Annabeth Chase the Triwizard Champion

Chapter Thirty Seven

Wormtail approached Harry, who scrambled to find his feet, to support his own weight before the ropes were untied. Wormtail raised his new silver hand, pulled out the wad of material gagging Harry, and then, with one swipe, cut through the bonds tying Harry to the gravestone.

There was a split second where Harry considered running for it, but his injured leg shook under him as he stood on the overgrown grave, and the Death Eaters closed ranks, forming a tighter circle around Harry and Voldemort, so that the gaps where the missing death eaters should have stood were filled. Wormtail walked out of the circle and to the place where the Triwizard cup lay and returned with Harry's wand, which he shoved into Harry's hand without looking at him. Then Wormtail went back to his place in the circle of death eaters.

"You have been taught how to duel, Harry Potter?" Voldemort said softly.

Distantly Harry remembered the dueling club in his second year, but all he had learned then was expelliarmus, and what use would it be to disarm Voldemort, even if he could, when he was surrounded by death eaters, outnumbered at least thirty to one? He had never learned anything that could possibly prepare him for this. He knew he was facing the thing that Moody always warned about, the unblockable killing curse, and no one was there to protect him now.

"We bow to each other, Harry," Voldemort said, bending only slightly. "Come, the niceties must be observed. Dumbledore would like you to show manners... bow to death, Harry."

The death eaters were laughing, and Voldemort was smiling, but Harry was not going to bow. He wouldn't let Voldemort play with him like this before killing him. He wasn't going to give the satisfaction.

"I said, bow," Voldemort said. He raised his wand, and Harry felt his spine curve unwillingly into a dueler's bow. The death eaters laughed even harder. "Very good." Voldemort raised his wand, and with it, the pressure on Harry's back lifted. He stood straight. "And now you face me, like a man... straight backed and proud, the way your father died... and now, we duel."

Voldemort raised his wand, and before Harry could do anything to defend himself, before he could even move, he had been hit again by the cruciatus curse. The pain was so intense, so all consuming, that he barely knew where he was. White hot knives were piercing every inch of his skin, his head was surely going to burst with the pain, but he took a page out of Annabeth's book and he did not scream.

And then it stopped. Harry rolled over and scrambled to his feet, shaking as uncontrollably as Wormtail when he had cut his hand off. He staggered sideways and hit the wall of death eaters, and they shoved him right back.

"A little break," said Voldemort, eyes sparkling with excitement. "A little pause... that hurt, didn't it, Harry? You don't want me to do that again, do you?"

Harry said nothing. He was going to die, he knew it... he and Annabeth were never leaving this graveyard... but he wasn't going to play along. He wasn't going to obey Voldemort, he wasn't going to beg.

"I asked you whether or not you want me to do it again," Voldemort said softly. "Answer me! Imperio!"

And Harry felt, just like in Moody's classroom so long ago, the sensation that his mind had been wiped of all thought... it was bliss, not to think, it was almost like he was floating, dreaming... just answer no... say no... just answer no...

I will not, said a stronger voice in the back of Harry's head. I won't answer.

Just answer no...

I won't do it, I won't say it.

Just answer no...

"I WON"T!"