Alice

It didn't take long for Wormtail to come limping back dragging someone else along with him. I quickly realized that someone else was Harry who had obviously been transported here through Portkey as well I even went as far as to guess he was easily disarmed after Wormtail took him by surprise. Harry was slammed against the same headstone I was already tied to. Not having any previous injuries my brother was doing a much better job at fighting off our captor. Harry's wandlessness was probably the only reason Wormtail had been able to tie Harry up next to me. Bound and gagged as we were; Harry and I had no hope of communicating with each other. Wormtail disappeared for a second time. There was a noise at our feet as a gigantic snake slithered through the grass, circling the headstone where we were trapped. Wormtail's fast wheezy breathing grew louder as he approached, pushing a stone cauldron to the foot of the grave. It was full of some sort of liquid and was much larger than any cauldron I had ever seen Severus work with.

The thing inside the bundle of robes on the ground was stirring persistently causing pain to shoot through my head again. The liquid in the cauldron seemed to heat very fast. The surface began not only to bubble, but to send out 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. The second voice from before Harry arrived called into the darkness.

"Hurry!" The whole surface of the water was alight with sparks now.

"It is ready. Master." Wormtail finally spoke.

"Now ..." said the cold voice. Wormtail pulled open the robes on the ground, revealing what was inside them. I tried to yell but the wad of material blocked my cry. The thing Wormtail had been carrying had the shape of a crouched human child, except that I've 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 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 there was a look of revulsion on Wormtail's weak pale face. For one moment, Harry and I 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; its frail body hit the bottom with a soft thud.

The pain of my scar was bringing me to the verge of tears as I watched the seen in horror. Harry, fighting a similar battle could only give me a sympathetic and pained look. Wormtail was speaking. His voice shook as he spoke to the night air.

"Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son!" The surface of the grave at my feet cracked. I watched horrified as a collection of fine dust rose into the air at Wormtail's command and fell softly into the cauldron. The diamond surfaced water broke and hissed sending sparks in all directions before turning a poisonous looking blue. Wormtail, now whimpering produced a think silver dagger from his cloak. His voice broke into petrified sobs.

"Flesh - of the servant - w-willingly given - you will - revive - your master." He stretched 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 as tightly as he could, but he could not block the scream that pierced the night. I on the other hand was too shocked to look away. After carelessly hacking off his hand Wormtail plopped it into the cauldron as if it were just another potion ingredient. The potion turned a burning red as he gasped and moaned in agony. Harry's eyes still closed, he didn't see Wormtail approaching us with the dagger. Only when he felt me struggling against him did Harry open his eyes.

"B-blood of the enemy…forcibly taken…you will…resurrect your foe." Despite our struggling there was nothing we could do, the ropes biding us were too tight. I could only watch as the point of the blade penetrated Harry's cheek and Wormtail held a glass vial to Harry's cheek so that a bit of blood fell into it. The same steps were repeated on me and I clamped my jaw down to prevent myself from releasing another smothered scream. Wormtail staggered back to the cauldron and poured out blood inside. The color of the potion instantly changed to a blinding white. Now that the potion was completed wormtail dropped to his knees and cradled his bleeding 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.

Then suddenly the sparks shooting from the cauldron were extinguished, a surge of white steam billowed thickly from the cauldron instead. Through the mist in front of me I could just make out the dark outline of a skeletally thin man, rising slowly from inside the cauldron.

"Robe me," The voice said from behind the steam. Still sobbing and cradling his mutilated arm Wormtail scrambled to pick up the black robes from the ground. Once robed the thin man stepped out of the cauldron staring at harry and I. Whiter than a skull with wide livid red eyes and a nose flat as a snake's…Lord Voldemort had risen again.

Voldemort looked away from us and began to examine his own body. 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. 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 the headstone again. 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, and pointed it at Wormtail, who was lifted off the ground and thrown against the headstone beside harry and I. We watched as he fell to the foot of it and lay there, crumpled up and crying. Voldemort turned his scarlet eyes back to us laughing a high, cold, mirthless laugh.

"My Lord . . ." Wormtail choked, "my Lord . . . you promised . . . you did promise ..."

"Hold out your arm," Voldemort said lazily.

"Oh Master . . . thank you, Master ..." Wormtail extended the bleeding stump, but Voldemort laughed again.

"The other arm, Wormtail."

"Master, please . . .please ..." he begged. Voldemort bent down and pulled out Wormtail's left arm; he forced the sleeve of Wormtail's robes up past his elbow, Wormtail's Dark Mark tattoo barely visible in the firelight. 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…" Voldemort pressed his long white forefinger to the brand on Wormtail's arm. This act caused a second wave of pain to roll through my head. Wormtail let out a fresh howl of agony and Voldemort removed his fingers. With a look of cruel satisfaction on his face Voldemort straighted up and stared around 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 whipped his hideous face in the direction of Harry and I once more.

"Harry and Allison Potter, you stand upon the remains of my late father." He hissed. "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 children…and I killed my father, and see how useful he has proven himself in death? You see that house upon the hillside, Potters? 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…" Voldemort began to pace his eyes darting from grave to grave. "Listen to me, reliving family history…why, I am growing quite sentimental… But look, children! My true family returns. . . ."

The air was suddenly full of the swishing of cloaks. In every shadowy space wizards were Apparating. All of them were hooded and masked. And 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, crawled toward Voldemort and kissed 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, myself, 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.

"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; there is a stench or guilt upon the air."

"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."And I answer myself, 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…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…" One of the men 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!" A beat passed and the only sound was that of the Death Eater on the ground shrieking. Voldemort lowered his wand, the tortured Death Eater lay flat on the ground gasping.

"Get up, Avery," Voldemort commanded. "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?" 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," Wormtail moaned. "please. Masterr…please…"

"Yet you helped return me to my body, 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 Wormtails 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 now approached the man on Wormtail's right.

"Lucius, my slippery friend," he whispered, halting before him. "I am told that you have not renounced the old ways, 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?"

"My Lord, I was constantly on the alert," Draco's father answered from beneath his hood. "Had there been any sign from you, any whisper of your whereabouts, I would have been at your side immediately, nothing could have prevented me -"

"And yet you ran from my Mark, when a faithful Death Eater sent it into the sky last summer? Yes, I know all about that, Lucius…You have disappointed me…I expect more faithful service in the future."

"Of course, my Lord, of course…You are merciful, thank you…" Voldemort moved on, and stopped, staring at the space - large enough for two people that separated Malfoy and the next man.

"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. 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. Some of the Death Eaters he passed in silence, but he paused before others and spoke to them.

"Macnair…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? The executioner from Buckbeak's trial? No wonder Severus hadn't wanted me to get involved in…Severus. If Voldemort was really calling back all of his Death Eaters Severus would have to be there among them. For the first time since I had grasped the Portkey a small bit of hope began to shine inside me.

"Thank you, Master, thank you." Was all the executioner could say.

"And here, we have Crabbe, you will do better this time, will you not, Crabbe? And you, Goyle?" They bowed clumsily, muttering dully.

"Yes, Master ..."

"We will, Master..."

"The same goes for you, Nott," said Voldemort quietly as he walked past a stooped figure in Mr. Goyles shadow.

"My Lord, I prostrate myself before you, I am your most faithful -"

"That will do," said Voldemort. He had reached the largest gap of all, and 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. He is at Hogwarts, that faithful servant, and it was through his efforts that our young friends arrived here tonight…" At Hogwarts? He must mean Karkaroff or someone else Severus would never…But as logical as I was being with myself I could just hear the very suspicion forming in Harry's brain. I tried to give my idiot brother a pointed look but unfortunately all that did was draw myself and my brother to the attention of the circle.

"Yes," Voldemort grinned through a lipless mouth, "Allison and Harry Potter have kindly joined us for my rebirthing party. One might go so far as to call him my guests of honor." There was silence and then Lucius Malfoy spoke again.

"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, Lucius, and it begins - and ends - with my young friends here." He walked lazily over to stand next to Harry, so that the eyes of the whole circle were upon the three of us.

"You know, of course, that they have called these children my downfall?" Voldemort said softly, his red eyes upon us. "You all know that on the night I lost my powers and my body, I tried to kill them. Their mother died in the attempt to save him and unwittingly provided them with a protection I admit I had not foreseen. I could not touch them." Voldemort raised one of his long white fingers and put it very close to Harry's cheek.

"Their mother left upon them 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 squirmed, obviously in pain until Voldemort released his finger from Harry's forehead. I prayed, futility, that I would be spared the same pain. Voldemort swooped to the other side of the headstone grabbed my face forcing me to stare into his hateful red eyes. I tried my best not to squirm under the pain, with little success. Voldemort laughted before releasing me/

"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. ...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 and Allison Potter."

"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 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 Jorkins, 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 Jorkins to accompany him on a nighttime stroll. He overpowered her, he brought her to me. And Bertha Jorkins, 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 Triwizard Tournament would be played at Hogwarts this year. She told me that she knew of a faithful Death Eater who would be only 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," Voldemorts 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 ones I must use, if I was to rise again, more powerful than I had been when I had fallen. I wanted Harry and Allison Potter's blood. I wanted the blood of the ones who had stripped me of power thirteen years ago…for the lingering protection their mother once gave them would then reside in my veins too.

But how to get at the Potters? For they have been better protected than I think they even know, protected in ways devised by Dumbledore long ago, when it fell to him to arrange the children's future. Then, of course, there was the Quidditch World Cup. ...I thought his protection might be weaker there, away from Dumbledore, but I was not yet strong enough to attempt kidnap in the midst of a horde of Ministry wizards. And then, thechildren would return to Hogwarts, where they are under the crooked nose of that Muggle-loving fool from morning until night. So how could I take them? Why ... by using Bertha Jorkins's information, of course. Use my one faithful Death Eater, stationed at Hogwarts, to ensure that both Potter's names were entered into the Goblet of Fire and at least one of them was chosen as champion. I used my Death Eater to ensure that it was a potter who won the tournament - that touched the Triwizard Cup first - the cup which my Death Eater had turned into a Portkey, which would bring them here, beyond the reach of Dumbledore's help and protection, and into my waiting arms. My Death Eater had a second portkey for the second Potter… And here they are... the children you all believed had been my downfall. ..." Voldemort spun on me without another word and raised his wand.

"Crucio!" The pain I felt went beyond words. It felt as if my bones were on fire my eyes were rolling wildly in my head. In that moment I wanted nothing more than to be dead. And then, it was gone. Voldemort wasted no time casting the Cruciatus curse on Harry next. The darkness filled with the sounds of the Death Eater's laughter.

"You see, I think, how foolish it was to suppose that these Children could ever have been stronger than me? But I want there to be no mistake in anybody's mind. Harry and Allison Potter escaped me by a lucky chance. And I am now going to prove my power by killing them, here and now, in front of you all, when there is no Dumbledore to help them, and no mother to die for them. I will give them their chance. they 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 them, Wormtail, and give them back their wands."