Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.

Summary: That night at the Graveyard, bone, flesh and blood brought Voldemort forth. (June 24th)

Warnings: not suitable for children or young teens. trigger warning for torture; dark magic rituals; blood-letting.

Prologue: bone, flesh and blood.

In the grey light, the whole world was as a dream. Harry's heart ticked away the seconds as he caught his breath. The Triwizard cup lay somewhere in the mist, but he couldn't see it. To his side, Cedric Diggory scrambled to his feet.

Hauling himself up, Harry asked, "Did anyone tell you it was a Portkey?"

Cedric stared into the distance, his grey eyes narrowing. "No. And you?"

The mist curled around them like an ocean. It undulated and pulsed with the unseen, and Harry could taste the bitter metal. It was unseasonably cold, and on his injured leg, Harry thought he couldn't run fast enough. "…we're not in Hogwarts, are we?" Harry fumbled for his wand. "We need to get out of here. This is a graveyard." And Harry knew in that instant that this was a trap. Just as promised in the dream, someone had taken Harry to Lord Voldemort.

As the puzzle fit together, he saw them. A short, robed figure among the graves, framed by a moon that should have hid her face. He was very near, and held a bundle that Harry knew wasn't a baby. Red eyes found him. "Kill the spare," the high pitched voice demanded.

And just like that, the robed figure rushed in. It was Wormtail, wand raised high in the darkness, casting the Unforgivable Curse. "Avada Kedavra!"

Cederic fell. In the shadow of the graves, he fell.

Harry felt himself take in a huge breath, shocked. His mind was reeling, someone was screaming. Harry clutched at his wand, and practically fell next to Cederic. But there was no life in those eyes, only a frozen look of surprise on his face. Cederic was dead.

Wormtail's hands, twisted from the years he'd spent as a rat, grabbed Harry. He muttered and hissed, dragging him along. Harry barely registered that the graves were all old ones, but as Wormtail shifted and strained, bending Harry's hands behind him, he saw it. A large headstone with that name written there: Tom Riddle.

His mind seized every detail and started spinning it round and round, trying to make sense of Voldemort's cruelty. The graveyard; Tom Riddle's grave; Cedric, dead; Voldemort, here. Here. Then something made a noise in the treeline. He looked up, startled, hoping to see a familiar face; someone to go for help. Voldemort might have chosen this place, so far from Hogwarts to take Harry's hope away, but even now, Harry's mind worked to fool himself—someone would come. He wouldn't be alone, one fourteen year old boy at the mercy of his enemies.

There in the trees, shrouded in shadow and mist, were people—hazy shapes. But then, perhaps it was only trees in the wind.

Harry felt anger welling up inside him—Cedric was dead. Voldemort had him, and yet he hadn't been killed yet. Why? "What do you want from me, Wormtail? Tom Riddle."

Voldemort's laughter was eerily like the wail of a child, but even still... his flat eyes were like those of an ancient, predatory thing, and Harry wondered how he'd ever seen the tiny figure as anything remotely childlike. "Tonight, Potter, the blood of my enemies will give me strength. Soon, I will have my body back. Wormtail! See that he is well tied. You have his wand? Good. Take the knife." Fierce determination, and no small amount of impatience, kept Voldemort from saying more.

"You think you've won!" Harry shouted. "All the blood in the world couldn't make you right again."

Wormtail hauled Harry up against a large headstone checked and double-checked his ties. He took no chance, though, and with a burst of transfiguration Harry wouldn't have thought possible of the man. The stone changed into the semblance of a woman who looked down on him with stone eyes and a mouth curved in eternal warning.

Harry laughed, feeling sick and light-headed. "An angel? For Tom Riddle."

"Holy Mary!" someone said, too high pitched and far away to be anything but a shriek. They didn't move, though, and Harry strained against his bonds to see silvery curls in the starlight. He didn't recognize the man.

"Help me," Harry screamed. "Please!"

The man only shook his head, and averted his eyes.

"Quickly." Voldemort's voice hissed through the dim light, pulling Harry's attention back to the present. "The spells are in place. The cauldron awaits us."

Then Wormtail's hands shot out toward Harry's face—dirty, pale and cold as they were. Harry opened his mouth to scream, to bite, to—and choked as a colourless rag twisted against his mouth, his cheeks. It cut into him, so that he could barely breathe.

Wormtail scurried. The blond man shrank away from him, stumbling as far back as he could. Wormtail wasn't looking, though, unveiling a cauldron—the biggest Harry had ever seen. It could easily hold a man. That thought sent shivers down his spine. Wormtail bent down, lowering the horrible bundle into the cauldron. It sunk beneath the liquid with a faint hiss, and then a soft noise as its small form hit the bottom.

Wormtail kindled flames and rose up with his wand at the ready. He circled the cauldron three times, murmuring slowly as he did so.

"Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son!"

At Harry's feet, the ground cracked open. Something dull white and yellowed with age rose from the grave-dust. On command, it flew to where Wormtail stood. He plucked it from the air and dropped it into the cauldron. The fire roared as the bone sank into the liquid. A fiery, watery birth for Lord Voldemort. Harry felt his heart speed. This couldn't be happening.

Let him fail! Let it drown… let it drown… Harry thought feverishly, wishing and hoping.

Wormtail's breath hitched, his voice shaking all the more. He drew a sharp blade from his cloak, and his hands shook. He held the blade to his wrist—the hand with the missing finger.

"F-flesh—of the servant—w-willingly given—you will – revive – your master."

Wormtail held out his arm, his other hand trembling. Wormtail hissed as the blade came close and Harry understood what the man meant to do. He closed his eyes, unable to watch, but equally incapable of unhearing Wormtail's agonized moan. His voice shook for a long moment, becoming a keening wail that got louder and louder. Until Harry realized he was standing right before him. Wormtail's face was a mask of agony.

Harry stared into those black eyes, horrified. But there was nothing he could do, tied so tightly to the headstone. He tried just the same, pulling against the ropes, trying to move, trying to summon his magic. He felt the limits of his body then, more aware now that he was made of flesh and blood like any other person. Whatever magic he might have was incapable of undoing whatever damage Wormtail was about to inflict on him. Fear and the possibility of being maimed, irreparably hurt—damaged—was worse than the actual cut. A sharp sting. His blood fell from his right arm, but not much of it.

Wormtail fumbled to catch it in a glass vial. He squeezed at the wound to get enough of it, and Harry winced. Wormtail staggered back to the cauldron.

"B-blood of the enemy . . . forcibly taken ... you will. . . resurrect your foe."

The cauldron's contents were violently red before Wormtail poured Harry's blood in. The liquid sparked and morphed into a searing bright light. A mist-like vapour erupted from the cauldron so that Harry couldn't see anything. Not the Triwizard cup glinting in the starlight, not even Wormtail, who lay beside the cauldron. Harry felt dizzy, hoping against hope that this had been a good sign. That it hadn't worked.

And then Voldemort laughed, silhouetted against the mist as he drew himself far above the ground. Not the high wail of a child, but an older sound, though cold and callous still. "Such a warm welcome. It has been so long since I have stood on this ground. Dear Father…servant…and enemy. Thank you for your contributions."

Voldemort took a fierce intake of breath, seeming to smell the night air anew. The mist settled around him as a cloak of darkness and light, shaping itself as it shimmered into robes blacker than the night around them. Harry saw the tall, slender shape of a man, bone white and terrifying. Voldemort drifted further upward from the cauldron, pulling his legs up and then touching them gently down to the earth. His red eyes flickered to the treeline, and he gave a smile.

"You proposed a gift to me." The excitement and anticipation scared Harry more than the horrific ritual.

A shape separated itself from the others, a strange figure in tattered clothing drifted forward. He gave a sketchy bow and offered one hand, palm up. Harry couldn't see, but when Voldemort moved to take the thing, the man closed his fingers around it and walked slowly, meaningfully, back to the cauldron.

"No." Voldemort said simply. "That is not its purpose."

Unworldly laughter trembled on the wind, swaying with the trees. "You would have your youthful strength once more? Your shape reflects the vessel you inhabited. It is not comely. This one…will be."

Harry hadn't thought anyone would so blatantly go against the Dark Lord, but there, right in front of him, was someone doing just that. Opening his hand to drop the piece of jewellery into the cauldron. It landed with a hallow clunk; no liquid there any longer.

Voldemort's hands were impossibly fast. A hiss of displeasure was the only warning the man got. A jagged hole ripped through, unspoken magic rendering the man in two. He fell. "Tsk, tsk…we'll have none of that. I know you better than any man alive. Your folk will not be making my plans." Voldemort waved and the body began to disassemble itself into parts—shimmering with magic, blood, and bone before that too lost its colour. Voldemort screamed his displeasure. And only then did he turn to Wormtail. "My wand, you fool!" But it seemed the second ritual didn't need any wizard's hand to tend this new potion.

Dizzy, Harry breathed in deep. He wriggled against the bonds, trying to force his hands around them. He had go get out—his breath was coming too fast. He was panicking, and his vision began to blur— dizzy and sick with fear, he missed the second flash of white light and mist.

The world shook. Softly, smoothly, the Dark Lord took his time. He circled the cauldron, looking into its depths with wild curiosity, his wand now in hand. He chuckled deep in his throat. "What a predicament. I cannot change it back… you seek to force my hand. But no matter. If it can be done…"

Harry's mind swam, uncomprehending. It seemed something—many things—laughed all around him. Were there Death Eaters? Harry still saw no one but Wormtail, the light haired man, and Voldemort.

Wormtail sagged against another grave, weak and useless after his exhortations.

There was a boy who looked so dazed that Harry couldn't recognize him for a moment. He struggled to stand—there was nothing of the dangerous, quiet control that Voldemort displayed. The boy shook with pain and confusion.

"Well, well, what a gift. Is he to be my elixir of youth?" Voldemort chuckled. He reached into the cauldron and plucked out the little bit of metal jewellery. "There was a curse on this…I suppose it has been stripped away with your making."

The boy stared. "I called to you." He said flatly. "No one ever answered."

Voldemort tilted his head, red eyes shining. He said nothing, and instead reached for his younger self and carried him to what could only be described as a stone sarcophagus. He whispered the words to a spell, his red eyes gleaming as the boy stilled. Voldemort spoke softly. "Listen as your heart beats. Furiously winding tighter the mechanism to your demise. Tom Riddle; feel your breath catch as your blood drains and know this... Power and knowledge will be at your fingertips, and I shall show you a new eternity. You will, once more, be mine."

The boy's face was pallid, and after a moment's pause, Voldemort slashed with his wand. A red line appeared on the boy's throat. He bled, but was unable to cry out, his vocal cords damaged. The dark eyes filled with fury.

Harry could imagine the words on the boy's lips; Expelliarmus. Wormtail's wand flew through the air into the boy's bound hands, even as the vicious wound closed.

Voldemort laughed high.

"Master! You promised. You did promise." Wormtail said beseechingly. His robes were blood-stained now, the stump of his hand wrapped in them. Harry dimly noted the large snake slithered not far away in the grass.

"Give me his robe." The boy—Tom Riddle—demanded. There wasn't an ounce of weakness in him. He commanded authority even though he could only manage to shudder there on the sarcophagus, inch by inch forcing himself to move away.

"It is no matter." Voldemort said softly. "You will be gone again before the hour; I will make another."

"There is another boy." Tom's teeth chattered as he glared fiercely in Harry's direction. "Use him. I shall not die to make you young."

Voldemort considered. Harry began to shiver. The man's serpent-like gaze found him and held him, and he murmured quietly. "You wish me to use his blood. Two purposes to choose from; to seal you tighter to this form, or to give me some semblance of youth and strength. But why not?"

Harry flexed against the bonds, struggling for a deeper breath. When Voldemort came for him, he'd drop straight down, run for his wand, and reach for the Portkey. He'd escape. He would.

Voldemort was faster than he'd thought possible. Long white fingers lingered very near, but still he did not touch. Harry remembered the damage he'd done to Quirrel three years earlier, and dared to hope. The Dark Lord peered into Harry's eyes without remorse. "I had hoped my Death Eaters to see you once before I killed you." He said simply, and reached for Harry's arm. When he was not burned, he began to laugh, and cut away the ropes. Voldemort's wand was pointed straight at him, and Harry felt excruciating pain as a spell hit him, followed swiftly by another.

Harry felt his body stiffen, felt all semblance of control drift away. He couldn't panic… Voldemort's spell wouldn't last forever… he would have a chance— Harry gasped as he was lowered painfully onto the sarcophagus.

Riddle had managed to roll off, but Voldemort only hummed reproachfully and magically lifted him onto the sarcophagus as well.

Harry's vision wavered at the sight of the dagger, his mind screaming for him to throw off this paralysis—to do something—but what could he do? It seemed Voldemort would kill them both. Their blood would mingle on the stone, and Voldemort would take them both for vanity.

Harry thought all the counter spells he knew, but he couldn't even manage to tense as he saw the dagger. Once again he felt a sharp, searing pain, and then a strange numbness. His wrist felt to be on fire, overly sensitive, even. Pain wracked his body, his fingers, his arms, all the way up his shoulders hurt. He had never been more conscious of his heartbeat, franticly beating—fast—faster. Harry wanted to close his eyes, to calm his heart.

Voldemort seemed to be siphoning the blood with his wand, two rivulets of red crossed and joined, then broke apart again before merging at the tip of the wand. Harry wondered how long before he lost consciousness, how long before he—but if Riddle had somehow managed to heal himself—

Tom sprang up. Wild eyes and teeth stained red, he jabbed with Wormtail's wand, healing Harry and Tom's wounds in a burst of magic. Harry was pushed off the stone in an awkward sitting position, which nonetheless allowed him a clear view of the graveyard, but he could not move. Whatever Tom had done, he hadn't lifted Voldemort's Body Bind, or whatever it was.

Tom smiled, bright and bloody. He reached up, pulling Voldemort down, his young hands pulling the white face closer. He smothered Voldemort's pale lips with a fiery passion that Harry didn't want to understand. And in an instant, Harry caught a whispered snatch of a serpentine vow.

"If you take my magic, I'll have you. You think you can absssorb my magic? No. Sssee thisss!" Tom hissed. "I will take everything. I will devour you."

Voldemort stared at his younger self, and smiled. "Youth'sss arrogance. What ussse have I of my youngest ssself? No. I will change you back, or I will have you."

Tom tore himself away.

"Wormtail. Give me your arm."

"Thank you m-master. Th-thank you." He held out his unwounded hand.

But Voldemort knocked it away. "Your other hand." Wormtail whimpered as he unwound the stump from his robes. Voldemort put his spiderlike fingers, not to the wrist, but to the Dark Mark on his forearm. "Let us see who answers my call…and who is foolish enough to ignore it. Do stand, Wormtail. Make yourself presentable."

But Wormtail had lost as much or more blood than Riddle had, so when Riddle ran at him, knocking him against the cauldron, he couldn't resist. Tom stole his robes and vanished into the treeline before Harry could break the paralysis spell.

Voldemort stood straighter, stepping away from the cauldron to stand some ways before the sarcophagus, between the yew tree and the statue. He made an impressive figure, his white skin glinting softly, his robes arranged as stately as any king.

o0o0o0o0o

The air seemed to buzz in Harry's ears, and one by one, yet all at once, the air was filled with the noise of robes materializing. Wizards were Apparating to the graveyard. Voldemort looked on impassively, still as a statue as they hesitantly moved forward. Wormtail grovelled on the ground, shuffling on hand and knees in his muggle clothes toward his Lord.

"My, my…but aren't you all in quite a state." Voldemort was darkly amused. "So many of you resisted capture. And yet…not one of you sought to find me." His words hung heavy as a challenge.

"My Lord! We would have come. We had lost everything—"

"I know how much you 'lost.' Spare me your tales. I know who my true servants are. In the end, it was my servant at Hogwarts, and the cowardly wretch before you who helped me set this plan into action. The snivelling coward that he is, but he still deserves a gift in gratitude. Wormtail? Your hand, if you would." Voldemort lifted his wand, and a plume of silver vapour shot out from it, twisting into a shape not dissimilar to the rat-like hand from before. It was beautiful, terrible magic, bringing darkness and hard metal into a cruel shape. "Do not hesitate again."

Harry saw double. He saw the Death Eaters from his vantage point by the sarcophagus, and he saw them from farther away, through mist and moonlight. He felt giddy and disaffected all at once. He was of two minds.

Meanwhile, the Death Eaters were speaking fast, furiously trying to keep Voldemort's anger from them. Voldemort stood as he was, so close to Harry, and as unmoved as the night. His red eyes glittered. At last, he raised his wand carelessly, and two figures screamed with the Cruciatus curse. "It is no matter. You stand beside me now…do not fail me again.

"Bring me the boy. His role is not yet finished."

A Death Eater approached, and as though it had never been there to begin with, he felt the Body Binding Jinx lift as he was hauled to his feet to stand in the centre of the circle.

"I had meant to give you my ring and the curse it bears, to send it back with you after we duel. But it seems I'll have to amend my plans. Lackwit, come here." Voldemort gestured to someone out of Harry's sight. "I need the boy another time; tonight is not auspicious. See to it that he remembers nothing."

Two Death Eaters stepped aside to let the light-haired man approach, but he didn't move, so each of them took an arm and hauled him before Harry. The man's teeth were chattering. He did not look at Harry; only at the ground. For the first time, Harry noticed that there was blood on his clothes, and he wondered at the significance. This man had been stabbed in the chest; Tom's throat had been slit, and Harry's wrists had been cut.

The Dark Lord chuckled. "Oh, look at the pair of them. One who can barely stand for fear, and one who strains against his guard, gnawing away at his gag. Do let the boy speak."

Two hands groped at his face, roughly untying the knots Wormtail had done. Harry realized that the corners of his mouth were bleeding—seconds now—a clean breath of air—"Accio wand!"

The Dark Lord laughed out right to see Wormtail jump and claw at the pocket where Harry now knew his wand was. "I do not think you can do wandless magic, boy. You are half trained at best."

"You're a monster!" Harry screamed. "You think I'm half trained? That's more than enough to beat you."

Voldemort's eyes glittered. His white skin shone in the night, but he said nothing.

The man in the Death Eater's grips jerked. He shook his head wildly as though to throw his thoughts out, and he made panicking sounds. He was in pain, Harry saw. The Death Eaters pulled him up straight.

"Give him his wand." Voldemort said.

"Don't do it!" Harry yelled, trying to meet the man's gaze, but he was having some kind of fit. The man couldn't see him at all, and Harry could barely make him out. Slowly, Harry watched him raise the wand. "You don't have to do it."

"Obliviate." Barely more than a whisper, but enough to make Harry's head spin, and the memories began to sift away like so much smoke. Dimly, he noted the circle of…Death Eaters? Laughing all around him. And then, what could only be the Dark Lord taking two steps closer.

The strange, snake-like man stood very near him. All others had stepped back, leaving them alone in the circle except for—was that Wormtail? The Dark Lord smiled eerily down at him, touching his cheek, his eyes, while Harry jerked away from him. Some magic lay between them, trickling down his throat like fire.

Harry felt a niggling sensation in his stomach. He had to go somewhere. Soon. A long corridor with door after door, row after row of glowing…what was it? Where is it? Harry supressed the feeling. His head felt like it would split—right at the scar. He was dizzy, bewildered and confused.

Voldemort watched him and smiled. "Your mother cannot protect you now." He said, very quietly. He continued to smile. To Wormtail, he said, "Give him his wand."

"Dumbledore will defeat you!" Harry cried out. "You'll be defeated again, just like last time." He felt dizzy though, hardly able to stand. His mouth was sticky with blood—blood? And his hands were numb. His whole body hurt. The thoughts began to overflow, and he shook with anger and the raw sensation of it all. He snatched the wand out of the air when it soared toward him, and did not wait for Voldemort to begin.

But the Dark Lord was just as fast—maybe faster. He countered the jinx without a word. "Now, now, Potter. Mind your manners. This is a duel, not a brawl in the hallways. Bow. Bow before Death."

"Never!" And then Harry felt it. The whisper of smoke and a heavy, cloying scent gagging him. It was at once a touch on his shoulder, forcing his knees to buckle, and a cloud of confusion, of a false peace in his mind. Spiders walking between his eyes, ice tingling on his hands. It was the Imperius Curse—he fought at it. A little voice whispered at him, telling him how easy it would be to bow. How good it would be to please—"NO!"

Voldemort tsked. "Crucio." He was calm as he said it.

There was a moment where Harry heard the word and felt the dread. And then everything was brushed from his mind—all he could think was how much everything hurt; worse than breaking his arm, worse than being bit by the Basilisk, so much so that he forgot about his injured leg from the maze. Everything was washed away in pain. When it stopped, Harry could only sway where he stood. Every inch of his body tensed in protest.

"A little taste." Voldemort said casually. "Bow. I insist."

"No." Harry said quietly.

Voldemort had only one reply.

There was that whisper again—coaxing, soft, insistent. It would be easier than being cursed again. It was the smart thing to do; to save his strength for the coming duel. It was safe. "I'll never bow to you, Tom Riddle." He shook his head violently. Then, pain. This time, like buzzing in his bones. The spiders had gotten out, he realized, and were running up and down his arms and legs.

Every nerve was afire. His skin pricked, his head ached. And then it stopped, and Harry felt a great pressure, like an invisible hand pushing him down. He felt his back begin to bend, and he grit his teeth. Agonizingly slow, he bent. If he didn't, his back would break.

This time, Voldemort didn't speak aloud. Whatever spell he hurled at Harry, it was like being hit with knives.

"Protego!" he ducked as he said it, and knew even as he did that he'd have to fight back. Defence spells wouldn't get him out of here. He turned his mind through the events as he understood it—a false sense of nothing came first, but if he pushed, he could see the Triwizard Cup before him in the maze. Right. He thought. He just needed Voldemort to stand still for long enough for Harry to get out of the circle of Death Eaters, and he'd be free.

"A fine charm." Voldemort said coaxingly, "but you'll have to do better than that." Another curse blasted towards Harry.

Harry whirled about, rolling aside as another volley of magic tore at the earth. Reflexes born from Quidditch practice saved him, and he rolled behind a grave stone. He crouched there, feeling his hurts. His arms seared in protest, and he nearly dropped his wand as an old cut opened up again—old?Harry wondered. He didn't remember it at all.

"This boy," Voldemort called to his Death Eaters, "is the one they call my downfall. They call him the Boy Who Lived…but he can barely even manage that. I am disappointed. Are you hiding from me? A little game of hide and seek? Perhaps you are ready for this all to end."

Anger welled up inside him, reckless and proud. He wouldn't die kneeling before Voldemort, not hiding behind a grave marker. He would die on his feet like his mother and father. He would die trying to defend himself.

Harry stood, and held his arm out, bracing himself against the cold stone. "Expelliarmus!" Harry shouted.

Just as Voldemort looked at him coolly. "Avada Kedavra!"

Their magic met. It was entirely unexpected, happening in a way that Harry couldn't understand. An arch of green and red, spilling out in spirals like nothing he'd ever seen before. His wand vibrated something fierce, and Harry was afraid he'd drop it, break the strange connection which kept Voldemort from casting any more spells. Maybe even kept the curse from reaching him.

All around them, the Death Eaters capered about like angry ghosts. Their shouts and worried voices were less real than the magic before them, and so they faded past Harry's recognition.

"Stand down, fools." Voldemort roared. It was the first Harry heard his voice raise. "Stay back. He does not control this magic."

Somewhere farther back, Harry dimly heard the sounds of tinkling laughter on the wind, carried to him by some strange breeze. He fought the urge to look around—Voldemort was right; he could only barely hang on to the spell as it whirled around them both. He couldn't risk looking away.

From the two jets of light, silvery mist began to form. Webs of it unfurled like starlight, shooting off in pearly dabs. A great net was forming between them, creating a shield unlike any Harry had seen. Voldemort watched it too, his face an expressionless mask.

And then the ghosts began to come out. Harry knew it, then. He was lost between the world of living and dead, playing out his death over and over again—that's what he couldn't remember. He'd forgotten how he died.

Harry could see the other ghosts of Voldemort's victims, Cedric Diggory, the woman from the newspapers, the man from his dreams, and then, Harry saw with his heart in his throat, Lilly and James Potter. More would come. Many more. Harry's eyes were drawn to his parents, and then to Cedric. Cedric. Was he dead?

The other champion was saying something, a whisper Harry couldn't quite hear over the rush of magic. Slowly, Cedric raised his hand, pointing. To the Triwizard Cup, abandoned by Cedric's body.

Lily's face was pale and drawn in the eerie light. She too was saying something, gesturing urgently as the other ghosts looked on at Voldemort. She looked so much younger than Harry had imagined; even in the mirror of Erised, he'd seen her at his Aunt's age, but she was younger than any adults he knew. Younger than the youngest professor at Hogwarts. With sad, determined eyes, she took her husband's hand and mouthed, 'Let go.' And, 'We love you.'

Tears streaming down his face, Harry nodded. He took a breath, and let go. He ran before Voldemort could gather his thoughts, before the Death Eaters could catch him, fearful as they were. Fast and light on his feet, the Gryffindor Seeker threw himself at Cedric and the Cup.

He could always die when he got there.

o0o0o0o

...a year later, I decided to make this the prologue. Happy holidays...?

...long-term readers, do consider rereading Chapter 3, "A Stranger at Hogwarts"