PRIORI INCANTATEM

1. The Awakening - of Good and Evil

"Kill the spare," Harry heard a high, cold voice say.

A swishing noise and a second voice, which screeched the words to the night: "Avada Kedavra!"

(A/N: Cedric is dead, as you've all read what happened next, I'm skipping to when the duel between Harry James Potter and Tom Marvolo Riddle A.K.A. Lord Voldemort is going on. My apologies to those who haven't actually read the books, and call themselves potter-heads solely on the basis of watching the movies.)

Harry crouched behind the headstone and knew that the end had come. There was no hope . . . no help to be had. And as he heard Voldemort draw nearer still, he knew one thing only, and it was beyond fear or reason: He was not going to die crouching here like a child playing hide-and-seek; he was not going to die kneeling at Voldemort's feet . . . he was going to die upright like his father, and he was going to die trying to defend himself, even if no defense was possible. . . .

Before Voldemort could stick his snakelike face around the headstone, Harry stood up . . . he gripped his wand tightly in his hand, thrust it out in front of him, and threw himself around the headstone, facing Voldemort.

Voldemort was ready. As Harry shouted "Expelliarmus!" Voldemort cried, "Avada Kedavra!"

(A/N: AND HERE MY STORY BEGINS...)

A jet of green light issued from Voldemort's wand just as a jet of red light blasted from Harry's — they met in midair — and suddenly Harry's wand was vibrating as though an electric charge were surging through it; his hand seized up around it; he couldn't have released it of he'd wanted to — and a narrow beam of light connected the two wands, neither red not green, but bright, deep gold. Harry, following the beam with his astonished gaze, saw that Voldemort's long white fingers too were gripping a wand that was shaking and vibrating.

And then — nothing could have prepared Harry for this — he felt his feet lift from the ground. He and Voldemort were both being raised into the air, their wands still connected by the thread of shimmering golden light. They glided away from the tombstone of Voldemort's father and then same to rest on a patch of ground that was clean and free of graves, where the body of Cedric Diggory lay, along with the Triwizard Cup, long forgotten . . . the Death Eaters were shouting; they were asking Voldemort for instructions; they were closing in, reforming the circle around Harry and Voldemort, the snake slithering at their heels, some of them drawing their wands —

The golden thread connecting Harry and Voldemort splintered; though the wands remained connected, a thousand more beams arced high over Harry and Voldemort, crisscrossing all around them, until they were enclosed — along with Cedric's body and the Cup — in a golden, dome-shaped web, a cage of light, beyond which the Death Eaters circled like jackals, their cries now muffled, awaiting orders from Voldemort.

"Do nothing!" Voldemort shrieked. "Do nothing unless I command you!" Harry held onto his wand more tightly and fixed his gaze over Cedric's body, which lay some three feet away from him. I have to do it for Cedric, he thought to himself.

And then an unearthly and beautiful sound filled the air . . . the phoenix song. It was the sound of hope to Harry . . . the most beautiful and welcome thing he had ever heard in his life . . . Along with it came a sound he connected with Dumbledore, and it was almost as though a friend were speaking in his ear. . . .

Don't break the connection.

I know, Harry told the music. No sooner had he thought it, than the thing became much harder to do. His wand began to vibrate more powerfully than ever . . . and now the beam between him and Voldemort changed too . . . it was as though large beads of light were sliding up and down the thread connecting the wands — Harry felt his wand give a shudder under his hand as the light beads began to slide slowly and steadily his way. . . . The direction of the beam's movement was now toward him, from Voldemort, and he felt is wand shudder angrily. . . .