ccxvi. devil like me

"Ah," Voldemort said with the quiet, cold air of a man used to being heard. "Harriet Potter. We meet again."

The Dark Lord did not much resemble what Harriet had come to expect Tom Riddle to look like. He shared very little in common with Slytherin or Gaunt or even the memory from the Diadem; the barest shadow of humanity shaped the pale, wet face, his bones sharp, cutting, and malformed. No hair could be found on his head, not even his eyelids—both sets, including the translucent nictitating membrane that snapped over his searing red irises. His nose was flatter, the nostrils formed by slits, shaped more like a snake's. When his bloodless lips opened, fangs gleamed.

Still watching Harriet, the Dark Lord turned his chin, the bones in his spine giving off ghoulish pops. His neck was slightly longer than a normal man's, and his shoulders—though broad, intimidating—were sloped, lending more to the illusion of a hungry reptile raising its head above her.

Set curled at her feet in a whirlpool, all his attention seemingly caught on the Dark Lord and the great shadow he cast. Harriet willed the creature to help her, to do something, but—as ever—Set's motives remained untenable to her. He snagged and plucked at Voldemort, unseen by anyone else in the room, leaving Harriet trapped in the chair.

Voldemort looked away to examine his form, those strange hands of his touching his lean forearms, his chest, the angle of his throat and jaw. Then, satisfied, he snapped his fingers at the nameless wizard behind him without turning. "Wand."

The wizard hesitated, then moved to take a bone-white wand from the inner pocket of his faded robes and tuck it into Voldemort's hand. He examined it as he had his own body, stroking the length of wood with one fond finger before pointing it at Harriet. He didn't bother to speak the spell, but the instant the red light knocked into her and set her nerves alight, Harriet knew she'd been hit with another Cruciatus.

It lasted for a second, there and gone, leaving Harriet winded and groaning into the gag. Voldemort studied his wand, nodded, then snapped his fingers at the second wizard again. "Your arm."

The wizard knelt. By the cauldron, Crouch had been on his knees since the Dark Lord appeared, his forehead pressed to the floor. Voldemort flicked open the wizard's cufflinks and raised his sleeve, baring the angry red scarring of the Dark Mark.

"Ah, beautiful," he whispered, the side of one sharp nail circling the raised edges. "And now, we will see who is wise enough to remember their proper master…."

The circling stopped, and Voldemort laid a finger upon the Mark. The unknown wizard grunted as if in pain, but no other sound of protest left him. Voldemort released after the Mark turned dark as pitch, and the wizard backed away until he could lean against the wall.

The Dark Lord crossed his arms and surveyed Harriet again. Harriet, for her part, glared with all her might, though she'd never been so utterly terrified in all her life. She was going to die. She'd been tied to a chair and disarmed, both wands taken, and Voldemort—in his own body, fully resurrected—stood before her. She was never going to see home again. Her family. Hogwarts.

"You sit at the side of my father," Voldemort said, the slightest lift of his chin gesturing toward the coffin. "Tom Riddle Senior. The very worst kind of Muggle—both he and my grandparents, and I helped them into their graves. A kindnessss. This was their house, you see. The Riddle House, the home they denied me and my mother when my father cast her aside for her magic and left her to die. Well…never let it be said Lord Voldemort doesn't deal appropriate justice."

Harriet swallowed and had to look down, her scar prickling.

"Do you wonder why you are here, Harriet Potter?" he asked. He flicked his wand, the gag disappearing, and it felt as if a hand had grabbed her by the chin, jerking her head upward. "Or do you perhaps already know?"

The invisible hand at her throat tightened.

"It matters not. You will see shortly."

The hand released, and Harriet took a ragged breath before she silenced herself.

They appeared with loud pops and curling bursts of dark, writhing robes. It startled Harriet, but Voldemort seemed to have already felt their coming, and he watched with cool, narrowed eyes as the newcomers answered their master's call.

There were fewer than Harriet thought there'd be—but she'd been told before, hadn't she? How those who followed Lord Voldemort in exception to all others who claimed the title Dark Lord had gone to Azkaban. So, only four wizards felt the Dark Mark burn and Apparated into that awful house. To a one, they wore heavy black robes with raised hoods—and silver masks that glinted cruelly in the candlelight.

The Death Eaters seemed to freeze in shock or indecision when they beheld Lord Voldemort waiting in the squalid room. They breathed heavily—either in panic or because they'd rushed to arrive, following whatever Dark impulse Voldemort imbued in their ruined arms.

It was almost hilarious, watching fully-grown adults scramble to their knees in a loose semi-circle around the maniac, no attention paid to Harriet in the chair. They left gaps between them, and it wasn't until Crouch threw himself into the formation that Harriet realized they'd left places for the others who weren't coming.

"My Death Eaters," Voldemort crooned, arms outspread. "Welcome. We meet once again. Just like old times."

"Master," they whispered, genuflecting.

"So few," the Dark Lord murmured as he paced before his followers. "So few of you have answered my summons. So many of your brothers and sisters have fallen victim to the false allure of the pretenders. I must ask myself; do they truly think there is a power greater than mine? Do they think those mere shadows claiming my name could challenge Lord Voldemort?"

No one spoke a word. Harriet stayed silent too, but she continued to wriggle in the chair. Her skin stung under the tight ropes.

"Naturally, I must then question what the faithful assume. You, who have come before me after so long, who answer your Lord's call…have you strayed as well?"

The Death Eaters prostrated themselves at the Dark Lord's bare feet, unmoving.

"Cowards!" Harriet snarled, unable to keep her mouth to herself. "The lot of you are worthless fucking—!"

"Quiet," the Dark Lord intoned. She felt the Silencing Charm slap her across the face. Voldemort returned his attention to his followers.

"Thirteen yearsss…." His voice dipped into sibilance, and a visible tremble went through the gathered Dark wizards. "For thirteen years I waited, assuming my servants would come, as I had enumerated often over our time together the many ways in which I, Lord Voldemort, had overcome the very shadow of death. I told myself, they will not believe the lies. They will know the truth of my return! I waited—and I waited in vain!"

The wand lashed out, and one Death Eater slammed his face into the floor before being thrown to his back, gasping. Harriet recognized the pale hair that spilled from the hood.

"Lucius," Voldemort hissed as he looked down at the wizard. He dismissed the mask, and Harriet saw Malfoy had a bloodied lip to match Crouch's still oozing nose. Good. "I must say, I am surprised you are here. Has Gaunt not fulfilled your expectations?"

Malfoy's eyes darted between Voldemort's deformed face and his feet. "I—I live only to serve, my Lord. You must admit, the reason for the confusion is compelling—."

"How dare you?" Voldemort flung a silent curse at Malfoy, and the blond prat shrieked, convulsing on the floor until the tyrant relented. "I am the only Dark Lord! All others pale in comparison! They have only a fraction of my power!"

Against the wall, the nameless wizard outside of the circle jerked, then settled.

Malfoy sputtered apologies as Voldemort moved on to his next target, snarling at the Death Eater quivering on Lucius' right. "Elks…Yaxley…Wilkes…." His red eyes roved over the empty places. "Of course, our numbers will be replenished now that I have returned and can liberate my most faithful. The Lestranges will be honored—and our brothers Rowle, Dolohov, and the Carrows. Those who continued to fight in my name and for our dreams while the rest of you cowered."

"Please, my Lord—."

"Crucio!"

The one he'd addressed as Yaxley screamed. Harriet had to shut her eyes, or else she might've been sick. Voldemort kept pacing to the largest gap.

"Here we should have those who fell in my service, and ah, Karkaroff. No, he'll be taken care of in time…and, of course, the one serving the pretender. He will experience a taste of my power before his end."

The one serving the pretender…. In the chair, Harriet stilled. Cold sweat soaked into her clothes, sticking the back of her shirt to her spine. She could feel it crawling on her face despite the relative chill of the room. The one serving the pretender….

Snape. He meant Snape. The Dark Lord was going to kill Snape.

It felt as if her stomach had dropped from her middle. Her face and arm throbbed in time with her spiking pulse as Harriet stared at her bound hands in mute horror.

Voldemort was alive. He was alive—and he was going to kill Snape. He was going to kill everyone Harriet knew—everyone she loved.

"He's…Voldemort's going to return, isn't he, Professor?"

"Not today, Harriet."

"And when he does, sir?"

"Then we'll be prepared. But, as I said, that day is not today."

They weren't prepared. Harriet wasn't prepared; she had a handful of lessons and words of wisdom under her belt, but not the kind of skill needed to challenge the Dark Lord and six of his branded Death Eaters. Cheap tricks and a bit of Parseltongue weren't going to help her.

Please, she begged, not knowing to whom she spoke, if anyone or anything could hear her desperate, silent pleas. Her skin pinched and bled where the ropes twisted into her flesh. Please, please—.

A sudden, inexplicable warmth filled Harriet's chest. "But you can't forget magic is not simply a tool that exists in words or in your wand. It's part of you," Professor Dumbledore's voice rasped in her ear. With her eyes shut, Harriet could almost feel Hogwarts' warmth, could smell lemon sherbet and wood smoke. "A witch is always a witch, no matter her wand—."

Harriet's eyes snapped open.

"And no matter the obstacles before her."

Voldemort had moved on while Harriet had been distracted, standing now in front of Crouch, extending his hand as if to pet an obedient dog's head. Crouch preened under the touch; it sickened Harriet.

"Barty, my most loyal," Voldemort praised, causing the other Death Eaters to stir like rats riled from their nests. "The only one who came to find me. Your loyalty has never wavered, has it?"

"Never, my Lord.

"Yes. You I will reward above all others." He lifted his white hand from Crouch's disheveled hair. "Barty has performed an invaluable service for me. Though there were a few…missteps, Lord Voldemort is forgiving. I gave Barty further chances to prove himself, and he came through." Voldemort waved his hand—a theatric gesture—and the chair under Harriet lurched, rising into the air. It floated as she squirmed, coming to a stop before the Dark Lord. "May I present…our guest of honor."

Still under the Silencing Charm, Harriet said nothing. The Death Eaters rose high enough to stare at her with various degrees of uncertainty or disregard; before he reapplied his mask, a strange emotion fluttered over Malfoy's injured face—there and gone.

Voldemort circled Harriet like a hungry wolf, the nails of his long, gruesome hand clicking against the back of her chair. "I see you are all confused. Allow me to begin with a…story. Imagine, if you would, a Dark Lord. Imperious and all-powerful, there is no one who can stand against him. He dreams of reforming our society—of certifying the proper place of magic in the world.

"There are those who dissent. There will always be those who do, those who cannot see his vision and recognize the greatness he means to bring about. He is not unused to challenges and does not fear crushing those who stand in his way—the Muggle-lovers, the Mudbloods, the blood-traitors. They are meaningless.

"Alas…there was one challenge the Dark Lord had not expected."

He circled in front of Harriet, his red gaze intent upon her face. "They call my downfall the Boy Who Lived," he said, tone cold. "A mockery. Tell us, Barty, what you saw that evening. Tell us; did a single spell leave my lips when I finally attacked the Longbottom home? Did the squalling infant even have a chance to lay eyes upon my visage?"

"N-no, my Lord," Crouch answered, doubtful, only continuing when Voldemort gestured for him to do so. "Forgive me, but it appeared as if you—you shattered, Master. Without warning. There was nothing we could do."

"Ah," Voldemort replied, nodding. "Yes. You see, a mere hour before we set upon the Longbottom hovel, I had cleared another house. Another refuge of blood-traitor scum—a pure-blood and his Muggle bride." Voldemort paused. "And, of course, their daughter: Harriet Potter."

Harriet swallowed when he spoke her name, stiffening her spine. I don't want to die like this, she thought, eyes stinging, lungs aching. Not like this—I can't, I can't. I have to warn them. I have to warn them—.

"I wasn't certain until we met again, not until I attempted to take the Philosopher's Stone and you defied me." The word 'defied' fairly burned with repressed fury, Harriet flinching despite herself. "Death has a way of…confusing memories. Broken, fractured recollections. But oh, I remember now." He bent closer to her ear—smelling of whatever fetid water had birthed him from the cauldron's abyss. "Your Mudblood whore of a mother died screaming," Voldemort hissed. "And your father begged for mercy like a weak, ineffectual child."

Lies, Harriet thought. He lies. He doesn't know I can remember, that I heard their voices fighting until the end—.

He made as if to touch her cheek, and Harriet recoiled, bracing for the agony that never came. "Behold," the Dark Lord said to the assembled Death Eaters. "The real Girl Who Lived."

No one dared breathe too loudly—but Harriet did. The Silencing Charm snapped, and she shouted, "It's not true!"

"Crucio."

Harriet's shrieks bounced upon the empty walls as Voldemort held the spell over her, not stopping until black spots began to prickle along the edges of her vision. It ended, and Harriet listed in her bonds, moaning.

"Didn't Dumbledore teach you it's impolite to interrupt someone when they're speaking, Harriet?" Voldemort circled the chair again, the hem of his robes dragging upon the dirty floorboards that creaked under his weight. "No, I imagine not. 'Manners for thee, but not for me.' He's always allowed his favorites too much leeway." He flicked the edge of her cloak, revealing more of her school robes—staring, in particular, at the telling House color. "Though, I must admit that came as a surprise…."

Harriet didn't reply. She wanted to spit in his face—tell him Dumbledore didn't hate Slytherins, just him—but she kept her tongue in her head, not wanting to be cursed again.

"It is because of Dumbledore the whole of the Wizarding world assumes Neville Longbottom is the one who defeated me. It is by design—a bluff to hide the real chosen one in plain sight. The girl destined to be my downfall." Voldemort's talons grazed her cheek, and Harriet turned from it with a grunt. The skin of her neck and chest ached, feeling raw and cracked as if left exposed to a winter storm.

"You see, in my brilliance, I decided to let the old Muggle-loving fool have his delusions. I let him assume I had fallen for the petty ruse." Voldemort laughed. "Me! Does he truly believe the Dark Lord so easily fooled? I had Barty enter Longbottom into the Triwizard Tournament. As all eyes remained fixed upon the Boy Who Lived, thinking I had any care at all for the pointless child, my real target was left…unwatched."

The Dark Lord leaned nearer, a smile stretched across his ghastly face. It displayed the sharpness of his teeth, the bloodless gums, the strange structure of his bones. Harriet wondered if his bite was venomous.

"It is true I tasked Barty with attempting to lure you off Hogwarts' grounds early. Alas, I fear teenage witches are not so tempted as they were in my day." The Death Eaters chuckled. "But, whatever your choice, Harriet, it was a foregone conclusion. My servants and I cannot touch you within the school's wards…but there is a moment, one well-documented in Tournaments of the past, wherein those wards aren't as effective as they should be. The perfect moment in which all it took was one single touch and a measure of patience for you to be delivered to me."

Harriet's mind raced, rolling back to the final instances before her kidnapping. What is he talking about? What does he mean? Terry—Terry, Merlin help me—fell in a halo of sickly green, Crouch grabbed her, and then—.

"It is the only time recorded since the spell's creation that the hosting school's Headmaster must lower the wards forbidding Portkeys on the grounds. The final task always requires them, you see, to bring the final champion before their adoring audience." Voldemort cackled. "It delights me to know Dumbledore himself had a hand in delivering you here to me, my dear girl."

"You're wrong. Dumbledore did nothing," Harriet spat.

"And so he continues to do nothing." Voldemort straightened. "I must thank you, Harriet. Behold, Death Eaters, the Girl Who Lived, the one destined by fate to be my ruin. Behold, the girl responsible for reviving the Dark Lord to his former glory!"

A loose, uncoordinated applause rose from the spectating wizards. Tears of rage and misery seared Harriet's sore eyes, but she refused to let them fall. She breathed in, and her chest filled with her vitriol, her flagging courage, until it echoed like an open chamber. She met the Dark Lord's crimson gaze and said, "I'd be impressed if you'd managed to gather more than a handful of pathetic cowards and deadbeats." Voldemort froze. "The Headmaster will spit on your grave."

She expected the blow. Truth be told, Harriet expected more than the backhand she received, though it did manage to jar her teeth and nearly unseat the Charm holding her spectacles in place. She expected more than the gleam of malevolence in those horrid eyes. The Dark Lord merely sneered as he flexed his new, bruised hand.

"I'll finish with you later," he said—a dark, unholy promise in his words. "And allow Barty whatever is left."

A single harsh flick of his wand sent Harriet's chair hurtling from his circle of sycophants, throwing her into one of the walls. Her neck snapped back, head slamming into the plaster. Darkness overcame her vision, and when Harriet came to again, her chin lolled against her chest. The Dark Lord had continued his restless, predatory pacing.

Harriet lifted her head, wincing. Ow.

"Hogwarts will be our first point of conquest," Voldemort said, his hands steepled, feet leaving dusty footprints as he moved. "Dumbledore is weak, and the traitor will need to be eradicated. The one who calls himself Slytherin will resist, but he will inevitably fall in line."

"If I may interject, my Lord," said the nameless wizard, stepping closer to the candlelight. "I believe you will encounter more resistance there than is readily apparent—."

Harriet winced again as the Dark Lord and his minion spoke. She wanted to listen, to know what the maniac was planning and what he meant to do to her home—but she couldn't. No, she had to close her eyes and concentrate, else she would never leave this place alive. Already a desperate, desperate part of Harriet sobbed in terror at what awaited her, but she wrangled the fear in, pressed it back. She would not cry. She would not think of what came after, of what the Dark Lord or his horrid lapdog might do to her. She would not panic—she would not panic.

"A witch is a witch," Harriet murmured under her shaking breath. "A witch is witch, a witch is a witch…."

She shut her eyes and ignored the pain grating against her bones like steel wool. Her lungs hitched and quivered, but still Harriet squashed her rapid panting and urged it to be deep and even.

A witch is a witch—.

She reached inside herself for that stillness waiting below her rushing mind, the part of her own being Harriet had shied away from for months in the wake of her disastrous Animagus attempt. It lurked there still, distant, removed from the horror surrounding her. Pulling it forward invoked a certain kind of terror—a fear of the unknown, or perhaps a fear of permanence brought on only by death's finality. Cold, unfeeling.

I'm not helpless. I'm not helpless. I'm a witch, a witch—.

It settled on her numb arms like sleeves of icy silk.

The Dark Lord preached still, voice raised. One of the Death Eaters screamed in agony as he was cursed. Harriet, to the side, noted the disturbance but ignored it, keeping her eyes screwed shut. She had been all but forgotten in the Dark Lord's scheming—a footnote, just as she'd always been, tossed aside to be thought of later. Clenching her jaw, Harriet clung to that brief anonymity and held her breath.

She thought of home. Hogwarts—brisk autumn breezes chasing across the lake, smooth flagstones under her uniform shoes, Peeves winnowing through the corridors on his way to make mischief. Pumpkin juice, sticky under her fingers on the House table. Book pages fluttering, wood polish, Hermione's quiet whispering in the library. Elara's soft morning snores melding into the steady echo of water churning overhead. Cloves, dried herbs. Scratchy wool. A deep, impatient baritone. "Concentrate, Potter."

Harriet shook, the magic rising to her throat. Her heart pounded.

"The greatest things we will do in this life are often things that frighten us. There is no shame in it."

"But what if I'm always scared? What if I can't do it?"

"Maybe you will always be afraid—but, mon petit oiseau, if we allow fear to rule us and make all our choices, then we would get nowhere at all."

The magic rose higher, smothering her breath, ghosting over her mouth like a warm hand. She could feel it on her eyelashes, in her throat, in the ends of her hair. Her toes curled inside her scuffed shoes with the effort Harriet expended to hold herself steady, to battle the fear, the pain, the distraction—the looming, onerous shadow of her own demise. She held the paltry skein of magic between her fingertips and pulled—.

Harriet couldn't rightly describe the feeling of transformation. From one moment to the next, her body collapsed in on itself, the magic bundling tighter and tighter like a shrinking cloak. There was no pain, only a curious ache, the same kind of ache Harriet felt when she bent too long over her desk or when she ignored Hermione's chastising and didn't sit up straight during lessons. It spread outward from her spine, through her muscles, tugging on her bones. Then, the sensation passed.

The ropes fell onto the chair with quiet thumps.

Harriet blinked—then blinked again, taken aback by the lurid colors, the breadth of her vision taking in the whole of the room. There, in front of her face, was a slender black beak, and when she dared to move, tiny bird feet skittered on the chair's seat—.

Merlin's beard!

Like a held breath, the magic escaped her grasp in a rush, and Harriet was herself again, quietly gasping. Voldemort's attention flickered in her direction—but Harriet clasped the arms of the chair, pretending nothing had changed, pretending the ropes weren't underneath her—.

Holy shite! I was a bloody bird! Her nails dug into the grimy wood. Elara owes Hermione ten Galleons.

The Dark Lord turned his attention again to Malfoy, the wizard still on his knees, now relaying information about Gaunt. Voldemort barely seemed to be listening.

Breathless, Harriet dared to glance toward the hearth and the mantel above. There, her wands waited, tossed by Crouch when he'd stolen her blood before he'd tied her arm down again. She could barely see them, but she knew they were there.

Slowly, Harriet unfurled her hand.

As she had done with Barnabus the Bust and his ugly bow tie, she extended every bit of her willpower toward the two slender sticks of wood carelessly left on the dusty stone slab. She pleaded with herself, with her magic, entreating it to fill her veins and swell into the surrounding limb, letting it prickle in her fingertips. Exhaustion weighed on her. Merely holding her hand out hurt—but Harriet didn't dare let it fall. No matter the pain, no matter how it wavered, she didn't look away. She didn't allow it to fall.

Please, please—.

The shadows twitched. One long, black limb crawled against the wall behind the Death Eaters, and Harriet watched in horror as the skeletal fingers curled over the mantel's lip.

What is he doing—?!

One of the wands moved. The end tipped as if flicked—and it rolled, falling from the shelf, hitting the floor with a damning clatter.

The Dark Lord fell silent. Like a serpent sighting prey, his head jerked to the side, spying the wand—and then he lifted his gaze to Harriet, her hand extended, free of the ropes. His eyes widened.

Harriet's heart nearly burst with urgency. "Accio!" she screamed.

Both wands flew through the air as if yanked by invisible strings and slapped into her open palm.

"No!" the Dark Lord roared—but he was too late.

Harriet pointed the wands at the floor. "Bombarda Maxima!"

The world erupted.

A/N: No mock duel between V and Harriet. I've always conceptualized Voldie having at least some element of sexism; a male Harry he would need to humiliate, a female Harry is already "weaker" by virtue of being a woman. It's not even something I think he'd be consciously aware of given how much he hates everyone lol.

The great mystery of Voldemort's wand: the answer Rowling gave for canon makes ZERO sense. ("Wormtail, desperate to curry favour, salvaged it from the place it had fallen and carried it to him.") Someone would have picked that ish up the night he was defeated and A) Stole it, or B) Snapped it to pieces. Anyway, in CDT if you recall, Voldemort "died" at the Longbottom's. Barty was there; he hid his master's wand and later retrieved it for him.

Wilkes is dead in canon, Adifeus Elks is an OC DE, and of course we know Yaxley and Malfoy. The rest of the DEs who would answer Voldemort are incarcerated.

There wasn't a way to naturally bring it up, but yes, the cauldron Voldemort used is the Pair Dadani, first mentioned all the way back in CH. 34.

Me: *smacks the top of Harriet's head*

Me: "This child can fit so much trauma in it."

Or

Harriet: *gets free*

Voldemort: "Harriet Houdini Potter, how dare—."