"Ah—!!!"
Clutching the trophy, Harry screamed as he landed in a clearing.
The fall came so suddenly he had no time to adjust his posture before slamming hard into the ground. He landed butt-first, the pain sharp enough to nearly bring tears to his eyes.
The trophy slipped from his grip, clattering loudly across the ground as it rolled some distance away.
Harry clutched his backside, wincing as he lifted his head to look around.
Where was he?
Everything sat dim around him, a few massive stone pillars standing tall, casting deep, heavy shadows. The air hung thick with a damp, musty smell, mixed with something indescribably eerie.
Harry frowned.
Everything here felt strangely familiar. Had he seen it somewhere before?
Look at those chairs—dilapidated, crooked, looking like no one had sat in them in years. If a dozen or so black-robed figures had been standing below, it would've been exactly the scene from his dream.
Then that cauldron—absurdly large, big enough to fit a person inside.
That size, exactly the sa—
No!
Harry's pupils contracted sharply.
He remembered now. This was the place from his dream.
He turned, ready to run.
But he'd barely taken a step when footsteps echoed from every direction, growing clearer as they closed in.
Harry didn't have time to think; he dove instinctively behind a massive stone pillar.
Just then—
the scar on his forehead flared with sudden pain!
It hit without warning, fierce and intense. His whole body went limp, his feet stumbled, and he fell straight to the ground.
The fall exposed him even faster.
The footsteps quickened abruptly.
A second later, several wizards in black robes stepped out from behind the pillars.
Their faces stayed hidden beneath their hoods, features impossible to make out, but a cold, dangerous energy radiated off them all.
The one in front stopped, looking down at Harry sprawled on the ground, and let out a raspy, eerie laugh.
"Harry Potter—"
He drew the name out.
"Ready to sacrifice yourself for the Dark Lord?"
Harry gritted his teeth against the searing pain of his scar and reached for his wand—
but the moment his hand lifted, a flash of red light shot toward him.
"Expelliarmus!"
The Disarming Charm hit its mark precisely.
Harry's wand flew from his grip, spinning through the air before landing in one of the black-robed wizards' hands.
That was it.
Harry's heart sank straight to the bottom.
He struggled to get back up, but the wizards had already surrounded him. One flicked a wand, and an invisible force yanked him up, slamming him against a nearby stone pillar.
Ropes shot from the wand's tip, binding him tight.
Unable to move, Harry could only watch helplessly, like some incompetent—ahem!
"Do it! Quickly!"
A raspy voice urged.
Only then did Harry notice one of the black-robed wizards was cradling something like a "baby" in his arms.
No—not a baby.
Its skin ran a sickly dark red, as if flayed. No hair, no nose—just two thin slits—and lips so thin they barely registered.
The instant Harry saw it, his mind flashed to the thing on the back of Quirrell's head, back in his first year.
Lord Voldemort!
The wizard who'd been urged walked to the giant cauldron, leaned over, and carefully set Lord Voldemort inside.
The motion was gentle, as if handling something impossibly fragile.
Whoosh—
A raging fire lit beneath the cauldron.
The flames licked at its base, crackling loudly. The liquid inside began churning and bubbling, sending up eerie plumes of steam.
Harry stared fixedly at the cauldron, praying frantically in his head:
Scald it to death!
Scald it to death!
Scald it to death, please, right now!
Unfortunately, his prayers went unanswered. The "baby" in the boiling liquid didn't even let out a cry.
The black-robed wizard moved to the next step.
One of them pulled back his hood, revealing a typical Dark wizard's face—gaunt, pale, sunken-eyed, lips curled into a cold smirk.
He waved his wand.
A bone beside the cauldron rose and slowly dropped into the pot.
He murmured under his breath:
"Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you shall renew your son."
Right after, another black-robed wizard drew his own wand and aimed a Severing Charm at his own left hand!
Blood splattered!
His hand came clean off at the wrist and dropped to the ground. He gritted his teeth without a sound, bent to pick it up, and tossed it into the cauldron.
"Flesh of the servant, willingly given, you shall revive your master!"
Finally—
every black-robed wizard turned their eyes at once toward Harry, tied to the pillar.
Fanaticism, cruelty, and impatience, all mixed in their gazes.
Harry's heart nearly stopped.
The wizard with the severed hand pulled a small knife from somewhere and walked toward him.
The blade caught the light with a cold gleam.
Harry struggled desperately, but the ropes wouldn't budge.
The wizard grabbed his wrist, and the blade sliced across—blood gushed out.
He held Harry's bleeding wrist over the cauldron, letting it drip in.
"Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken, you shall resurrect your foe!"
The incantation ended.
The cauldron began shaking violently.
Then—BANG!!!
With a deafening explosion, the cauldron burst apart!
Boiling liquid splashed everywhere, the force knocking the surrounding wizards flat.
Bound to the pillar, Harry couldn't dodge and could only watch as the liquid surged straight for him—but it stopped short, less than a meter away.
As if pulled by some invisible force, it lifted upward against gravity, gathering, swirling, condensing in midair.
At the same time, wisps of black mist began pouring in from all directions.
The mist rose from the ground, seeped through cracks in the stone pillars, drifted in from the darkness itself, all converging toward that sphere of liquid.
In an instant, the black mist enveloped it whole, forming a translucent cocoon.
Inside, something indistinct writhed, expanded, transformed.
Harry's scar throbbed with pain worse than anything he'd felt before.
He screamed in agony.
In the midst of that scream—
the cocoon burst open!
A figure stepped out.
The man was deathly pale, skeletal, skin stretched tight over bone with not an ounce of flesh to spare. His head was entirely bald. His eyes glowed blood-red, vertical pupils, cold and utterly devoid of warmth. He had no lips at all, exposing two rows of crooked teeth.
His hands stretched unnaturally long and thin, like spider legs.
Most striking of all was his nose.
Just two thin slits, no different from an empty socket.
Lord Voldemort looked down at his own hands, then up at Harry, tied to the pillar.
Something unreadable flickered through those blood-red eyes.
Then—
he smiled.
The smile was deeply unsettling, pale lips peeling back to reveal his full row of crooked teeth.
"Harry Potter..."
His voice came out raspy and cold, like metal scraping metal.
"We meet again."
—
At the same time, back at Hogwarts, both Snape and Karkaroff felt a disturbance flare from their wrists.
There were more of them, too.
Inside Malfoy Manor.
Lucius Malfoy was fast asleep.
A burning pain suddenly flared across his wrist!
He shot upright in bed, his whole body reacting as if struck by lightning, jolted instantly awake.
He looked down at his left arm.
The mark, once faint, now sat pitch black.
Meaning the Dark Lord had fully returned.
And was summoning them to his side.
Lucius's heart nearly stopped.
He stared blankly at the mark, mind completely empty.
Several seconds passed before he finally snapped out of it.
He felt the need to check in with his business partner. He pulled out his Magic Phone and, fingers trembling, dialed the number.
Ring... ring... ring...
The call connected after a few seconds.
"Hello?"
The voice on the other end came out blunt, clearly impatient.
Lynn was in a foul mood.
He'd just watched Harry snatch the championship away, and his mood had bottomed out completely. "This better be an important business matter."
Lucius faltered for a beat.
He forced down the pleasantries on the tip of his tongue and cut straight to it, mind racing.
"Mr. Lynn, something major has indeed happened—affecting our business."
His voice came out low, unmistakably nervous.
"I can feel it—You-Know-Who has fully returned. He's summoning me back to his side."
A second of silence on the line, followed by a burst of noise.
"Don't pull my beard!"
"Don't choke me!"
"What time do you think it is?! You're still up for a fight?! Cut it out!"
After some rustling, a different voice took over the phone.
"Hello, this is Dumbledore."
Malfoy's expression froze instantly, his whole body going rigid.
"Send me the location," Dumbledore continued, "I'll be right there."
Lucius: "..."
Malfoy stared blankly at his Magic Phone, mind completely blank.
Several seconds passed.
Only then did he manage to squeeze out a single word:
"...Okay."
---
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