A/N CHap 38 Review responses are in my forums like normal. After this, we have one more chapter to go, and then Book II will start. There will be no break in posting.

Chapter Thirty-Nine: The Dark Lord Rises

Harry was proud of the fact he didn't throw up. It was an improvement, really.

Almost immediately ropes wrapped around his body as if they had a mind of their own. His eyes snapped open just in time to see Cedric similarly bound. Harry wormed his head over to see where the sound of footsteps was coming from and saw the man with Crouch's face staring at him blankly.

Beside him, floating freely in the air, was the ghost of Voldemort. His icy blue magic hung in the air like a collection of veins without blood or body. Harry watched as the elder Crouch's face seemed to shimmer and melt, releasing a wisp of heat as he thinned into the catatonic figure Harry remembered from his vision. Crouch Junior.

Voldemort floated closer to Harry, and the cold emanating from his presence made Harry's breath steam. "We meet again, Harry Potter," the ghost said. Its voice sounded ethereal and hollow.

"Harry, what the hell's going on?" Cedric asked.

"We've been kidnapped by Voldemort," Harry said, sounding much more disinterested than he actually felt. "This is my third time, really. Well, second time by Voldemort's ghost. The other time was Sirius Black."

Cedric stared at the ghost in horror. "You're joking."

Voldemort turned his attention to Cedric. Harry knew from conversations that where he saw a collection of veins representing the magical pathways that remained after the body's death, others saw a transparent image of the ghost's body as it once existed. Professor McGonagall once explained that this was actually the force of suggestion from the ghost's spirit itself, since that's how they saw themselves.

So he tried to imagine what it was that Cedric actually saw that made him tremble in terror.

"What does he want with us?" Cedric asked.

"A new body, just like my first year."

"It has taken me this long to regain my strength from that last attempt," Voldemort said. "You drained me last time, boy, and I realized my mistakes. This time, though, I think the solution will be much simpler. If you do not do as I ask, your friend will die slowly and in great pain."

"Help!" Cedric screamed suddenly. "Help us, somebody, please!"

"Scream all you want," Voldemort said without inflection. "This land is empty, I ensured it."

At his prompting, Harry took a quick look around—they were in an old cemetery that did not appear to have been cared for in several years. In the distance he could see the hulking outline of an unlit manor house. There was no sign anyone had come this way in years.

At last Harry's gaze came back to Cedric and the terror he saw there. He wanted to cry and rage about how unfair it was, but then what good would that do? "I'll do whatever you want, if you let Cedric go," he finally said.

Voldemort's laugh sounded and felt like a northern wind in January. "So you say, Potter."

"I'll swear it," Harry said. A little of his bitterness crept in. "The Covens want me dead anyway, so what does it matter if I die? Just…please send Cedric back. I'll swear on my magic—I'll do an unbreakable vow, just…"

"Harry, are you insane?" Cedric shouted. "This is Voldemort! Our lives aren't worth it!"

"Mine isn't," Harry said, again not bothering to hide his bitterness. "What the hell is the point of defending the magical world when it can force a fourteen-year-old boy to get married to someone he doesn't even know? Why, Cedric? What did I do that makes them fear me so much? I hate it! I hate them for making my life miserable." He turned back to Voldemort. "Let Cedric go, and I'll help you. I know you'll just kill me anyway, but I don't care anymore. I think I'd rather be dead. Just, please let Cedric go."

"Harry, you can't do this!" Cedric said. "You don't understand, if you die like this, it could cause a schism!"

"Just like America," Harry said.

Voldemort chuckled. "You read the book I gave you. I thought you had lost it when the Portkey failed."

"No, I just removed the Portkey spell," Harry muttered. "Snape said West America was run by a Dark Lord as bad as you were."

"So the covens would have him say," Voldemort said. The ghost drifted into the dull-faced Crouch Jr., and instantly the man's eyes turned black with possession. "I find your terms acceptable, Harry Potter. I shall let the Diggory boy go in return for your Unbreakable Vow that you shall assist me."

"Elezeta, attend me," the ghost said from Barty Crouch Jr.'s body.

From behind a crypt with a relief of weeping angels stepped a tall, thin woman with shoulder-length brown hair and the ever-present shine of magic from her eyes. In the dim light of dusk, she looked like one of the statues come to terrifying life. "I am here, my lord," she said with such overwhelming adoration Harry shuddered.

"You shall bind our young friend's vow," he said.

"Gladly, master," she said. She walked smoothly over the uneven ground of the cemetery until she stood beside Harry. With a flick of her wand she forced him to his feet and released his ropes. Before he could even think about going for his wand, Voldemort summoned it.

"A new wand," he said, admiring it. "Powerful and old—an adult's wand ... The binding magic of wands has become much more limiting than it was originally. A shame, really." He threw it over his shoulder into the shadows. "Vow to me now, Harry Potter, that in return for Cedric Diggory being returned to where he came from alive, you will do all that I ask to return me to a living body. Swear this, and your friend will leave this place alive."

Bitterly, Harry held up his hand. Voldemort, through Crouch, did the same. Where their hands met in a cold shake of clashing magic, Harry said, "In return for Cedric's life, I swear on my magic to do everything you ask to return you to a living body."

"And I swear I shall return Diggory alive to Hogwarts in acceptance of this vow. Bind us, dear Elezeta."

She raised her wand and touched it to their joining hands. A tether of white magic snapped into place around each of their wrists, only to dissipate into the air. "The Unbreakable Vow has been sealed," she intoned.

"Send the boy back to Hogwarts," Voldemort said.

"Harry, don't do this!" Cedric screamed one last time before the Quidditch Championship Cup floated to him under the direction of Elezeta's wand, and upon touching him both disappeared. When he was gone, Harry's shoulders slumped and he stopped trying to hold back the tears of anger, frustration and rage.

"Brave child," Voldemort said. "You know what to do. It should be easier this time—Barty Sr. had kept his boy under the Imperius curse for so long that his will has been all but destroyed. His soul hangs on from habit, not strength. Ending his suffering will be a mercy."

"Lay him down," Harry muttered. He walked forward with the witch's wand trained on him while Voldemort first caused the body to lie down on a large stone sarcophagus before drifting free of the body entirely.

It had been three years since the end of his first year, and yet he couldn't help but feel a profound sense of déjà vu to be here again, once more looking down at a body Voldemort wanted to steal. So much had happened since then—so many illusions had been shattered—that Harry knew he would have no problem summoning the anger to do what Voldemort wanted.

"I have a question first," Harry said. "My mum, was she ever one of your followers?"

Behind him, he heard the witch snort. "Lily Potter? A filthy Mudblood?"

"Elezeta, dear, he asks a good question," Voldemort said. "Purity of blood is important, but power too has its own value, and Lily was a powerful witch. If she had come to me, I would have accepted her. If she had done then what I ask you to do now I would have let her live and given her great honour. But she rejected me, and suffered as a result. No, Harry Potter, your dear mother was never one of my followers."

For some reason, the news made Harry feel better. With a nod to Voldemort, he looked down at the empty shell of Barty Crouch Jr. He placed a hand on the man's rising and falling chest, and studied his magic. It was cool and wet like all Slytherin magic, but not the icy cold, lifeless blue of Voldemort. He pulled at it, doing with finesse and skill what he did accidently to Seamus in a fit of anger years ago. It was so easy, in fact, it scared him a little.

He pulled the magic out of Barty Crouch Jr. and with it the man's soul.

Behind him, he heard Elezeta gasp, but he could not imagine what she was seeing. What Harry saw was a network of blue veins of magical energy like Voldemort's, but less dense, less intense, and less convoluted rising from Crouch's body. As soon as it was free, the energy that was once a human being began to dissipate, breaking off into shards of magic that faded into the air, until nothing was left at all.

"He just…" Elezeta began.

"Destroyed a soul, without use of the killing curse," Voldemort finished. "Impressive, isn't it, dear? You see now why the boy is important? But the task is not done yet, Harry Potter. You must make this body my own—this I learned from the last attempt. You must bind my magic to it so that I no longer just possess it, but I own it entirely. Do this for me and you will have fulfilled your vow."

"I already said I would," Harry said bitterly.

The icy blue shade settled into the body. It was harder for Harry to weave Voldemort's magic back into the body than it was to take it out. His icy magic resisted Harry's attempt to manipulate it, and Crouch's soulless body seemed to fight the effort as well. Without realizing it, Harry's magic began to strain under the effort to bind the ghost to the body.

Finally, though, with trembling fingers, Harry finished. He stumbled back, fighting to breathe, as Voldemort sat up on the crypt.

"I can feel," the reborn dark lord said with closed eyes. "I can smell."

He opened his eyes, and even Harry shuddered. They were not black. Instead they had a deep, dark blue shining out from them. Behind him Elezeta fell to her knees.

"No, my dear, rise," Voldemort said gently. "You have served me well, better than any of my other servants, and you shall be greatly rewarded. Name your wish?"

"Master," she said with bowed head, "I wish my brother and sister in law be freed, so that we may serve you better!"

"Ah, dear Rodolphus and Bellatrix, who held so to their convictions that they went to prison for me. Yes, dear, in time they shall be free, as will all those who suffered for my sake. I have risen again, and all who kept faith to me shall be rewarded above all others."

As Voldemort spoke, Harry looked into the shadows of the graveyard where he saw his wand had landed. Thinking back to what Monsieur Delacour had said, he desperately searched in the shadow for the shade of the wand's innate magic. Finally, he saw a faint glimmer and with all his will reached out for a tether, as if the wand were a broom.

Icy blue eyes turned to Harry. "And you too have served me in your fashion, Harry Potter. More, I sense you have learned much since you so foolishly denied me. Know that none deny me a second time and live, Harry. So, for what you have done this day, I will give you a boon as well. Join me—take my mark and swear allegiance to me—and you shall live. Surely you realize that the covens are evil?"

Harry felt something from his wand, though it wasn't like the tether he used with a broom. "How the hell would you know?" Harry gritted.

Elezeta hissed in outrage, but Voldemort merely laughed. "How indeed? That American boy who was killed, do you know why I wrote so about him? Because I was that boy, in every sense. You are that boy! I was fourteen as well when I blew out my wand. The covens ruled either to bond me forcibly, or still my magic. And so, three older women held me down while another raped me. You're a boy. You know what the Mas Turbare spell really is. A wizard did not create it. A witch did, as a means to ensure compliance during forcible bonding. She raped me, and forced the bond on me. I was fourteen, Harry. I was your age now, and instead of learning from their mistake with me, they are doing the same exact thing to you!"

Harry couldn't help but stare at the Dark Lord in shock. "They really…"

"Her name was Myrtle McClaticaw, she was eighteen years old. She was a hideous girl, but her mother was the Dame of a powerful coven at the time and wanted to make sure she was an elder spouse. I was the tool they used."

Stepping closer to Harry, he said, "I made sure her Dame was there to watch when I had my loyal servants slaughter Myrtle and the other witches they bonded to me, one after the other when they saw my magic was not reduced enough. And then I destroyed her whole coven."

Harry fought to concentrate on the strange, feathery link to his wand while Voldemort's words rang in his mind. "So would you make me start killing women too?" he said.

"Of course not," Voldemort laughed, though it was a shrill sound. "If we were mindless murderers, would such lovelies as Elezeta here follow? No, Harry, I wish to change the world, not destroy it."

The phrase rang in his mind. Sybil said the same thing of him, and Luna. Before he could consider it more, he felt the tether of the wand against his magic, and pulled it as hard as he could. "I think I would like to change the world in my own way, thank you," Harry said as his wand finally slapped into his palm.

Voldemort's icy eyes widened a moment as Harry cast the strongest curse Lupin had taught him during their 'detentions'.

It was not enough, of course. Voldemort batted the curse away with a flick of his wand. "Valiant, Potter. Like you father. A pity, but not too surprising. I tried to recruit him…"

Harry cursed him again, and again Voldemort batted it away, this time without even pausing in his speech. "…but of course he was too enamoured of the Mudblood. Nor could I truly blame him. Did you know she actually had her own little group? I don't suppose any of them survived, though. The covens were going to hunt down her group just as soon as I was done with her. That should tell you of the true depravity of the covens that they actually helped me destroy your mother so they could destroy her friends."

Harry cast curses again and again, but it was just no use. Voldemort was too powerful and too experienced. "You can't beat me, Harry," the dark wizard continued calmly. "You never could. Join me, though, and you can live as you were meant to live. The rightful place of a wizard is at the front of a coven, leading them, not being bound and shackled as their servant and their stud. Vow to me, and I shall make you a god."

Harry trembled from exhaustion and terror; from rage and an overwhelming sense of hopelessness. "What, so I can torture and kill people?" he said. "You murdered my mum, you fucking bastard. You murdered Charity! Go ahead and kill me, I don't care anymore. I'd rather be dead than serve a bastard like you."

Rather than be upset, Voldemort actually smiled. "Brave words, Harry. Brave words indeed. I know the fate that awaits you—to be bound and reduced until you are little more than a plaything to women who think they know better than you how you should live your life. It is not a life any sane wizard would choose. So, for your bravery and the services you rendered to me this day, Harry, I shall give you mercy. I shall give you a clean, painless death."

He removed Barty Crouch's wand and pointed it at a trembling, terrified Harry. "Are you ready to die, Harry?"

"No," Harry sobbed. "But that never stopped you before, did it?"

"No, it did not. Avada Kedavra!"

Green light flashed from the wand, shattering it just like Harry shattered his own. That was the last thing he saw before the magic struck and he fell to the ground, dead.

~~Firebird~~

~~Firebird~~

Something was wrong, Hermione knew it. She could see it in Harry's expression as he shouted something at Cedric, moments before Crouch and the two Quidditch players disappeared. Minister Fudge stumbled away as if slapped, while Dumbledore immediately drew his wand and started casting something.

The reporters started shouting questions, while in the front row Amos Diggory loudly demanded to know where his son was.

Hermione turned to her friends, hoping against hope that one of them may know more than she. Deanna and Jessica, her roommates, looked as lost as she did, while Justine was looking around the stands as if seeking answers of her own. "What's going on?" the tall Hufflepuff finally asked.

"I don't know," Deanna Thomas asked. "What happened to Harry and Cedric?"

Crimson-clad Aurors ran to the stage and spoke with Dumbledore while the noise from the spectators began to grow in a steady crescendo. A moment later, Cedric reappeared on the stage holding the Quidditch cup. He spun about with wide eyes and shouted, "Harry…!" right before he and the cup in his hands disappeared in a blinding flash of white.

Hermione did not even have time to scream as the shockwave of the explosion struck the stands, blowing her and dozens of others off their benches. The benches shook with the violence of the blast, and Hermione could not help but scream as the stands under her suddenly collapsed. She had a moment of horrifying weightlessness that ended abruptly with a sharp crack of her head against wood and her body against other bodies below her. Suddenly the sound faded into a muffled distance as a piercing, ringing sound filled her head and left her blinking away spots.

She saw Deanna screaming at her, but couldn't hear anything. No, no, that wasn't right, she was screaming at Deanna. Oh, Deanna's hurt. The other girl was bleeding from her side where what looked like a piece of the stands stabbed her. She stumbled while Jessica tried to help her, looking for help.

Hermione watched her friends go and wanted to help, but for some reason she couldn't make her legs move. Suddenly Justine was there—good old Justine. The taller girl was rather pretty, with a long neck and wide, expressive eyes. She was the most practical of all Hermione's friends, even if she became rather nervous and uncertain around Harry.

Justine was shouting something to her, but she couldn't hear because of that terrible ringing in her head. It grew so loud Hermione's stomach rebelled and she turned to vomit on the shattered stands under her feet. As she did so, she saw blood—so much blood. Confused, she looked up and saw people stumbling about coated in blood, crying or shouting. So many, what…

Justine grabbed her hand and pulled—it just made Hermione start to fall. Suddenly the other girl had her in her arms, cradling her like a baby. How strong she must be! No, that's not right. My magic must be helping her. Daddy said I became lighter whenever they tried to carry me. Justine is carrying me now, past the…

She turned drunkenly and looked at the blackened crater in the centre of the pitch where the stage used to be. She saw Angelina and Katie on their knees beside a perfectly still Stephanie Harlow, while nearby Gregoria Goyle carried a bleeding Vincent Crabbe toward the castle while shouting for help.

Cedric was gone—nothing was left of him at all. She could see a lump that looked as if it might have been the Minister, but with a distant feeling of muted horror she saw that it was only a torso. There were no legs, just a stream of red goo spread out across the blackened grass that ended in the blackened tatters of the jacket the Minister was wearing moments before. Two other Aurors were in no better condition. Her eyes continued scanning the field for the only other person on the stage, but there was no sign of Dumbledore at all. Nor of Harry.

"Where's Harry?" Hermione asked. "Cedric came back but where's Harry?"

She could not hear an answer, and so kept asking where Harry was, while Justine carried her at a trot toward the castle. "Where's Harry?" she asked one more time, before she closed her eyes and did not open them again.

~~Firebird~~

~~Firebird~~

She woke sometime later to raised voices. With effort, she opened her eyes and saw her own bed canopy above her—she was back in her dorm room. Was it a bad dream? "Where's Harry?' she asked aloud, surprised at how slurred the words were. With speech came a sudden, sharp spike of pain in the back of her head so bad in made her see stars.

"Easy, you had a bad concussion," a familiar voice said. She opened her eyes again to see Justine helping her up with a phial of pain potion in hand. "Here, take this. Madam Pomfrey gave me several for you."

"Why am I in my room?" Hermione asked.

"There wasn't room in the Hospital Wing," Justine said. "It was so bad, Hermione. Two sections of the stands collapsed—I heard an Auror say at least ten people died, and hundreds were hurt. Those with minor injuries were sent away with pain potion. Pomfrey said you'll be okay after a night's sleep or two."

With the Hufflepuff's help, Hermione sat up further, noticing as she did so that the other two beds in her room were empty. "Where are Jessica and Deanna?"

"Deanna was hurt pretty badly," Justine said. "Jessica's staying with her for now. Professor McGonagall let me stay with you because of it. Unfortunately, she also let this bint in here too."

"I said I'm sorry," a teary voice said.

Hermione turned away from her friend and the empty beds and saw Ginny Weasley standing near her bed, hugging herself. Her face was blotchy with tears. "Why are you here?" Hermione managed to say.

Ginny burst out crying again and fell to her knees beside Hermione's bed, hands clasped together as if in prayer. "I'm sorry!" she cried. "I'm so sorry. It's all my fault. I was spying on Harry, hoping he'd agree to bond with me, and I heard you and Justine. I heard you say you'd bond with him. Mum said you weren't supposed to—that the Sabbat wanted him bonded to a Pureblood witch. It was supposed to be me! So I told Mum what you and Justine said. She said…she said she'd take care of it!" She started howling again.

Hermione's stomach dropped as a wave of cold fear washed through her as fast as the pain potion that was working on her headache. "What did she mean, Ginny? What did your mum mean?"

Ginny just bowed her head and cried. Over her, scowling furiously, Justine said, "Now we know why Harry saw what he saw, Hermione. They're going to be coming after us."

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Author's Note: Very special thanks as always to Teufel1987, JR and Miles for beta reading. If there are any major faux-pas, they are entirely of my own doing.