What Happened In the Graveyard.
Disclaimer: All this is Rowling's. You know the drill.
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 Kitty saw something upon the skin there, something like a vivid red tattoo - a skull with a snake protruding from its mouth: 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. "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 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..."
Then Kitty saw a gigantic snake slithering through the grass, circling the headstone where Harry was tied. For a moment, it looked where Kitty was standing, and then emanated a low hiss. Voldemort turned towards the snake, and frowned. He hissed back.
"Nagini tells me that there is someone else here," said Voldemort speaking to Wormtail, "Did I not tell you to kill the spare?"
"Master, I —I killed him, there he is," whimpered Wormtail, looking in the direction of Cedric. Kitty backed away. Voldemort hissed again at the snake. Harry's eyes were wide with fear. Voldemort made his way to Kitty, and stretched out his hand in the air. "Kat, run!" shouted Harry, throwing caution to the winds.
Kitty turned to run, but found herself face to face with the snake. While she was debating what to do, Voldemort stretched out his fingers towards Kitty. His fingers found the cloak, and he grabbed at it. He took off the cloak, and let it fall to the ground. The snake slithered away into the surrounding woods.
Voldemort's eyes took in the little 11 year old girl, trembling with fear. He raised his wand, as if to finish her off, and then lowered it abruptly. Harry was struggling to get free of the cords that bound him. "Well, if it isn't the faithful sister," he said quietly. Catching hold of Kitty's hair, he dragged her and brought her to stand facing Harry.
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 were hooded and masked.
"Watch the girl," Voldemort spat at Wormtail, who pointed his wand at Kitty with his left hand. And one by one the wizards 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, crawled toward Voldemort and kissed the hem of his black robes.
"Welcome, Death Eaters," said Voldemort quietly. "Thirteen years...thirteen 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 or 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?"
"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?
"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..."
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."
"His mother left upon him the traces other 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 me. Ah...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..."
"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 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... "
"As for you all, I shall not be punishing you, not because I have forgiven you, no, Lord Voldemort never forgives, but because someone else will pay in your stead. Join them,"he said to Wormtail, ushering towards the masked wizards.
He turned towards Kitty, and pointed his wand towards her. "Crucio!" he screamed. It was pain beyond anything Kitty had ever experienced; as if her very bones were on fire; her head was surely splitting; her eyes were rolling madly in her head; she wanted it to end...to black out...to die... And then it was gone.
"Liked that, my sweet?" sneered Voldemort, touching Kitty's cheek with a deathly pale long finger. Tears were falling down her cheeks. "Want another dose?" he hissed and did it again. Lifting the curse off her after about ten minutes, he turned to Harry.
"Now untie the boy, Wormtail, and give him back his wand." said Voldemort.
"You have been taught how to duel. Harry Potter?" said Voldemort softly, his red eyes glinting through the darkness, once Harry had been untied. Voldemort raised his wand, and before Harry could do anything to defend himself, before he could even move, he had been hit by the Cruciatus Curse.
Kitty, who was sprawled on the ground, edged slowly towards the spot where Voldemort had dropped the Cloak.
"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.
"I asked you whether you want me to do that again," said Voldemort softly. "Answer me! Imperio!"
"I WON'T!"
"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. 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.
Carefully avoiding being seen by the Death Eaters, Kitty stretched out and slowly drew the cloak over herself.
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 and Voldemort were both raised into the air. Shadowy figures were beginning to emerge around Harry.
Kitty, taking advantage of the situation, crawled towards Cedric's body, feeling too weak to stand. "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 shadowy figures of Voldemort's victims did not disappear - they were closing in upon Voldemort, shielding Harry from his gaze –
"Stun him!" he heard Voldemort scream.
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, his whole being concentrated on what he had to do –
Kitty clutched Harry to tell him she was there, as Harry yelled, "ACCIO!" The Triwizard Cup flew into the air and soared toward him. Harry caught it by the handle -
Kitty heard Voldemort's scream of fury at the same moment that she felt the jerk behind her navel that meant the Portkey had worked - it was speeding them away in a whirl of wind and color, and Cedric along with them...They were going back.
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