Memory's Prisoner

Chapter 11: Little Hangleton

Harry's feet slammed into the ground and his injured leg gave way. He fell forward and his hand let go of the Triwizard Cup.

"Where are we?" he said.

Cedric shook his head as he pulled Harry to his feet, and they looked around. They had left the Hogwarts grounds completely and ended up in a dark and overgrown graveyard.

"This is last year," Hermione breathed.

Harry tensed and Umbridge held her breath in anticipation.

"Did anyone tell you the cup was a Portkey?" he asked.

"Nope," said Harry. "Is this supposed to be part of the task?"

"I dunno," said Cedric.

Harry's wand slipped from his fingers as he put his hands over his face; his knees buckled; he was on the ground and he could see nothing at all; his head was about to split open. Above his head, he 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 Harry's eyelids, and he opened his stinging eyes to see Cedric lying spread-eagled on the ground beside him. He was dead. For a second that contained an eternity, Harry 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 Harry's mind had accepted what he was seeing, before he could feel anything but numb disbelief, he felt himself being pulled to his feet. The short man in the cloak had put down his bundle, lit his wand, and was dragging Harry toward with the name TOM RIDDLE inscribed in it.

"That is Wormtail. He betrayed my parents," Harry hissed, his barely restrained anger peaking through the anxiety.

"That's Peter Pettigrew. He's supposed to be dead."

"Yeah that's where the whole betrayed my parents part comes in," Harry scowled at the rat faced man in the memory.

Wormtail was busy checking the tightness of the cords, his fingers trembling uncontrollably, rumbling over the knots. Once sure that Harry was bound so tightly to the headstone that he couldn't move an inch, Wormtail drew a length of some black material from the inside of his cloak and stuffed it roughly into Harry's mouth; then, without a word, he turned from Harry and hurried away. Harry couldn't make a sound, nor could he see where Wormtail had gone. When he came back within Harry's range of vision,  Harry saw him pushing a stone cauldron to the foot of the grave.

The observers cringed back in fright as Wormtail revealed the grotesque scaly child with snake-like eyes. They watched in horror as Pettigrew performed the ritual, cutting off his own hand and taking some of Harry's blood. No one breathed as Voldemort rose from the cauldron.

"Robe me," said the high, cold voice from behind the steam, and Wormtail, sobbing and moaning, still cradling his mutilated arm, scrambled to pick up the black robes from the ground, got to his feet, reached up, and pulled them one-handed over his master's head. The thin man stepped out of the cauldron, staring at Harry . . . and Harry stared back into the face that had haunted his nightmares for three years. Whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was flat as a snakes with slits for nostrils; Voldemort had risen again.

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, forming a silent circle, which enclosed Tom Riddle's grave, Harry, Voldemort, and the sobbing and twitching heap that was Wormtail.