A/N: hey guys! Thanks so much for the 2K reads!!!! That's amazing!!!!!!!!

So this is the second last chapter of Understood :( but not to worry, the sequel is being written right now! I've even got the cover ready, the story just needs a title. So stay tuned!

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

Dead bodies littered the ground of Hogwarts, all of their faces horrifically distorted. Blood coated the ground like it had rained from the sky in a torrential flood of horror and gore, yet the vampire staring out across the sea of destruction didn't feel hungry. He felt... Empty.

There was a body amongst the rest that he could only stare at, unable to feel. Blood splattered blond hair, empty, glassy storm grey eyes.

Flashes of green obscured his vision, a snake like man stepping forward. His face was twisted and deformed, only two slits remaining where his eyes once would've been. His eyes were a deep red, mirroring Harry's own.

And then his parents were there. Lily and James. They both looked like they were in agony, screaming as blood poured from their eyes and mouths, splattering across the already soaked ground. And then there was everyone he'd ever known, all dying in horrible and gruesome ways.

Ron was beheaded, Hermione crushed under the weight of a falling pillar. Sirius simply faded into nothingness, Remus Lupin collapsing to the floor with his own wand pointed to his head. Dumbledore fell from the top of the astronomy tower, Fred was brutally murdered in front of George who then copied Lupin and ended his own life.

And all Harry could do was stand there and watch, watch with horror flooding him. He felt completely paralysed.

And then someone stepped forward, out of the destruction, unharmed. A boy, around Harry's age. Cold, empty black eyes, pale skin, and leaving a path of hell behind him. Something seemed to click in Harry's mind as a name filled his mind. The name that belonged to this person.

Lucifer.

******

Harry awoke with a scream of terror, which quickly turned into one of agony as his scar burned. He barely managed to throw open the lid of his coffin, his vision obscured by tears of pain.

His whole forehead felt like it was on fire, his skull feeling like it was about to split in half. He let out another screech, holding a hand to his forehead in a hopeless attempt to dull the pain.

All year, his scar had been fine. But now it was like a whole year's worth of pain had been thrown at him.

He sat there, trying to stifle his cries as the pain subsided only slightly. He felt unable to draw his hand away, as if he did the pain would return as intense as before. It was still extremely painful, but now bearable.

A look of horror was painted across his face, his mind still desperately trying to register what the hell it had just experienced. All he felt was emotional agony, the emotional torment at seeing everyone he cared about simply fade away was unbearable.

Trembling and still crying weakly, he swung his legs over the edge of his coffin and wrapped his arms around his bare torso, hugging himself as he walked silently to Draco's room.

"D-Draco?" He hiccuped, pushing open the door. The werewolf awakened, blinking open his eyes sleepily but immediately an expression of concern came over his face. The lights in the room lit up as he opened his mouth to speak.

"Harry, what happened?" Draco asked, worried. "Are you okay?"

Harry shook his head, shaking. Draco got out of bed, wrapping his arms around Harry in a hug. "What happened? Can you tell me?"

"Nightmare," Harry mumbled, his voice cracking as he tried to blink back the rest of his tears.

Draco gave him a pitiful look. "Do you want to stay here?"

Harry nodded, giving Draco a thankful gaze. He didn't want to be alone at the moment, being alone with his thoughts couldn't mean anything good.

Draco just smiled that brilliant smile, wrapping an arm around Harry's shoulders as they sat down on the bed, Harry lifting a hand to use his sleeve to wipe away his remaining tears. The pain in his scar had dulled significantly.

"What happened in the dream?"

Harry diverted his gaze, not knowing if he should speak. Yet he opened his mouth and did so anyways.

"It was some sort of battle, and Hogwarts was in destruction. People were dead, and everyone I cared about died in front of me and I couldn't do anything. Then Voldemort appeared, but he was with someone else that was much more evil. I-I can't remember his name," Harry frowned, now unable to remember what he'd recognised the boy to be called. "And my scar was hurting."

Draco frowned now, lifting a hand to trace his fingers over the lighting shaped scar. "Your scar was hurting? Shouldn't we tell someone?"

"I-I don't know."

"Hey, don't worry about it," Draco reassured him, moving to climb under the duvet. "Let's just go to sleep, and we'll see how things go tomorrow. It's the final task after all."

Harry copied, but now dread filling him. "Don't remind me," he whispered, pulling the covers up to cover his shoulders.

Draco gave him a small smile. "You'll do fine," he murmured, lifting a hand to stroke Harry's hair gently. "I know you will."

Harry returned the smile, if half-heartedly. At least someone believed in him.

It wasn't long before drowsiness returned to the vampire, who buried his head in Draco's neck, closing his eyes and finally drifting back to sleep.

******

The morning of the third and final task arrived, and Harry was a complete nervous wreck. He felt like vomiting, not that there would be anything in his system to vomit up, but he could still retch painfully.

Draco had been chatting and comforting him all morning, holding his hand, kissing his cheek, before murmuring his final words of good luck against Harry's lips before the vampire left to go down to the maze.

Harry was too preoccupied inside his own head to take note of anything that Barty Crouch said about the task at hand, instead staring blankly at the hedges in front of him for ten minutes straight thinking about just how insane this entire school was.

Dudley would be learning how to solve equations like 2 + 2, and here he was, risking his life in a death maze. Well, there was no life there, but he was still risking himself.

It wasn't long before the crowds had arrived, filling up the stands as they cheered. Harry quickly picked out the werewolf amongst them, shooting a nervous smile in his direction. Draco replied with a shy smile, giving him a small wave.

For the second task he'd originally come third, but they'd put him in second place for bringing two people back and getting stabbed by a mermaid. This gave him an advantage in the huge maze ahead of him, as he was given a ten minute headstart. Cedric however, was given a five minute headstart to him.

By now Harry had blocked out the noise of everyone around him, watching the darkened hedges as if he expected Voldemort himself to come waltzing out of the nearest bush. He was paranoid, he knew that, but for some reason he felt he had s good reason to be. Something about today just felt unexplainably... Wrong.

He was shocked out of his trance-like state as Mad-Eye Moody clapped him on the back, making him stumble. He hadn't even realised that Cedric had already left to go into the maze. Mad-Eye nodded towards the passage in front of him.

Even though he didn't need to, Harry drew in a deep breath before venturing forward. As soon as he was in the maze, he saw the passage behind him shut, growing closed.

He stood there, trembling slightly as the eerie, piercing silence messed with his head. Every instinct simply told him to get out of here, to leave. Something wasn't right.

Yet he knew he couldn't. He couldn't give up on the task so easily.

He began to walk, waving his wand to cause his disguise to fall. Harry felt a bit reassured as his senses were heightened, now able to be more aware of what was around him.

The ground crunched underneath his feet as he quickened his pace to a jog, trying to fight off the panic. He'd never particularly liked enclosed spaces, and now he was surrounded from every direction.

"Point me," his quiet words came out shakily as he held his wand. It tilted to the left in his hand, pointing towards North.

The maze was rather straight forward at first, and it wasn't long before Harry was dashing through the paths, a mere blur. Left, right, left, left, right, left again.

The sound of a heartbeat began to fill his ears, and he frowned. It was beating too fast to be human, so Harry just had to hope that whatever was up ahead wasn't going to eat him.

He rounded a corner, dread and horror quickly overcoming him as he stared at what was in front of him.

That boy, from his dream. His face was obscured by shadows, flames crackling around him. He was dressed in all black and white, a white shirt, and a black waistcoat and pants.

A million thoughts ran through Harry's mind all at once. Why can't I smell smoke? Who is he? Why couldn't I hear the fire? Why is he here? Does he exist? Am I hallucinating?

He stood for a moment, paralysed in fear. The figure didn't move, the flames licking upwards towards the sky.

"Ridikulus!" The spell slipped from Harry's lips subconsciously, the creature simply letting out a wail before disappearing. Nothing funny appeared, probably because Harry's mind was too clouded with fear to conjure up anything slightly amusing. Yet the heartbeat hadn't faded, now returning at a faster pace than before.

Harry turned, seeing a glowing light in the darkness to his left. It was a Lumos spell being cast from someone's wand. As the figure drew closer, Harry realised who it was.

Viktor Krum, the Durmstrang champion. He had a blank, emotionless look on his face, his eyes completely white. He took one look at Harry before continuing on his way, walking as if he were a puppet on strings.

Harry frowned, looking down at his hands. Grey skin. Why hadn't Krum reacted in any way at all? Was he possessed? Seeing the figure disappear into the darkness certainly gave Harry this idea.

Now even jumpier, he dashed forward again.

A few minutes later, a scream rang out through the air, a few kilometres to his right. Fleur had been the one to scream, unless one of the other male champions had an extremely feminine voice. Harry frowned, watching red sparks shoot up into the sky.

One champion was down, and this made Harry all the more paranoid that he'd be next.

He continued at a running pace, rounding corners and growling angrily as he hit a dead end every so often. The maze seemed endless, and he could only hope that he was getting close to the centre where the cup would be.

It wasn't long before two more heartbeats filled his ears, and he rounded the next corner suspiciously. It was a four-crossing path, and two figures were advancing from his left and right.

One was Cedric, that was clear from his tall and stocky frame. The other looked like Krum, but something wasn't right with the way he was walking. This became even more clear as he passed Harry, giving the vampire a strange look, before flying forward and throwing Cedric to the floor.

The eerie silence was broken as Cedric let out a yell, trying his hardest to throw the other boy off. Viktor however, was clearly stronger from all his Quidditch.

Harry lifted his wand, hissing a spell under his breath. "Petrificus Totalus!"

Krum immediately froze, going completely rigid and stiff as a board. Cedric let out a yelp, throwing the now motionless Viktor off of him. He got up shakily, grabbing the hedge wall for support.

Cedric had clearly seen some of the more dangerous obstacles already. A large cut ran across his forehead, and he was covered in dirt.

He lifted his head, nearly falling over again as he saw Harry.

"Y-You're a-"

"Vampire, yes," Harry finished for him, lips curling into a snarl. He simply wanted to leave. "Tell anyone, and you're dead."

Cedric nodded shakily, eyeing Harry as if the boy were about to pounce and drain the life out of him. Harry rolled his eyes, stalking onwards on the path ahead. His feet crunched on the grass, now accompanied by Cedric's as the Hufflepuff followed him.

"Why're you following me?!" Harry whirled around, glaring.

"I don't know, we're the only ones left," Cedric replied, hurrying to walk beside the vampire. "Besides, you can probably defeat anything we come across, and I don't want to see that bloody manticore again-"

"Shut it," Harry hissed, baring his fangs. Cedric recoiled in fear slightly, closing his mouth. They continued in silence, Harry shooting angry glances at the taller boy every now and again.

A noise filled Harry's ears, and he stopped dead, Cedric walking ahead a few paces.

"What is it?" Cedric asked, turning around.

"Shh," Harry hissed, listening. "Can you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

The noise sounded out again, but this time, much louder. Louder meant closer, and closer meant bad.

Harry turned, looking ahead. He could make out a faint light, fading, but still there. The cup.

He gulped, eyes flickering to Cedric, who's eyes widened before they both sprinted forward.

The hedges behind them were closing up at an alarming rate, gaining on them both. Harry threw all the speed he could into running, Cedric barely keeping up. Harry was surprised he could keep up at all. Harry jumped as a vine reached out to grab him, stumbling as he landed. Cedric was quick to grab his wrist, pulling him onwards as they carried on running with new desperation, leaping over the vines that shot out of the hedges to grab them.

The cup was coming closer, and closer, until finally it was in reach. Their eyes locked, before they both leapt and grabbed onto the cup.

Harry's eyes flew wide as he felt like he was seeing jerked into the air, spinning wildly.

The cup was a portkey?

******

"I don't feel very well," Credence mumbled, head pounding. Newt frowned, taking Credence's face in his hands and staring into his eyes worriedly. He was rather pale, and his eyes were glassed over and dull.

"Hey, how about you go back to the office for a bit? I'll have to stay, they've got me as one of the healers on hand, but I'll see you soon," Newt suggested. Credence nodded, standing dizzily before making his way back to the castle.

The corridors were empty, the only noise being Credence's own stumbling footsteps on the cold marble floor.

A gruff voice behind him made him jump.

"I think you dropped this."

Credence turned, seeing the form of the Defence Against The Dark Arts teacher. Credence had never spoken to him before, as the man freaked him out a lot. He was holding something.

It was the necklace that Grave's had given to him, the one with the odd symbol on it. A triangle with a circle inside, a line running through them both. Credence frowned, unaware that he even had the object still, let alone had dropped it.

"Thanks," he murmured, still confused. He reached out, taking the necklace from the man's hand.

Immediately the world began to whirl, and he felt like he was flying. Credence could only let out a terrified scream before the world was nothing but a blur.

******

Harry opened his eyes weakly, looking around. It looked like he was in a graveyard, headstones scattered here and there. In the darkness it was a horrifically eerie and scary place, and Harry could only recoil in dread. Was this part of the task?

"So the cup was a portkey," Cedric murmured, standing and looking around. Harry jumped, having forgotten that the other boy was there.

"Looks like it," Harry mumbled in reply, still looking around and trying be as alert as he could be.

Harry wrapped his arms around himself as he took a few steps forward, everything inside of him screaming at him to simply turn into a cloud of bats and fly away as fast as he could, yet terror made sure he remained on the ground.

"Where are we?" Cedric asked quietly, more to himself than to Harry. Harry didn't reply, staring transfixed at what was ahead.

"No," he whispered, horror immediately spreading. "Cedric, get back to the cup!"

"What?" Cedric's reply was slightly humoured, he clearly hadn't seen what Harry was staring at and wasn't taking the vampire seriously.

"Go!" Harry yelled, but it was too late.

"Kill the spare," a snake-like voice echoed through the air. A rugged, rat-like man came into view, walking towards a huge, boiling cauldron while carrying what looked like a freakish baby. It was horrifically deformed, bones sticking out at odd angles, it's flesh pale and pasty. Two beady red eyes peered at them.

A beam of green light shot from the man's wand, hitting Cedric square in the chest. Cedric immediately went rigid, eyes wide as he fell. He was dead before he hit the ground.

"Cedric!" Harry screamed, unable to move, paralysed by fear and horror. The man got closer, and Harry desperately tried to find it in him to move, but that became impossible as something grabbed him from behind.

He gasped in terror, before realising with shock that it was one of the grand statues of a Grim Reaper, it's stone scythe pinning him to the cold and uncomfortable stone.

The man tossed the figure into the cauldron, and Harry felt his scar start to burn as he began to whisper under his breath. "Let it die, let it drown, please, let it drown..."

The man was speaking, but Harry didn't care what he was saying at all. He was trembling horribly, his senses going insane as alarms rang out in his head telling him something was very, very wrong.

"Tears, from the enemy," it was these shaky words, and the agony that suddenly erupted through his arm that shocked Harry out of his trance, causing him to screech in pain, tears immediately dripping down his face. He felt the cool glass of a phial be pressed up against his face, catching the tears.

Just as he was building up his power to explode the statue binding him, the cauldron began to bubble more, now at a boiling point as something began to stir underneath the water.

The world seemed to slow before Harry's eyes as a figure rose from the cauldron, pale, bony, and snake-like.

Voldemort had returned.

As soon as the rat-like man that Harry now recognised to be Peter Pettigrew threw a robe over the figure, people began appearing out of thin air with loud cracks. They were all cloaked in black, dark, skeletal metal masks covering their faces and obscuring their identities.

Harry could practically smell the fear radiating off them as he watched, the people shaking slightly as the man addressed them, his voice coming out in an eerie hiss.

"Well... The first thing I'm going to say is that I am extremely disappointed in you all. Out of all of you, none came to look for me."

Harry could tell that the fear was growing, some of the death eaters now visibly trembling.

"Crabbe," Voldemort snarled, waving a hand. A man's mask dissipated from his face, and he fell to his knees, looking terrified. "Goyle. Yaxley, McNair. Malfoy."

Harry saw the face of the blond haired man, the man who's son he had now fallen in love with. He curled his lips into an angry snarl, wanting to rip the man limb from limb for all he had done, to him and Draco.

"Not even you, Bella."

The face of a woman was revealed, her hair frizzy and wild. She kept her gaze cast down as she spoke quietly. "I'm sorry, My Lord."

"But is sorry good enough? Lots of you ran away, abandoned me. And for that, you will all-"

Voldemort was cut off as an explosion rang out, the stone grave that Harry was bound to shattering into pieces of rubble. The vampire stood, anger flaring through his crimson eyes, fangs poking over his bottom lip, dark magic swirling around him.

"Oh, I forgot about our special guests!" Voldemort said, his white lips curling into a twisted grin.

Harry raised an eyebrow at this. Guests? Who else was here? Cedric, maybe?

"Harry Potter, now an alleged vampire," Harry could see Lucius cower slightly. "And."

A figure was dragged forward by two death eaters, as if he'd appeared out of thin air. Harry recognised his scent, but only vaguely. And as he lifted his head, Harry's eyes widened.

He was sickly pale, his brown eyes filled with terror as he looked around, trembling. He had very prominent cheekbones, but his face was slightly sunken. Dread and curiosity filled Harry immediately. What was it that he was called? Ezra? Ezra Redmayne?

"Credence Barebone."