FINITE | Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire [4]

𝗹𝗶 | 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗹𝗼𝗿𝗱 𝘃𝗼𝗹𝗱𝗲𝗺𝗼𝗿𝘁

Voldemort turned from Harry and began examining his new body. His hands were like long, white spiders, reaching to caress his own chest; his eyes, fresh blood red with slits for pupils, looked around the graveyard, coming briefly to a rest on Gwen. His head tilted ever so slightly, his eyes glinting in the darkness, then he turned, held up his hands and examined them. He took no notice of Wormtail, quivering and bleeding in a heap on the ground. Gwen realised, with another jolt of fear, that there was a snake slithering around his feet, hissing, tongue fluttering. Voldemort slipped one of those unnaturally long hands into his robes and produced his wand. He caressed it gently too, then pointed it at Wormtail. Wormtail was lifted into the air, thrown across and slammed into the same headstone that Harry was propped up against. Voldemort turned his evil eyes upon Harry and let out a mirthless laugh.

  'My Lord...' Wormtail choked into the thick silence. 'My Lord... you promised... you did promise...'

  'Hold out your arm,' said Voldemort lazily.

  Wormtail, who had wrapped his stump in robes now shining with blood, whimpered gratefully and raised his right arm.

  'Thank you, Master... Thank you...'

  'The other arm, Wormtail,' Voldemort said spitefully.

  'Master... please...'

  But Wormtail did as he was told. Voldemort seized Wormtail's left arm, forced up his sleeve. Gwen saw in the low light, with another pang of realisation, that upon it was a tattoo, the image of a skull with a snake for a tongue. The Dark Mark.

  Voldemort examined it.

  'It is back,' he whispered. 'They will all have noticed... and now we shall see... now we shall know...'

  He pressed his white forefinger to the brand on Wormtail's arm; at the same time as the brand turned black, Harry whimpered in pain and Wormtail howled, as though Voldemort's touch was burning him.

  Voldemort removed his finger from Wormtail's arm and turned his face up to the sky, his mouth pulled into a smile of cruel satisfaction.

  'How many will be brave enough to return when they feel it?' he said softly. 'And how many will be foolish enough to stay away?'

  He began to pace up and down before Gwen, Harry, and Wormtail, eyes sweeping the graveyard all the while. After a minute or so, he looked down at Gwen, surveying her with his evil, scarlet eyes, then crossed back over to Harry.

  'You sit, Harry Potter, upon the remains of my late father,' he hissed softly. 'A Muggle and a fool... very like your dear mother. But they both had their uses, did they not? Your mother died to defend you as a child... and I killed my father, and see how useful he has proved himself, in death...'

  Voldemort laughed again. Up and down he paced, almost like a desperate man, awaiting the knowledge of whether his comrades had survived a war. The snake continued to circle in the grass, moving in a figure of eight around the two graves that Gwen and Harry were tied to.