Awakening || Harry & Hermione

Chapter 9.2

It was too easy.

As Harry traversed the maze and defeated boggarts, skrewts, and other magical creatures with relative ease, he kept doubting the difficulty of the task. Nothing ever worked out so well for him.

Every action he took was mechanical and well-practiced as he made his way through the obstacles faster than expected. Only when he reached the Triwizard Cup and finally had a chance to catch his breath, did he realize that something else was strange. He had met no one on the way to the cup. Don't tell me I practiced so hard for this task that I sped through the obstacles faster than anyone else?

Maybe the others had run into a harder opponent or were just taking the careful approach as opposed to his adrenaline-charged path. It wasn't so strange when he thought about it: after all, he had arrived first in the second task too. There was something else niggling at him, an uncomfortable sense of wrongness that wouldn't go away, but he was so tired. So goddamn tired. He had worked so hard this whole year with barely a moment to rest and rushed forward to this cup with everything he had and now it was right there. Just waiting for him. He was almost done. The end was in sight, finally.

He pushed the uneasiness aside and reached out to grab the cup.

That was his first mistake.

The second was the moment he took to reorient his senses when he found himself transported to a graveyard; the dizziness from the cup—'Portkey!' his mind screamed at him even as his head spun—added to the exhaustion he had from barrelling through the obstacles, caused him to stumble and crash into a tombstone as his legs gave out.

By the time he had lifted himself off the ground, a short, hooded figure had already approached him. Every instinct of training of the past year, of whispered warnings, and an eerie sense of foreboding had him settling into a battle stance and readying his wand.

It was that small glance at the bundle the figure was carrying in its arms, the single second of hesitation of possibly hurting a baby that had the spell pausing on his lips.

That was his third mistake.

Suddenly, his scar burst with pain—such unimaginable pain he had never felt before in his life. The nightmares had nothing on this agony and it was all he could do not to lose his grip on his wand and fall to the ground screaming.

Harry felt the man reach out and grab his arm, and even though the searing pain and blackness wanted to envelop him, he resisted the hold and struggled to raise his wand towards the man.

It was too late. He heard a "Stupefy!" and when he woke up next he was tied from neck to ankle to a marble tombstone. He blinked his eyes, hoping to erase the terrible headache that was keeping him from seeing clearly, but when he turned his head and his sight settled on the words 'TOM RIDDLE' written on the headstone, he almost wished he had never woken up.

Of course, Harry thought hysterically, as the man lowered his hood to reveal himself as Wormtail.

Of course, he thought, as the baby turned out to be none other than Voldemort's pseudo living, homunculus form.

Of course, he thought as his blood was used to raise a man out of the cauldron, a man who looked at Harry with scarlet eyes glowing with both hatred and triumph.

Of course, it ended like this.

Harry didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. He had trained so hard this whole year, so desperate to survive, so bent on escaping the Tournament in one piece, but never had fighting directly with Voldemort factored into his plans. What use was everything he had worked for? What use was one year of preparation against a man known as the Dark Lord?

He was powerless now, lying like a limp rag doll, tied up tightly with no room to escape, bleeding and exhausted, with his head exploding with agony and—without his wand. Forced to stay silent and wonder deliriously if he would really spend his last moment on earth listening to Voldemort wax poetic about his history: of a muggle father he had killed, a witch mother he had despised, and growing up in an orphanage.

Perhaps even Voldemort grew tired of Harry's lack of response for he soon said: "Listen to me, reliving family history... why, I am growing quite sentimental... But look, Harry! My true family returns... "

Harry had never hated himself as much as he did when Voldemort whispered the tale of his mother's sacrifice to his death eaters and mockingly placed his finger on Harry's cheek, laughing, "I can touch him now."

The pain was still there, worse than before, but his hatred kept Harry lucid. Hatred towards himself for ending up in this situation, for that bloody moment of hesitation, of being noble that had stopped him from taking out Wormtail. Hatred at Voldemort for so casually explaining his plan, as if Harry wasn't even there, as if he was worth nothing since he would die at the end of tonight anyway. Hatred for the 'faithful Death Eater, stationed at Hogwarts' who had been behind this whole thing, who no one—not even the great Albus Dumbledore—had taken seriously enough to sniff out. Hatred for the Death Eaters who remained silent as Voldemort spoke, but laughed uproariously as Harry was tortured.