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Voldemort raised one hand and stroked his smooth, pale skull, savoring the weight of a newly reborn body. A deep, satisfied laugh rolled out of him.
"My master!" Bellatrix trembled violently, prostrating herself on the ground.
He ignored her and walked slowly toward Harry.
"Harry Potter." The words came out as a hiss. "Surprised, aren't you? The Triwizard Tournament, from start to finish, all of it prepared for you. That trophy was a Portkey I made especially for you."
"Hogwarts and its damned anti-Apparition wards... only by exploiting the Goblet of Fire's own magical properties could I craft a Portkey capable of delivering you, safe and sound, directly into my presence."
He crossed the distance between them and seized Harry by the throat.
"Now, tell me, Harry Potter — do you have any last..."
The words died in his mouth.
A force wrapped around both of them, sudden and absolute. The next instant, Voldemort and Harry vanished from the spot entirely, leaving Bellatrix alone in the graveyard. She lifted her head slowly, stared at the empty air where her master had stood, and blinked.
...
Hogwarts.
Harry disappeared with the Goblet of Fire, and silence crashed down like a wave.
The crowd had been holding its breath in the tension of the final task. Now their faces froze. Cheers died in their throats and curdled into shock.
"Where's Harry?"
"The Goblet took him!" someone cried.
The Goblet had been tampered with. Harry had been forcibly transported away. A cold, formless dread settled over the stadium.
Dumbledore was already moving, preparing to trace the Portkey's destination, when a clear, unhurried voice cut across the silence.
"No need to trouble yourself, Headmaster."
Every head turned. Hermione had descended from above the maze at some point none of them had noticed, and now stood at the edge of the platform, expression perfectly calm, as though she had been expecting this exact moment.
"Hermione?" Dumbledore's brow furrowed as he looked at her. "You have a way?"
She raised her wand and flicked it once.
A translucent image materialized out of thin air before the entire crowd, vast and bright, like a living projection suspended in the night air. It wavered for a moment, then steadied.
A graveyard. Gloomy. Desolate.
A gaunt woman in black robes appeared in the image, cradling something in her arms, an ugly, misshapen creature, like a malformed infant.
"Bellatrix!" Someone in the crowd recognized her and screamed.
They watched as Bellatrix lowered the creature into a large cauldron filled with churning, sickly green liquid. Then she cut her own palm open and yanked forward an arm from deeper in the image, letting the blood stream into the cauldron.
The image shook violently, but something held it steady.
From within the cauldron, a tall, pale, noseless figure slowly rose.
"The Dark Lord!"
The stadium erupted. Screams and terrified whispers collided in the air. Students scrambled over one another trying to flee.
In a corner of the crowd, a figure standing among the professors looked as though his eyes might physically leave his skull.
This was not part of the plan.
Was the Dark Lord seriously broadcasting his own resurrection to the entire school?
Just as the chaos peaked, Dumbledore's voice rang out across the grounds like a thunderclap.
"Silence!"
The command hit like a physical force. Every sound choked off.
He stood on the platform, expression grave but posture unshakeable. "Calm yourselves. We are still inside Hogwarts. What you are seeing is only an image."
Seeing him there, steady, composed, was enough. The students' panic didn't disappear, but it pulled back from the edge.
Dumbledore turned to Hermione. His eyes were full of questions.
Whatever was happening, this girl was at the center of it.
"I left a contingency," Hermione said, her voice unhurried. "When I made that prophecy, I concluded that Voldemort's resurrection would require an extremely rare dark magic ritual."
She paused, her gaze moving across the crowd.
"From that point on, I began researching the ritual. After a great deal of study and verification, I identified what it was."
"An ancient dark magic resurrection rite requiring bone of the father, flesh of the servant, and blood of the enemy."
Across the platform, Professor Snape stood very still. The usual contemptuous mask had fallen away entirely, replaced by something that looked like shock. He stared at Hermione, lips barely moving, as if a puzzle piece had just clicked into place.
Hermione glanced at him. She gave a small nod and continued.
"The first two conditions are self-explanatory. But the third, blood of the enemy, combined with the content of the prophecy, I was almost certain it pointed to Harry."
"When the Goblet of Fire inexplicably spat out Harry's name, most of you probably dismissed it as a mystery." Her tone stayed even. "But since it wasn't my doing, and no one came forward to claim it, I immediately thought of Voldemort's resurrection. I wasn't certain. But I kept it in mind."
Snape let out a slow breath. "So when you asked me whether anything unusual had happened lately, that's why?"
"Exactly." Hermione nodded. "And when I found out Bellatrix Lestrange had escaped from Azkaban, I knew something was in motion. Something tied directly to the Triwizard Tournament."
A fresh wave of whispers swept through the hall.
Everyone had received the same information. The same clues had been in front of every single one of them. And not one of them had thought past who might win, who might claim the Goblet.
But this witch had seen Voldemort's return in a vision over a year ago. From that vague, murky prophecy, she had extracted the critical thread. Then she'd followed each fragmented clue that emerged after it, and pieced together, step by step, the full scope of the conspiracy buried inside the Triwizard Tournament.
She had simply stopped seeing the competition at all, and looked at what was underneath.
The awe on the faces around the stadium was genuine and unguarded.
Fleur in particular stared at Hermione with wide, shining eyes. Practically starry.
This was her idol. Obviously.
"The ritual requires Harry's fresh blood," Hermione continued. "Fresh blood means it has to be drawn on location. But Voldemort could hardly march openly into Hogwarts and bleed Harry in front of all of you, could he?"
Her gaze drifted, briefly but deliberately, to the figure among the professors disguised as Moody.
"So the only option was to move Harry. Under Hogwarts' protective enchantments, the only things capable of transporting someone out are unrestricted house-elves, and Portkeys."
Her voice carried clearly across the silent stadium. "And what was the ultimate prize of the Triwizard Tournament? The Goblet of Fire itself. An object the entire world would be watching, that a champion was guaranteed to touch. Is there a more perfect vessel?"
"I therefore concluded that the Goblet had almost certainly been tampered with and converted into a special Portkey, its purpose being to transport whoever touched it to a location of Voldemort's choosing. That person being Harry." A slight pause. "As it turns out, I was right."
"As for the Felix Felicis..." The corner of her mouth twitched. "That was fake, of course. What I gave Harry was a specialized monitoring potion I brewed myself. The effect, as you can see, allows me to share his sight and hearing in real time."
The murmuring that followed held a different quality than the earlier panic. Understanding. Pieces falling into place.
So that was why they could see this nightmare playing out live. The witch had prepared for it over a year ago.
"Miss Granger." Barty Crouch stepped forward. "If you foresaw all of this — if you even deduced that the Goblet was a Portkey — why didn't you say something sooner? Why not stop Potter from touching it in the first place?"
It was the question on every mind in the stadium.
If she'd known it was a trap, why let Harry walk into it?
Hermione's eyes were perfectly still. Calm as deep water, and just as unreadable. The people looking at her felt a chill they couldn't quite explain.
"Stop it?" She tilted her head slightly. Her tone didn't rise. It dropped. "Why would I do that?"
She looked out over the crowd of stunned faces.
"Voldemort wants to resurrect? Then let him."
➤ Next: Barty Crouch Jr., You Betrayed Me!
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