If she was able to get it without passing out was the real question.
"The same goes for you, Nott," Voldemort continued.
So, Crabbe Sr., Goyle Sr., and Nott Sr., were all there, too? Just as Carina had guessed. Draco's little band was almost the same as Voldemort's circle of Death Eaters, though Draco was not Lucius, not by a long shot.
"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."
Carina paused in her slow shuffling, her tired eyes drifting back to the Death Eater circle who were glancing at each other underneath their masks, wondering what their master meant. Carina and Harry were in the same boat. One had already returned to his service? A Death Eater that Voldemort sounded almost proud of?
"He is at Hogwarts, that faithful servant, and it was through his efforts that our young friends arrived here tonight. . ."
Voldemort distracted himself with a long monologue as Carina tried her best to drag her body over to her wand, but the pain coursing through her was immense and the cut was bleeding again. Episkey could only do so much for a slash from Diffindo. At least she assumed whoever was controlling Krum had used Diffindo. And Ferula was better for making splints, not covering cuts.
She could feel her eyes drooping and her arms growing weaker.
But she was so close. She just wanted her wand at least. If she could get to it, maybe she could cast Episkey again, see if that would help. No, it was the blood loss. She needed a blood. . . a blood. . .
Fuck, what's the word? Carina thought.
She was trying her best to think logically, run through the things she had learned to help her stay awake, but it was all in vain. It didn't matter what potion she was trying to think of as her fingers finally curled around her wand and black spots danced in her vision.
The last thing she heard before succumbing to the darkness was, "Crucio!" and the sound of Harry's screams.
It was the worst pain he had ever felt. Harry had never fathomed it was possible to feel his bones on fire and his head splitting, his skin peeling and his bones breaking. Every pain imaginable happening all at once. Anything would have been better than stuck there feeling his flesh being boiled alive.
Including his death.
And he had a whole new respect for Neville's parents. They had been subjected to the Cruciatus Curse, he remembered, and Dumbledore told him not to reveal the secret to anyone.
Then the pain was gone, quick as it had started. Harry hung limply from the ropes keeping him tight against the headstone. The Death Eaters were laughing as Voldemort's red eyes met his green.
"You see, I think, how foolish it was to suppose that this boy could ever have been stronger than me," Voldemort said, his voice quieting his followers. "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."
He then whispered to the snake, "Just a little longer, Nagini," and it slithered away through the grass. Voldemort raised his voice for his servant to hear. "Now untie him, Wormtail, and give him back his wand."
When Harry was cut free, he considered running for it, but he wouldn't have gotten far on his leg, and Wormtail had walked in Carina's direction to collect his wand, though Harry could have sworn his wand was a lot closer to her than it had been as Wormtail bent to pick it up. And even then he still wanted to run, but he couldn't leave her behind. She hadn't left him, and he wouldn't leave her.
That thought stayed with him as Voldemort started talking to him about dueling and forced him to bow. The thought of her unconscious and defenseless stayed with him as he was hit with the Cruciatus again. Getting Carina and himself out of there stayed with him as Voldemort taunted him by letting him take a small break from the pain. He didn't want to die. He didn't want either of them to die.
But they weren't going to kill Carina, no, they were going to make her into her father. He wouldn't let that happen. He wouldn't play into Voldemort's game.
And when Voldemort used the Imperius Curse on him, when he broke through it, disobeying the dark wizard, he sprung into action and ducked behind the marble tombstone of Voldemort's father, narrowly missing the curse aimed at him.
"We're not playing hide-and-seek, Harry," Voldemort said softly, like a parent talking to a child, but it was cold and his 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 gritted his teeth as he crouched behind the tombstone. His eyes drifted to the village nearby but knew no help would come. They were a long way from Hogwarts. He heard Voldemort's footsteps drawing nearer and knew he could only do one of two things: he could die crouching behind a tombstone or he could fight. He was not going to die kneeling at Voldemort's feet.
He picked himself up, gripping his wand tightly, and threw himself out from behind the tombstone to face Voldemort. "Expelliarmus!" he shouted, but Voldemort was ready.
"Avada Kedavra!"
The green stream from Voldemort's wand met the red from Harry's, colliding in the air, and where the colors met was bright gold. The hands of the two wizards shook from the vibrations of the wands, electrified from the magic.
Harry didn't know what to do. He could let go if he wanted, but what then? Duck and hide again? Cast another spell?
Then a golden thread splintered from where the spells had collided, followed by more as they were encased in a golden cage of light, shielding them from the Death Eaters. Even Voldemort seemed amazed at the strange happenings of the spells.
"Do nothing!" he commanded his followers. "Do nothing unless I command you!"
A bead of light sprung from the connection, echoing screams of pain as it formed something ghost-like, solidifying features of an old man leaning on a walking stick. The caretaker of Voldemort's father's house.
"He was a real wizard, then?" the old man said in surprise as he eyed Voldemort. "Killed me, that one did. You fight him, boy."
Another spectral figure joined the man, this time a woman. Harry fought to keep his wand still with both hands as she formed and surveyed the area, crying, "Don't let go!" He knew she must've been Bertha Jorkins, the woman Voldemort had killed in Albania, the Ministry worker who had gone missing. "Don't let him get you, Harry. Don't let go!"
More of Voldemort's victims joined the two Harry recognized until one shadow of a young woman stood at Harry's side, and he recognized her as his mother Lili.
"Your father's coming," she told him gently with a ghost of a smile. "Hold on for your father. . . it will be alright. Hold on."
And finally, they were joined by James, looking just as much like Harry as everyone seemed to claim. "When the connection is broken, we will linger for only moments," his father explained. "But we will give you time. You must get to the portkey, it will return you to Hogwarts. Do you understand, Harry?"
"Yes," Harry struggled to say. Part of him wanted to stay, staring at his parents, but he had to go.
"Do it now," his father whispered. "Be ready to run, do it now."
"Now!" Harry yelled, arching his wand upward to break the connection and the cage of light. The shades of Voldemort's victims closed in on him as Harry ran straight for Carina.
Once he finally got to her, avoiding stuns from the Death Eaters or crashing into headstones, he stretched his hand to Carina's arm. "Accio!" he cast, pointing his wand at the nearby Triwizard Cup. It flew through the air toward him and he caught it by the handle, hearing Voldemort's cries of outrage and fury as they were pulled away.
They were going back to Hogwarts.