Looking around, I noticed 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 their right. A hill rose above them to our left. I could just make out the outline of a fine old house on the hillside.
Cedric looked down at the Triwizard Cup and then up at Harry and me.
"Did anyone tell you the cup was a Portkey?" he asked.
"Nope," Harry answered.
"Is this supposed to be part of the task?" I said.
"I dunno," said Cedric. He sounded slightly nervous. "Wands out, d'you reckon?"
All three of us pulled out our wands. I kept looking around us. I still had a strange feeling of being watched.
"Someone's coming," Harry said suddenly.
Squinting tensely through the darkness, we watched the figure drawing nearer, walking steadily toward them between the graves. 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, they were short, and wearing a hooded cloak pulled up over their head to obscure their face. And— several paces nearer, the gap between us closing all the time— I saw that the thing in the person's arms looked like a baby... or was it merely a bundle of robes?
Harry lowered his wand slightly and glanced sideways at Cedric. Cedric shot us a quizzical look. We turned back to watch the approaching figure.
It stopped beside a towering marble headstone, only six feet from us. For a second, Harry, Cedric, and I and the short figure simply looked at one another.
And then, without warning, my scar exploded with pain. It was agony such as I had never felt in all my life; my wand slipped from my fingers as I put my hands over my collarbone; my knees buckled; I was on the ground and through blurred eyes could see nothing at all; my chest was about to split open. From my side, I could hear Harry in pain as well.
"Harry?" Cedric said. "Maisey? What's wong?"
From far away, above my head, I heard a high, cold voice say, "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; the pain in my scar reached such a pitch that I gagged, and then it diminished. My chest didn't feel like it was being torn open anymore and I looked over at Harry and then past him I saw...
Cedric was lying spread-eagled on the ground beside him. He was dead.
For a second that contained an eternity, I stared into Cedric's face, at his open gray eyes, blank and expressionless as the windows of a deserted house, at his half-open mouth, which looked slightly surprised. And then, before my mind had accepted what I was seeing, before I could feel anything but numb disbelief, I felt myself being pulled to my feet by my arm.
The short man in the cloak had put down his bundle, lit his wand, and was dragging us toward the marble headstone. I saw the name upon it flickering in the wandlight before I was forced around and slammed against it.
TOM RIDDLE
The cloaked man was now conjuring tight cords around Harry and me, tying us from neck to ankles to the headstone. I could hear shallow, fast breathing from the depths of the hood; I felt Harry struggle, and the sound of getting slapped.
"You!" Harry gasped.
I was going to ask who, but then I saw the man... he was missing a finger. It was Wormtail. Once sure that Harry and I were bound so tightly to the headstone that we couldn't move an inch, Wormtail drew a length of some black material from the inside of his cloak and stuffed it roughly into our mouths; then, without a word, he turned from Harry and me and hurried away. We couldn't make a sound, nor could I see where Wormtail had gone; I couldn't turn my head to see beyond the headstone; I could see only what was right in front of me.
My shoulder seared with pain again, I heard Harry gasp as well. I could hear noises at our feet. I looked down and saw a snake slithering through the grass, circling the headstone we were tied to. 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 my range 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 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. 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 Harry and I let out a blood-curdling scream that was strangled in the wad of material in our mouths.
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. 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.
Let it drown, I thought, my scar burning almost past endurance, please... let it drown...
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 our 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 and I closed my eyes as tightly as I could, but could not block out the scream that pierced the night. I heard something fall to the ground, heard Wormtail's anguished panting, then a sickening splash, as something was dropped into the cauldron.
"Harry," I cried into the gag, tears readily streaming down my face. My chest was hot with pain and I knew his head was as well.
Wormtail was gasping and moaning with agony. Not until I felt Wormtail's anguished breath on my face did I realize that Wormtail was right in front of him.
"B-blood of the enemy ... forcibly taken ... you will... resurrect your foe."
I could do nothing to prevent it, I was tied too tightly. I saw the shining silver dagger shaking in Wormtail's remaining hand. I felt its point penetrate the crook of my right arm and blood seeping down the sleeve of my torn robes. Wormtail, still panting with pain, fumbled in his pocket for a glass vial and held it to my cut, so that a dribble of blood fell into it. I cried and tried to scream, but I was unheard. I felt him do the same to Harry as he also screamed in pain.
He staggered back to the cauldron with our blood. He poured it inside. The liquid within turned, instantly, a blinding white. 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 he couldn't see Wormtail or Cedric or Harry or anything but vapor hanging in the air.
"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 me; without knowing who he was, I knew exactly who he was. Whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was flat as a snake's with slits for nostrils...
Lord Voldemort had risen again.
He looked away from me and Harry, examining his own body. His hands were like large, pale spiders; his long white fingers caressed his own chest, his arms, his face; the red eyes, whose pupils were slits, like a cat's, gleamed still more brightly through the darkness. He held up his hands and flexed the fingers, his expression rapt and exultant.
Voldemort bent down and pulled out Wormtail's left arm; he forced the sleeve of Wormtail's robes up past his elbow, and I saw something upon the skin there, something like a vivid red tattoo— a skull with a snake protruding from its mouth— the image that had appeared in the sky at the Quidditch World Cup: the Dark Mark. Voldemort examined it carefully, ignoring Wormtail's uncontrollable weeping and pressed his long white forefinger to the brand on Wormtail's arm.
The scar on my collarbone seared with a sharp pain again, and Wormtail let out a fresh howl; Voldemort removed his fingers from Wormtail's mark, and I saw that it had turned jet black.
"How many will be brave enough to return when they feel it?" he whispered, his gleaming red eyes fixed upon the stars. "And how many will be foolish enough to stay away?"
He began to pace up and down before Harry, Wormtail, and me, eyes sweeping the graveyard all the while. After a minute or so, he looked down at us again, a cruel smile twisting his snakelike face.
"You stand, Harry and Maisey Potter, upon the remains of my late father," he hissed softly. "A Muggle and a fool... very like your dear mother. But they both had their uses, did they not? Your mother died to defend you both as a child and I killed my father, and see how useful he has proved himself, in death..."
Voldemort laughed again. Up and down he paced, looking all around him as he walked, and the snake continued to circle in the grass.
"You see that house upon the hillside, Potter? My father lived there. My mother, a witch who lived here in this village, fell in love with him. But he abandoned her when she told him what she was. He didn't like magic, my father.
"He left her and returned to his Muggle parents before I was even born, Potter, and she died giving birth to me, leaving me to be raised in a Muggle orphanage, but I vowed to find him. I revenged myself upon him, that fool who gave me his name, Tom Riddle."
Still he paced, his red eyes darting from grave to grave.
"Listen to me, reliving family history," he said quietly, "why, I am growing quite sentimental. But look, Harry, Maisey! My true family returns!"
The air was suddenly full of the swishing of cloaks. Between graves, behind the yew tree, in every shadowy space, wizards were Apparating. All of them were hooded and masked. And one by one they moved forward, hardly believe their eyes. Voldemort stood in silence, waiting for them. Then one of the Death Eaters fell to his knees, crawled toward Voldemort, and kissed the hem of his black robes.
"Master ... Master... " he murmured.
"Welcome, Death Eaters," said Voldemort quietly. "Thirteen years... thirteen years since last we met. Yet you answer my call as though it were yesterday... We are still united under the Dark Mark, then! Or are we?
"I want thirteen years' repayment before I forgive you. Wormtail here has paid some of his debt already, have you not, Wormtail?"
He looked down at Wormtail, who continued to sob.
"You returned to me, not out of loyalty, but out of fear of your old friends. You deserve this pain, Wormtail. You know that, don't you?"
"Yes, Master," moaned Wormtail.
"Yet you helped return me to my body," said Voldemort coolly, watching Wormtail sob on the ground. "Worthless and traitorous as you are, you helped me and Lord Voldemort rewards his helpers."
Voldemort raised his wand again and whirled it through the air. A streak of what looked like molten silver hung shining in the wand's wake. Momentarily shapeless, it writhed and then formed itself into a gleaming replica of a human hand, bright as moonlight, which soared downward and fixed itself upon Wormtail's bleeding wrist.
Wormtail's sobbing stopped abruptly.
"My Lord," he whispered. "Master— it is beautiful, thank you... thank you!"
"May your loyalty never waver again, Wormtail," said Voldemort.
Voldemort did a roll call of all of his Death Eaters, only six were missing; three dead, three in Azkaban, and one didn't answer his call.
The Death Eaters stirred, and I saw their eyes dart sideways at one another through their masks.
"He is at Hogwarts, that faithful servant, and it was through his efforts that our young friends arrived here tonight..."
"Yes," said Voldemort, a grin curling his lipless mouth as the eyes of the circle flashed in our direction. "Harry Potter and Maisey Potter have kindly joined us for my rebirthing party. One might go so far as to call them my guests of honor."
There was a silence. Then Lucius Malfoy's voice spoke from under the mask of how Voldemort has come back from the dead. He explained Quirrell's help in finding Harry and me, Wormtail's search to find a body for Voldemort, and then someone's assistance in putting our names in the Goblet of Fire...
"Yes and to use my Death Eater to ensure that the twins won the tournament— that they touched the Triwizard Cup first— the cup which my Death Eater had turned into a Portkey, which would bring them here, beyond the reach of Dumbledore's help and protection, and into my waiting arms. And here they are— the two you all believed had been my downfall..."
Voldemort moved slowly forward and turned to face to us. He raised his wand.
"Crucio!"
Harry screamed against the wad of cloth in his mouth. More tears fell down my face as I was helpless. I couldn't do anything. I wailed against the gag, begging him to stop and he did.
"Crucio!"
It was pain beyond anything I had ever experienced; my very bones were on fire; my head was surely splitting; my shoulder more on fire than ever; my eyes were rolling madly in my head; I wanted it to end... to black out... to die...
And then it was gone. The two of us were hanging limply in the ropes binding us to the headstone of Voldemort's father, looking up into those bright red eyes through a kind of mist. The night was ringing with the sound of the Death Eaters' laughter.
"You see, I think, how foolish it was to suppose that these children could ever have been stronger than me," said Voldemort. "But I want there to be no mistake in anybody's mind. Harry Potter and Maisey Potter escaped me by a lucky chance. And I am now going to prove my power by killing them, here and now, in front of you all, when there is no Dumbledore to help them, and no mother to die for them. I will give them their chance. Both of them will be allowed to fight, and you will be left in no doubt which of us is the stronger. Just a little longer, Nagini," he whispered, and the snake glided away through the grass to where the Death Eaters stood watching.
"Now untie them, Wormtail, and give them back their wand."