Hi, this is the extra special Christmas update outside of my normal update schedule. I have decided to update all of my stories for which I had the next chapter (at least) ready. So you get six update over all as well as a new story! Merry Christmas.
Showdown at the Graveyard
Harry checked his equipment. He had his wand, his spare wand, which nobody at Hogwarts but Professor Sinistra knew about, he wore a basilisk hide armour hidden under his clothes, yes he had harvested the basilisk he had slain for all its worth, and he had the blood bottle in a holster under his right arm. Malfoy had been given orders to pierce the bottle with the knife he would use for the ritual; any splashes of the acidic blood would be kept from Harry's skin by the basilisk hide.
The fake Moody would be handled by Agent Carter, who had come to Hogwarts under the cover of wanting to watch the last part of the event his department had worked so hard for to organize. Harry was pretty sure that Percy Weasley wouldn't be the one to step in for Barty Crouch this time; the Ministry had finally realized that something was amiss, so they had relocated Malfoy and the golem. They had got signals that Malfoy had 'killed' the golem when it was obvious that their little game had been discovered. Well, it wasn't a big loss, one new sample of blood and the golem could be used again. Those things were durable. Except in case of strong earth quakes after twelve years of course, but really, a golem that held twelve years without new powering was really impressive.
Finally Harry joined his friends and walked down to the remodelled Quidditch pitch. It had been changed into a maze of hedges, hiding whatever crazy things the organizers had come up with. When they reached the pitch, he left his friends and the Weasleys at the stands; he was touched that Molly and Bill Weasley had stepped in for his supposed family. Well, his real family would be really busy with the mission Harry had to fulfil. It was his first really big one after all.
Until now the tasks had been training under extreme conditions. There were still safety precautions. But when the cup brought him to the cemetery, he would be on his own for a while. He had to play the deciding part in weakening Voldemort. He knew from a short message he had got from Agent Sinistra that the others hadn't found a way to exchange the bones of Voldemort's father without raising suspicion. So it all depended on him. Harry was calm. He had been trained for this. If all went well, he wouldn't have to face Voldemort at full power but severely weakened. They would either buy the country time to prepare if he regained a body today and somehow escaped, otherwise they would have stopped him from returning this time or have him in custody.
He had found the horcrux in the Room of Requirement. The diadem of Ravenclaw was taken care of. They just needed the cup of Hufflepuff and whatever the last horcrux was. That was one reason why they wanted to let Voldemort think he had a chance to return, to find out what the horcrux could be. They knew to kill him he needed to get a body, but if they had a say in it, he would get a weak one.
Harry now stood next to the other champions. The fake Moody stood near him as he was one of the guards around the maze. Professor Dumbledore gave them a few last words of advice and then they had to wait for Bagman to make his speech.
"Witches and Wizards, Ladies and Gentlemen, today we are about to see the third and final task of the Triwizard Tournament. We have seen outstanding abilities in our four champions but only one can win the Tournament. Each of the four has the same chance at succeeding. In first place with a total score of one hundred and three points we have Mr Harry Potter of Hogwarts School!" Bagman announced, getting loud cheers and applause from the spectators, Harry smiled and waved at them. He wanted everyone to see his growth since the beginning of the year.
"In second place with eighty five points we have Mr Cedric Diggory also from Hogwarts School!" Bagman said, getting another round of cheering and applause for Cedric.
"In third place with eighty points, representing Durmstrang Institute, Mr Viktor Krum!" He shouted, Krum got a bit less applause but still a lot.
"And in fourth place Miss Fleur Delacour for Beauxbatons Academy." He concluded his introduction of the champions.
"As he is leading in this Tournament with eighteen points, Mr Harry Potter will enter the maze first, followed by Mr Diggory, Mr Krum and Miss Delacour. The winner will be decided by their skill in the maze. The points they got will be transferred in a time advantage, every point will be transferred to a time advantage of twenty seconds. For Mr Potter this means he has six minutes advantage on Mr Diggory and so on, so even those behind in the ranking can become the winner. Now we'll send Mr Potter off into his task."
A cannon fired by Filch was the signal for Harry to start. He knew he had a six minutes head-start from Cedric and Viktor would follow another one minute and forty seconds later. Fleur again would have to wait five minutes after Viktor. Well, he didn't intend to let them get anywhere near the Cup. He didn't want to endanger anybody who didn't have anything to do with his mission.
When Harry had spent a few minutes in the maze he became irritated.
"Doesn't Crouch think I can get past the obstacles by myself? This is boring. I know they want me to win this thing but after my performance in the first two tasks I had hoped for some more action." Harry complained.
Then Harry finally met one obstacle. One of Hagrid's Blast Ended Skrewts.
"Oh goody, one of the menaces. I hope Hagrid won't be too disappointed if this one doesn't make it back. Well, the weak point is the soft underside."
Harry blasted a hole in the ground in front of the Skrewt, conjured oil in the hole and let the Skrewt walk over it. Then he used a strong incendio to put fire on it. The Skrewt didn't seem to like his own medicine. Harry easily passed it now.
He again had a boring passage until he came upon a glimmering field. His identification spell could only tell him that it contorted reality somewhat if you entered it. Well, he could deal with disturbances to his senses. He ran into the field, ignored the feeling of standing upside down and then left it soon after.
"Well that was easy. I wonder what the other obstacles that I didn't have to do would have been." Harry pondered before beginning to run again.
The next thing he saw was a dementor gliding towards him.
"This is more like it. Expecto Patronum!" He said the incantation and his silver stag burst from the tip of his wand.
The dementor seemed to be frightened of his patronus and stumbled over his own cloak to get away.
"It would have been too nice to have a real challenge for once. Not even a real dementor. Riddikulus." He said, vanquishing the boggart.
"I'm so going to complain with the fake Moody when this is over and we question him at headquarters. I wanted to test my abilities not have the Cup served on a silver platter."
Finally Harry saw one creature that would at least challenge him somewhat, a sphinx.
"Yeah, the first real challenge in this maze!" He exclaimed happily.
"You're a strange one, young wizard. Not many are happy to face the challenge of one of my kind." She said.
"Well, I really wanted to test my abilities in this task. But all I came upon were easy obstacles, I met a Skrewt, that was the topic of a big part of my Magical Creatures Class this year, I had to beat a boggart, third year stuff, the upside down corridor, simply ignoring the confusion. You have to agree with me, after facing a dragon in the first task and merpeople in the second, that wasn't very impressive." Harry told her.
"True, young wizard. I guarantee that my riddle will challenge you more. Are you ready?"
"Yes." He answered.
"First think of the person who lives in disguise
Who deals in secrets and tells naught but lies.
Next, tell what's always the last thing to mend,
The middle of middle and end of the end?
And finally give me the sound often heard
During the search of a hard-to-find word.
Now string them together and answer me this,
Which creature would you be unwilling to kiss?"
"Right this is more like it. Let's start in the beginning. The first two lines refer to a spy, disguise, lying and secrets are normal for one. The second part, hm, ah I see it's to be taken literally. The last thing to mend is the letter d, same with middle of middle and end of the end, so I have to put the letter d behind spy. A sound often heard during the search of a hard-to-find word, there are two, 'hm' and 'er'. In combination with Spy-d- only 'er' makes sense.
"The answer is spider." Harry answered the sphinx.
"That is correct." She said and stepped aside and allowed him to pass her.
"Okay, keep the spider in mind; it could be a clue to the next obstacle." Harry said to himself.
He walked forward and soon saw the shining Triwizard Cup in the centre of a ring of hedges.
"Nice, I'm here." He said, steeling himself for the meeting with Voldemort.
Then he saw a movement near him and turned around swiftly only to see one of the acromantula from the forest. He grinned evilly. He had always wanted to have a little payback at one of them for trying to eat Ron and him in their second year.
He first tried a stunner, then an impedimenta jinx, which both didn't really work.
"Alright, bigger guns." He said.
He conjured a fire whip, a spell he had longed to try in a combat situation but he didn't have an opponent he could safely use it against. The spider began to stink of burnt chitin and flesh and ran away shrieking.
"That was good. Hopefully none of the others gets in its way while it's hurting, well; I have reached my goal, now onto Voldy's party." Harry said, grabbing the Cup and being whisked away.
Harry arrived at the graveyard and soon recognized it was a really old one. The dates on the graves went back to 1400 or so. Harry had his wand ready. He looked out for any movement. Just where did Voldemort hide? Then he was faced with a red spell, which he shielded against the last moment.
'Whew, that was close.' He thought.
He fired a fast stunner back in direction of the spell and got a shield reaction. Then he dodged a new spell. Wow, he was glad that Malfoy was controlled by the potion. He was really good. He obviously had disillusioned himself to have it easier to get Harry. Well, the plan was to put up a good fight and be stunned after some time. Harry did just that.
When he awoke again, he was bound to a headstone.
"Ah, Harry Potter, you're finally awake." The voice of Voldemort came from a small bundle of cloth next to Malfoy on the ground.
"Voldemort, I should have known something was amiss. It was too easy to get to the Cup. Let me guess, you had the one who put my name in the Goblet and forced me into the Tournament help me in secret." Harry said.
"Oh, aren't you a smart one. You would have done well in Ravenclaw. Yes, my loyal servant made sure you were the first one to reach the Cup. I just didn't want to take any risks even if you did really well in the first two tasks. Let me ask you a question. Just to satisfy my curiosity. Would you have entered the Tournament on your own if you had had the chance?"
"Only if I had had the additional experience of the other champions. I have done so much work this year just to catch up it isn't even funny. And it wasn't even my OWL year. You couldn't just have waited until after I had them, couldn't you?"
"Ah, the same cheek your father always had. But it's time, Harry Potter; you'll help me to be reborn." Voldemort said before Malfoy lifted the body and dropped it into the cauldron.
"Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son." Malfoy chanted and pointed his wand at the grave plate under Harry's feet and a fine trickle of dust flew into the cauldron.
Then Malfoy held his left hand above the cauldron, holding a knife in the other.
"Flesh of the servant, willingly given, you will revive your master." He said and cut his own hand, which splashed into the cauldron.
'I wonder if there will be a complication because Malfoy is under the controlling potion and not truly willing.' Harry thought.
Malfoy stopped the bleeding with his wand. Then he walked over to Harry, who looked into the eyes of the controlled man, triggering the order he had been given beforehand.
"Right arm under the shoulder." He quietly ordered.
Malfoy held the dagger up to the mentioned point.
"Blood of the enemy, forcefully taken, you'll resurrect your foe." He incantated before piercing the blood bottle, getting the needed blood.
He walked back to the cauldron and let the drops of blood fall into it. Then a bright light came from the cauldron and Malfoy shielded his eyes. Harry just closed his to be able to see properly after the light ceased. Finally the light spectacle stopped and Harry heard Voldemort's voice.
"Robe me!" He ordered Malfoy, who conjured a black robe for his master, who at the moment stood in front of the cauldron naked.
'Not a view I want to ever see again.' Harry thought disgusted.
"Now, Harry Potter, let's talk properly, face to face." Voldemort said ignoring Malfoy, who knelt beside him.
"I'm finally back again. The wonders a proper ritual can do to bring you back from the existence as a wraith. Of course I needed the bones of my father, a foolish muggle who lived in the manor at the hill." He waved his hand at the old house. "So we had to come here. To the place where my own family never even mentioned me. Well, they paid for it when I came for them and killed them. Oh yes, it was sweet revenge. Dear Lucius found me in Albania, where I was hiding again. Just a rumour of my location brought him there. I'll reward him for his loyalty. Lord Voldemort rewards loyalty. But he also punishes impertinence. Crucio!" He shouted, pointing his wand at Harry, who barely managed to prevent screaming loudly.
Obviously Voldemort was content with the punishment of Harry for now and let him be.
"Impressive. Not many can keep themselves from screaming out loud. Don't worry, I'll teach you that lesson before you die, Harry, but for now, let me call the rest of my true family." He said and went to Malfoy.
"Lucius, your arm." He said and Malfoy held his left arm out for Voldemort to see.
"It's back in full strength. Now we'll see. We'll see how many of my loyal followers dare to come and how many are foolish enough to stay away."
He touched the black dark mark on Lucius' left arm. Harry meanwhile had already cut the ropes holding him and just kept standing in front of the gravestone to make Voldemort think he had the upper hand. He had everything planed. He just needed to send the signal that everything was ready and his teammates from the MI6 would portkey to their location and help him take out as many Death Eaters as possible. He silently summoned his primary wand back into his hand.
Only moments after Voldemort called his followers they appeared in their black Death Eater robes with white masks. Harry wanted to grin at the fact that some were missing. They hadn't escaped Azkaban yet after being arrested after the World Cup. For once the Ministry hadn't taken bribes. Fudge needed to appear strong for the election after all. And imprisoning those responsible for the incidents made him look good. The poor man needed every little positive press he could get after the Umbridge disaster.
"My friends, again, after thirteen years of separation we are united under the Dark Mark." Voldemort said.
Harry thought this was the perfect opportunity for him to call back-up. Now with them all being distracted with listening to Voldemort he activated the beacon Q had given to him that would inform the MI6 of his current location. He just needed to stay there until help arrived. Making sure nobody looked at him he used a disillusionment charm and disappeared from the gravestone. Voldemort had his back turned to him and was too engrossed punishing his less than faithful followers for abandoning him. Why those idiots put up with him if he constantly put them under the torture curse Harry couldn't understand.
"Only one of you came to find me, Lucius here found me in Albania. Lucius, you have served me well and made my return possible. You'll be rewarded beyond belief."
Voldemort waved his wand and a new silver hand replaced the one that had been sacrificed for the ritual.
"Thank you, my Lord, I live to serve you." He intoned and took his place in the circle.
"One other is to be mentioned in my successful return. My loyal servant at Hogwarts, who made the Triwizard Cup into a portkey to bring me Harry Potter." Voldemort turned towards the gravestone, only to find the ropes cut and Harry missing.
"Find him, I'll show everybody, that thinking Harry Potter could defeat me, Lord Voldemort, was a fool. It was only a slight oversight on my part that made his survival possible. That boy has no special powers. Find him, I'll prove my superiority." He thundered.
Harry sat behind the gravestone he had been tied to. Nobody would think to look for an escapee at the place from where he escaped from after all. Not even stupid wizards. And his back up should arrive any moment now. For now he watched the Death Eaters shooting spells all around, trying to find him.
At Hogwarts chaos reigned. The alarm that the Cup had been found and claimed by one of the champions made the hedges sink into the ground. But instead of one champion proudly presenting the trophy, the spectators only saw the three older champions in the midst of battling a creature or getting past an obstacle. Only Harry was missing.
About ten minutes into the search for the Cup and Harry Potter, Severus Snape suddenly grabbed his left arm and hissed in pain. Dumbledore looked at him pointedly, knowing what this reaction meant. His worst fear had come true, Voldemort was back and as it looked like, he had Harry.
"He is calling everybody to him." Snape said.
"I see. We'll wait to see if Harry returns. I just hope he can escape wherever he is. I don't know how this could have happened." Dumbledore said.
Meanwhile Steven Carter and Aurora Sinistra had stunned the fake Moody. He had been concentrating on Dumbledore and the officials who were pondering what could have happened. She swiftly took away his wand, a spare wand, an emergency portkey, a flask of polyjuice potion and Carter bound him with ropes. They would just wait until the potion wore off. This was a crucial part of the operation; keeping the fake Moody from escaping. What happened to him would vastly depend on the success of the team at the graveyard. If they got the remaining Death Eaters and Voldemort, they would just make them vanish. No need for the public to be frightened.
The efficient way to deal with terrorists was to prevent them from becoming a public problem. They had the perfect opportunity to get the remaining Death Eaters in one swoop. Agent Potter had hopefully fulfilled his part and given them the location and time.
The MI6 team was twenty people strong, each of them equipped with basilisk armour under their battle suits. Three of them were high level agents. Sirius Black, Travis Canterbury and Felicia Richards. The last two muggleborns who didn't accept the treatment they got in the wizarding world even if they outperformed their pureblood classmates easily. The first one horribly wronged by the world he had protected before. The other seventeen were well trained and rained down on the unsuspecting Death Eaters and from the twenty or so Death Eaters Harry had counted, seven immediately fell to stunners, blasting hexes, grenades and cutting curses.
The others managed to dodge but four more were injured by the surprise assault.
"Stand together, my loyal Death Eaters. We'll show them that we are not defeated by the likes of them!" Voldemort yelled, casting curses everywhere.
This was Harry's signal to act. He threw counters to Voldemort's spells and shielded his comrades. By doing so he lost his disillusionment charm.
"Harry Potter, so you're behind this!" Voldemort hissed.
"Did you really think I wouldn't investigate why somebody would put my name in the Goblet but didn't make sure that I was severely handicapped if they wanted to kill me? I got suspicious after the first task. It was too easy to get past the dragon. If somebody wanted me dead they would have enraged the dragon additionally. Or the second task; by hiding knowledge by taking it out of the library they could have handicapped me more. But the perfect way to solve the task was given to my friend early in the school year. It was easy to figure out that Moody was a fake after that.
"As the reason for entering me wasn't to kill me, I prepared for something strange happening at the third task. Well, I was right and the precaution I took was having back up at my call and having the means to escape any bounds possible."
"It doesn't matter; I'm far more powerful and skilled than you are. Nobody will step in front of you like your worthless mudblood mother did." Voldemort sneered and cast the cruciatus curse at Harry, who countered with a blasting hex.
Then something nobody had expected happened. The two spells hit each other and then connected.
"What the hell?" Harry asked, holding onto his wand.
The connection glowed golden and phoenix song sounded around them. Then both duellists were lifted in the air while the fights between the Death Eaters and the agents temporarily stopped. There were only five Death Eaters left standing, the others were too severely injured or knocked out. Harry couldn't tell if some had died.
"What is this trick?" Voldemort demanded to know.
"Hey, you're the wizard nearing seventy. Don't expect me to know this, I'm just fourteen!" Harry yelled back, making the remaining fighters sweat drop.
Around the two a golden sphere built and beads of light appeared on the connection between the wands. The MI6 agents were faster at recovering and returned to take out the Death Eaters getting three of the five by surprise and easily overwhelmed the last ones. Soon all of them were bound, stunned and were force fed a sleeping potion.
Harry instinctively knew that he needed to push the beads into Voldemort's wand. So he concentrated all his will power on achieving that one goal.
At the ground two agents suddenly were confronted with Nagini, Voldemort's snake. She attacked and tried to bite them. Normal cutting curses seemed to fail against the beast. Finally Sirius hit it with an Avada Kedavra. The snake fell dead on the ground. What nobody had expected was a black mist rising and shrieking horribly.
"I don't believe it; he made his snake a horcrux." Sirius said.
He looked up to his godson, who was still in a battle of will against Voldemort. The effects the wrong blood should have on Voldemort's body would appear soon with him using up that much magic against Harry.
Harry finally managed to push one bead onto the tip of Voldemort's wand. The wand began spewing out spells it had done in reverse order. And Harry could finally see the exhaustion showing on Voldemort's pale face.
Then it contorted into pain, then agony. The wand continued reversing the spells it did, making shadows of killed people appear. There was the old muggle from Harry's dream, Bertha Jorkins and then his mother and his father.
"Harry, you have done really well, we are so proud of you." His mother said.
"Yes, son, you have chosen the way of the protector. You chose to be the warrior so others could live in peace. I couldn't be prouder of you. And I'm glad Sirius got you out from the Dursleys. I don't know what Dumbledore thought placing you there, we never wanted that." His father said.
"Harry, we don't have much time, know we'll always love you and support you. Change the wizarding world for the better." His mother told him smiling lovingly at him.
"I'll, I promise you, Mum, Dad." Harry said with tears threatening to fall from his eyes.
Both his parents smiled at him.
"It's time to break the connection, Harry." His father said.
Harry nodded and jerked his wand upwards interrupting the connection. He drew his second wand to shoot a disarming charm at Voldemort, who was too surprised to deflect the spell. Harry soon followed up with a blasting hex. Voldemort was thrown back. Harry stopped casting spells as the plan needed Voldemort bound to a body. A body that was weakened by the botched up ritual. Harry calmly walked up to the beaten man.
"This is impossible. I'm the strongest wizard. I can't be beaten by a mere boy!" Voldemort ranted trying to get up but failing at that.
Three agents conjured ropes to bind him while others put anti-apparition charms on him.
"How?" Voldemort asked, only to flinch in agony again.
"Should I tell him or would it endanger the mission?" Harry asked Sirius.
"We have succeeded. You can tell him. He needs to be brought back to reality." Sirius answered, smiling proudly at the result his godson had achieved.
"You lost before the fight even began, Tom. We know the secret behind your ability to cheat death. We haven't yet managed to destroy all of your horcruxes, we are still missing two" Harry said to be interrupted by Sirius.
"One, Harry, I killed his snake, which turned out to be the last horcrux we didn't know what it was. We just need to get the one we know the location of and get rid of the one in your scar, then he is mortal again." Sirius updated Harry's information.
Voldemort's eyes widened.
"Yes, in your ignorance and arrogance you split your soul to the point where it was so instable that when you tried to kill me as a baby part of your soul latched onto me. I'm your seventh horcrux, but not for long, one of the scientists working for the same employer I'm working for, found a solution to get it out without killing me. All what happened tonight was a set-up from the start. And your puppet at Hogwarts, which should already be apprehended by my superior agent at Hogwarts, made it even easier by getting the obstacles out of the way. This way I could be sure that none of the others were in danger of getting to the Cup before me."
"Why am I in so much pain, what did you do?" Voldemort demanded to know.
Harry pulled the pierced blood bottle from under his arm.
"You never got my blood. This is the blood of a creature living in the jungles of the Amazon which is highly acidic outside the body of its original host. We don't know much about the beast, we were lucky one of our top agents managed to knock it out before it killed him. Tests in the lab showed the properties of the blood. Your lapdog Malfoy has been under a controlling potion for months now. It works similar to the imperius curse but it's harder to break as you need to neutralize the potion completely. Even those who are immune to the imperius can be controlled by the potion. I should know, I was Q's guinea pig." Harry said, gaining laughs from the other agents.
"No, it can't be. I'm Lord Voldemort. I'm immortal. Even if you kill me I'll come back."
"No, you're Tom Marvolo Riddle, son of Merope Gaunt and Tom Riddle. You're a man, deceived by your own delusions of grandeur. You're a murderer. You aren't the saviour of the wizarding world you always pretended to be. If the pureblood families followed your doctrine, wizards would be dying out in Britain in two or three generations. The blood is too weak." Sirius stated matter of factly.
"You'll just disappear together with your followers. We'll take care of those in Azkaban. None of them will survive the next month. Harry already has enough political power to change the wizarding government. And with the information his grandmother Dorea and my aunt Cassiopeia have collected over the decades they were politically active, he can overturn the corrupt government. All your remaining followers came here tonight. The sympathizers will fall soon. And you'll die without the public ever knowing you were still alive. No reason to raise a panic."
With that Francis stunned Voldemort and the agents took care of securing and taking away all the Death Eaters except Malfoy. He was meant to go back with Harry to present the perfect ruse.
"You sure you can get the next part done alone, Harry?" Sirius asked.
"Sure, Sirius. I know the plan and with me looking like I do, they will easily believe me that Malfoy tried some botched up ritual in the delusion he could bring Voldemort back. With my memories backing the story up even Fudge can't cover up this. And he will fall with Malfoy as everybody knows he is his main advisor."
"Good luck, Harry, we'll see you at headquarters after the year ends. Aurora will inform you about the things happening."
Harry nodded, summoned the Cup and disappeared from the graveyard.
So that was that. Did you like it? Next time will be back to normal update schedule.