The Dance- A Harry Potter Love Story (BOOK 2)

Chapter 12

I felt my feet slam into the ground, and I fell hard, finally letting go of the Triwizard Cup. Harry's injured leg gave way and he fell forward next to me.

"Where are we?" he said.

Cedric shook his head. He and I got up. We pulled Harry to his feet, and we looked around.

We had left the Hogwarts grounds completely; we had obviously traveled miles -perhaps hundreds of miles- for even the mountains surrounding the castle were gone. We were standing instead in a dark and overgrown graveyard; the black outline of a small church was visible beyond a large yew tree to our right. A hill rose above us to our left. I could just make out the outline of a fine old house on the hillside.

Cedric looked down at the Triwizard Cup and then up at me and Harry. "Did anyone tell you the cup was a Portkey?" he asked.

"Nope," said Harry. He was looking around the graveyard. It was completely silent and slightly eerie.

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

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

"Yeah," I said, glad that Cedric had made the suggestion rather than me. We pulled out our wands. I kept looking around me. I had the strange feeling that we were being watched.

"Someone's coming," Harry said suddenly.

Squinting tensely through the darkness, we watched the figure drawing nearer, walking steadily toward us between the graves. I couldn't make out a face, but from the way it was walking and holding its arms, I 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 us closing all the time- I saw that the thing in the person's arms looked like a baby... or was it merely a bundle of robes?

I lowered my wand slightly and glanced sideways at Cedric and Harry. Harry followed suit, but Cedric shot us a quizzical look. We turned back to watch the approaching figure.

It stopped beside a towering marble headstone, only six feet from us. For a second, Harry, Cedric, the short figure and I simply looked at one another. Then, without warning, Harry groaned in agony, and clutching his forehead, crumpled to the ground.

"Harry?" I kneeled down next to him, rubbing his back soothingly.

From far away, above my head, I 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 my eyelids, and I heard something heavy fall to the ground beside me. I looked at Harry, who was about to wretch with pain; terrified of what I was about to see, I looked up.

Cedric was lying spread-eagled on the ground beside us. He was dead.

For a second that contained an eternity, I stared into Cedric's face, at his open grey eyes, blank and expressionless as the windows of a deserted house, at his half-open mouth, which looked slightly surprised. And then, before my mind had accepted what I was seeing, before I could feel anything but numb disbelief, before the tears filling my eyes had fallen, I felt myself being pulled to my feet by Harry. He comforted me quietly, equally shocked.

Just them, the short man in the cloak had put down his bundle, lit his wand, and dragged Harry toward the marble headstone. I saw the name upon it, 'Tom Riddle' flickering in the wandlight before Harry was forced around and slammed against it.

"No," my voice was choked with tears. "Cedric..." the sobs erupted, and soon I was a mess. Cedric was actually gone, and Harry was trapped with a mad man.

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

"You!" I gasped.

But Wormtail, who had finished conjuring the ropes, did not reply; he was busy checking the tightness of the cords, his fingers trembling uncontrollably, fumbling 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 towards me. I considered running, coming up with a plan to free Harry. But there was nowhere to run to.

Sobbing harder, I winced as Wormtail grabbed my wrist and dragged me to the base of Tom Riddle's grave. He shoved my back down hard onto the base of the stone, where the statue's feet were. I groaned in pain as he conjured coils and trapped me below where Harry was tied. He then walked off.  I couldn't make a sound, nor could I see where Wormtail had gone; I couldn't turn my head to see to the side, I could only see the sky in front of me.

Cedric's dead body was some twenty feet away, but I couldn't bear to look anyway. Near him was my wand. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a large snake slithered towards me. I would have screamed, except I was gagged. I could hear Wormtail's fast, wheezy breathing growing louder again. It sounded as though he was forcing something heavy across the ground. Having no idea what was going on and no control of the tears falling freely from my eyes, I struggled against the ropes.

Suddenly I heard crackling flames, then bubbling and boiling as the large snake slithered away into the darkness. And I heard the high, cold voice again.

"Hurry!"

"It is ready, Master." Wormtail whimpered,

"Now..." said the cold voice.

Harry let out a yell that was strangled in the wad of material blocking his mouth. I wanted to scream; I had no clue what was going on. I heard a soft thud, again meaningless to me.

Wormtail was speaking. His voice shook; he seemed frightened beyond his wits. He raised his wand, closed his eyes, and spoke to the night.

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

The surface of the grave at underneath my back cracked. Horrified, I watched as a fine trickle of dust rose into the air at Wormtail's command.

His voice broke into petrified sobs. "Flesh- of the servant - w-willingly given- you will- revive- your master." A scream pierced the night. Having an idea of what Wormtail might of done, I listened on.

I heard footsteps as Wormtail walked up to us. I stared up at his face and saw he had cut off his hand, and was moaning.

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

Squinting up, struggling hopelessly at the ropes binding me I saw the shining silver dagger shaking in Wormtail's remaining hand. I saw the dagger press into Harry's right arm and blood seeping down the sleeve of his torn robes. Wormtail, still panting with pain, fumbled in his pocket for a glass vial and held it to Harry's cut, so that a dribble of blood fell into it.

Let it not work... I thought as Wormtail walked up. I heard sizzling and popping.

I heard more footsteps as Wormtail walked back and bent down towards me.

"T-tears of the ancestral r-rival, uncontrollably given, let the Dark Lord rise again!" Wormtail choked as I tried desperately to stop crying. But no amount of willpower could prevent the salty liquid spilling from my eyes into Wormtail's vial.

Wormtail walked off again, but I heard the sound of steam, and suddenly white mist hung in the air.

"Robe me," said the high, cold voice from behind the steam, and I heard Wormtail, sobbing and moaning.

The thin man stared at Harry, then down at me, and I stared back into the face that had haunted my nightmares for three years. Whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was flat as a snake's with slits for nostrils...

Lord Voldemort had risen again.