ccxv. a phoenix in the fire
The moment Harriet's feet landed on the ground, she started running.
The world hadn't had the chance to coalesce, but what she saw of it could only be described as grim: gray stones, gray clouds, the stubby, thick growth of poorly tended shrubs. Darker shapes rose against the storm-clad sky, and Harriet dodged away, thinking they were people—.
"Not so fast!"
A hand coiled in her hair and yanked her back. Harriet shrieked and went for her wand, but he was faster, hand closing around hers and squeezing until bones popped.
"I'll be taking that, love." Harriet felt more than saw her wand slipping from the brace on her arm into the hand of her attacker. "Nice and easy, there. Imperio!"
Harriet stopped struggling as an odd haze overcame her mind, a thick, blinding sensation like a wool balaclava swaddling her head. Reality muted; some part of her screamed, knowing she had been bloody kidnapped, but that knowledge existed as if behind a thick pane of museum glass. It was scary but remote.
"Go on, Potter. Start walking. Walk."
Harriet's feet stumbled into motion without her trying. Distantly, she noted what she'd thought were people were actually statues—big statues of things like angels or the grim reaper standing at the side of headstones or in the shadows of old mausoleums. She was in a graveyard.
She did not want to be in a bloody graveyard!
Yes you do, whispered a voice. You want to be here. You want to walk forward.
A walk is nice, Harriet thought in reply—but no! That was ridiculous. She wasn't where she was meant to be, and Terry—.
Oh God, Terry—.
Clarity ripped through the happy, muddling cloud, and Harriet twisted away from the wand pointed at her back. She kicked back, foot colliding with a thigh, and tried to run for it.
"Offendimus!"
The spell caught her about the ankles, and Harriet fell, cracking her chin against a marker. The pain spiraling through her jaw helped clear the lingering confusion.
"Well!" Krum exclaimed. "Well, well! The little girl has more to her than expected! She can throw off an Imperius!"
Snarling, Harriet rolled to her back and aimed a kick to his groin as Krum bent to grab her. He jerked—and Harriet lunged for her wand dangling so precariously from his Durmstrang cloak.
"Incarcerous!"
Ropes sprang to life as Krum barked the spell, and Harriet hit the ground again, wriggling against their tight hold. She tried to shout, and the ropes coiled around her mouth, covering it. Another spell had Harriet floating in midair, writhing and kicking.
"Stop that. We've an appointment to keep. Off we go…."
Harriet felt Krum's hand tuck into the ropes cinched against her back, and he started onward like an owner dragging along their reluctant dog.
Her mind whirled—chin stinging, knees aching. She could barely get air past the gag, but even if it'd been absent, Harriet was breathless with shock. It couldn't have been real. It had to have been a trick. No, no. Terry—.
I heard the words; I saw that light. That awful, awful green—.
Harriet couldn't understand it. It made no sense. Why would Krum do this? Where were they, what was he planning—and, most importantly, how could she get away from him?
Harriet trembled as they passed through the iron gate and stepped into the long grass. She struggled to look around, twisting like an animal in its death roll as she frantically peered into the darkness. A thick fog obscured the land, but Harriet could see a vague halo farther across the field where buildings or a village might lurk. Ahead of them, a house loomed out of the weeds.
It must have been a nice house in the past; touches of faded grandeur lingered in the gables and the proud cornices, but the rest had gone to seed years ago. The garden had devolved into a patch of brambles and thorns lying like a gnarled welcome mat around the house. They continued along the mottled path and up the steps, Harriet hearing the old wood creak and groan under Krum's clunking boots.
"Almost there," he hummed as the front door shut behind them, plunging the dingy foyer into darkness. Harriet cursed, muffled by her gag, and Krum chuckled. "Don't worry. You'll have a seat right up in front. You'll be the first witness to my Lord's glorious return."
"Mmph—!"
He dragged her up a set of stairs, Harriet hitting her shoulders and head on the steps as the levitation faltered on the incline. Krum didn't care—but between the sharp, steady blows, Harriet realized something odd.
His accent had disappeared.
Krum kicked open a pair of scrolled doors, revealing the large room beyond. Harriet couldn't rightly guess the space's original purpose and didn't care at the moment. Lumpy, half-burnt candles left on the floor and mantel lit the dingy walls. A large cauldron bigger than anything they'd ever used in Potions sat several feet in front of a blackened hearth with what looked like an old door split to pieces and stacked beneath it. A rough handful of rickety dining chairs lined the inner wall, and it was one of these that Krum Summoned to him so he could drop Harriet into it.
She struggled as the ropes shifted, binding her to the arms and spindly legs. She braced her feet—or at least tried to, searching for leverage. The chair wasn't very strong. Surely it couldn't hold her—.
Her furious, panicked gaze flicked up—and she froze. The ropes slithered from around her mouth.
"Who—?" Harriet gasped, her mouth dry and tasting of dirt. "Who are y-you?!"
The candlelight revealed his face, and the person peering back at her wasn't Krum. His face was older, paler, his body shorter and thinner than the Quidditch player's, a shock of greasy, dark blond hair falling over his brow. Krum's clothes hung on his skinny body.
The man laughed—a grating wheeze of a cackle that his chest shook under. His pink tongue darted out, licking his lip.
Polyjuice, Harriet realized, remembering her own experience with the potion, how Professor Sinistra's robes had pooled around her juvenile body as it wore off. How had she not recognized it the moment she saw his stupid skin rippling?
"Wh—where is Krum?" she demanded. "What have you done with Viktor?"
The wizard continued to wheeze, then coughed, clearing his throat. "Oh, little girl, you've never known Viktor." He swallowed. "You've never even met him."
Harriet's insides turned to ice.
A thump emanated from behind a smaller door leading into the room, and before he could stop her, Harriet screamed, shouting for help. The wizard slapped her face, startling Harriet into silence.
A second bloke came through the door, unperturbed by the reedy wizard or the trembling witch tied to a chair. He approached the cauldron and the candlelight, his features coming into focus. Like the stranger at her side, Harriet had never seen the man before; he dressed like a pure-blood in black robes and a damask waistcoat, though the color was muted, dusty. Though trimmed and neatly parted, his dark hair sported thick patches of white creeping from his temples to above his ears. Despite that, he didn't appear very old, though discerning a wizard's age could be difficult at the best of times. She didn't recognize him, but the eyes—
They gleamed like fresh blood as they looked Harriet over.
"Finally have her, do you?" he said to the first wizard, and the latter swept out a hand as if to say 'obviously.' "Hmm."
"I was just getting around to introducing myself," the stranger said, patting Harriet's cheek with his cold hand. She strained to lean away. "No need to be shy, Harriet. I thought we were friends? We shared such lovely times."
"Get away from me!"
The wizard snorted, then bent at the waist to start untying his boots. Harriet's eyes glared at the pocket containing her wand with hunger, the ropes biting into her wrists. "You probably haven't heard of me. Too young for that. But, you've met my dear father before—." The wheezing, cackling laughter returned. "Before I killed him, of course."
The skin of her arms pinched and strung as Harriet twisted under the ropes, desperate for escape. She looked to the other wizard for help, hoping against hope, but he looked on without blinking, seemingly used to the deranged bloke's homicidal tendencies.
"You and the blood-traitor's get almost ruined it," he continued as he released the last of the laces and stepped from the boots. They had to be too big because his feet were far shorter than Krum's. "Harriet bloody Potter: the bane of my existence. Though I managed it in the end and got rid of his worthless body."
At first, Harriet hadn't a clue what he meant—and then, a memory from the woods warbled in the back of her mind like a Muggle alarm clock, and she recalled finding Gabrielle, the body in the trees, the gore trickling through the leaves.
"Crouch," Harriet whispered. "Barty Crouch."
The wizard sneered. "Barty Crouch Junior," he retorted. "At your service."
"But you went to Azkaban." Dumbledore had told her Crouch Senior had 'family difficulties,' while Hermione later explained his son was one of the Death Eaters caught at Longbottom's house in eighty-one. "For killing Alice Longbottom."
"I did," the wizard—Crouch—affirmed. "And you can thank my father and mother for breaking me out. He held me under Imperius for years, keeping me locked in the house like a fucking animal! Because he knew—he knew I'd find my Lord, that I'd never stop serving him. It took years—but I finally got my chance at the World Cup. I stole the wand from Malfoy's boy and was free. Free to find my Lord and serve him as he deserves!"
Harriet didn't ask any more questions. "I don't care about your daddy issues," she told him with far more bravery than she should rightly feel in her current situation. The man had a bloody wand on her, for Merlin's sake! "What did you do with Viktor?!"
"I told you you've never knownViktor." Crouch leaned nearer, and Harriet cringed into her uncomfortable chair. He smelled of Hogwarts still—of lake water and pine. His blue eyes had an unhealthy tinge to them, yellow at the edges, bloodshot and bulging.
"You're lying! You couldn't have been him the entire time—."
"Couldn't I?"
"Someone would have known!"
He chuckled, and touched her arm. Behind him, Harriet could see the other wizard going about his business without any regard for them. He set fire to the wood beneath the large cauldron and filled it with water from his wand. He paused at one point and jerked; his body spasmed as if hit with a cramp, though it lasted only a moment before he continued filling the cauldron.
"That's the funny thing about celebrities, love. Everyone has an idea of what they're like, of how they should behave, like a nice shiny poster. Nobody knows who they really are, and the same could be said about our dear Viktor Krum." Crouch touched her hair, swept part of her fringe from her face. "No close friends, no contact with his teammates for most of the year. All I needed to do was learn a few quick Bulgarian phrases and lean into that traitor Karkaroff's sycophancy to accept special treatment. Who's going to question if the darling Quidditch star is having an off day? Who's going to question if he needs a break from lessons to have a special cuppa every hour? I can't even sit a fucking broom, but none of you fools ever suspected a thing."
Harriet's pulse raced as dawning horror withered her heart. Oh, Merlin. How many times had she asked Krum for a game and he'd brushed it off? She'd never pressed the issue. She'd explained away his odd looks or behaviors as the quirks of being foreign and far from home. She remembered his watching eyes. She remembered him asking her to Hogsmeade, out on walks toward the forest, away from the school, closer and closer to the edge of the grounds—.
"Had to off the parents from the start, though. Mmm, much too nosey, them parents of his. Getting into the Tournament was a nice little bonus; it gave me an excuse to stay at Hogwarts with you, even if the other Durmstrang brats got sent off. Of course, I also needed to get Longbottom chosen." Harriet jolted and gaped. "Didn't guess that, did you? Well, don't worry. All answers come to good girls who wait, but I'd best let my master explain."
He touched her neck. Harriet flinched, snarling, "Stop it!" but Crouch kept his hand in place. His fingertips traced the edges of her scar as if fascinated.
"You made things so much harder than they needed to be," he murmured. His thumb stroked her throat. "You made my master so angry with me when I couldn't get you alone. Why did you have to be so difficult? You made him wait. You made me fail, and I have never failed my Lord before…."
From the cauldron, the second wizard cleared his throat. "Have you checked her?" he drawled.
Crouch stirred, annoyed. "I got her wand."
"Yes, but did you check? Would be quite a shame to disappoint him again, Barty, simply because you didn't find an emergency Portkey."
Crouch sneered but did snatch his hand away, retrieving his wand. Harriet braced herself as he pointed it at her, incanting, "Appare Vestigium."
The spell washed over her, and Harriet felt it slide right past her necklace where it rested against her middle, registering nothing. No, the items on the necklace had been dunked onto the Embolized Cauldron and so couldn't be detected by magic. The spell dipped lower, falling over her stomach, her lap, her legs—.
No—!
"What do we have here?" Crouch asked, kneeling by Harriet's feet. He pulled down her sock enough to reveal the hidden brace wrapped around her calf, and he grabbed her mum's wand by its handle. Snape hadn't given her the wand until after they'd used the Embolized Cauldron, until after it'd corroded beyond use—.
"Don't!" Harriet snarled, but Crouch already had the wand in hand, laughing.
"A spare wand, Potter? How unexpected! Though I guess I shouldn't be surprised. You do have the pretender's eye, after all."
From the cauldron came a displeased hiss. The second wizard tended to whatever potion he meant to make, though his leering red eyes raised to Crouch's back for long enough to level a harsh glare.
Crouch adjusted Harriet's sock—and she jerked when his hand lingered, fingertips gliding up her calf to her knee. "Frigid little thing, aren't you?" he asked, lip curling. He shuffled closer, pale face looking up into Harriet's own. A sheen of sweat grew on his forehead. "Not even a Quidditch star could catch your fancy. So particular. It should have been easy to get you off the grounds. It should have easy to crook my finger and have you come haring off with me wherever I wanted." His nails dug into Harriet's skin. "But you had to be difficult."
His fingertips skated higher, brushing below the edge of her skirt, along the inside of her thigh. Harriet mustered every ounce of her revulsion as her lower lip trembled, and she lunged against her bonds, slamming her forehead into his face. His nose crunched.
"Ow—FUCK!" Crouch roared, reeling. Harriet didn't have time to feel any sort of way about breaking the bastard's nose before his fist collided with her face, and she saw stars. The chair tipped, and Harriet hit the floor, head bouncing on the dusty hardwood.
"CRUCIO!"
The curse struck, but Harriet didn't scream. The air had been knocked out of her lungs, so only a weak, half-whine escaped her as she shook under the ropes. The pain lit through her like fire in dried weeds, and she tasted copper in her mouth when her teeth drove into her tongue.
"Enough," bit out the other wizard, clearly annoyed with Crouch's behavior. "You're wasting time."
Panting, Crouch spat blood by Harriet's head, the spittle spraying on her glasses before he put his bare foot on the bottom rung of the chair and leveraged Harriet upward. He grabbed her by the throat when he settled her into place, and Harriet choked.
"You'll pay for that later," he snarled.
"Enough," the second wizard repeated. He left the cauldron and yanked Crouch around by the shoulder. "Get the box. Now."
Crouch shrugged from the wizard's grip and stomped away, blood still dripping from his nose. He exited the doors they'd come in through, and the nameless wizard returned to the entrance he'd appeared from without giving Harriet a single look. Left alone, Harriet renewed her struggles despite the pain lingering in her seizing muscles.
He has my wand. Both of my wands. What did she have? Hugh, the Argonauts' Atlas, her Erkling spoon. They could find her with the Atlas—couldn't they? No, no, because none of them had ever been here before, and the Atlas relied on knowledge of an area. At the moment, Harriet thought the place would appear as "old mansion."
What did that leave her? The spoon was of no help, but what about Hugh? She saw Muggle lights, didn't she? There was a village or neighbors or—something. A place Harriet could run to, a place she could find information and send a message for help—.
No, I need my wand to wake Hugh—.
Too soon, the weathered floor creaked under Crouch's socked feet, and he returned into view, levitating a large, rectangular box. Dirt and clay covered the surface, as well as some bits of stone that pattered and plinked on the moth-eaten rug.
It's a coffin, a hysterical part of Harriet's brain realized. She wondered if they meant to put her in it.
The second door opened again. It was the smell Harriet registered first—the malodorous gasp of sickly decay oozing outward like a low plume of smoke. It permeated the room and swelled. Harriet had smelled rot before—but only in whiffs when cleaning a forgotten fruit in Aunt Petunia's refrigerator, or in Potions class before Snape had them smear menthol on their upper lips. This smell was worse than anything she'd encountered; it turned her stomach and raised bile in her throat.
Then, the pain started.
Her scar lit with agony as if freshly made, Harriet screaming as her chest jumped under the sudden, inexplicable burn. She screamed so loud, Crouch saw fit to fashion her a gag out of a spare bit of cloth from his pocket. Harriet barely noticed him shoving it into her mouth beyond the fact that it gave her something to bite into, and biting down let her open her eyes.
No, not him. No, no, please—.
She wished she'd kept them closed.
No word in her vocabulary could express the horror that gripped Harriet when she saw the creature that came shambling along after the second wizard. It couldn't be qualified as a person; it didn't have enough flesh to be called that. The light from the cauldron's fire peered through bones, muscles flopping open like an unzipped jacket, organs on display. The thing's heart pumped and glistened under cracked, mottled ribs.
Harriet didn't know what happened next. Her eyes closed again, fire raging beneath her skin, when she heard the splash and hiss of water touching the flames. When she pried her lids open again, the creature had vanished into the black, rippling water inside the iron rim.
"Begin," said the second wizard watching with his red, red eyes.
Crouch gave one, firm nod, and approached the coffin. One flick of his wand popped the warped nails on the pine lid. "Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son!"
Something solid levitated from the darkness within the box—a bone, though which it was, Harriet couldn't tell. It went into the cauldron, slipping silently inside, and the surface lit with sparks.
Crouch returned to the cauldron. His face shone with perverted glee, mania a visible poison crawling in his veins. The sweat upon his forehead had built, painting his cheeks and neck, darkening the front of Krum's loose uniform. "Flesh of the servant, willingly given, you will revive your master!"
There was a dagger in his hand. He balanced it between his fingers—and Harriet nearly vomited into her spit-soaked gag as the blade's edge slipped under his pinky. Crouch howled, blood spurted, and the digit went plopping into the sparking muck. It roiled, turning a sickening blue.
The howling evolved into sharp, breathless laughter. Crouch stomped his feet, bracing himself against the pain in his hand. The blood kept running, dripping past his wrist until Crouch used a spell to swaddle it in bandages. Then, he turned his manic smile on Harriet.
"Get on with it," the second wizard ordered.
Harriet snarled into the gag as Crouch approached, the blade raised. He slid it under the ropes binding her right arm, cutting them free—and Harriet struck like a snake, hand going for his pocket, fingers barely skirting the handle of her wand.
"Merlin's arse—," he seethed, retreating. He removed Harriet's wands from his person and dropped them on the mantel, Harriet staring at them, knowing she would never reach the fireplace. Crouch grabbed her loose wrist with his injured hand, wrangling in Harriet's attempts to break free—.
The dagger rose—.
"Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken, you will resurrect your foe!"
She barely felt the blade sinking through the skin of her arm. It tugged downward, Harriet unable to do anything about it, and then the stinging began. Blood seeped into the sleeve of her robes, and when Crouch lifted the dagger again, it gleamed crimson. He took the wet blade to the cauldron and dropped it inside.
The simmering mixture swirled, and the surface formed a blinding, golden helix dancing in the air—and then steam engulfed it all. It poured from the cauldron over the floor, dousing the flames. Only the candles remained, and in their weak, struggling glow, a shadow rose from the cauldron's depths.
It took the form of a man. It stepped from the cauldron, and the second wizard came forward to wrap it in voluminous black robes, covering bone-white flesh stretched over a skeletal body. It lifted hands like wet, white spiders and examined the twitching digits, the talon-like nails. Breath rattled in new lungs—and the head whipped around. Scarlet eyes found Harriet and stared.
Lord Voldemort had risen again.
A/N: I imagine the real Viktor actually had a lot of difficulties in Durmstrang. It's a Dark-leaning school that won't take Muggle-borns, and he's clearly not adverse to them according to canon, and I would hazard a guess he's not one for Dark magic given his continued friendship with Hermione and how incessantly she fought against the Dark. He was an international Quidditch star and probably ostracized for that among his peers because of the preferential treatment people like Karkaroff gave him. All this led me to believe very few people probably knew the realViktor, making him an ideal target for Barty.
Yes, I wrote Barty as a Grade-A CREEP. It fits my idea of the kind of people who stayed loyal to Voldemort instead of Slytherin or Gaunt; Voldemort is the one who gets those sicker individuals their depraved needs. Yes, every single moment I wrote "Krum" being around Harriet I wanted to crawl out of my skin.
Harriet: "…"
Harriet: "Get back in the cauldron. You look half-baked."
Voldemort: "…"
Voldemort: "Crucio."
