"Robe me," said the high, cold voice from behind the steam. And Pettigrew, sobbing and moaning, still cradling his mutilated arm, scrambled on his knees to pick up the black robes from the ground. He got to his feet, reached up, and pulled them one-handed over his master's head.
The thin man stepped away from the cauldron, before turning to stare at Harry. And Harry stared back into the wide, dulled scarlet eyes and flat nose of Tom Marvolo Riddle, self-styled Dark Lord Voldemort.
'Alright,' thought Harry. 'Now I've just got to smack Riddle about a bit and get out of here.'
Riddle looked away from Harry and began examining his own body. His hands were long and thin, his fingers gnarled. He caressed his own chest, his arms, and his face. The red eyes, whose pupils were not quite the slits of the previous timeline, appeared dull. He held up his hands and flexed the fingers, his expression confused and worried.
He took not the slightest notice of Pettigrew, who laid twitching and bleeding on the ground, or of his now missing snake. Riddle slipped one of those unnaturally long-fingered hands into a deep pocket and drew out a wand. He caressed it gently, and then he raised it, pointing it at Pettigrew. Riddle frowned and appeared to struggle as he levitated the rat off the ground and flung him at the side of the tombstone to which Harry was supposedly tied. He turned his worried scarlet eyes upon Harry, before laughing a high, cold, mirthless laugh.
Pettigrew's robes were shining with blood now; he had wrapped the stump of his arm in them.
"My Lord..." he choked, "My Lord... you promised... you did promise..."
"Hold out your arm," said Riddle lazily.
"Oh Master... thank you, Master..." He extended the bleeding stump, but Riddle laughed again.
"The other arm, Wormtail."
"Master, please... please..."
Riddle bent down and pulled out Pettigrew's left arm; he forced the sleeve of the rat's robes up past his elbow, and Harry saw the Dark Mark. Riddle examined it carefully, ignoring Pettigrew's uncontrollable weeping. "It's back," he said softly, looking down at it. "They will all have noticed it... and now, we shall see... now, we shall know..."
He pressed his long white gnarled forefinger to the brand on Pettigrew's arm. Pettigrew let out a fresh howl-like scream.
After a long moment Riddle removed his finger from Pettigrew's mark, and Harry saw that it had turned jet black.
A look of cruel satisfaction on his face, Riddle straightened up, threw back his head, and stared around at the dark graveyard. In doing so, he turned his back on Harry.
"How many will be brave enough to return when they feel it?" whispered Riddle, his red eyes fixed upon the stars. "And how many will be foolish enough..."
Harry took the opportunity presented to him. He didn't want Riddle to know he still couldn't touch him. At least, not yet.
Popping his second wand into his left hand, he shook himself free of the remnants of his bindings and swept his arm forward. With a barely whispered, "Reducto," he fired a Reductor curse at Riddle's back, impacting him between the shoulder blades and sending the man flying forward across the ground. He immediately used the wand in his left hand to summon his holly wand from near the Cup.
As soon as he snagged his holly wand with his right hand he used the left to fire a stunner down at Pettigrew, making sure the rat stayed out of the fight.
However, he wasn't as fast as he needed to be. Riddle, though he ended up sprawled across the ground, was quick to spin about and fire a killing curse back at Harry. Harry was able to evade it by stepping out of the way. The curse shattered the tombstone to which he was recently bound.
Harry fired a string of Reductor curses back at Riddle, but only with the intent to get the man to avoid them while he dropped one of his emergency portkeys, a coin, onto the stunned Pettigrew; and hit it with a sticking charm. He wasn't out to activate it yet. He actually wanted to take Pettigrew back with him using the Cup. That way, they'd end up on the stage for the presentation, in full view of everyone. But, did he have time?
Apparently not.
The air was suddenly full of swishing cloaks. Between graves, behind the yew tree, in every shadowy space, wizards were apparating in within black smoke. All of them were hooded and masked. The Death Eaters had begun to arrive; but, they were still a short distance off yet.
Harry quickly cast a last few casts as Riddle tried to climb to his feet. His first was a Blasting curse to fire stones and rocks into Riddle from the ground between them followed by a Banishing charm chased with a more direct Blasting curse. Harry called out the activation phrase for the portkey on Pettigrew, "Out! Out! Out!"
As soon as he saw Pettigrew disappear in a swirl, Harry went on the attack. He used a couple of the combat spell chains he and the girls had developed to keep Riddle hopping and defending.
When he saw the first masked Death Eater step closer, raising his own wand as he came, Harry nailed him with a Reductor curse to the head. Whoever it was wasn't expecting it, and shot backwards, head first, to lay unmoving upon the ground. Harry noticed the cane that was in the Death Eater's hand at the last moment. However, the slight 'pause' of Harry's attack on Riddle to attack the Death Eater, which was probably Malfoy senior, gave Riddle the opportunity to begin to attack back, even as he was backing away.
Riddle cast yet another killing curse at Harry, and practically grunted from the effort. A quick summon of the cauldron from close nearby intercepted the curse, making a loud 'gong' sound as the curse struck. And Harry then immediately banished the cauldron straight at Riddle before following it up with a string of piercing, reductor and the two blasting curses, Deprimo and Confringo.
Riddle was able to banish the cauldron away but was only fast enough to bat away the piercing curse and reductor. The Deprimo blew him off his feet and again launched him backwards; while the second blasting curse, the Confringo, just missed, passing over him, as he was launched backwards.
With Riddle out of the way for a moment, Harry launched a similar string at another Death Eater, clearly killing who ever it was, before hurrying forward. Realising his time was up, he immediately activated his own portkey before he'd have to defend again. "Sayōnara!" he commanded, and was gone in the swirl of the portkey. He simply did not have time to summon and grab the Cup, as planned.
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