I felt my feet slam into the ground; my ankle, already throbbing from having weight on it, burst with pain. I dropped the Triwizard cup and clutched at Cedric. Cedric kept hold of me, not even wincing when my long nails ripped through his robes and scratched his skin.
Harry fell to his knees on the other side of Cedric, clutching his leg.
"Where are we?" Harry said.
Cedric and I shook our heads. Cedric pulled Harry to his feet and we all looked around. We had left the Hogwarts grounds completely; we had obviously traveled miles - perhaps hundreds of miles - for even the mountains surrounding the castle were gone. We were standing instead in a dark and overgrown graveyard; the black outline of a small church was visible beyond a large yew tree to our right. A hill rose above us to our left. I could just make out the outline of a fine old house on the hillside.
I became nervous and my the palms of my hands were moist with sweat. I became aware of all of my aches in my stomach, ankle, arms, legs, neck, and face. My mane of dark red hair was clinging to my cheeks and neck and hung over my shoulders, resting just above the small of my back.
Cedric looked down at the Triwizard Cup and then up at Harry.
"Did anyone tell you the cup was a Portkey?" he asked.
"Nope," said Harry. I looked around the graveyard, which was silent and eerie."Is this supposed to be part of the task?"
"I dunno," said Cedric. He sounded slightly nervous. "Wands out, d'you reckon?"
"Yeah," said Harry, he looked glad.
Cedric pulled out my wand and looked at me worriedly. I looked back up at him and felt alert. Not only did I have no chance of running from danger, but I would have to sit back and watch as my brother and boyfriend faught whatever was here. My heart dropped.
Cedric carried me over to a large rock and placed me behind it, so that the shadow covered me completely. "Blend in, Nix." he whispered. "And stay out of trouble."
"I will." I whispered back. "But only if you promise to not get hurt."
"I promise."
"I'll hold you to that."
I didn't know why, but I felt as though something terrible was going to happen. I didn't care that Harry was watching us suspiciously, I grabbed the collor of Cedric's robes and pulled him towards me. I kissed him softly, but quickly, knowing that I couldn't distract him much.
Cedric grinned at me and straightened up, going back to stand beside Harry. I suddenly felt as though they were being watched.
"Someone's coming," Harry said suddenly.
Blend in. Cedric's words rang in my ears. I squinted my eyes, almost as though I were in great pain, and I seen the fringe of my dark red hair turn dark grey - almost black - the same color as the shadow the rock cast over me.
"Miscretius," I said as a spell popped in my mind. I watched as my Gryffindore red robes turned the same color as my hair, dark grey.
I morphed my skin to become the same color as my hair and robes and I knew that my eyes were dark grey also. Everything about me was Dark grey. I suddenly felt like a camileon.
I peeked over the rock towards the direction Harry and Cedric were looking and seen a short figure making its way over to them. I couldn't make out a face, but from the way it was walking and holding its arms, I could tell that it was carrying something. Whoever it was, he was short, and wearing a hooded cloak pulled up over his head to obscure his face. And - several paces nearer, the gap between it and Harry and Cedric closing all the time - I saw that the thing in the persons arms looked like a baby… or was it merely a bundle of robes?
Harry lowered his wand and both Cedric and he glanced quizzically at eachother before turning to watch the figure. It stopped beside a towering marble headstone, only six feet from them. For a second Harry and Cedric and the short figure simply looked at one another.
And then, without warning, my scar exploded with pain. I stuffed my knuckle in my mouth and bit into it as I muffled my scream. For now, the creature had no idea I was here, and I planned on keeping it that way; or me and Cedric's deal would be broken. . .
I tasted blood in my mouth but I didn't care. The pain in my forehead was unbelievable, but still. . . not as bad as the cruciatus curse.
From far away, I heard a high and cold voice sa, "Kill the spare."
A swishing noise and a second voice, which screeched the words to the night:
"Avada Kedavra!"
A blast of green light blazed through my eyelids, and I heard something heavy fall to the ground a few feet away; the pain in my scar reached such a pitch that I bit harder into my knuckle. Then . .. it left. I opened my eyes.
A few feet away, right beside Harry's crumpled figure lay Cedric, who was lying spread-eagled on the ground. I blinked. He almost looked dead. But he wasn't, he promised to not get hurt, and he always kept his promises.
I stared at Cedric for a moment. He wouldn't leave Harry to fight for himself would he? Why wouldn't he get up? I furrowed my brow and stared at him, any minute now, he would get to his feet and fire a hex at the short figure looming over he and Harry for trying to use such a ghastly spell on him.
Cedric didn't get up.
I watched in disbalief as Harry was pulled to his feet my the short man in the cloak. The short man in the cloak had put down his bundle, lit his wand, and was dragging Harry toward the marble headstone. I saw the name upon it flickering in the wand light before Harry was forced around and slammed against it.
TOM RIDDLE
I shiver raked my body at the name.
The cloaked man was now conjuring tight cords around Harry, tying him from neck to ankles to the headstone. Harry could hear shallow, fast breathing from the depths of the hood; he struggled, and the man hit him - hit him with a hand that had a finger missing.
And Harry and I realized who was under the hood. It was Wormtail.
"You!" Harry gasped.
But Wormtail, who had finished conjuring the ropes, did not reply; he was busy checking the tightness of the cords, his fingers trembling uncontrollably, rumbling over the knots.
I felt like running foreward and strangling Wormtail for betraying my parents and hitting Harry, but I stood in the shadows. I had promised Cedric to blend in and keep out of trouble; if I stood with the promise then Cedric would keep his - he promised he wouldn't get hurt.
Once sure that Harry was bound so tightly to the headstone that he couldn't move an inch, Wormtail drew a length of some black material from the inside of his cloak and stuffed it roughly into Harry's mouth; then, without a word, he turned from Harry and hurried away. I couldn't make a sound, nor could I see where Wormtail had gone.
I glanced at Cedric and was relieved to see that Wormtail didn't bother to acknolege him. I was suddenly happy Cedric was pretending to have fiented, because the bundle of robes was stirring fretfully, and my scar seared with pain. I didn't want Cedric to see what was in the robes, because I felt as though I already knew.
I could hear noises in Harry's direction. I looked around and saw a gigantic snake slithering through the grass, circling the headstone where he was tied. Wormtail's fast, wheezy breathing was growing louder again. It sounded as though he was forcing something heavy across the ground. Then he came back within myrange of vision, and I saw him pushing a stone cauldron to the foot of the grave. It was full of what seemed to be water -
I could hear it slopping around - and it was larger than any cauldron I had ever used; a great stone belly large enough for a full-grown man to sit in.
The thing inside the bundle of robes on the ground was stirring more persistently, as though it was trying to free itself. Now Wormtail was busying himself at the bottom of the cauldron with a wand. Suddenly there were crackling names beneath it. The large snake slithered away into the darkness. The liquid in the cauldron seemed to heat very fast. The surface began not only to bubble, but to send out fiery sparks, as though it were on fire. Steam was thickening, blurring the outline of Wormtail tending the fire. The movements beneath the robes became more agitated. And I heard the high, cold voice again.
"Hurry!"
The whole surface of the water was alight with sparks now. It might have been encrusted with diamonds.
"It is ready Master."
"Now…" said the cold voice.
Wormtail pulled open the robes on the ground, revealing what was inside them, and I stifled a scream at what I saw.
It was as though Wormtail had flipped over a stone and revealed something ugly, slimy, and blind - but worse, a hundred times worse. The thing Wormtail had been carrying had the shape of a crouched human child, except that I had never seen anything less like a child. It was hairless and scaly-looking, a dark, raw, reddish black. Its arms and legs were thin and feeble, and its face - no child alive ever had a face like that - flat and snakelike, with gleaming red eyes.
The thing seemed almost helpless; it raised its thin arms, put them around Wormtail's neck, and Wormtail lifted it. As he did so, his hood fell back, and I saw the look of revulsion on Wormtail's weak, pale face in the firelight as he carried the creature to the rim of the cauldron. For one moment, I saw the evil, flat face illuminated in the sparks dancing on the surface of the potion. And then Wormtail lowered the creature into the cauldron; there was a hiss, and it vanished below the surface; I heard its frail body hit the bottom with a soft thud.
Even though I knew that it wouldn't drown, I still hoped. I wanted to grab Cedric's hand, untie Harry and go back to Hogwarts. I didn't want to ever see that filthy creature again. . .
Wormtail was speaking. His voice shook; he seemed frightened beyond his wits. He raised his wand, closed his eyes, and spoke to the night.
"Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son!"
The surface of the grave at Harry's feet cracked. Horrified, I watched as a fine trickle of dust rose into the air at Wormtail's command and fell softly into the cauldron. The diamond surface of the water broke and hissed; it sent sparks in all directions and turned a vivid, poisonous-looking blue.
And now Wormtail was whimpering. He pulled a long, thin, shining silver dagger from inside his cloak. His voice broke into petrified sobs.
"Flesh - of the servant - w-willingly given - you will - revive - your master."
He stretched his right hand out in front of him - the hand with the missing finger. He gripped the dagger very tightly in his left hand and swung it upward.
I realized what Wormtail was about to do a second before it happened – I closed my eyes as tightly as I could, but I could not block the scream that pierced the night, that went through me as though I had been stabbed with the dagger too. I heard something fall to the ground, heard Wormtail's anguished panting, then a sickening splash, as something was dropped into the cauldron.
I couldn't stand to look… but the potion had turned a burning red; the light of it shone through my closed eyelids…
Wormtail was gasping and moaning with agony. I peaked through my lashes and almost hissed with protest. Wormtail was right in front of my brother, holding my brother's ar our with his stub hand and the dagger with the other.
"B-blood of the enemy… forcibly taken… you will… resurrect your foe."
"Don't you dare-" I hissed, but I couldn't prevent it. . . not unless I wanted to break Cedric's promise.
I watched as the point of the silver dagger penetrated the crook of Harry's right arm and blood seeping down the sleeve of his torn robes. Wormtail, still panting with pain, rumbled in his pocket for a glass vial and held it to Harry's cut, so that a dribble of blood fell into it.
He staggered back to the cauldron with Harrys blood. He poured it inside. The liquid within turned, instantly, a blinding white. Wormtail, his job done, dropped to his knees beside the cauldron, then slumped sideways and lay on the ground, cradling the bleeding stump of his arm, gasping and sobbing.
"You deserve every pain, you filthy monster," I hissed, not feeling any pity for him at all.
The cauldron was simmering, sending its diamond sparks in all directions, so blindingly bright that it turned all else to velvety blackness. Nothing happened…
Let it have drowned. I thought, let it have gone wrong…
And then, suddenly, the sparks emanating from the cauldron were extinguished. A surge of white steam billowed thickly from the cauldron instead, obliterating everything in front of me, so that I couldn't see Wormtail or Cedric or Harry or anything but vapor hanging in the air… It's gone wrong, I thought… it's drowned… please… please let it be dead…
But then, through the mist in front of me, I saw, with an icy surge of terror, the dark outline of a man, tall and skeletally thin, rising slowly from inside the cauldron.
"Robe me," said the high, cold voice from behind the steam, and Wormtail, sobbing and moaning, still cradling his mutilated arm, scrambled to pick up the black robes from the ground, got to his feet, reached up, and pulled them one handed over his master's head.
The thin man stepped out of the cauldron, staring at Harry… and Harry stared back into the face that had haunted my nightmares for three years. Whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was flat as a snakes with slits for nostrils…
Lord Voldemort had risen again.
*~*
I didn't like writing this chapter because there was nothing I could do to change it. So this is just following what the amazing J. K. Rowling wrote. I'm sorry if this chapter sucks, there's nothing I can do.