Chapter 187: Revival, Rebirth, Return (1/2)

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Harry felt his feet slam into the ground; his injured leg gave way, and he fell forward; his hand let go of the Triwizard Cup at last. He raised his head.

”Where is this?” he said.

He had left the Hogwarts grounds entirely; they had obviously traveled miles — perhaps hundreds of miles — for even the mountains surrounding the castle were gone. They 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 their left. Harry could just make out the outline of a fine old house on the hillside.

”Why didn't anyone tell me that the Cup was a Portkey?” he said, taking his wand out — his instincts were telling him that things weren't as quiet as they were. He had, yet again, the strange feeling that they were being watched.

Then he felt a hand on his shoulder, which made every inch of his skin rise in surprise. He glanced down at his shoulder to see a hand with a missing finger, then turned his head to find himself gazing at a new yet familiar face, and the words that followed almost made his heart jump out of his chest.

”Good evening, Harry,” said the lean man, with strangely dead eyes, ”we are introduced yet, but I knew from a long time ago, and I'm sure you have heard about me,” the strange man flatly smiled, ”my name is Peter Pettigrew, and I was a friend of your father's.”

”You—” Harry tried to speak, but then he felt a wave travel through every fiber of his body, and everything hazed out of focus before all went black.

Peter looked down at the unconscious Boy-Who-Lived. It was easier to work when his captive was out, ”He sure has grown up, and the resemblance is striking.. .. a real pity,” he sighed. Peter glanced towards his back to stare into the darkness. It was time, and time was of the essence.

Harry groggily opened his eye to find himself tied up on a hard, cold stone with something stuffed into his mouth. He was tied up from neck to ankles to what seemed to be a headstone. He tried to struggle against the ropes but was bound so tightly to the headstone that he couldn't move an inch. Harry couldn't make a sound, nor could he see where Peter Pettigrew had gone; he couldn't turn his head to see beyond the headstone; he could see only what was right in front of him.

Some way beyond him, glinting in the starlight, lay the Triwizard Cup. Harry's wand was on the ground at the Cup's side. There was a bundle of robes some distance beyond that, at the foot of a grave, and when he looked closer, it seemed to be a baby or small-sized inside the bundle. It seemed to be stirring fretfully. Harry watched it, and then, without warning, Harry's scar exploded with pain. It was agony such as he had never felt in all his life; if he could scream freely, he would've shattered glass; he could see nothing at all, and his head was about to split open. Harry suddenly knew that he didn't want to see what was in those robes. .. he didn't want that bundle opened.. . .

He could hear noises at his feet. He looked down and saw a gigantic snake slithering through the grass, circling the headstone where he was tied. Then he heard laborious breathing growing closer. It sounded as though someone was forcing something heavy across the ground. Then Peter came within Harry's range of vision, and Harry saw him pushing a stone cauldron to the foot of the grave. It was full of what seemed to be water — Harry could hear it slopping around — and it was larger than any cauldron Harry 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 Peter was busying himself at the bottom of the cauldron with a wand. Suddenly there were crackling flames beneath it. The giant 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 Harry heard the high, cold voice.

”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.

Peter pulled open the robes on the ground, revealing what was inside they and Harry let out a yell that was strangled in the wad of material blocking his mouth.

It was as though Peter had flipped over a stone and revealed something ugly, slimy, and blind — but worse, a hundred times worse. The thing Peter had been carrying had the shape of a crouched human child, except that Harry 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 Peter's neck, and Peter lifted it. Harry expected a look of revulsion on Peter's face, but as seen in the pale face in the firelight as he carried the creature to the rim of the cauldron, was a look of indifference. And then Peter lowered the creature into the cauldron; there was a hiss, and it vanished below the surface; Harry heard its frail body hit bottom with a soft thud.

'Yes, please let it drown!' Harry thought, his scar burning almost past endurance, 'please. .. let it drown.. . .'

Peter 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, Harry watched as a delicate 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 Peter pulled a long, thin, shining silver dagger from inside his cloak. He stared at the gleaming metal with the same dead eyes, but now there seemed to be a strange madness reflecting them. His voice became more assertive and filled with a mad passion.

”Flesh — of the servant — willingly given — you will — revive — your master.”

He stretched his right hand out in front of him — the hand without the missing finger — the other hand with the missing finger was a reminder. He gripped the dagger firmly, and without hesitation, he swung it down.

Harry realized what Peter was about to do a second before it happened — he closed his eyes as tightly as he could, but Harry could not block the screaming laugh that pierced the night that went through Harry as though he had been stabbed with the dagger too.

He heard something fall to the ground, heard Peter's frantic respiring, then a sickening splash, as something was dropped into the cauldron. Harry couldn't stand to look. .. but the potion had turned a burning red; the light of it shone through Harry's closed eyelids.. . .

When Harry opened his eyes, he saw Peter standing right in front of him with the same dagger in hand.

”I see you have woken up, Harry,” there was a thick sheen of sweat on Peter's face, but he looked more alive than ever, ”that's good — you'll get to witness something truly great now,” Peter raised the dagger, ”the revival of my master. The Dark Lord will walk the Earth once more.”

Harry felt the knife-point penetrate the crook of his right arm and blood seeping down the sleeve of his torn robes. Peter, hissing in pain, reached into his pocket for a glass vial and held it to Harry's cut so that a dribble of blood fell into it.

”Blood of the enemy. .. forcibly taken. .. you will. .. resurrect your foe.”

Peter walked back to the cauldron with Harry's blood. He poured it inside. The liquid within turned, instantly, a blinding white. Peter, his job done, dropped to his knees beside the cauldron, staring at it with the fire and light reflecting in his dark eyes.

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,' Harry 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 Harry so that he couldn't see Peter or the Cup or anything but vapor hanging in the air.

'It's gone wrong,' he thought '.. . it's drowned. .. please. .. please let it be dead.'

But then, through the mist in front of him, he 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 Peter, still cradling his mutilated arm, got on his feet up from the ground with a black robe, reached up, and pulled them one-handed over his master's head.

The thin man stepped out of the cauldron and lifted his chin up at the sky.

Harry watched as the clouds slowly drifted away, freeing the bright moon from their cover. He saw as the pale yet luminous moonlight fell upon the man's face and body, revealing the inhuman face which had its eyes closed.

'Oh no, oh no, oh no,' thought Harry, 'no, this can't be happening.'

The man slowly opened his eyes and started chuckling, which eventually barreled into full-blown maniacal laughter, shaking his thin frame.

”This is it!” he laughed, ”I knew! This how is moonlight is supposed to feel! The flesh of the homunculus was too weak! The light, the wind, the heat, ah haha hahaha, this is how it's supposed to be! It's wonderful!”

The man turned his face, his eyes now gazing at Harry.. .. and Harry stared back into the face that had haunted his dreams, no nightmares for the past three years. Whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was flat as a snake's with slits for nostrils. . .

”Harry Potter,” he said.

Lord Voldemort had risen again.

The Dark Lord had returned.

Voldemort looked away from Harry and began 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 slipped one of those unnaturally long-fingered hands into a deep pocket and drew out a wand. He caressed it gently too, and then he raised it and pointed it at Peter, who was lifted off the ground and thrown against the headstone where Harry was tied; he fell to the foot of it and lay there, crumpled up, groaning and hissing. Voldemort turned his scarlet eyes upon Harry, laughing a high, cold, mirthless laugh.