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

Chapter 13

Voldemort looked away from Harry and I and began examining his own body. His hands were like large, pale spiders; his long white fingers caressed his own chest, his arms, his face; the red eyes, whose pupils were slits, like a cat's, gleamed still more brightly through the darkness. He held up his hands and flexed the fingers, his expression rapt and exultant. He took not the slightest notice of Wormtail, who lay twitching and bleeding on the ground, nor of the great snake, which had slithered back into sight and was circling me again, hissing.

Voldemort slipped one of those unnaturally long-fingered hands into a deep pocket and drew out a wand. He caressed it gently too; and then he raised it, and pointed it at Wormtail, who was lifted off the ground and thrown against the headstone where we were tied; he fell to the foot of it and lay there, crumpled up and crying, in front of me. Voldemort turned his scarlet eyes upon Harry, laughing a high, cold, mirthless laugh.

Wormtail weeped next to me, clutching his arm.

"Hold out your arm," said Voldemort lazily.

"Oh Master... thank you, Master..." He extended the bleeding stump, but Voldemort laughed again. "The other arm, Wormtail."

"Master, please... please... Voldemort bent down and pulled out Wormtail's left arm, but I couldn't quite see what was on it.

"It is back," Voldemort said softly, "they will all have noticed it... and now, we shall see... now we shall know..."

He pressed his long white forefinger to the brand on Wormtail's arm. Wormtail let out a fresh howl; Voldemort removed his fingers from Wormtail's arm.

A look of cruel satisfaction on his face, Voldemort straightened up, threw back his head, and stared around at the dark graveyard.

"How many will be brave enough to return when they feel it?" he whispered, his gleaming red eyes fixed upon the stars. "And how many will be foolish enough to stay away?"

He began to pace up and down before our, eyes sweeping the graveyard all the while. After a minute or so, he looked down at Harry and I again, a cruel smile twisting his snakelike face.

"You stand, Harry Potter and Ariadne Waters, upon the remains of my late father," he hissed softly. "A Muggle and a fool... very like your Mother, Harry. 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, looking all around him as he walked, and the snake continued to circle in the grass.

"As for your parents, Ariadne, well, their deaths were both to save the lives of you and your measly brother. In fact, I made a grave mistake that night... but no matter, it will be over today." Voldemort sneered.

"You see that house upon the hillside? My father lived there. My mother, a witch who lived here in this village, fell in love with him. But he abandoned her when she told him what she was... He didn't like magic, my father...

"He left her and returned to his Muggle parents before I was even born, Potter, Waters, and she died giving birth to me, leaving me to be raised in a Muggle orphanage... but I vowed to find him... I revenged myself upon him, that fool who gave me his name... Tom Riddle..."

Still he paced, his red eyes darting from grave to grave.

"Listen to me, reliving family history..." he said quietly, "why, I am growing quite sentimental... But look, you two! My true family returns..."