When Harry woke up, it was still dark out, but he didn't think he was anywhere near the same place. The woods smelled different than the Black Forest. He'd been lashed to a tree, and his map showed half a dozen red dots spread out near him.

[Marauders: Active] Harry Potter: I… uh… may have gotten more kidnapped than I expected.

Hermione Granger replies: Harry! It's been two hours. Where are you?

Reply to Hermione Granger: Don't know. Some woods. Different ones, though, I think.

Hermione Granger replies: I'm going to give you some cities to path to. We can work out where you are.

While Harry pretended to still be unconscious and helped Hermione triangulate his position, he overheard some of the Death Eaters talking. His chat log helpfully named them for him.

"I'm telling you, we can't just leave him tied to a tree!" Peter Pettigrew insisted. "He beat Malfoy."

"No one softer than a Malfoy," Rabastan Lestrange disagreed. "It was dark. Kid got lucky. You got him right after."

"Because I didn't give him a chance to fight me! He's got some kind of power. I've warned the Dark Lord…"

"And that's why we worked so hard on the plan. Relax, Wormtail. We have wands on the kid. He's what, thirteen? This many of us ready, Dumbledore himself wouldn't be able to try anything."

Harry tried to think of what Pettigrew knew he could do. He hadn't figured out how to chat until weeks after the rat had escaped, but he had talked to the original Marauders using the guild messaging. Did he think that required more effort than it did? Or had he warned them that Harry could easily be in touch with other people? The map system was showing directions to all the cities Hermione was telling him to look for, so it wasn't like they'd hidden him somewhere unplottable or under the fidelius.

Wait, had Pettigrew said he'd warned the Dark Lord?

THE GOBLET OF FIRE (MAIN QUEST)

Who will be the greatest mage in Europe?

* Attend the quidditch World Cup
* Escape the riot
* Confront the Death Eaters
* Allow yourself to be kidnapped
O Attend a ritual
O Duel Lord Voldemort
O (Optional) Don't let anyone else die

"The boy is awake," a high, cold voice warned, as Harry's scar suddenly began to throb with pain. He could make out two red dots approaching from the left side of the map to join the others.

Tom Riddle uses accidental Legilimency on Harry Potter: Failure (Mental Fortress)

With how much it hurt, automatically blocking Voldemort with his Mental Fortress, Harry wondered how much it would have hurt if the attack had succeeded. And why was it accidental? Was the pain in his scar around Voldemort, like he'd felt his first year, because the lich basically just had an aura of mind-reading that interacted weirdly with all the stuff Harry had going on?

"Open your eyes, boy. No use faking any longer," Rabastan insisted, matter-of-factly.

Harry followed the command, since looking around allowed him to get more information. He was, indeed, in a clearing in a dark forest with trees different than where he'd been abducted. A huge stone cauldron was heating not far from where he was tied up, the roaring fire beneath it the main light in the glade, setting off the mostly-emaciated faces of the surrounding Death Eaters like flickering skulls. An almost-fiery steam was rising from the surface, indicating that it was a potion in its final stages of readiness.

Harry wondered if this was actually the "goblet of fire" the quest title was talking about, or whether it had originally expected to involve that cup Bagman had gotten earlier in the year and the game system was now scrambling to keep up with him doing things early.

The red dots that hadn't been talking proved to be Malfoy and the other missing Death Eaters from Azkaban: the second Lestrange brother, Rookwood, and a handful of others that had joined the circle as Voldemort had arrived. None of them were even bothering to wear their masks, though they were all in their black robes. Perhaps the most surprising was that the dark lord himself was a tiny bundle of rags, being carried by someone not listed among the missing: Bartemius Crouch, though the man under the name plate also didn't look like the man with the toothbrush mustache that Harry had seen in his dream. Well, perhaps there was a familial resemblance. All of them were somewhere between levels 11 and 13, Bellatrix seemingly having been the highest-level among the cult.

Of course, his nameplate a little hard to see as it hovered against Crouch's face, Voldemort's was the most impressive.

TOM RIDDLE
Lich, Level 20
[DEATH EATERS (DARK LORD),
SLYTHERIN]

He clearly hadn't been one for amassing guild memberships like Dumbledore had. In the eaves of the wood, Harry spotted something that gave him hope that he could now complete his quest: an immense, dark snake.

NAGINI
Serpent Familiar (Advanced)
[TOM RIDDLE]

"The potion is ready, Lord," Rookwood instructed.

"It had better be. Do it now," insisted the bundle of rags that was apparently a mighty dark lord.

Crouch, carrying him, obligingly opened the package of clothing to reveal a deformed infant, more homunculus or imp than human being. With only two long strides he was at the cauldron, lowering the decrepit form into the steaming liquid. As the horrific form of Voldemort sank into the potion, his handler quickly stepped back. As he sank, Harry's scar began to burn with a sullen heat, only his mental fortress allowing him to mostly ignore the pain.

Rookwood pulled forth a carefully-penned parchment and raised his wand, reading the ritual chant. "Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son!" Pettigrew shuffled forward and emptied a canvas sack of decaying bones into the cauldron, reminding Harry of a dream barely remembered. He messaged his friends with what was happening as the cauldron began to emit blue light and sparks.

Moving on, the disgraced former member of the Department of Mysteries announced, "Flesh of the servant, willingly given, you will revive your master!" Trying to seem non-reluctant, Rodolphus Lestrange stepped forward, holding his left hand over the cauldron, hesitating as if this was a punishment he was to endure for his wife's transgressions. Rabastan stepped forward with a large, wickedly sharp knife, grimaced, and brought it down across his brother's wrist, managing to cleanly lop the hand off. It fell into the caldron as Rodolphus couldn't completely stifle his gasp of pain.

Remus Lupin replies: We think we know what this is. They're going to take some of your blood. Albus says it's important that you let them. For some reason.

As Rabastan worked to staunch his brother's bleeding wrist, the potion was turning a burning crimson, lighting the entire clearing more than the fire had with its lurid glow. Turning to Harry, Rookwood intoned, "Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken, you will resurrect your foe!" With a sneer, Malfoy moved over and stabbed Harry in the arm with a silver dagger, letting him bleed into a glass vial. It only did 20 points of damage, but it hurt. And he seemed to be losing another hit point every few seconds as no one sought to stop the bleeding.

As Malfoy emptied the vial of Harry's blood into the cauldron, it went from red to blinding white, diamond-like blobs of glistening potion erupting into the air like a shower of jewels, preceding a billowing cloud of steam that the Death Eaters scurried away from since it seemed blisteringly hot. Moments later, the silhouette of an almost-skeleton marred the perfect white of the steam, Voldemort growing back to adult size from within the cauldron as his nameplate rose higher and higher from the vessel. "Robe me," he insisted, voice deeper than it had been as a homunculus but no less cold. Crouch stepped forward with a black robe and momentarily disappeared into the cooling steam, mercifully clothing the dark lord's body before he was revealed.

Once the steam dissipated but the clearing remained unnaturally lit by whatever essence of potion still shone like a spotlight from within the cauldron, Harry could make out his nemesis' bone-white, bald, and noseless face above the collar of the expensive, sable robes, regarding Harry with his scarlet eyes.

[Marauders] Harry Potter: Well, guys, he's back. I hope Dumbledore has a good plan.

Voldemort smirked at the Boy-Who-Lived, then pointedly ignored him while he stepped free of the cauldron gracefully, thrilled to regard his own mobility and long, spiderlike fingers. At least the pain in Harry's scar had diminished to a dull ache, though it flared slightly every time the dark lord's gaze passed over him. Eventually, the bleeding in his arm had stopped on its own, though he was down nearly 50 hit points by the time it finished.

Having a detailed conversation with his friends using the chat system, Harry was only half-aware of the grandstanding the reborn Voldemort was doing among his minions. Pettrigrew had found the lich's wand, somehow or other, and eagerly returned it. He blessed the few of them that had attended him in his weakness, even deigning to give Rodolphus a conjured silver hand to replace the one that had been sacrificed. Then he did something to the inside of Crouch's wrist with his wand that caused the man to writhe and most of the others to clutch their own arms in the same spot, the pain shooting back up in Harry's scar. "How many will be brave enough to return when they feel it? We shall see who else remains loyal. And which fools stay away."

The arrival of the other Death Eaters was not instantaneous. Voldemort looked annoyed, and it was Malfoy who finally pointed out, "Most of them are a portkey away, Lord. I'm sure they will attend soon."

Grudgingly nodding, and having nothing better to do than gloat, the lich turned to Harry and explained, "Little did you know that your accomplishments this year only sped up my return." Having his full attention made Harry's scar burn. "First, you gave Wormtail sufficient incentive to find me. Then you inadvertently toppled the prison and loosed the most loyal who had never recanted their service to me." He fixed Pettigrew and Malfoy with his gaze of displeasure as he explained these points. "Both the rat and the press seem to think that you have some special gifts. So it will only serve to embellish my own grandeur when you die by my hand. Don't worry, it won't be long now. I merely require an audience so that none can doubt."

Finally, slowly, spinning out of the night sky clinging to old pieces of trash that had been made into portkeys, more and more Death Eaters began to fill the midnight glade. What had started as fewer than a dozen red dots multiplied until Harry could barely keep count as they overlapped, but he thought it was around 30. Their masks and robes were unable to conceal their names from the game system, and he spotted several he recognized such as the Carrows and Macnair, others that shared last names with his Slytherin classmates, and the somewhat-surprising Severus Snape. Each of them was cowed under Voldemort's gaze as they arrived, silencing them. Now that they were appearing, he was more relaxed, standing on his back foot as if he was patiently waiting.

When no new arrivals had come for five minutes, the dark lord frowned slightly that there were still members missing, but began to speak. "Welcome, Death Eaters. Eleven years since last we met. Yet you answer my call as if it were yesterday. We are still united under the Dark Mark, then! Or are we?"

What followed was nearly ten minutes of grandstanding, as Voldemort ran his followers through the renewal of their abusive relationship, chastising them for not going to Azkaban or seeking him out, even using a torture curse on those that especially displeased him.

Harry had tuned it out so much while he talked to his friends that he was surprised to pick up the tail end of the monologue to realize that Voldemort was talking about him, moving forward to stand by the tree where he was bound. "…admit I had not foreseen that I could not touch the boy." One long pale finger caressed Harry's cheek as the dark lord briefly explained Harry's mother's sacrificial magic and finished, "But, no matter, I can touch him now." He ground his thumb into Harry's scar, causing him to have to bite back a scream as it boiled with pain.

Even after the man let go, the burning was a distraction from his long-winded explanation of how he'd managed to revive himself. Harry knew most of it anyway, from what he'd dreamed of Pettigrew's journey and what Dumbledore had worked out. The guy clearly loved to hear himself talk. Harry almost missed that the lich's focus was back on him.

"…the boy you all believed had been my downfall. Crucio!"

Harry nearly blacked out from the pain. His hit point bar and his stamina began to drop dramatically in the corner of his darkening vision. He may have screamed. He may have vomited. He wasn't sure if the game system would provide a way around it if he looked, but he never wanted to experience that again.

As the pain subsided, he'd clearly missed another bout of monologuing, vaguely aware of more grandstanding about how easy he'd be to defeat. "And now, Wormtail, give him back his wand."

THE GOBLET OF FIRE (MAIN QUEST)

Who will be the greatest mage in Europe?

* Attend the quidditch World Cup
* Escape the riot
* Confront the Death Eaters
* Allow yourself to be kidnapped
* Attend a ritual
O Duel Lord Voldemort
O (Optional) Fight back
O (Optional) Don't let anyone else die

[Marauders] Harry Potter: I'm about to duel Voldemort. And it looks like the quest thinks that fighting back is optional for some reason. But the snake is here, and if we kill it, we can kill him, right?

While he waited for a response, Pettigrew was cutting the rope tying Harry to the tree and helping him stagger to his feet. Between the blood loss and the torture, he wasn't sure he was up to winning a duel with a level 20 lich, even with the Elder Wand. As the rat slapped his holly wand into his hand, he finally heard back. He wasn't expecting a message from the headmaster, but presumably someone was recounting the Marauders chat to him.

Reply from Albus Dumbledore: I'm so sorry, Harry, but I believe the quest confirms it. I wish I'd told you this under better circumstances, but there's one more horcrux. It's inside of you.

Reply from Albus Dumbledore: Even if we defeat him today, Tom can keep coming back. Unless you fulfill the prophecy. Unless you choose to die…

It was a lot to ask of someone at any time, let alone over text chat while he was about to fight the man that had killed his parents. But it somehow made sense. "Don't let anyone else die" had been staring at him for months, with a very unusual emphasis on the else.

He'd agonized over it at night, that stress on the word. He'd soaked in the guilt that it had appeared in response to his fellow students accusing him of being responsible for the deaths at Azkaban. Somewhere, deep inside, he'd felt the martyr complex grow, wondering if he could sacrifice himself to even the score.

And now the headmaster was giving him a reason to do it.

"You have been taught how to duel, Harry Potter?" Voldemort was asking him, with a cruel smirk.

Harry felt the holly wand in his hand. The burning in his scar. Was that where the horcrux lived? Was that why it always hurt when he was near the lich? It would be so easy to dodge, even at this range. The dark lord would grandstand. He wouldn't try hard for his first attack. Once he'd missed once, Harry would be behind the tree. He could quickswitch and get under his cloak.

Honestly, Pettigrew should have told them about the inventory system. That he might have other items available. But either the rat had forgotten in all the other things he'd learned, or the rest of the Death Eaters hadn't believed him. He'd moved to the edge of the clearing, ready to flee himself if he needed to. Unsure of how this was going to go. Maybe the prophecy's "power the Dark Lord knows not" line simply realized that the lich would never fully believe it. Harry had a gift that only a few mages in history had developed. The great Lord Voldemort wouldn't be willing to admit that he had never discovered rumor of such power. If he had, he'd have bent all his will in the first war to finding Ekrizdis under Azkaban.

"I do," Harry admitted, after a long pause, just before his nemesis was about to say something. "Do we bow?"

Slightly wrong-footed by just how blank Harry looked, the lich admitted, "The niceties must be observed. Dumbledore would like you to show manners. Bow to death Harry."

The Death Eaters were about to chuckle but in the still-present witchlight of the resurrection ritual, they could make out Harry's wry grin. That was basically what he was doing, right? The dark humor of it was more than he could contain. Death was someone you could bow to, after all. Harry had the Hallows to prove it. He'd seen the reputation increase with Death when he'd destroyed Ekrizdis. Maybe if he died in the process of destroying another lich, Death would appreciate him even more and he'd have his pick of afterlives.

Tom Riddle uses wandless Legilimency on Harry Potter: Failure (Mental Fortress)

The dark lord's eyes widened as far as they could, orbs of worried red, as his probe failed (even though he saw Harry wince in pain as it caused his scar to burn). But he couldn't admit that something was going on with the boy that he didn't understand. Harry Potter wasn't supposed to be calm and collected. He was meant to be terrified, what little spirit he had left broken in front of the Death Eaters. Smiling that grim smile, mind closed tighter than a Gringotts vault, Tom Riddle started to worry. And the boy was bowing. So he had to bow, too. He was putting on a performance, after all.

Harry somehow worked out that the duel would probably involve several more very painful curses. He didn't want to suffer the torture curse again. He wanted the man to end it, if it was going to have to end. If Voldemort drew it out, Harry would lose his nerve. He'd start dodging. Fight back. Run away. If he was willing to bow to Death, he would prefer to go out quickly. And he'd heard that the killing curse was, at least, supposed to be painless.

Whisper to Tom Riddle: Are you ready? Let's give them a show, Tom.

His eyes already as wide as they could go, Voldemort's lips split back in a rictus of shock as the boy so easily seemed to slide past his own Occlumency shields and speak into his mind. Harry's lips hadn't been moving. What was this magic? Perhaps the rat had been right. He should have done this privately, so he could force free whatever secrets the boy had. But he hadn't believed a 13-year-old raised by muggles could possibly know anything.

Well, he hadn't been willing to admit that another young halfblood raised by muggles might have become even more proficient than he had been. Tom Riddle, even as a prodigy, was only beginning to learn magic outside the curriculum by his third year at Hogwarts. How could another boy have so surpassed him at that age?

What would the child be able to do? What if he landed a spell that made Lord Voldemort look weak? Now was the time to show his renewed strength. He had meant to give them a show, but if that was what Potter wanted, then he'd make it quick. The one thing he was certain of was that the dead mother's gift had been subverted, and would no longer make the child proof against the killing curse. And there was no other proof against that curse.

He was certain of it. Right?

[Marauders] Harry Potter: They're about to be really distracted, so I hope you're all ready. I… uh… I'm sorry. Dumbledore will explain everything. Make sure to get the snake.

Standing from his bow, Harry was looking past Voldemort. He was agonizing over whether he should have said something like, "I love you all." Would "Dumbledore will explain everything" be a fitting epitaph? If anything, his last two years made him pretty sure that the old man probably wouldn't. But maybe that's how it had to be? He negligently started to lift his wand hand as if he was going to cast a spell.

Furious at his moment of triumph turning to ashes in his mouth as the boy was barely even looking at him, Lord Voldemort summoned up every ounce of hatred he needed to fuel the killing curse and bellowed out, "Avada Kedavra!"

Harry's last expression was another ironic grin. The green light of the curse moved so fast. But he was pretty sure he could have dodged it.

They were right. It was painless.