Darkness.
Harry was never afraid of the darkness, but he was actually afraid of going in it alone - which he was precisely doing right now and he hated every moment of it.
He was in a dark room filled with a curious red fog. As far as the eye could see, he could see nothing apart from the fog present. He took a step forwards and the smoke around his feet cleared, which sent ripples through ankle level water that wasn't there before.
"Hello?"
Nobody answered. His own voice seemed to echo back and ring into his ears. As he took another step forward, his whole surroundings began to change and he was back in the third task of the Triwizard Tournament which he just won a few hours prior. The snakes, hedges, Victor Krum being under the Imperius, the Sphinx, the Acromantula, the whole memory just zipped by but for Harry, it was going on at the perfect pace.
As he was watching the memory, he realised he could see and hear many more things than he originally did in the memory. As he looked over the memory, certain instances made him wonder what was the cause behind them. Especially one such as the snakes.
In such a tournament where the beasts to be encountered are 100% likely to be magical, facing a dozen snakes is certainly questionable. Why have something so odd and mundane?
What was more concerning, was their response. He vividly remembers the snakes hissing back at him in declination of his order to move to the side.
"Move," he remembered hissing at the snakes in parseltongue, commanding them to slither aside.
The snakes hissed back quite stubbornly, "No we won't…."
And they started attacking him viciously, like the snakes they were.
After this, he had to brutalise them with multiple reductor curses. Did he feel bad? Sure. Did he feel bad killing snakes that were most likely not on the registered animals list for the tournament and posed a threat to him? No.
However, what the surviving snakes hissed at him was not forgettable at all.
"Expect the unexpected, Harry Potter. As he would not hesitate to do something out of the box to kill you."
He still had no clue as to what that meant. Who was this 'he' in this scenario? Voldemort?
As the memory moved on, he observed the memory-him slowing down to just a walk.
Remembering he just keeps walking on for a while here, his mind began to wander around to other topics.
Two topics of his dreams he had been having recently.
One being of a snake eating its own tail and the second being of some war. Some alien war. With a three-headed dragon as his enemy. And he looked like some sort of a bipedal radioactive lizard was like four-hundred feet tall.
What he could gather from this dream was that the three-headed dragons had attacked the bipedal radioactive lizard's species and the radioactive lizards fought back. And in the dream, he was the last of the bipedal lizards and he had frozen the last three-headed dragon somewhere for eternity.
A series of pictures play in his head every time he tries to sleep. It always is the same bipedal lizard firing a...blue ray at a three-headed dragon. Wait a minute, upon remembering the pictures, Harry realised the bipedal lizard must be... radioactive as the blue beam has hints of purple in it.
What he did notice was that this bipedal lizard looked exactly the same as his Patronus and the one spirit of the lizard which saved Ginny and him back in the Chamber.
Who was this lizard? Or rather, what was this lizard?
As his mind focused on the memory again, he heard a whisper which he didn't hear last time.
"He is coming. Death's champion is coming.."
This left him confused. Who was Death's champion? And why was he coming? Hold on, is the "he" the snakes were talking about, this so-called 'Death's champion?'
As he kept thinking about it, the other him reached the Sphinx and answered the riddle it had asked.
"Dread it.
Run from it.
Do whatever you can,
it arrives all the same.
There is no hiding, only running from the inevitable.
Running from Thanatos.
What am I?"
By now he knows the answer was death, but what was up with all those ominous whispers, warnings, and now that riddle? Not to mention the warning the Sphinx gave after this.
"Very well... Harry Potter. Dread it, run from it, destiny still arrives all the same. The era of destruction... looms near. He is coming. Half of all life would cease to exist. He...is coming. Death's champion is coming,.."
Were these signs of Voldemort's mere return? Or were these things about this so-called Death's Champion? But there was one thing Harry was sure about.
And that was that he was bloody confused.
The Acromantula, the Triwizard Cup which turned out to be a Portkey, and their arrival at the graveyard all played out. Dread began to build up within Harry as he kept on watching and knew what was going to happen.
"Kill the spare," a high-cold voice said in the memory.
A second voice screeched out, "AVADA KEDAVRA!"
As Harry saw the greenlight fly by him, he knew what was going to happen and screamed, "NO! CEDRIC!"
As the green light struck Cedric Diggory, he went flying and then landed on a pile of rocks, far away from Harry, sprawled and utterly motionless.
The Harry who was watching the memory couldn't help but feel guilty for his death as tears spilled out his eyes at the sight of Cedric dead. He continuously blamed himself for Cedric's death. He should've just taken the Cup, not the both of them. He was just too damn noble at times.
The tears of guilt transformed into tears of frustration as the scene unfolded in front of him. No matter how much he tried to suppress his anger, it always let out whenever he saw Pettigrew in robes of the dark.
"Do it now, Wormtail."
Sparks of magic were starting to flow in between Harry's fingertips. The animalistic fury he felt towards Wormtail was unmeasurable. As Harry was being tied up in the memory to a headstone by the ex-Marauder, the statements made by memory-him perfectly matched what Harry was feeling.
"Pettigrew, they were right after all. Fleeing to the dark side as soon as you could when you saw the light waver. Always hiding behind the strong. Pathetic. You are what you hid as twelve years - a rat."
Said rat paid no attention to the teenager.
Cedric was lying what Harry would've guessed was some thirty feet away. Behind him, glinting in the star light, lay the Triwizard Cup. Harry's wand was at Cedric's feet.
Then he noticed movement within the bundle. As the movement got more fervent, he had the lingering want for the bundle to cease its moving and whatever it was to not to come out.
Wormtail's wheezy breathing was growing louder again. It sounded like he was dragging something big and heavy across the ground.
Memory Harry had no clue what it was, but the real Harry did.
And he hated every inch of it.
It was a cauldron. The biggest cauldron he had ever seen.And the very precise one which resurrected one of the darkest wizards of all time.
Hatred began bubbling within Harry as he began re-living the entire ordeal, Hatred he couldn't begin to explain began to bubble up within him which just so happened to anger him to such an extent that blue flames of magic began flowing out of Harry's fingertips, eyes and nostrils.
The fury was unmatched.
Yet, as soon as a slimy, grotesque and reddish-brown figure levitated from the cauldron and its arms, legs, feet began growing in length, Harry's fury was immediately covered by a blanket of disgust he felt towards the homunculus.
With an odd clarity in his vision which he clearly remembered he didn't have when the memory originally took place, Harry could exactly see what transformation the homunculus was going through in morbid detail.
As its body levitated above the hissing waters of the cauldron, its skin was very clearly too big for its frame and it was drooping down from its frail body, hanging on by the tendons. As its limbs began to grow in size, its skin did give away and drop into the hissing waters below, vaporising in an instant.
As Harry watched on in horror, its vertebrae began to enlarge and then readjust themselves in a manner which made it seem like the homunculus has some sort of a sail on its back yet, they were perfectly aligned as a normal spine should be.
The sight of it unnerved Harry and he didn't like it one bit.
In ice-cold horror, he was stuck to his spot as the arms of this creature grew long enough for one to mistake it for a femur but the size of the creature itself grew to an intimidating 6'5.
Harry then noticed a detail he never had particularly paid attention to.
There were scales growing all over its body. Forming themselves on every bit of skin they could find and firmly attach themselves to. Their colour wasn't all that different from its regular skin - an off-colour white.
The scales were covering all inches of skin that was visible, including the skin on the scalp. As the scales began to settle down, all the surrounding mist died down and Wormtail nervously approached the horrific sight.
"M-M-Master?"
Instead of a response which signifies that the creature acknowledged Wormtail's presence, it fell on all fours and began screaming in pain as its jaws began to grow in length. It sounded like a cross between a woman desperately trying to breathe, an infant dying, an alligator growling and most predominantly, a dying animal.
Harry stepped closer a bit tentatively to see why it was screaming only to be rooted to the spot in fear.
He could recognize the homunculus - but the creature's - (he wasn't even sure whether he could call him a man anymore) jaws were lengthening.
Its jaws lengthened into an irregular shape which looked really foriegn on his humanoid face and the growth stopped, resulting in the creation of an abomination which looked other-worldly, but at the same time, looked completely human.
"Robe me, Wormtail."
As black robes covered the creature, it fully stood up to its full height and smiled as it turned around to meet both of the Harry's eyes.
The creature stared at them, and both of the Harrys stared back into the face that haunted their nightmares for three years. Whiter than a skull, with wide livid scarlet eyes and jaws long enough to give it an other-worldly appearance but short enough for it to look humane enough to be positively eerie and unnerving.
Lord Voldemort had risen again.
Most of the memory then went by just as he remembered it to be. Voldemort basking in the power he felt of having a body once again, gloating about his past glory, intentionally trying to piss Harry off - it all went just like it did before. Until one part, it went like before.
Harry didn't remember the rest of it. So without interfering or doing anything stupid, he just watched on.
"-It was old magic, something I should've foreseen but no matter, I will finish what I sought out to do thirteen years ago."
Voldemort then turned towards Harry as if he just remembered he was there.
"Ah, little Harry Potter! The one who is apparently the vanquisher of the Dark Lord Voldemort, vanquisher of the wizard who's name many fear to speak. The boy tied to this headstone, as - as my destroyer," then he began to laugh as if he just shared the greatest joke ever told.
All of his followers began to nervously laugh as well, not wanting to die by Voldemort's hand while some truly loved the mockery and kept laughing.
As his laughter ceased, he continued, "You see Harry, after I am done with you, I will send your decapitated head to your old Headmaster, truly showing him the mistakes he made. Make him live and feel the pain, understand?"
Then he twirled his wand which led Harry being released from the headstone - resulting in him falling over to his knees, gasping for air.
While Harry was on his knees, Voldemort reapparated in front of him and kneed him in the face, taking morbid pleasure in getting to do so.
He kept smiling as Harry's glasses went flying and the aforementioned boy was struggling to find them. As soon as Harry felt his fingers clasp cold glass, he saw Voldemort's horrifying figure right above him, bending down, hissing, "Now a mere touch, is as painful as a cruciatus," and touched his scar which amplified the pain Harry was already experiencing.
Right before the pain was becoming too much for Harry to handle, Voldemort removed his finger, cackling as he saw Harry yell in pain.
Putting his foot over Harry's chest, he said, "You see Harry Potter, I will make it known wide across how I made the great and mighty Boy-Who-Lived, beg for death. He who begged for death after being incapable to take me on anymore and how I, a great and merciful lord, granted his wish."
As he got up and began walking away, he turned around, swung his wand like a whip and said,
"Get up Harry Potter, GET UP! They taught you to duel, didn't they?"
He began chuckling as Harry began to struggle to get up, cringing in pain due to the many broken bones he had.
"So bow, Dumbledore wouldn't want you to forget your manners, now would he?"
Harry didn't bow.
"I said bow."
At that comment, Harry felt a slight mental chill within the realms of his mind, commanding him to bow. He felt the urge to bow yet his iron will refused to do so, resulting in him bowing only for the slightest amount, and as soon as Voldemort released the spell, Harry fell back three steps, as if he was being held by a rubber band.
As soon as his vision stabilised, his entire world exploded in pain while he just heard a mere, "Crucio."
He fell to the ground, face first as his body contorted while feeling a white-hot sensation across the entirety of his system. It felt as if a thousand knives were being put into his skin and as if hot magma was being poured onto his body while his bones were being broken, then fixed and then broken again.
He never felt this much pain in his entire life.
His back arched in pain as he kept yelling.
Voldemort kept laughing.
As soon as he released the spell, a green curse shot out of his wand which barely missed the boy.
"Get up Harry Potter, get up and grab your wand!"
Harry barely got up and grabbed his wand before a green spell came crashing near his feet, for which he dived behind a headstone to take cover. As he took cover, Voldemort then sent another killing curse towards the headstone, leaving Harry without a cover until Harry himself sent a spell which erected a smokescreen and allowed him to take proper cover.
Infuriated, golden sparks were escaping Voldemort's eyes as he yelled,
"COME OUT HARRY POTTER! COME OUT AND FIGHT ME UNTIL I KILL YOU! I WANT TO SEE THE LIGHT LEAVE YOUR EYES!"
Harry never felt as scared as he did in his entire life. He never thought there would be a day where he would indeed face Voldemort in a wand duel, and now, he wasn't sure whether he would make it out alive or not.
To gather some hope, he closed his eyes and murmured, "Mum, Dad, give me strength. Give me strength to fight Voldemort and live to see another day. Please… give me strength."
When he opened his eyes again, unaware to him, blue energy began flowing through Harry's veins and eyes, giving him energy to fight the duel while a voice in the wind - going unheard by Harry - said, "Good luck son."
He got up from the reaper statue he was taking cover behind, and slowly began to walk towards the most powerful Dark Lord in the recent century with his chest out, taking prideful steps.
Smirking, the dark lord said, "The Boy-Who-Lived, has finally come to die."
In a split second, both of them raised their wands and yelled out their respective spells.
"AVADA KEDAVRA!"
"EXPELLIARMUS!"
A pillar of green light escaped Voldemort's yew wand just as a column of red light blasted from Harry's and they met midair — his wand began vibrating as if an electric charge were surging through it; his hands seized up around it; he couldn't have released it if he'd wanted to — and a narrow beam of light connected the two wands, neither red nor green, but bright, deep gold.
White energy began to form around the tips of their wands and similar white smoke was slowly seeping out of Harry's scar and Voldemort's eyes. The smoke began accumulating around the pair to make a shield, which would stop anybody else from interfering and nobody else would be in the duel apart from themselves.
Voldemort lifted his free arm and aimed it towards the sky, wishing to unleash his fury on Harry, but at the sight, Harry was perplexed as he was gripping his wand with both ends for it to not go out of his control.
For a moment, all noises ceased to exist. Harry couldn't hear the murmur and occasional gun-fire like claps of the spells from the Death Eaters, he couldn't hear nor see Voldemort properly (Voldemort was growing hazier by the second) and nor could he hear the crunch of the foliage beneath him.
All he could hear was his own quickened breathing.
Then all of a sudden, like a bull in a china shop, distant thunderclaps broke Harry's train of thought. Golden yellow sparks began to zap around Voldemort's fingertips, as if trying to summon lightning.
Thunderclouds gathered and it began to rain.
The water pressed on Harry's clothes, making them feel twice as heavier than they should be. The rain began to disrupt his vision as droplets were crashing against Harry's glasses making his vision blurry.
The rain stuck to everything and made everything Harry worse, grow heavier. The rain seeped into his wounds and made all of his wounds sting.
As he was wondering what was happening on Voldemort's side, a bright golden stream of lighting flew towards him but before real-Harry could relieve and see the outcome even if he knew it, his vision began to blacken as he saw the familiar ceiling tiles of the hospital wing again. He then heard a patronising old motherly voice say, "Welcome back Mr.Potter."
What the fuck just happened?