Time Is Life

I'm alive!

"Barty, so glad you could join us at this fine evening." Harry greets the young Death Eater.

"Where is Pettigrew and where is the Lord?" Barty snarls and Harry points into the cauldron.

"I'm missing the flesh of the servant and Pettigrew isn't good enough. I was hoping you could be of...assistance?"

The straw blond man sighs and walks over, his gaunt features shining in the night's eerie glow. "What do I need to do?"

"Take any part of your body and sacrifice it into the cauldron."

Barty nods and then takes the dagger from Harry's hand. Slowly, agonisingly so. Harry watches as Barty takes a deep breath and stretches his right hand out in front of him. He grips the dagger in his left hand and cuts his hand off without remorse. There's a sickening splash as the hand lands in the cauldron.

Harry quickly takes Barty's bleeding arm in gentle fingers and forces his magic to beckon the man's own into regenerating. There's a groan and then the blond man stares at his regrown hand in disbelief. "That...this is amazing. But why are you doing this, Potter?"

Harry ignores him and continues with the ritual.

"Flesh of the servant willingly given you will revive your master." And then Harry turns to the other man with a calm expression, eyes glowing in the dim light. "I'm doing this for the future, my family and my friends. I have seen... things...things you could never imagine happening. I've seen through my mistakes and hope to undo them."

The other gapes at the fourteen year old, who is calmly staring at the potion within the cauldron, Barty has been told by his lord how this ritual works, yet the potion before his eyes looks different. Purer somehow, purer than what his Lord told him it would be. As if sensing the unspoken question, Harry looks into the liquid. "I'm a potions master, I know what I'm doing and I plan on utilising my knowledge to my family's side's utmost advantage. Now then..."

With that he clips the necklace around his neck open and takes out a diadem and a ring. Then the boy turns to the snake and motions her to come over. "If you want to help your master then let me get that soul piece out of you." Nagini slithers over and Harry proceeds with the ritual as if nothing.

"Virtutes hujus animae, libera eam redire ad dominum suum." Harry pours what seemingly looks like a silver liquid into the angry red potion.The liquid within turns, instantly, a blinding white. Harry steps back with a smile.

Now, all that's left to do is wait. Wait for Tom to rise once more.  Harry just hopes that Cedric is coping fine with his Empathy and all. He sighs and sets his focus back to the task at hand.

The cauldron is simmering, sending its diamond sparks in all directions, so blindingly bright that it turns all else to velvety blackness. Nothing happens, Harry knows about patience, he also remembers his thoughts almost eight years ago. He had hoped that the thing, that is Voldemort, drowned. He's changed so much in seemingly so little time and he blames the war for it.

And then the sparks emanating from the cauldron are extinguished. A surge of white steam billows thickly from the cauldron instead, obliterating everything around Harry, so that Barty couldn't see him or Wormtail or anything but vapor hanging in the air.

Then, through the mist in front of him, emerging from the cauldron, he sees the dark outline of a man, tall and lean, rising slowly.

"Robe me, brat" says a deep, cold voice to him. Involuntarily Harry shivers and then laughs at himself. He makes his way to the dark robes on the ground next to Wormtail. Harry sneers at the pitiful being and shoves him away with his foot. He'll make sure to prove Sirius' innocence just to deal with the dog animagus himself. Harry pulls the robes over Tom and then let's the man do the rest himself.