Hindsight

Tempest

Harry landed on his feet with a thud. He was in the same graveyard where he had come more than a month earlier to swap Riddle's bone. He pulled out Hermione's old wand and held it in his hand. If he was going to get Disarmed, he would rather lose hers rather than his own, far more powerful wand.

The seconds of silence felt like an eternity. Harry's heart was thumping in his chest. He knew what was going to happen any minute now…

And then, a short man appeared. It was Wormtail. He was carrying a pile of robes in his arms. Harry knew it was Voldemort.

His scar did not burn, though. He was fully conscious and fully aware of his surroundings. Never had Harry been more thankful that the piece of Riddle's soul in his scar was gone.

Wormtail raised his wand. 'Expelliarmus!' he shouted. Harry did not resist. He needed this to happen. The wand flew out of his hand and landed a short distance away.

'Incarcerous!' Harry was bound in a bundle of conjured ropes. Wormtail put the bundle of robes that contained Voldemort's homunculus form and walked over to Harry. He began dragging him towards a marble headstone. From the feeble light of Wormtail's wand, Harry saw that it was indeed Tom Riddle's.

Wormtail cut away the cords binding Harry and conjured new ones to tie him tightly to the tombstone from shoulders to ankles. The cords were so tight that they were restricting his blood flow, but Wormtail pulled them yet tighter. Finally, satisfied with his handiwork, he withdrew a bundle of cloth from inside his robes and stuffed it in Harry's mouth. He hurried away back where he had come.

Harry heard a hissing sound at his feet. Nagini was slithering through the tall grass, circling the tombstone as if surveying his prey. One of us will die tonight, Harry thought savagely, And it will be you.

By his wheezy breathing, Harry knew that the rat had returned. He was pushing the cauldron that contained the base of the Regeneration Potion. Wormtail pointed his wand at the base of the cauldron and lit a roaring fire.

The Voldemort in the robes stirred and the snake at Harry's feet hissed excitedly, slithering towards the cauldron to join his master.

'Hurry,' Voldemort demanded, 'Is it ready?'

'Y-Yes, m-master,' Wormtail stammered as the potion began sparkling.

'Do it now, Wormtail.'

Wormtail picked up the immature form of his master from the ground. He unravelled the robes wrapped around him. Voldemort was hairless and scaly. His skin was somewhere between deep crimson and black, and looked as if it had been flayed. The face, however, was flat, pale, and snakelike with red eyes whose pupils were shaped like slits. Wormtail looked at it with a look of disgust and revulsion before lowering it into the cauldron. The body hit the bottom with a soft thud.

Wormtail was speaking now in a shaking, frightened voice. He raised his wand and pointed it at the tombstone.

'Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son.'

The ground at Harry's feet opened and the decayed coffin cracked lengthwise. Harry was relieved to see that the fake skeleton that he and Hermione had transfigured weeks before was still there, untouched. A fine trickle of dust rose up out of the grave and into the cauldron. Instead of the bright, venomous blue that Harry remembered, however, the surface of the cauldron shifted to a dull grey and the sparks died out.

Wormtail removed a silver dagger from inside his robes, whimpering in fright. 'Flesh…of the servant…willingly sacrificed…' he sobbed, 'You will…revive your…master.'

Wormtail stretched his right hand over the cauldron and swung the dagger upwards. His severed right hand dropped into the cauldron as he began to scream in agony. The potion had turned a toxic orange instead of the red that Harry remembered at this stage.