A/N: Good news, my faithful readers: I've overcome the writing block caused by stress, illness and the difficulties this chapter held for me. I am still not satisfied with it, but I simply didn't dare leaving you without an update for any longer. Perhaps I will slightly rewrite it sometime in the future, but at the moment all I want is to thank you for your trust, your patience and your many reviews!
Updates will continue to be slow over the next months, but you must never worry that I would abandon this story – I solemnly swear I will finish it, although it might take some time.
And now, let's go and meet the Wizard of Oz:
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And He Shall Rise from the Cauldron
Snape opened his mouth to ask who the hell that Oz-person was, but then he saw the dark sky above them, and the graves, standing crookedly on the dark earth, and Cedric Diggory, his wand drawn, the light of triumph still blazing in his eyes.
And he knew.
Although he didn't want to.
"I had expected your Triwizard tasks first," Snape commented quietly, if only to break the powerful silence that was lying heavily on them.
"Not terrifying enough," Potter answered calmly, but some underlying tension in his voice told Snape that even Saint Potter wasn't entirely unaffected by the situation.
"Here they come," He suddenly whispered, and Snape whirled around from his nervous study of Potter the boy, to see a cloaked figure with a bundle in his arms approaching them. One look at the stooping figure, its slightly hesitant walk and movement of the arms was enough to assure Snape of his identity.
Pettigrew. And in his arms the abomination that was to become Lord Voldemort once more, the terror of the British Wizarding World.
A scream to his left made Snape turn back sharply to the Potter boy, a scream of such excruciating pain, such utter agony that Snape expected the Fading to start here and now. But there was no sign of the eerie light rising around the fallen figure that desperately crawled at his face, and after a moment Snape remembered that Potter had always been affected like this by the Dark Lord's presence.
He had simply always imagined that the boy had exaggerated the agony it caused him.
"Kill the spare."
A high, thin voice now commanded, and Snape could feel Potter the man by his side shudder. He stretched out a hand, as if to stop Wormtail, but realized the futility of it and let the arm drop to his side.
"Avada Kedavra!" Pettigrew shouted, and while disbelieving realization painted a mask of horror on the younger Potter's face, the elder one's sank into passivity.
"The first of oh so many," He whispered, or Snape thought that he whispered it, then turned around and walked slowly towards his younger counterpart, whom Pettigrew slammed against a marble headstone.
"Have you ever seen a resurrection ritual?" Potter-the-man asked conversationally, his side leaning against the stone that marked Tom Riddle's grave. "It is a ghastly thing, even for a grown wizard. Nothing to be watched by children, certainly. But as I was one of the main ingredients…"
He shrugged. "Rather reminds me of these 19th century adventure tales, where explorers were caught by cannibals and eaten, but I must say…"
Snape sent him a single, burning look, and he fell silent immediately, understanding in a heartbeat that this moment was difficult not only for himself. More than one life had changed because of this night, and though Snape hadn't been present, the events at Little Hangleton had meant more than three years of slavery for him.
Snape walked over to Potter-the-boy, who was bound by tight cords from head to feet, a dazed, slightly dead look in his eyes. Snape understood how the boy must feel. Even for him, who had listened to the account of this night for so many times that he could have choreographed it himself, everything went too fast, Pettigrew's movements a blur in the corner of his eye while he desperately tried to keep his concentration on both Potters, to ignore what went on behind him.
But against his will, his own memory supplied him with images that were dancing across his vision – the things he had read about this ritual, the face and body of the monster that was to become his master again. His own memory, sitting in the stands of the Triwizard Tournament, waiting for the flashy idiocy to be finally over, when suddenly, his Dark Mark had flared into full life again…
He heard the words of the ritual, pronounced with a shaky voice, and saw Potter-the-boy's horror, his rising panic and pain as Pettigrew's knife pierced the crook of his arm, and his desperate plea that the thing in the cauldron would drown, that it would somehow still be alright, that this nightmare he had suddenly entered would give way for reality again.
But Snape didn't need the high, cold voice of his Lord once more commanding his slave to know the end, and with an instinct he had thought forgotten, he stepped behind a large black headstone, as if to hide from the inevitable, and turned his face towards the cauldron and its inhabitant.
Lord Voldemort had risen again.
It was a moment you wanted to freeze, to hold it still and tell yourself that this was it. This was the point that had changed everything, that had begun the descent into darkness, spiralling them deeper and deeper into a hopelessness that had destroyed even the lives of the survivors.
But destiny never works this way. When it comes to visit you, it is fast, merciless and without hesitation, and it leaves you just as quickly, with nothing but the broken shards of your hopes in your hands.
All too soon Voldemort had called his followers, and Snape remembered the blinding flash of pain that had run through his body, the urgent wish to disapparate that had suddenly arisen within him. He had refused it, then, and he refused the memory's power over him now.
He was not a spy any longer, not bound to the shadows and silent, dirty little secrets any more. Although this man had been his master for an endless lifetime, he had perished at last, and Snape had regained his free will.
He stepped away from the gravestone whose shadow had hidden him, and approached the memory of his Lord with measured steps. Then, he lifted his head and looked right into the snake lord's eyes.
Although Snape had served him for years, he had seldom dared to do this. Too great was the danger of Voldemort catching his eyes and punishing him thoroughly for this disrespect.
The thin man stepped out of the cauldron, staring at Potter with an unreadable expression. Whiter than a skull his face was, with wide, livid scarlet eyes, and a nose that was as flat as a snake's, with slits for nostrils and lines of cruelty carved into his leathery skin.
He looked like a God, a being more powerful than anyone could have imagined.
A wizard who had conquered death.
But now that he looked closer, Snape recognized the madness in his countenance, the terrible fire of wrath that no water could still, and something else, something Snape couldn't find a name for.
While Voldemort ranted and seethed at his Death Eaters, telling them for the first time the story of his downfall that he would repeat often enough in the next three years for Snape to know it by heart, Snape's eyes remained fixed on him, watching, analysing and judging him without the whirlwind of feelings that had usually accompanied his presence.
"Yes," Voldemort now finished his story and turned back to his prisoner, curling his lipless mouth. "Harry Potter has kindly joined us for my rebirthing party. One might go so far as to call him my guest of honour."
"Do you see it?" Potter-the-man suddenly whispered from his side, and Snape had to gather all his self-control not to twitch with surprise.
"What?" He asked rather harshly.
"The fear in his eyes," Potter answered. "You see, that was something I only understood a lot later, perhaps only in his dungeons. This terrible, terrible fear."
For a moment, Snape thought he had misunderstood and half turned to see the face of Potter-the-boy, sobbing and gasping helplessly, a bundle of pain and despair.
He certainly was afraid, the look in his eyes couldn't be interpreted anyway else. But behind the cloud of fear, Snape saw his eyes pale in the familiar green of the killing curse, a sure sign of Potter's anger boiling and writhing inside him.
Then he turned back to the Dark Lord, and as if Potter-the-boy's eyes had cleared his mind, he saw what Potter-the-man had spoken about.
Lord Voldemort was afraid of Harry Potter, the scrawny fourteen-year-old at his mercy.
It was a feeling so deeply buried beneath his arrogance and will of power that Voldemort himself had probably never encountered it, except in his darkest hours of weakness and pain.
But it was there. And when he saw its traitorous twinkling, Snape realized that Voldemort hadn't used Potter's blood to increase his power, or to impress his servants. He had used it in order to conquer his own fear.
Or at least he had tried to conquer it.
"And here he is…the boy you all believed had been my downfall…" Voldemort mockingly said and gave a strange little half bow, like the director of a freak show presenting his most valuable exhibit.
"It is a pity that I was so young, and mad with fear," Potter mused, watching his nemesis closely. "If I had played my cards right that evening, I could have destroyed the last faith his Death Eaters had in him." He suddenly chuckled. "I came very close to that, anyway, when I managed that vanishing act. But with the right kind of persuasion…"
He paused, and as if Voldemort had waited for it, he lifted his wand, the flame of madness flickering higher in his eyes, and spoke one word, delicately lengthening it until it became a caress of pain and death.
"Crucio!"
Snape shuddered. He hadn't known about that Cruciatus, hadn't realized that Potter had felt the force of the curse so young. Stepping closer to the twitching, writhing body that lay on the ground, he strained for any signs of the illness, for what could better explain the Fading than the horror of this dark graveyard combined with the most painful curse he knew?
But although Potter had sank against the ropes that were still tying him to the headstone, his eyes rolling back in forehead and his head lolling to the side as if he hadn't the strength to lift it, there was no sign of theFfading.
And the elder Potter, instead of showing a reaction to his first pain curse, was watching Voldemort quietly, intently, like a politician might watch a member of the opposite party.
„You see, I think, how foolish it was to suppose that this boy could ever have been stronger than me," Voldemort now said. „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 paused, and Snape could feel the silence closely around them like something physical, an invisible being waiting in the background, watching them carefully. "Now untie him, Wormtail, and give him back his wand."
"And that was where he made his biggest mistake," Potter-the-man commented quietly, watching his younger self's pitiable attempts to stand. "I still believe that the prophecy didn't refer to that night in 1981, but to this exact moment. It was here that he marked me as an equal, as someone worthy of duelling him."
He shook his head as if in disappointment, his eyes on the Dark Lord. "He really should have just killed me like the helpless child I was," He said. "It would have proven his power well enough. But no, he had to humiliate me, he had to give a performance."
Snape nodded, as some questions he had always harboured this night clicked into place.
"He had to prove it to himself," He murmured quietly. "Although he always told us different, he did believe in your strange power after all. That was why he wanted the prophecy so badly. And that was why…"
"Why he wanted this duel," Potter finished the sentence with a nod. "Or at least that's what I think today." He sighed.
"In that respect," He said quietly. "Voldemort and Dumbledore are very much the same. They are not satisfied with getting what they want how they want it. They feel their victory is only complete when their victims – or opponents – prove them right in the end."
Snape wanted to disagree forcefully, to argue that under no circumstances could Albus Dumbledore be compared to Voldemort, but then he remembered that Albus, with his unwillingness to remove Potter from the Tournament, was nearly as much responsible for Potter's presence at this graveyard as Voldemort.
"Only think," Potter said, as if he had sensed Snape's doubt and wanted to drive his point home. "Only think how often he told us that whatever he had decided, whatever he had done, was best for us. And not only that," He continued after a second, his eyes darken with memories. "He wanted more than just make us believe it. He wanted us to agree. He wanted exculpation. Just as Voldemort wants me to prove his point for him right now."
Snape frowned. Something wasn't right with this argument, although it sounded worryingly logical to him. He remembered what Albus had said right after Potter had returned to Hogwarts, how he had tried to convince the young man that help had been his real reason for coming to the school all along…
But that wasn't possible. Albus had remained the wise, powerful wizard he was precisely because he was willing to bear the consequences of his own actions, because he left a choice to the people around him, despite his power.
But what choice did Potter have?
"Look at him, teaching me to bow," Potter chuckled, watching his younger self's spine cruelly moved by the power of Voldemort's wand.
"He was a drama-queen, really," He said with something strangely alike to sympathy. "And he never considered how much could go wrong with his act."
The shrill screams of Potter under the Cruciatus interrupted him. Snape closed his eyes, not able to bear the pain that was displayed in the boy's face. He had thought Potter's serene expression during his attacks irritating, but now he was glad for it. Never could he have acted as swiftly and decisively in the face of such pain, such helpless vulnerability and despair.
"A little break," Voldemort said sweetly, and Snape wanted to stop his mocking words with a Cruciatus of his own. "A little pause…that hurt, didn't it, Harry? You don't want me to do that again, do you?"
And just like he had in the memory of Potter's second year, Snape saw in the boy's face the certainty of his own death, a grim, dark knowledge.
But this time, there was no resignation mixed into it, no relief or passivity, only a fierce determination that he would not play along with Voldemort's game, that he would not be mocked like this.
"Answer me," Voldemort now demanded, his face turning dark and angry in the face of Potter's refusal. "Imperio!"
"And there he goes again," Potter-the-man commented with no little exasperation while his younger self's face became slack all of a sudden. "He could have just duelled me, considering that his knowledge and power of spells was far superior to mine till the end. But no, that wasn't enough for him. What he had to do was begin a duel of wills with me, the one thing that needed no experience, only determination."
Something twitched in the boy's face, Snape suddenly noticed with growing disbelief. He should have obediently answered Voldemort's question long ago, but instead his body began to sway softly, his face contorting and flattening in a strange rhythm that was growing steadily faster.
"And of course," Potter-the-man said. "He never imagined that he could lose."
"I WON'T!" The young Potter suddenly shouted, and his face was alive again, filled with reality and pain and anger.
Snape's eyes flickered across the graveyard, and he saw his own shock mirrored in many a face.
"You withstood him," Snape whispered, not sure if he could trust his voice in the face of the impossible. "You withstood the Dark Lord's will! But…Albus never told me about this!"
Potter shrugged. "Why should he," He answered matter-of-factly. "It wasn't in his interest that you should respect me, Professor."
As Snape watched in growing disbelief the sudden movements of Potter-the-boy, who had obviously understood that he could not hope to answer Voldemort's spells but still used all his dexterity and quickness to duck, roll away and hide from the Dark Lord's wand, he found that respect was exactly the right word to describe what he felt.
Nobody withstood the Dark Lord. Nobody answered his attacks, nobody questioned his orders. Even Lucius Malfoy, the proudest wizard Snape had ever known, would take the humiliation with a bowed head. And still this scrawny boy was cowering behind a gravestone, cowering and judging the distance between himself and Voldemort, waiting for the right moment…
And not only that, Snape realized with a growing feeling of surrealism as he watched Potter, he was not only waiting for the right time to evade and flee, he was preparing to defend himself, to stand up to the mightiest wizard on earth, he was going to attack!
"Expelliarmus!" Potter-the-boy cried out, flinging himself away from the gravestone, just as the high, cold voice of the Dark Lord gave an answering cry: "Avada Kedavra!"
"You tried to disarm him?" Snape asked, his own voice shrill and uncontrolled in his ears.
Potter shrugged again. "But it worked, at least in a way," He answered and grinned his typical, Potterish grin.
Snape watched in silence the scene unfolding before him. He had known all of this before, had even seen parts of it in a pensieve, but still the golden bow of the Priori Incantatem, the view of James Potter's and Lily's shadowy forms stunned him.
He saw Potter stand, and endure, then wrench his wand away with unbelievable strength and zig-zag along the graves like a rabbit, pointing his wand wildly behind him and still managing to hit Avery, who fell to the ground with an undignified thump.
"Stand aside!" Voldemort shrieked. "I will kill him! He is mine!"
Then, in the golden light of the portkey, the one man who had ever defied Voldemort in a duel and lived to tell the tale vanished: Harry Potter, thin fourth year with a bruised leg, clutching both the corpse of Cedric Diggory and the cup that had cost his life to his body.
And the graveyard vanished once more into the mists of the past.