So, here's my foray into Harry Potter fanfictions. I don't own Harry Potter, and I only wish I could write something half as good.

It occurs to me in hindsight that this fic bears no small resemblance to Jaime Evans and Fate's Fool. This is...not actually intentional. So let's just say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and call it inspired by that story.

quick note: watch out for the p.o.v. switches, specifically the fact that there is one between the third scene and the fourth. also, if you're having trouble telling the different harrys apart, here's a tip: other than the first sentence, 'Harry Potter' will always be used to refer to the male harry, who is still fourteen and hasn't traveled through time.

Chapter 1
An Evening With Martha

"Well, here goes nothing," a very disheveled Harry Potter rasped, before popping the cork on the vial held in his too-thin hand and downing the foul-smelling contents.

A pillar of light split the sky in twain.

For hundreds of miles around, the shuffling of millions of footsteps halted for a moment. The only sound that remained was the ruffling of thousands of cloaks in the wind.

The bright beam of light winked out, and the earth beneath it crumpled outwards in an enormous ring, and the island once known as Britain sunk beneath the waves.

On a grassy hill overlooking the town of Leicester, England, a woman appeared in a flash of light.

This, of course, was quite unusual. Women generally didn't do such things. Even witches, who were regularly known to appear of out nowhere, were generally accompanied by the distinctive pop of Apparition or the whirlwind of a Portkey.

Of course, her method of arrival was not the only unusual thing about the woman. She was on the shorter side, and very thin, giving her an almost skeletal, emaciated look. Her wild black hair fell in untidy waves around her thin face, and vivid, poisonous green eyes peered out of sunken cheeks. She wore tattered trousers that hung loosely on her thin frame, sturdy boots, and a very ratty grey cloak. Her pale skin was also almost completely filthy — covered in mud, dust, and a great deal of a suspiciously dark liquid that looked a great deal like blood.

All in all, she was not the kind of person who usually hung out in idyllic grassy knolls in the nicer parts of the English countryside.

But perhaps the most unusual thing about her was the fact that she had traveled through time.

And, the first thing she did upon appearing was fall to her hands and knees and copiously retch a great deal of viscous, pulpy red substance.

"Ugh," she muttered, wiping her mouth with a grimy hand. Her voice was hoarse and raspy, from long periods of disuse. "That was pleasant." The she slumped a bit, and just lay on the ground, basking in the feel of uncharred earth and the gentle breeze that rustled through the grass. "Every time I think it can't get any worse, magical transportation somehow manages to surprise me by coming up with something even more unpleasant."

She slowly pulled herself up from the ground, wincing. Once upright, she frowned, and slowly began patting herself down, as if she was trying to make sure that all her parts were still attached. Her expression, however, slowly morphed from vague distaste to shocked horror, as she took note of the distinctive body parts that categorized her as female.

For a long moment, she just stood there, frozen, groping herself in a mildly inappropriate display.

"Bloody hell — a witch? How? This doesn't even make sense — I traveled through time! Not...this!"

She let go of herself, frowning, as if thinking through a difficult puzzle. After about five minutes, she then shook her head, muttering, "Well, I suppose it can't be helped now."

Then, she fished a battered wand out of her pocket, spun it a few times around her palm, and promptly Disapparated.

The first order of business was to find out if he'd managed to arrive in the right place — well, the right time, actually.

Harry figured that he could address the reality of his new body after making sure he'd reached his destination — one thing at a time. Of course, he was also filthy, so that had to be pretty high up on the list of possibilities as well.

But for now, in a grimy back alley of London, he fit right in. Considering his lack of cleanliness and the fact that money was useless in the zombie apocalypse, he was just another homeless bum looking to scrounge a newspaper.

After three streets, each full of progressively smellier trash, he lucked out — someone hadn't bothered to collect their copy of The Sun. Picking it up in his disconcertingly delicate hands, he checked the date — 24/6/95.

Well, at least something had gone right. Squinting up at the sky, he saw the sun was getting worryingly low. Then, he rummaged about in his robes and dug out a dented golden pocketwatch that once belonged to Fabian Prewett. He still had business before the end of the Third Task. An hour, then. Two at most. Enough time? Maybe. Maybe not. Probably. But it was worth the risk — he should have plenty of time.

Voldemort wasting time trying to break into Gringotts and Hogwarts, or looking for traitors among his most loyal followers was time not spent gathering followers and gaining power.

He made sure the alley he was squatting in was deserted, before turning on his heel, and Disapparating —

— again.

Harry reappeared in the dusty country lane that he'd seen so long ago in Dumbledore's Pensieve. He walked briskly along, quietly and furiously ignoring the way his chest moved and refusing to acknowledge that it might have been intelligent to make sure he was wearing the proper clothes for his new shape before doing anything physical.

He very likely didn't have enough time, anyway.

Once he came into sight of the town of Little Hangleton, he paused for a moment and stared intently at the graveyard, visible on the other side of the valley. He imagined that Wormtail might already be setting up the cauldron, down below.

In a few hours, the Dark Lord Voldemort would regain his body there. And Harry had every intention of attending his resurrection.

But first, he found the gap in the hedges that led down a narrow rocky path into the dark woods. The sun was still in the sky, but it was the light of late-afternoon, and the way forward seemed wreathed in shadow.

Harry pressed forward, regardless.

As he walked, he deliberately put his hand into the pocket of his tatty robe, and withdrew his wand.

A murmured, "Lumos," had the tip lit, illuminating a strange, decrepit building hidden among the thick trees. It looked long deserted and half-fallen apart, and the snake that had once been nailed to the front door was now only a few wispy bits of sinew. The door itself was only standing upright by the smallest bit of hinge — it looked ready to fall at any moment.

The Gaunt Shack. It looked decidedly unwelcome. Harry approached, cautiously, on guard for any traps or creatures lurking in the darkness. Behind him, he could see where the trees thinned enough for the early evening light to penetrate the trees, but the house itself was untouched by the sun.

It also smelled horrible, and that was really something, as it reminded him of the Chamber of Secrets, of all things. Must be a Slytherin thing — maybe they had a uniquely unpleasant scent that was just left in all the places they frequented. That theory also explained a great deal about Grimmauld Place. For all the effort Voldemort put into ensuring the objects he made into Horcruxes were significant, he didn't quite extend that same reverence to their hiding places.

Harry had the perverse thought about Voldemort hiring an interior decorator for a moment.

He stood in the center of the house, simply observing the scene. He'd honestly been expecting to encounter some kind of curse or dark creature here, but he could sense nothing — he felt perfectly relaxed.

A number of years living on the edge of a collapsed society had, if nothing else, honed his instincts quite well — those who didn't learn to trust their gut soon found themselves joining the shambling masses of the living dead.

And Harry's instincts, which were among the very best, told him that there was no danger. So Harry proceeded, if cautiously.

A quick wave of his wand spelled the end of the front door's last hinge, and it fell forward with an ominous thump.

A moment passed, and still nothing.

Harry cautiously proceeded forward, his wand illuminating a very shabby room full of decayed furniture, and a shocking amount of mold. The remains of a kitchen occupied one wall, and the husk of a fireplace stood opposite. It was small, dingy, and an altogether miserable place. The roof of the small structure seemed one particularly strong gust of wind from caving in completely. Two doorways stood at the end of the shack, one having collapsed inward, along with part of the ceiling. Beyond, he could see the remains of a large bed, just as ruined as everything else in the room.

Harry looked around, cautiously. By all appearances, it was just another ruined shack in the middle of the woods, long fallen into disrepair. Every inch of the house was rotted or rusted — it had long passed the point of disrepair and proceeded straight into ruin.

He couldn't exactly remember where the Horcrux was supposed to be, and nothing jumped out of at him — figuratively or literally. He'd half-expected to be attacked the moment he set foot in the shack, but it seemed perfectly mundane so far.

Just an old house that had been abandoned for decades. He considered the bedrooms, but dismissed that possibility. It was too obvious.

Instead, Harry ventured closer to the wide stone husk of a fireplace, one of the few things that had remained relatively untouched, but it looked to be only cold, gray stone.

On further inspection, Harry could see no distinguishing marks, just rough, fire-scorched stone.

Reaching out, he carefully felt each rough block, running his fingers over the surface and repeating under his breath, "Lydium Lithos." The spell was very old, originally one used in alchemy to determine the composition of a metal or bit of rock. If there was a spell tied to the rock, or if there was a space behind it, the spell would react.

He was disappointed, however. Tom Riddle would not replicate something as mundane as the entranceway to Diagon Alley to protect his Horcrux. That kind of protection was entirely too plebeian for the man.

Leaning back slightly, he took in the chimney again. It was altogether unremarkable. Hmm.

He placed one hand on the floor and stood up. Something tickled at his memory. A comment, made by Dumbledore, in a cave, a lifetime ago.

A simple, good idea...he raised his wand, and said clearly, "Accio Horcrux!"

A very quiet thump sounded somewhere beneath him, and he looked down at the very solid hardwood floor. Huh. Now that he looked at it more closely, he realized that the floor had held together entirely too well considering the dilapidated state of the rest of the house. It wasn't pristine by any stretch, but it was mostly free of the pervasive rot of the rest of the house.

Harry leaned down and pressed his palm to the floor. It was solid — he knocked once. It was far more solid than it should have been.

Harry now had to spare an unfortunate thought — that he very likely wasn't as physically strong as he had been before travelling through time. It was a situation that he would have preferred not thinking about, but it was very much a reality of his current situation that he couldn't currently ignore. Well, magic it was then.

He pointed his wand down, then, and intoned clearly, "Deprimo!"

The jet of angry red light smashed into the wood floor and...did nothing. Harry frowned down at it. There wasn't a problem with his magic, was there? No, it had felt fine so far, and there was no reason to assume that it was different, considering his wand worked just as well as it had before.

So the floor was enchanted somehow. He frowned down at it, and then leaned down to examine it more closely.

He stood there, for a long time, wondering if Voldemort really was that tacky. After about ten minutes, he had to face facts, and he deliberately used his wand and a whispered Cutting Curse to dribble a splattering of red blood on the floor.

Obediently, the floor opened up, revealing a very gaudy golden box, glittering in the dirt. Harry just raised an eyebrow.

He Summoned the box again, and it leapt up, landing on the floor in front of the hole.

Dumbledore's withered hand flashed through his mind, and he hastily called up his Occlumency. Harry couldn't really call himself a master of Occlumency, but he had put some effort into it after the war, enough that he could recognize an attack, or neutralize someone attempting to read his mind during a duel, and hex the person responsible. It wasn't at all elegant and Snape would very likely have been appalled at leaving his mind so unprotected, but it worked well enough for him.

Harry prodded the box a few times, and a quick application of Scarpin's Revelaspell revealed no enchantments. He flipped the lid open, and peered down at the gold ring, crudely topped with a black stone.

He put his hands around it and was very careful to not put a finger inside, in case the curse was that touchy. Slowly, he picked it up and stashed it very carefully in his pocket, wrapped in a loose scrap of his robe.

He would have to deal with the curse somehow, but that was not important. He'd gotten it. He slowly allowed himself to relax. One step at a time.

He opened his eyes...and came face-to-face with a Dementor.

Or, at least, face-to-twisted-mass-of-flesh. He gasped, and immediately scrambled for his wand —

The Dementor's clammy, ice-cold hands clamped around his head, twisting his hair painfully. The gruesome mockery of a mouth opened in an equally gruesome version of a smile, and Harry could feel himself floating away —

He could see Ginny, standing there, smiling at him, her face set in a guileless, trusting expression. No, he thought desperately, let it not happen. He didn't want to see what came next. The creature, a half-rotted corpse held together by the magic that animated it, appeared behind her. It reached over casually, almost lovingly — and ripped her throat out. He screamed, and then he was flinging fire — Neville was looking at him, eyes full of that boundless confidence he'd found sometime in his seventh year. Harry wanted to yell, to scream, to tell Neville that he didn't deserve that — but Neville was already jumping, down, into the pit of creatures, so all of them could live — he didn't deserve any of that trust, that faith. He was a failure. He'd failed all of them. He'd failed everyone he'd ever loved.

And then he remembered — not yet, he hadn't failed anyone yet, and if he didn't hurry he was going to fail Cedric again —

The Dementor swam back into view.

The creature's mouth was opening wider, and wider, and the panic inside him coalesced into outright terror. If he didn't do anything, he was going to die, twitching and shivering, right here and now, and the world would again be doomed to a terrible fate. Slowly, ice crystals began to form around the room, even on his hair and face.

In a half-second, the thought passed through his head — it had been years since he'd successfully conjured a patronus. The war — if a fruitless struggle against a tide of the living dead could be called such — had long since robbed anyone left alive of the capacity to cast such magic. It was part of the reason why the Dementors had become such a problem later on — nearly the same level of problem as the zombies themselves. In all likelihood, a Dementor would probably not bother him if he'd happened across one — as he was lacking the same kind of happiness as most other people — he just had the supreme misfortune of encountering one specifically ordered to kill him.

He panicked. A half-formed thought had one hand digging in his pocket for the ring, and another had his wand out and raised towards the Dementor.

Depulso, he thought desperately. The Dementor's robe fluttered as if it was in a strong wind, but it was otherwise unaffected.

A sudden surge of power seemed to emanate from the ring, as soon as he touched it. It beckoned him, he wanted it — the power to cheat death, to change everything, to ensure that no one he loved had to die again. He pressed his eyes together tightly, and reminded himself that that terrible power, as tempting as it seemed, wasn't worth it.

The mouth was coming closer now, and he held up his hand, ring tightly grasped, in a last-ditch attempt to ward off the Dementor by offering it a more enticing prize — a piece of Voldemort's soul.

It worked — for a given value of worked — the Dementor broke off the impending snogging session to wrap its lips around the fragment of soul, attempting to eat that, and Harry felt the deathly cold sensation on his fingers.

It lasted for a half-second, and then he felt curiously light. A voice in the back of his head that helped him ward off the Imperius Curse and occasionally reminded him when he'd forgotten to brush his teeth took the moment to inform him that this was Not A Good Thing.

It was that little voice that saved him again — he'd long since learned to trust it, and it had saved him many times from both gruesome fates and bad breath.

So Harry did the first thing that came to him — he lit the Dementor on fire with an Incendio.

Surprisingly, the cloak lit up immediately, and the thing shrieked.

This had two results — a good one, in that the Dementor immediately let go of him — and a bad one, in that it was now wildly flailing around, and on fire. He jerked his hand back into his pocket as quickly as possible, and pocketed the ring.

The fire gave him a small reprieve — not much, but enough to put his hand in his cloak and grasp the handle of an ornate silver goblin-forged dagger, which he withdrew. He then slowly dragged the blade across his wrist, letting the red blood flow into the blade, as it drank like some twisted caricature of a straw. It gleamed a sickly red in the yellow half-light of the fading sun, the white of his Lumos, and the bright orange of the flaming Dementor.

The final source of illumination would fade quickly, however, and he strode forward, brandishing the blade.

The Dementor's fire had dimmed, however, and it was once again closing in on him, the ambient temperature dropping.

This time, Harry was ready for it.

As it grabbed for his head, he nimbly ducked underneath its grasping hands, and —

The blade sunk cleanly into the underside of the creature's jaw.

An unholy screech far beyond what he'd heard before issued forth, before cutting off into a choked, sick gurgle as black blood spewed forth from the wound. The Dementor sagged, and Harry withdrew his dagger, stepping back.

He quickly stashed his wand, and switched hands, so he could cradle his burned hand to his chest and wipe off the dagger with the other.

Once he'd stowed it away again, he watched the Dementor's throes as the black liquid continued to pump out from the wound. The creature seemed to deflate as it lost mass, and even now the temperature was returning, and he could see a different future again, one that didn't end in endless shambling monsters wearing the face of his friends and near-eternal night — the one he had come back to make.

As the adrenaline ebbed, he could feel the pain in his hand returning. It had been badly burned, and he had not helped by using it immediately after getting it burned. The one small upside was the cut he'd made to open the floor had cauterized, and he was no longer bleeding on that hand. His other one, however, was bleeding freely. He could have coordinated that better — both his hands were bleeding, and it really would have been easier to have made both cuts on one hand.

He gritted his teeth and concentrated on thinking past the pain. He had no Burn-Healing Paste, and he would have given a great deal for some. A Blood-Replenishing Potion wouldn't go amiss, either. Instead, he could do very little other than ignore the pain — he could make his hand cooler, but that was a poor substitute. A Flame-Freezing Charm might would have prevented his injury, but he hadn't had a lot of time to cast a lot of spells before the Incendio.

Wanting to get away from that horrible shack, he moved back to the lane from which he'd came, walking briskly and studiously ignoring his throbbing hand. As he walked, he switched the wand to his throbbing hand, and tapped his bleeding wrist, murmuring, "Episkey." The wound closed, and Harry soldiered on.

Once he'd gotten far enough away, he stopped and intoned, "Aguamenti," and held his hand under the wand tip, immersing it in the stream of cold water that spewed forth.

He looked up at the sky. The sun had nearly moved below the horizon. He had precious little time.

After a few minutes of running water over his burn, the pain had dulled to nothing. He knew that when he stopped, it would return.

But he was on a very tight timetable, so it would have to be enough. He bound his hand in wet strips of cloth from his ruined undershirt, and drew the heavy ring Horcrux from his pocket. Then, he set off at a brisk walk towards the graveyard.

In his other hand, he used his wand to poke at the ring — he didn't want get his fingers too close and risk putting it on. He'd already come close enough tonight as it was.

"Specialis Revelio."

The ring flashed a strange fluorescent green-yellow, and Harry understood — it was a flesh-rotting curse, tied to the ring, and anyone that put it on would face inevitable death.

Using his other hand, he conjured a small rabbit, and quietly muttering an apology to Hagrid, he put the rabbit on the ground, before pushing the ring onto one of its paws.

The effect was both immediate and extremely gruesome. The rabbit withered, starting with the paw that held the ring and spreading through the rest of its body. Its fur turned grey, the skin dessicated as its flesh rotted away, and it eyes became empty sockets. The only thing left was the mostly ruined corpse of a rabbit, lying on the ground. Harry quickly divested it of the ring, and checked to make sure the curse was neutralized.

Once he'd confirmed that it was, he slipped the ring onto his hand and made sure he wasn't about to become just as decrepit. Then, he checked his pocketwatch again. He was running short on time. He needed to hurry.

He Disapparated with a crack.

"Robe me," a voice commanded from inside the steam, sweet and silky. Harry Potter — not the one who had just traveled through time — shuddered. The sound was entirely too pleasant to belong to a monster. Wormtail scuttled over to grab the black robes from the ground, and draped them awkwardly on Voldemort's shoulders.

The steam of the completed potion cleared, and for the first time, Harry could see her clearly.

He stared into the face that had haunted his nightmares for three years. Pitiless, red eyes, with slit-eyed pupils, set in a too-pale face that would have been beautiful if it hadn't reminded him forcibly of a snake's. Her head, however, was completely bald, which only added to her inhuman appearance.

The Dark Lady Voldemort smiled at him, and it made his skin crawl. She was pretty enough that it would normally have been very nice to see her smile, but there was nothing appealing about it. It was hungry, with a promise of violence, like a wolf's grin — or perhaps more appropriately, a snake's.

Then she stepped back, and examined her body. She was tall, and lithe, with long-fingered hands and very pale skin, although that the part of him that was a fourteen-year-old boy took note that despite being the most evil witch of the current era, she was not just attractive in the face. But her beauty was somehow wrong — there was something about her appearance that was off, and like she had been sculpted with all the right pieces but someone hadn't quite followed the directions correctly.

"Hello, Harry Potter," she murmured.

He couldn't find his voice to respond. Instead, she carefully withdrew a pale wand from her robes, and stroked it, almost lovingly, her gaze still on him. Wormtail whimpered from somewhere, but he seemed far off.

The moment was broken by a crack that sounded as if someone had just snapped a whip — Voldemort's head snapped up, and her delicate brow furrowed. Harry followed her gaze. Standing there, not ten feet away, was a woman Harry had never seen before.

She was very pale, and had long black hair and luminescent green eyes. For a second, Harry thought she might be related to his mother, because of all the times he'd heard that they had the same eyes, but he discarded that thought — Aunt Petunia was the only relative of his mother around to take care of him. Her clothes were torn, and ragged, and there was a suspicious liquid soaked all down her front. She couldn't be called pretty, either — her face was very thin, and her eyes were sunken into her skull, giving her an almost skeletal visage.

"Oh, dear," she said, disconcertingly casually. "Are you going to kiss him?" she asked Voldemort. Her voice reminded him of Sirius, as it was low and raspy.

Harry goggled at her.

She continued, oblivious to both his surprise and the way Voldemort's eye twitched in fury. "I just think he's a bit young, you know? I'm not trying to—"

"How dare you," Voldemort said, low and dangerous.

"So you weren't going to kiss him then? Not even a peck?"

"Er, no—" Harry started to say —

But he was interrupted by none other than Voldemort, who screeched, "I would do nothing of the sort! I will kill him, and then no one will question me again!" The conversation didn't seem to make a whole lot of sense. At this point, a death threat from Voldemort was a comforting return to normalcy.

"Ah," the other woman said, perfectly calm. But something in her posture had shifted — she no longer looked tired and ready to keel over at the slightest gust of wind. She was standing tall, her expression sharp, and Harry could see a wand held loosely in her hand. Her eyes, already intense, burned with power.

And then the wand was pointed straight at Voldemort, who stared impassively back.

"I would think that you might want to pick on someone your own size. Killing a teenage boy isn't going to prove anything other than your ability to kill children. But you're already famous for failing to murder a baby, aren't you?"

Voldemort looked livid.

"If you insist on inviting your own death, so b—" and she broke off mid-word. Her eyes were fixed on the green-eyed woman's wand — no, not the wand, the strange, ugly gold ring on one of her fingers. It looked completely unremarkable, topped with a chunky black rock.

The pain spiked in his scar, and somehow, without needing to be told, Harry understood that Voldemort was furious.

Voldemort's scarlet eyes were wide. "How — you — how?" she asked.

The other woman chuckled. "That isn't the question you should be asking. Not how — who?"

"Who…" Voldemort repeated, almost dumbly.

Harry could now conclusively say that he had no idea what was going on — that ring was somehow important, and Voldemort simultaneously more alarmed and less composed that he had ever seen her. And this other woman — she had just waltzed in and casually started to needle the most dangerous witch in a century. The only comfort he had was that Voldemort seemed just as confused and wrong-footed as he was.

The woman glanced over him, and, catching his eye, she winked.

Then, she addressed Voldemort again, "Yes, Riddle, who. Now, how about we duel, you and I? If you can kill me, you can take back the ring. It is yours, after all."

"I will gladly end your pitiful existence, but not before I rend your mind apart, piece by piece, and you tell me exactly how it is you acquired that," Voldemort promised darkly.

"Excellent," the other woman beamed. "If you kill me, I suppose I can't stop you killing Harry, either, but if I win, you're going to let him go."

"Am I?"

"Of course you are. It's only fair. I suppose if you wanna call your little minions first so you have a good audience to show off to, you can do that too."

Voldemort just eyed her incredulously for a few seconds, and then she threw back her head and laughed, and almost-pleasant sound that still managed to unnerve Harry.

"Oh, I'm going to enjoy killing you," she promised. The woman just smiled vapidly in return.

Then Voldemort turned around and prowled gracefully over to Wormtail, who had stopped whimpering a while ago, and now was lying comatose near the ruins of the cauldron. She frowned down at him, and obligingly raised her wand, and conjured a shiny silver hand, which she attached to the stump of his arm.

Then, she pointed it at him and said, "Rennervate."

He jerked awake, blinking stupidly, and Voldemort sneered down at him. "Up, Wormtail. I require your arm."

He stared up at her, eyes wide and frightened for a moment, before he recovered and noticed his silver hand. He flexed it, eyes filled with wonder. Then, he threw himself at her feet.

"Mistress," he babbled. "My Lady, it is...wonderful...thank you...thank you..."

"Yes, yes. Your arm," she demanded impatiently. The other woman, calmingly watching, rolled her eyes.

He got to his feet and held out his arm, the Dark Mark red and vivid on his skin. Voldemort raised one long, elegant finger to the Mark, and pressed. Harry's scar erupted in pain again, and the tattoo turned black, instantly, and Wormtail whimpered. Voldemort ignored it, however, and spun to face the other woman.

They eyed each other, speculatively.

The silence lasted for a long minute, until the strange woman broke it. "All right, Harry?"

Voldemort glanced over at him, as if she'd forgotten he was there, but her gaze didn't linger — instead, it returned very quickly to the strange newcomer.

He replied, "I'm fine — just — who are you?"

"Er," she said. "Well — you mean you don't know?"

He just stared at her, nonplussed. "Er, well, no. Maybe if you were wearing a nametag, that would help people know who you are."

"Ahhh. Well, I shall have to consider it," the woman said thoughtfully. But if Harry wasn't wrong, he thought she sounded...relieved.

"It matters very little," Voldemort interjected, "because you're going to be dead very soon."

The woman turned a very wide smile on Voldemort, and said, "Well, let's not count our chickens before they hatch, yes?" Then she perked up and looked around. "Ooh, look, your little friends are here!"

And indeed, many cloaked shapes were Apparating out of the darkness. Each one of them was wearing a large cloak, concealing them from head to toe, and a bone-white mask over their faces. Death Eaters.

They arranged themselves in a large circle, enclosing everyone inside — Wormtail, Voldemort, the strange woman, and Harry. Their arrangement was ordered by some inscrutable design, since there were gaps, often large ones, in the assorted witches and wizards.

Voldemort stepped forward and stared around at the crowd. The dark-haired woman had moved quietly close to where Harry was tied to a grave, and she was leaning casually against one of the larger tombstones.

"Very dramatic, she is," the woman commented loudly to Harry.

Harry goggled at her again. It was almost like she was trying to be obnoxious.

One of the Death Eaters had broken ranks and come forward to kiss Voldemort's robes and beg her forgiveness. She did not appear at all impressed, however, in fact, she had her wand out and trained on him.

"Hmmm. What's her first name?" the woman murmured.

"Come again?" Harry replied.

Voldemort just put her foot on the man's head, and made him kiss her feet. It was...disturbing, particularly considering the unnerving grin she sported during the process.

"Voldemort's name," the woman said again. "Her real name, not that pretentious codswallop she goes by nowadays."

"Oh," Harry said, feeling like it was a rather odd thing to ask. In fact, it was one of the strangest conversations he'd ever had. "Well, it's actually Martha."

"Martha? Really?" she asked. "I suppose I understand why she hates it now. Thanks."

And then she strode forward without another word, right as the last of the Death Eaters was getting back in line after also kissing her feet. Harry wished he knew who she was, but it didn't look like she was going to tell him. She did look vaguely familiar...

Voldemort said, "I smell your guilt, Death Eaters. And trust me, we will deal with your cowardice and disloyalty soon. But for tonight," she raised an elegant hand in the air, indicating the woman and Harry, "I will show you exactly why thirteen years later, people still fear to speak my name. Tonight, I will demonstrate once again that I am the greatest witch alive. You will bear witness to my rebirth — and you would do well to remember that Lord Voldemort always wins."

"You done spanking your disloyal cronies yet, Martha?" the woman asked irreverently.

Voldemort's eyes narrowed dangerously. "I have endured your childishness long enough. Now, fool, we duel, and after I have killed you, I will kill your precious Boy-Who-Lived, and then," she glared around at the Death Eaters, "and then none of you will dare question my invulnerability again. To think that I could be undone by a mere—"

"Enough yapping, yeah?"

And then Voldemort's wand was raised.

"Death Eaters, do not interrupt. Avada Kedavra!"

The jet of acid-green light snaked forward, but the woman danced nimbly out of the way and casually flicked her wand in reply.

A wave of fire erupted.

It raced toward Voldemort, growing to the size of a small barn and lighting up the dark graveyard just as bright as the daytime. Voldemort, however, was unfazed, and an equally casual wave of her wand had the fire dissipating and dying out almost instantly.

"Avada Kedavra!" Voldemort shouted again, but the dark-haired woman pointed her wand at the ground and a few bits of earth flew up into the air and intercepted the volley of Killing Curses. They exploded, spraying bits of flaming earth in all directions.

The woman, however, wasn't content to just wait for Voldemort to keep bombarding her with Killing Curses.

Her return curse hardly looked like a spell — instead, she flicked her wand at the sky.

A bright lance of fiery light fell impossibly fast, like a falling star. It landed right where Voldemort was standing — who was suddenly not there — leaving a deep, smoking crater.

Voldemort appeared elsewhere in the circle, and replied with a strange purple curse that didn't so much fly forward as dance erratically through the air towards the strange woman. She didn't move or summon anything to block, and instead pointed her wand at herself, muttered something, and flopped bonelessly to the ground, like a puppet with it's strings cut. The spell curved down to follow her descent, and when it made contact, flickered through her body a few times like an extremely visible current of electricity, before dissipating into the ground.

The woman let out a moan, and Disapparated herself before the followup green jet of light could finish her.

And then she was standing there, right next to Voldemort and screaming out, "Sectumsempra!" There was no light, but she slashed her wand vertically, and blood fountained up from one of Voldemort's forearms, as if she had been holding an invisible sword instead of a wand.

Voldemort snarled, and her opponent vanished again. She cast a quick spell to stop the bleeding, before looking around. Unable to spot her opponent, she then performed a surprisingly acrobatic backflip, spinning her wand arm in a circle. Harry was not expecting her to be so...flexible. A thick blood red ring of magic erupted from the wand, pulsing outwards like a ripple in a pond.

Voldemort apparently either didn't consider or care about the Death Eaters still surrounding the duel, and they had to Disapparate out of the way of her spell.

The dark-haired woman, however, did no such thing. Instead, Harry lost sight of her, but she seemed to appear out of nowhere inside of the red ring, which smashed aside headstones and statues in equal measure.

She stopped, calmly, and sidestepped another Killing Curse.

"I confess myself disappointed," Voldemort taunted.

Her opponent quirked an eyebrow. "Alright, I'll bite. Why are you disappointed, Martha?"

The duelists were facing each other, perpendicular to Harry, although Voldemort was further away, enough that he could see the green-eyed woman perform a series of complicated wand movements behind her back, out of view of her opponent.

"You do not seek to kill me. Don't tell me you're another fool who worships at the feet of that champion of Mudbloods and Muggles, Albus Dumbledore. Are you going to lecture me about fates worse than death next?"

"No, but we both know that killing you won't stick. You'll just become a loose soul again, and your little cronies will resurrect you in a week or so. It'll be inconvenient, sure, but at most a minor setback. Now, if I dismember you properly, then you'll have to face the indignity of killing yourself or ordering your own death if you don't want to try to conquer Britain as a torso.

"I'm not afraid of killing you. Avada Kedavra!" the woman called, sending a Killing Curse straight at Voldemort.

Voldemort simply frowned, and Apparated away, dodging both the curse and the stone angel that jumped down from the top of a nearby tomb, swinging its scythe wildly.

She reappeared, and slashed her wand.

A gigantic electric-blue arc of magic surged out, slicing cleanly through the stone angel. It picked up speed as it traveled, flying forward until it hit a shining silver shield conjured by the green-eyed woman. The shield didn't waver or break, but instead let out a low ringing sound, like a gong.

The woman dropped her shield and Apparated again.

This time, Voldemort was ready. "Crucio!"

The dark-haired woman was not fast enough to dodge the perfectly aimed jet of light. As soon as the red curse caught her, she crumpled to the ground. She lay there, writhing silently for a few seconds before the screams began. Voldemort slowly walked forward until she was standing over her, triumphant.

Harry was transported back to that day in Professor Moody's class, when he had shown the entire class the Cruciatus Curse. He had thought that was horrible enough, this was much worse. Harry didn't know the woman very well — he didn't even know her name — but this was not something he could imagine wishing on anyone else, even Draco Malfoy. This...this was horrible.

As the green-eyed woman shrieked and writhed, in obvious pain, Voldemort began to laugh. The sound was echoed around the circle of Death Eaters. For the first time since the strange woman had shown up, Harry wondered if he was going to be able to make it out alive.

Voldemort turned her head to look at him, ruby-red eyes glittering with triumph. His scar erupted in pain again, and he could feel her desire to throw the victory in his face.

A part of him knew that he had no chance where the woman had failed, and yet...if Voldemort thought he was going to just lay down and die, she had another thing coming.

He would not.

Voldemort took her eyes off him, and said, "Wormtail! Untie Mr. Potter, and give him back his wand."

She looked down at the dark-haired woman, and released her curse. The woman stopped flailing and screaming almost instantly. Voldemort, however, ignored her, and stepped forward, over the prone woman, pointing her wand at Harry.

And then she let out an unexpectedly delicate-sounding little gasp of surprise.

The woman was sitting up, one hand grasped around the handle of a sinister-looking silver dagger that was buried halfway through Voldemort's thigh. Both Harry and Voldemort stared at the woman, laying there, mouth wide in a rictus grin that matched the madness in her eyes.

Voldemort recovered her shock, and sneered. "That was foolish. Avada Kedavra."

The answering crack sounded, and then the woman was interposed between Harry and Voldemort, and the Killing Curse exploded harmlessly against the ground. Voldemort reached down and pulled the dagger out of her leg, with a squelch of black-looking blood.

"Ahh," she said softly, so much so that Harry had to strain to hear it. "I will admit, I was not expecting you to possess such a...practical item. I am...impressed, that you would resort to such brutality."

The dark-haired woman answered, equally as quietly, but without her usual cheer, "Sometimes, it's necessary."

Voldemort nodded, to acknowledge the point. "I'm still going to kill you, though."

"But not tonight," the dark-haired woman said, the picture of calm again.

And then, to Harry's utter shock, Voldemort agreed. "Not tonight. But I have enough strength left to leave you with a parting gift."

And then she lifted her wand, and fire erupted.

A great serpent, composed entirely of living flame, slithered forward alarmingly quickly. The woman turned and ran.

"Harry!" she cried, as she reached him and cut his ropes away with a charm. Behind her, the serpent loomed, and behind it, Voldemort was inspecting her Death Eaters.

He scrambled up out of the ropes, getting to shaky feet. He almost fell when he put his weight on his injured leg.

"Can't you stop—"

"No!" she cut him off, grabbing his arm in an iron grip and dragging him along. Vaguely, he noticed she was bleeding from a rather nasty cut on her arm. "There's no time! Fiendfyre isn't something I can dispel quickly unless I'm the one that cast it!"

"Fine — my wand? Cedric!"

"Alright, alright," she said hastily, shoving his wand into his hand. He felt infinitely better with it than without it, enough to not question where she'd gotten it, and where Wormtail had gotten to. "Don't worry about Cedric, we need to find where the Triwizard Cup went."

"But — Wormtail—"

"I took care of it. He's fine. Now, stop dawdling."

He had so many questions about that statement that he didn't even know where to start. Looking back, he couldn't see Voldemort or the Death Eaters, and the flaming serpent, still chasing them, had multiplied into a swarm of fiery animals.

But what he ended up asking was, "Are you related to me?"

"Oh, Harry, I can't be," she said, letting go of his arm to shove him forward, "how about this — in a week or so, when you're at the Dursleys, I'll come visit you, and I'll explain everything."

Harry wasn't sure he was satisfied by that answer, but she was still pushing him and pointing behind him. "Go! The Cup is a Portkey, it will take you back to Hogwarts!"

"Er — well — thank you," was all he could say. The flames were almost upon them now, and it felt like a very lame apology, considering all she'd done for him.

"Don't mention it." And then with a great push, he was stumbling back, feeling his foot hit something hard and metal; he felt the jerk behind his navel that told him the portkey was taking him away —

— and then he landed, and no one other than Cedric grinned down at him.

"Cedric!"

The older boy grinned down at him. "Hey, Harry."

"But — Wormtail—"

"Never hit me. After he cast the Killing Curse at me, everything went dark and I woke up in the middle of the maze again. I sent up red sparks, and we've been worried where you were ever since."

"I'm fine," he said. "It was Voldemort — she's back — but boy, did she meet her match—"

"Harry!" a voice interrupted him. It belonged to Albus Dumbledore, who Harry was unreasonably happy to see, and he felt his face break into a grin.

"Professor!" he said. "Have I got a story to tell you…"