A Greater Power

Chapter 23: Flesh, Blood, and Bone

Third Person POV:

Willow felt her feet slam into the ground; her injured leg gave way, and I fell forward; her hand let go of the Triwizard Cup at last. She raised her head.

"Where are we?" Harry asked.

Cedric shook his head. He got up, pulled Harry and Willow to their feet, and they looked around.

"Looks like a graveyard." Willow explained. They had left the Hogwarts grounds completely; 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.

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

"Nope," Willow and Harry said together. They were looking around the graveyard. It was completely silent and slightly eerie.

"Is this supposed to be part of the task?" Harry asked

"I dunno," Cedric shook his head. He sounded slightly nervous. "Wands out, d'you reckon?"

"Yeah," Harry said, glad that Cedric had made the suggestion rather than him. They pulled out their wands. Harry kept looking around him. He had, yet again, the strange feeling that they were being watched.

"Someone's coming," he said suddenly.

Squinting tensely through the darkness, they watched the figure drawing nearer, walking steadily toward them between the graves. Harry couldn't make out a face, but from the way it was walking and holding its arms, he could tell that it was carrying something. Whoever it was, he was short, and wearing a hooded cloak pulled up over his head to obscure his face. And — several paces nearer, the gap between them closing all the time — Harry saw that the thing in the person's arms looked like a baby . . . or was it merely a bundle of robes? Harry lowered his wand slightly and glanced sideways at Cedric. Cedric shot him a quizzical look. They both turned back to watch the approaching figure. It stopped beside a towering marble headstone, only six feet from them. For a second, Harry and Cedric and the short figure simply looked at one another. And then, without warning, Harry's scar exploded with pain. It was agony such as he had never felt in all his life; his 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.

From far away, 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!"

"No!" Willow shouted and tried to push Cedric out of the way. However she was to late. Cedric was lying spread-eagled on the ground beside her. He was dead. For a second that contained an eternity, Willow 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 Willow's mind had accepted what she was seeing, before she could feel anything but numb disbelief, she felt herself being pulled to her feet. The short man in the cloak had put down his bundle, lit his wand, and was dragging Willow and Harry toward the marble headstone. Willow saw the name upon it flickering in the wandlight before he was forced around and slammed against it.

TOM RIDDLE

The cloaked man was now conjuring tight cords around Willow and Harry both, tying them from neck to ankles to the headstone. Willow could hear shallow, fast breathing from the depths of the hood; she struggled, and the man hit her — hit her with a hand that had a finger missing. And Willow realized who was under the hood. It was Wormtail.