The graveyard was silent except for the crackle of green fire and the wet hiss of bubbling potion. The night had grown colder, the fog thicker — clinging to the gravestones like old ghosts refusing to leave.
Harry and Sirius stood side by side, still in their disguises as Barty Crouch Jr. and Sr., their wands lowered but their eyes sharp. They had trained themselves to look calm, composed, obedient — but inside, both men were barely restraining the storm that boiled within them.
Peter Pettigrew — the man who had betrayed James and Lily Potter — was right there.
The traitor who had sent Sirius to Azkaban, who had framed him, who had destroyed their family.
Harry could feel the rage radiating off Sirius like heat from a forge. Every muscle in his godfather's face twitched, every breath a growl waiting to escape. But they couldn't break cover — not yet.
Pettigrew scurried around the cauldron, mumbling in feverish excitement, his silvery dagger glinting in the eerie green light. Then, without warning, he shuffled to the largest tombstone at the center of the graveyard — one so old and cracked that its name had long been erased — and crouched behind it.
Harry watched, his instincts on high alert. The smell of something wrong hit him a second later — the stench of rot, sulfur, and something sour that didn't belong to the living world.
Pettigrew straightened with a grunt, holding a small bundle in his trembling arms.
At first glance, it looked like a wrapped infant — swaddled tightly in dark cloth. But as the wind lifted a corner of the wrapping, Harry saw pale, almost translucent skin, glistening and raw like something newly born. The thing inside moved — weakly, sluggishly — and Harry realized with a cold drop in his stomach that the creature was alive.
"What—what is that?" Sirius whispered through clenched teeth, his voice tight with disgust.
Harry didn't answer. He already knew. He could feel it — the dark pull of magic, the twisted echo of something powerful yet incomplete.
That thing… was Voldemort.
The childlike form opened its small mouth and hissed in a voice that was unmistakably human — high, cold, and commanding.
"Begin."
Pettigrew nearly dropped to his knees. "Y-yes, Master! At once!"
As the rat-faced man scurried to obey, something massive slithered from the edge of the mist.
The sound came first — the deep, dragging scrape of scales over stone. Then the snake appeared, long as a carriage and glistening black-green in the cauldron light. Nagini. Its golden eyes burned with reptilian intelligence as it coiled protectively near the cauldron, head raised, tongue flicking through the air like thin ribbons of smoke.
It turned toward Pettigrew and hissed, the sound sharp and full of contempt.
"Yesss… I know, my sweet," Voldemort's weak voice croaked from within the bundle. "He is slow, clumsy… but he will serve."
Harry's every nerve was screaming. The creature, the snake, the ritual — it was all far worse than he had imagined.
Pettigrew, panting, began the preparations. With a wave of his wand, a nearby tombstone shattered with a deafening crack, and its marble fragments hovered, swirling into a perfect vertical slab. The ground shuddered as the buried coffin below burst from the earth, levitating into the air before them.
Dust and rot poured from the broken wood. A skeleton lay inside, brittle and half-preserved. Voldemort's voice hissed again. "That… will do."
Then Pettigrew turned toward them. "Where is the Auror?"
For an instant, Sirius almost didn't move. The word "Auror" struck too close to old memories — the fake Moody, chained and broken in a trunk. But Harry's elbow brushed his arm, and the motion brought him back.
Without a word, they both stepped toward the trunk that they had carried. Harry flicked open the locks with a motion that looked practiced, and Sirius helped lift the lid.
Inside, a bound and gagged Alastor Moody thrashed wildly, his mismatched eyes blazing with fury and confusion. He was fighting against invisible restraints that Harry himself had layered over him earlier — to sell the illusion.
Sirius grabbed him roughly by the shoulder and yanked him out, dragging him across the damp grass toward a nearby tombstone. The old Auror's boots scraped deep tracks into the mud, his guttural sounds muffled by whatever was covering his mouth.
Pettigrew, meanwhile, was watching with barely contained eagerness. "Yes! Tie him there! The master will have his blood soon enough!"
Harry kept his face blank, suppressing the disgust that rose in his throat. He tightened the rope bindings around Moody's wrists and legs with mechanical precision, his mind racing. Every motion had to be perfect. Every act convincing.
When Sirius knelt beside Moody, he slipped something strange around the man's face — a bowl-like metal ring with runic etchings along the rim. It clamped around Moody's jaw, covering his mouth entirely.
Harry frowned. "What is that?" he asked under his breath.
Sirius grunted, not looking up. "A gag… with a silencing ward. Found it in Moody's trunk. He can't shout, cast, or bite through it."
Harry gave a slow nod. It was brutal, but necessary.
When they were done, Moody was bound to the tombstone, the runic gag glowing faintly with blue light. His mismatched eyes glared at both of them — furious, helpless, burning with questions neither could answer.
Pettigrew clapped his hands together like an excited child. "Perfect! Everything is ready, my Lord!"
From within the swaddling cloth, Voldemort stirred. The thing's small, malformed hands gripped the edges of the fabric, and his serpentine eyes opened wide — red, narrow, and ancient.
"Then let us begin," he whispered.
The cauldron's liquid turned from green to black. Sparks of dark energy flickered across its surface like living shadows. The air grew heavy, pressing down on them all — the storm of something unnatural gathering strength.
Harry felt the Force hum violently inside him, warning him that the ritual had already begun to tear open the veil between life and death.
He exchanged a brief look with Sirius.
The time to act was coming.
The graveyard had fallen deathly still, and even the distant night creatures seemed to sense that something unnatural was about to take shape.
Pettigrew trembled as he approached, clutching the bundled creature in his arms. The small, frail form of Voldemort twitched weakly, his skin slick and red, like he'd been born without flesh. The sight made Harry's stomach twist, though not out of pity—what he felt was revulsion, the kind born of seeing something that should never exist.
Pettigrew's lips quivered. "Forgive me, master," he whimpered.
The creature hissed back, the words scraping through the air like shards of glass. "Do it."
Pettigrew squeezed his eyes shut and stepped closer to the cauldron. The bubbling liquid threw sparks that burned holes into his robes. He raised the bundle once more, whispering a prayer to something that would never answer him, and then—
He dropped Voldemort into the cauldron.
A scream erupted—high-pitched, unholy, and filled with agony. Steam burst upward in a violent explosion of green vapor, carrying the scent of burning flesh. The fire beneath the cauldron roared as though alive, and the ground shuddered beneath their feet.
Even Sirius flinched. "Bloody hell…" he muttered under his breath.
Harry's teeth clenched. He could hear the Dark Lord's shrieks—raw, furious, inhuman—and yet, there was no pity in him. Only calculation. The ritual had to complete… wrongly.
As Pettigrew stumbled backward, his face pale and drenched in sweat, he turned toward the tombstone he had shattered earlier. From the broken grave, a coffin now hovered, ancient and half-decayed. Its lid had cracked apart, exposing a skeleton inside—the bones yellowed and thin.
"Bone of the father," Pettigrew began shakily, his voice rising above the screams, "unknowingly given… you will renew your son!"
Before he could step forward, Harry's hand shot out.
"Allow me," he said softly.
Pettigrew blinked, startled. "Y-you… wish to do it, Master Crouch?"
Harry inclined his head, masking the cold precision in his voice. "It would be an honor."
He walked toward the coffin, each step deliberate. From the ground, he picked up a stick—nothing but a broken branch—and subtly extended his hand. The Force stirred inside him, invisible but fierce, and the stick shimmered, transforming before his eyes into what looked like an ancient bone, cracked and aged with centuries of dust.
Pettigrew, too terrified to question, accepted it eagerly. "Ah! Thank you, Master Crouch!" he cried, not realizing he'd been handed an illusion.
He raised it above his head and, with trembling reverence, dropped it into the boiling cauldron.
"Bone of the father, unknowingly given…"
A sharp hiss burst from the potion's surface, and a plume of black smoke spiraled upward, curling into ghostly faces before fading into the night. The cauldron began to pulse—like a heart.
Then Pettigrew turned toward his left hand, the silver dagger shaking in his grip. He looked terrified.
Tears streamed down Pettigrew's face. "Flesh of the servant… willingly given…"
With a sudden motion, he pressed the goblin-forged blade against his wrist and sliced. The knife cut deep. Blood spattered onto the stones as he screamed, clutching the stump of his arm. The blade clattered to the ground, and the cauldron's contents surged upward, erupting into a dark green flame.
Harry took a half-step back, the shockwave pushing through his robes. The Force within him recoiled, sensing something ancient awakening.
The cauldron hissed and boiled faster, the air vibrating with each pulse. Then Pettigrew stumbled toward the bound Alastor Moody—the fake one they'd brought for the ritual.
Moody thrashed against the ropes, his muffled shouts echoing through the gag. The runic bowl clamped over his mouth glowed fiercely, trapping every sound inside. His one good eye was wild, rolling with fury.
Pettigrew raised the dagger again, his voice trembling. "Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken…"
Harry felt every nerve in his body go taut.
The blade sliced through Moody's forearm, shallow but deep enough to draw blood. Crimson droplets ran down the dagger's edge and fell into the cauldron below.
"And the Dark Lord will rise again!" Pettigrew screamed.
The ground beneath them convulsed. The cauldron erupted in a blinding column of emerald fire, sending searing heat through the air. Sirius swore under his breath and pulled Harry backward as waves of magic rolled outward, warping the very air.
The cauldron's roar had turned into something alive — a beast of metal and flame. The air in the graveyard bent and cracked, every breath thick with burning magic. The green fire that moments ago shimmered like a serpent's tongue now churned into black lightning that forked against the sky.
Harry's heart thudded once, hard, steady. He had seen enough.
Even though he wore the face of Barty Crouch Jr., in that moment, he wasn't pretending. His mind was sharp, his instincts colder than the night air. He had spent years studying what others avoided. Beneath Hogwarts, in the shadowed remnants of the Chamber of Secrets, he had learned at the feet of the greatest ritualist the world had ever produced—Salazar Slytherin himself.
Salazar had taught him how magic listened—how it obeyed balance, not morality. Harry remembered the old spirit's warning:
"Rituals are chains, boy. Break one link, and the chain will strangle its master."
That truth echoed in his skull now.
He had been a Gryffindor by Sorting Hat, but the serpent's cunning had molded him in secret. He had delved into the forbidden section of the library until he knew the structure of dark magic. He knew how each circle drew power, how intent was woven through sacrifice, and how the smallest deviation — one wrong ingredient, one falsified component — could cause catastrophic collapse.
This ritual was already collapsing.
The air itself screamed. The cauldron's surface pulsed outward like a dying heart, black veins of energy spreading through the ground. The gravestones cracked, their engraved names glowing red. Voldemort's distorted cries mingled with Pettigrew's sobbing prayers.
Harry's decision was instant.
He grabbed Sirius by the shoulder. "We're leaving. Now."
Sirius blinked, half-stunned by the chaos. "What about—"
"There's no 'what about!'" Harry snapped, his voice cutting through the wind. "Ritual magic doesn't forgive mistakes. That cauldron's about to blow apart the entire circle. If we stay here, we die with them!"
Sirius saw the certainty in his godson's eyes — cold, absolute. He didn't argue.
Together they turned and sprinted, boots pounding against the torn earth. Behind them, the cauldron's color changed again — green, then black, then a deep, unnatural crimson. The very air began to hum, vibrating against their bones.
They tore through the ward line, the pressure slamming against their backs like a storm surge.
"Remus!" Harry shouted into the darkness. "We're leaving—now!"
From the treeline, Remus Lupin appeared, pale and breathless, wand drawn. "What's happening? The ground's shaking—"
"The ritual's unraveling!" Harry barked. "We used false components — the circle's collapsing in on itself! We have to move before it takes the whole field!"
Remus didn't need convincing. He took one look at the wild magic surging behind them — the twisted vortex of black light spinning around the cauldron — and nodded sharply.
"Hold on to me," Sirius ordered, raising his hand.
Harry gripped his shoulder. Remus caught his arm. The world around them howled — lightning striking graves, flames bursting from cracks in the ground. The cauldron's final roar split the night, a sound so terrible it made even Nagini shriek and recoil.
Harry felt the Force coil tight in his chest — then released it.
CRACK!
They Apparated, the world ripping apart into smoke and speed.
For a breathless instant, there was nothing but spinning color and the hollow echo of their escape. Then they landed hard on cold earth — far from Little Hangleton, on the edge of a misty field miles away.
All three staggered, gasping, disoriented. Sirius dropped to his knees, clutching the grass. "Bloody hell… tell me that wasn't what I think it was."
Harry didn't answer right away. He was staring back in the direction they'd come, though the horizon showed nothing but darkness. His voice was calm, but edged with iron.
"That wasn't a resurrection," he said quietly. "That was a detonation."
Remus wiped sweat from his brow, eyes wide. "You sabotaged it on purpose as planned."
Harry met his gaze. "I gave them a stick, not a bone and instead of an enimy's blood Pettigrew used a servant's blood. Two wrong core ingredients, and the circle devours itself."
Sirius looked up, still breathing hard. "And the baby… Voldemort?"
Harry's eyes flickered — not with pity, but with cold resolve. "If the ritual failed the way I think it did, there's nothing left to come back."
A low rumble rolled across the distant hills, faint but heavy — like thunder that didn't belong to the sky. The ground beneath them trembled once, then went still.
Remus turned toward Harry. "You think it's over?"
He adjusted his cloak, the night breeze brushing past him, and looked toward the horizon one last time.
"Let's get back. Hogwarts will feel that backlash before dawn."
Author's Note:
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