"H-Harry, t-they're coming," Johnny said weakly, grabbing Harry's shoulder.

Squinting tensely through the darkness, they watched two figures drawing nearer, walking steadily toward them between the graves. Harry couldn't make out their faces, but from the way one was walking and holding its arms, he could tell that it was carrying something. Whoever they were, one was short while the other was tall, and both were wearing hooded cloaks pulled up over their heads to obscure their face. And - several paces nearer, the gap between them closing all the time - Harry saw that the thing in the persons arms looked like a baby...or was it merely a bundle of robes?

Harry lowered his wand slightly and glanced sideways at Johnny. Johnny shot Harry a sorry filled look. They both turned back to watch the approaching figure.

They stopped beside a towering marble headstone, only six feet from them. For a second. Harry and Johnny and the figures simply looked at one another.

And then, without warning, Harry's scar exploded with pain, and then, before Harry could feel anything but numb disbelief, he and Johnny was being pulled to their feet.

The short man in the cloak had put down his bundle, the taller man lit his wand, and was dragging Harry and Johnny toward the marble headstone. Johnny saw the name upon it flickering in the wandlight before they was forced around and slammed against it.

TOM RIDDLE

The taller cloaked man was now conjuring tight cords around Harry and Johnny, tying them from neck to ankles to the headstone. Johnny could hear shallow, fast breathing from the depths of the hood; he struggled weakly, and the man hit him, and Harry realised who was under the hood. It was Jakob, his godfather and uncle.

"You!" Harry gasped. "I trusted you!"

"I'm sorry, Harry," Johnny muttered weakly from beside him.

Once sure that Harry and Johnny were bound so tightly to the headstone that they couldn't move an inch, Jakob drew a length of some black material from the inside of his cloak and stuffed it roughly into their mouths; then, without a word, he turned from Harry and Johnny and walked away.

Some way beyond them, glinting in the starlight, lay the Triwizard Cup. Harry's wand was on the ground.

They could hear noises at their feet. Johnny looked down and saw a gigantic snake slithering through the grass, circling the headstone where they were tied.Jakob's fast, wheezy breathing was growing louder again. It sounded as though he was forcing something heavy across the ground. Then he came back within their range of vision, and they saw him pushing a stone cauldron to the foot of the grave. It was full of what seemed to be water - Johnny could weakly hear it slopping around.

The thing inside the bundle of robes on the ground was stirring more persistently, as though it was trying to free itself. Now Wormtail was busying himself at the bottom of the cauldron with a wand. Suddenly there were crackling names beneath it. The large snake slithered away into the darkness.

The liquid in the cauldron seemed to heat very fast. The surface began not only to bubble, but to send out fiery sparks, as though it were on fire. Steam was thickening, blurring the outline of Wormtail tending the fire, and blurring the outline of Jakob watching in anticipation. The movements beneath the robes became more agitated. And the two boys heard the high, cold voice again.

"Hurry!"

The whole surface of the water was alight with sparks now. It might have been encrusted with diamonds.

"It is ready. Master," Jakob said.

"Now..." said the cold voice.

Jakob pulled open the robes on the ground, revealing what was inside them, and Harry let out a yell of pain that was strangled in the wad of material blocking his mouth.

It was as though Jakob had flipped over a stone and revealed something ugly, slimy, and blind - but worse, a hundred times worse. The thing Jakob had been carrying had the shape of a crouched human child, except that Johnny had never seen anything less like a child. It was hairless and scaly-looking, a dark, raw, reddish black. Its arms and legs were thin and feeble, and its face - no child alive ever had a face like that - flat and snakelike, with gleaming red eyes.

The thing seemed almost helpless; it raised its thin arms, put them around Jakob's neck, and Jakob lifted it. For one moment, Harry and Johnny saw the evil, flat face illuminated in the sparks dancing on the surface of the potion. And then Jakob lowered the creature into the cauldron; there was a hiss, and it vanished below the surface; Johnny heard its frail body hit the bottom with a soft thud.

Let it drown, Johnny thought, weakly... let it drown....

Wormtail was speaking. His voice shook; he seemed frightened beyond his wits.

"Do it, Wormtail!" Jakob ordered. Wormtail raised his wand, closed his eyes, and spoke to the night.

"Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son!"

The surface of the grave at Harry's and Johnny's feet cracked. Horrified, they  watched as a fine trickle of dust rose into the air at Wormtail's command and fell softly into the cauldron. The diamond surface of the water broke and hissed; it sent sparks in all directions and turned a vivid, poisonous-looking blue.

And now Wormtail was whimpering. He pulled a long, thin, shining silver dagger from inside his cloak. His voice broke into petrified sobs.

"Flesh - of the servant - w-willingly given - you will - revive - your master."

He stretched his right hand out in front of him - the hand with the missing finger. He gripped the dagger very tightly in his left hand and swung it upward.

Johnny realised what Wormtail was about to do a second before it happened - he closed his eyes as tightly as he could, but he could not block the scream that pierced the night, that went through Johnny as though he had been stabbed with the dagger too. He heard something fall to the ground, heard Wormtail's anguished panting, then a sickening splash, as something was dropped into the cauldron. The boys couldn't stand to look... but the potion had turned a burning red; the light of it shone through Johnny's closed eyelids...

"This is your finest moment, Wormtail!" Jakob yelled excitedly.

Wormtail was gasping and moaning with agony.

"B-blood of the enemies... forcibly taken... you will... resurrect your foe."

J0hnny could do nothing to prevent it, he was tied too tightly.... Squinting down, struggling hopelessly at the ropes binding him, he saw the shining silver dagger shaking in Wormtail's remaining hand. He felt its point penetrate the crook of his right arm and blood seeping down the sleeve of his torn robes. Wormtail, still panting with pain, rumbled in his pocket for a glass vial and held it to Johnny's cut, so that a dribble of blood fell into it. He proceeded to do the same with Harry, who let out a strangled yell.

He staggered back to the cauldron with Harry and Johnny's blood. He poured them inside. The liquid within turned, instantly, a blinding white. Wormtail, his job done, dropped to his knees beside the cauldron, then slumped sideways and lay on the ground, cradling the bleeding stump of his arm, gasping and sobbing.

"Get up you, weakling!" Jakob yelled.

The cauldron was simmering, sending its diamond sparks in all directions, so blindingly bright that it turned all else to velvety blackness. Nothing happened....

Let it have drowned. Johnny thought, let it have gone wrong...

And then, suddenly, the sparks emanating from the cauldron were extinguished. A surge of white steam billowed thickly from the cauldron instead, obliterating everything in front of the boys, so that they couldn't see Wormtail or Jakob or anything but vapor hanging in the air.... It's gone wrong, Johnny thought... it's drowned ...please...please let it be dead....

But then, through the mist in front of them, they saw, with an icy surge of terror, the dark outline of a man, tall and skeletally thin, rising slowly from inside the cauldron.

"Robe me," said the high, cold voice from behind the steam, and Wormtail, sobbing and moaning, still cradling his mutilated arm, scrambled to pick up the black robes from the ground, got to his feet, reached up, and pulled them one-handed over his master's head.

The thin man stepped out of the cauldron, staring at Harry and Johnny... and both boys stared back into the face that had haunted their nightmares. Whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was flat as a snakes with slits for nostrils...

Lord Voldemort had risen again.

Voldemort looked away from Harry and Johnny and began examining his own body. His hands were like large, pale spiders; his long white fingers caressed his own chest, his arms, his face; the red eyes, whose pupils were slits, like a cats, gleamed still more brightly through the darkness. He held up his hands and flexed the fingers, his expression rapt and exultant. He took not the slightest notice of Wormtail, who lay twitching and bleeding on the ground, nor of the great snake, which had slithered back into sight and was circling Harry and Johnny again, hissing, he however did nod thankfully to Jakob. Voldemort slipped one of those unnaturally long-fingered hands into a deep pocket and drew out a wand. He caressed it gently too; and then he raised it, and pointed it at Wormtail, who was lifted off the ground and thrown against the headstone where Harry and Johnny were tied; he fell to the foot of it and lay there, crumpled up and crying. Voldemort turned his scarlet eyes upon Harry and Johnny, laughing a high, cold, mirthless laugh.

Wormtail's robes were shining with blood now; he had wrapped the stump of his arm in them.

"My Lord..." he choked, "my Lord... you promised... you did promise..."

"Hold out your arm," said Voldemort lazily.

"Oh Master... thank you, Master..."

He extended the bleeding stump, but Voldemort laughed again.

"The other arm, Wormtail," Jakob said, finishing off for Voldemort. "Let us see the people who haven't searched for our great Master for thirteen years."

"Master, please... please..."

Voldemort bent down and pulled out Wormtail's left arm; he forced the sleeve of Wormtail's robes up past his elbow, and Harry and Johnny saw something upon the skin there, something like a vivid red tattoo - a skull with a snake protruding from its mouth - the image that had appeared in the sky at the Quidditch World Cup: the Dark Mark. Voldemort examined it carefully, ignoring Wormtail's uncontrollable weeping.

"It is back," he said softly, "they will all have noticed it... and now, we shall see... now we shall know..."

He pressed his long white forefinger to the brand on Wormtail's arm.

Harry let out a loud, muffled yell of pain once again, and Wormtail let out a fresh howl; Voldemort removed his fingers from Wormtail's mark, and Johnny saw that it had turned jet black.

A look of cruel satisfaction on his face, Voldemort straightened up, threw back his head, and stared around at the dark graveyard.

"How many will be brave enough to return when they feel it?" he whispered, his gleaming red eyes fixed upon the stars. "And how many will be foolish enough to stay away?"

He began to pace up and down before Harry, Johnny and Wormtail, eyes sweeping the graveyard all the while. After a minute or so, he looked down at Harry and Johnny again, a cruel smile twisting his snakelike face.

"You could've ended your suffering, Johnny," Voldemort hissed. "But you chose to stay loyal to Dumbledore, I do admire loyalty. A loyal friend taught me this spell a while ago, in my opinion, it's more useful than Crucio. Sectumsempra!"

Harry watched in horror as Johnny gasped, his white shirt and green tie suddenly drenched in blood.

"Don't worry, boy, your father and I won't let you die," Voldemort said. "You're to important."

"H-he's not my father!" Johnny spat the gag out of his mouth, spitting blood out of his mouth. "M-maybe biologically, but that doesn't make a father."

"You stand, Harry Potter and Johnathan Grindelwald, upon the remains of my late father," Voldemort hissed softly, ignoring Johnny. "A Muggle and a fool... very like your dear mother and aunt. Your mother died to defend you both as mere children... and I killed my father, and see how useful he has proved himself, in death...."

Voldemort laughed again. Up and down he paced, looking all around him as he walked, and the snake continued to circle in the grass.

"You see that house upon the hillside, boys? My father lived there. My mother, a witch who lived here in this village, fell in love with him. But he abandoned her when she told him what she was... He didn't like magic, my father..."

"He left her and returned to his Muggle parents before I was even born, and she died giving birth to me, leaving me to be raised in a Muggle orphanage... but I vowed to find him... I revenged myself upon him, that fool who gave me his name... Tom Riddle...."

Still he paced, his red eyes darting from grave to grave.

"Listen to me, reliving family history..." he said quietly, "why, I am growing quite sentimental.... But look, boys! My true family returns...."

The air was suddenly full of the swishing of cloaks. Between graves, behind the yew tree, in every shadowy space, wizards were Apparating. All of them were hooded and masked. And one by one they moved forward... slowly, cautiously, as though they could hardly believe their eyes Voldemort stood in silence, waiting for them. Then one of the Death Eaters fell to his knees, crawled toward Voldemort and kissed the hem of his black robes.

"Master... Master..." he murmured.

The Death Eaters behind him did the same; each of them approaching Voldemort on his knees and kissing his robes, before backing away and standing up, forming a silent circle, which enclosed Tom Riddle's grave, Harry, Johnny, Voldemort, and the sobbing and twitching heap that was Wormtail. Yet they left gaps in the circle, as though waiting for more people. Voldemort, however, didn't seem to expect more. He looked around at the hooded faces, and though there was no wind rustling seemed to run around the circle, as though it had shivered.

"Welcome, Death Eaters," said Voldemort quietly. "Thirteen years... thirteen years since last we met. Yet you answer my call as though it were yesterday, we are still united under the Dark Mark, then! Or are we?"

He put back his terrible face and sniffed, his slit-like nostrils widening.

"I smell guilt," he said. "There is a stench or guilt upon the air."

A second shiver ran around the circle, as though each member of it longed, but did not dare to step back from him.

"I see you all, whole and healthy, with your powers intact - such prompt appearances! and I ask myself... why did this band of wizards never come to the aid of their master, to whom they swore eternal loyalty? All except Jakob Grindelwald, who managed to escape from Azkaban when it had never been done before. He convinced young Harry Potter, his friends and his own wife and son that he was innocent, and then he raped and murdered his wife and he's tortured his own kin almost to death."

"Q-quite the family man," Johnny weakly joked.

"Crucio!" Voldemort yelled, aiming his wand at Johnny who's open wounds continued to bleed, but Johnny's inner wolf was healing his cuts the best he could, making sure Johnny lived.

No one spoke. No one moved except Wormtail, who was upon the ground, still sobbing over his bleeding arm.

"And I answer myself," whispered Voldemort, "the others must have believed me broken, they thought I was gone. They slipped back among my enemies, and they pleaded innocence, and ignorance, and bewitchment..."

"And then I ask myself, but how could they have believed I would not rise again? They, who knew the steps I took, long ago, to guard myself against mortal death? They, who had seen proofs of the immensity of my power in the times when I was mightier than any wizard living?"

"And I answer myself, perhaps they believed a still greater power could exist, one that could vanquish even Lord Voldemort...perhaps they now pay allegiance to another... perhaps that champion of commoners, of Mudbloods and Muggles, Albus Dumbledore?"

At the mention of Dumbledore's name, the members of the circle stirred, and some muttered and shook their heads. Voldemort ignored them.

"It is a disappointment to me... I confess myself disappointed..."

One of the men suddenly flung himself forward, breaking the circle. Trembling from head to foot, he collapsed at Voldemort's feet.

"Master!" he shrieked, "Master, forgive me! Forgive us all!"

Voldemort began to laugh. He raised his wand.

"Crucio!"

Voldemort raised his wand. The tortured Death Eater lay flat upon the ground, gasping.

"Get up, Avery," said Voldemort softly. "Stand up. You ask for forgiveness? I do not forgive. I do not forget. Thirteen long years... I want thirteen years' repayment before I forgive you. Wormtail here has paid some of his debt already, have you not, Wormtail?"

He looked down at Wormtail, who continued to sob.

"You returned to me, not out of loyalty, but out of fear of your old friends. You deserve this pain, Wormtail. You know that, don't you?"

"Yes, Master," moaned Wormtail, "please. Master... please..."

"Yet you helped return me to my body," said Voldemort coolly, watching Wormtail sob on the ground. "Worthless and traitorous as you are, you helped me... and Lord Voldemort rewards his helpers..."

Voldemort raised his wand again and whirled it through the air. A streak of what looked like molten silver hung shining in the wand's wake. Momentarily shapeless, it writhed and then formed itself into a gleaming replica of a human hand, bright as moonlight, which soared downward and fixed itself upon Wormtail's bleeding wrist.

Wormtail's sobbing stopped abruptly. His breathing harsh and ragged, he raised his head and stared in disbelief at the silver hand, now attached seamlessly to his arm, as though he were wearing a dazzling glove. He flexed the shining fingers, then, trembling, picked up a small twig on the ground and crushed it into powder.

"My Lord," he whispered. "Master... it is beautiful... thank you... thank you...."

He scrambled forward on his knees and kissed the hem of Voldemort's robes.

"May your loyalty never waver again, Wormtail," said Voldemort.

"No, my Lord... never, my Lord..."

Wormtail stood up and took his place in the circle, staring at his powerful new hand, his face still shining with tears. Voldemort now approached the man on Wormtail's right.

"Lucius, my slippery friend," he whispered, halting before him. "I am told that you have not renounced the old ways, though to the world you present a respectable face. You are still ready to take the lead in a spot of Muggle-torture, I believe? Yet you never tried to find me, Lucius.... Your exploits at the Quidditch World Cup were fun, I daresay... but might not your energies have been better directed toward finding and aiding your master?"

"My Lord, I was constantly on the alert," came Lucius Malfoy's voice swiftly from beneath the hood. "Had there been any sign from you, any whisper of your whereabouts, I would have been at your side immediately, nothing could have prevented me -"

"And yet you ran from the King of Supernatural and my Mark, when a faithful Death Eater sent it into the sky last summer " said Voldemort lazily, and Mr. Malfoy stopped talking abruptly. "Yes, I know all about that, Lucius... You have disappointed me... I expect more faithful service in the future."

"Of course, my Lord, of course... You are merciful, thank you..."

Voldemort moved on, and stopped, staring at the space - large enough for two people - that separated Malfoy and the next man.

"The Lestranges should stand here," said Voldemort quietly. "But they are entombed in Azkaban. They were faithful. Like Jakob, they went to Azkaban rather than renounce me... When Azkaban is broken open, the Lestranges will be honored beyond their dreams. The dementors will join us... they are our natural allies... we will recall the banished giants... I shall have all my devoted servants returned to me, and an army of creatures whom all fear..."

He walked on. Some of the Death Eaters he passed in silence, but he paused before others and spoke to them.

"Macnair... destroying dangerous beasts for the Ministry of Magic now, Wormtail  and Jakob tells me? You shall have better victims than that soon, Macnair. Lord Voldemort will provide..."

"Thank you, Master... thank you," murmured Macnair.

"And here" - Voldemort moved on to the two largest hooded figures - "we have Crabbe... you will do better this time, will you not, Crabbe? And you, Goyle?"

They bowed clumsily, muttering dully.

"Yes, Master..."

"We will, Master...."

"J-just like their sons," Johnny weakly joked again, causing Jakob to break the circle and march towards his son. \

"Shut the fuck up, boy," Jakob hissed, digging his wand into Johnny's wand and opening it again.

"Jakob," Voldemort warned. "Your sons inner wolf is working tirelessly to heal your son, we don't want to overwork him and cause your son to die, do we? I'm sure you wouldn't want to take the pups in if his girlfriend was pregnant?"

"You touch a fucking hair on her and I'll rip your fucking throat out!" Johnny hissed at Voldemort, his strength suddenly coming back as he wolfed out, his eyes flashing its dangerous red.

"There it is," Voldemort laughed quietly. "The Alpha of Alphas, the King of the Supernatural. It seems talking about the Alphas mate causes Johnathan here to return to his full strength. Let us lower that strength, Crucio!"

The werewolf let out a loud howl of pain, blood from his mouth dripping down his chin and dampening his already soaked through shirt.

Voldemort had reached the largest gap of all once Johnny had fallen silent, and he stood surveying it with his blank, red eyes, as though he could see people standing there.

"And here we have six missing Death Eaters... three dead in my service. One, too cowardly to return... he will pay. One, who I believe has left me forever... he will be killed, of course... and another one, who remains my most faithful servant, and who has already reentered my service."

The Death Eaters stirred, and Harry and Johnny saw their eyes dart sideways at one another through their masks.

"He is at Hogwarts, that faithful servant, and it was through his efforts that our young friends arrived here tonight..."

"Yes," said Voldemort, a grin curling his lipless mouth as the eyes of the circle flashed in Harry and Johnny's direction. "Harry Potter and Johnathan Grindelwald has kindly joined us for my rebirthing party. One might go so far as to call them my guest of honor."

"You're getting a bad review on Google," Johnny growled sarcastically. "Very bad hospitality if I do say so myself."

There was a silence. Then the Death Eater to the right of Wormtail stepped forward, and Lucius Malfoy's voice spoke from under the mask.

"Master, we crave to know... we beg you to tell us... how you have achieved this... this miracle... how you managed to return to us...."

"Ah, what a story it is, Lucius," said Voldemort. "And it begins - and ends - with my young friend here."

He walked lazily over to stand next to Harry, so that the eyes of the whole circle were upon the two of them. The snake continued to circle.

"You know, of course, that they have called this boy my downfall?" Voldemort said softly, his red eyes upon Harry. "You all know that on the night I lost my powers and my body, I tried to kill him. His mother died in the attempt to save him - and unwittingly provided him and Johnathan with a protection I admit I had not foreseen.... I could not touch the boys, and even though Johnny had long been put up for adoption with the Muggles since then, the same protection extended to him."

Voldemort raised two of his long white fingers and put it very close to Harry and Johnny's cheeks.

"Harry's mother and Johnathan's aunt left upon them the traces other sacrifice... This is old magic, I should have remembered it, I was foolish to overlook it... but no matter. I can touch them now."

Harry and Johnny felt the cold tip of the long white fingers touch them, and Johnny thought his head would burst with the pain. Voldemort laughed softly in their ears, then took the finger away and continued addressing the Death Eaters.

"I miscalculated, my friends, I admit it. My curse was deflected by the woman's foolish sacrifice, and it rebounded upon myself. Aaah... pain beyond pain, my friends; nothing could have prepared me for it. I was ripped from my body, I was less than spirit, less than the meanest ghost... but still, I was alive. What I was, even I do not know... I, who have gone further than anybody along the path that leads to immortality. You know my goal - to conquer death. And now, I was tested, and it appeared that one or more of my experiments had worked... for I had not been killed, though the curse should have done it. Nevertheless, I was as powerless as the weakest creature alive, and without the means to help myself... for I had no body, and every spell that might have helped me required the use of a wand....

"I remember only forcing myself, sleeplessly, endlessly, second by second, to exist... I settled in a faraway place, in a forest, and I waited... Surely, one of my faithful Death Eaters would try and find me... one of them would come and perform the magic I could not, to restore me to a body... but I waited in vain...."

The shiver ran once more around the circle of listening Death Eaters. Voldemort let the silence spiral horribly before continuing.

"Only one power remained to me. I could possess the bodies of others. But I dared not go where other humans were plentiful, for I knew that the Aurors were still abroad and searching for me. I sometimes inhabited animals - snakes, of course, being my preference - but I was little better off inside them than as pure spirit, for their bodies were ill adapted to perform magic... and my possession of them shortened their lives; none of them lasted long....

"Then... four years ago... the means for my return seemed assured. A wizard - young, foolish, and gullible - wandered across my path in the forest I had made my home. Oh, he seemed the very chance I had been dreaming of... for he was a teacher at Dumbledore's school... he was easy to bend to my will... he brought me back to this country, and after a while, I took possession of his body, to supervise him closely as he carried out my orders. But my plan failed. I did not manage to steal the Philosopher's Stone. I was not to be assured immortal life. I was thwarted... thwarted, this time, by Johnathan Grindelwald...."

Silence once more; nothing was stirring, not even the leaves on the yew tree. The Death Eaters were quite motionless, the glittering eyes in their masks fixed upon Voldemort, and upon Johnny.

"The servant died when I left his body, and I was left as weak as ever I had been," Voldemort continued. "I returned to my hiding place far away, and I will not pretend to you that I didn't then fear that I might never regain my powers... Yes, that was perhaps my darkest hour... I could not hope that I would be sent another wizard to possess... and I had given up hope, now, that any of my Death Eaters cared what had become of me..."

One or two of the masked wizards in the circle moved uncomfortably, but Voldemort took no notice.

"And then, not even a year ago, when I had almost abandoned hope, it happened at last... two servants returned to me. Wormtail, who had faked his own death to escape justice, was driven out of hiding by those he had once counted friends, and Jakob, who escaped Azkaban and convinced those closest to him that he was innocent, and they both decided to return to their master. They sought me in the country where it had long been rumored I was hiding... helped, of course, by the rats Wormtail met along the way. Wormtail has a curious affinity with rats, do you not, Wormtail? His filthy little friends told him there was a place, deep in an Albanian forest, that they avoided, where small animals like themselves had met their deaths by a dark shadow that possessed them..."

"But Wormtail's journey back to me was not smooth, was it, Wormtail? For, hungry one night, on the edge of the very forest where he had hoped to find me, he foolishly stopped at an inn for some food...  and who should he meet there, but one Bertha Jorkins, a witch from the Ministry of Magic."

"Now see the way that fate favors Lord Voldemort. This might have been the end of Wormtail, and of my last hope for regeneration. But Wormtail - displaying a presence of mind I would never have expected from him - convinced Bertha Jorkins to accompany him on a nighttime stroll. He overpowered her... he brought her to me. And Bertha Jorkins, who might have ruined all, proved instead to be a gift beyond my wildest dreams...for - with a little persuasion - she became a veritable mine of information."

"She told me that the Triwizard Tournament would be played at Hogwarts this year. She told me that she knew of another faithful Death Eater who would be willing to help me, if I could only contact him. She told me many things... but the means I used to break the Memory Charm upon her were powerful, and when I had extracted all useful information from her, her mind and body were both damaged beyond repair. She had now served her purpose. I could not possess her. I disposed of her."

Voldemort smiled his terrible smile, his red eyes blank and pitiless.

"Wormtail's body, of course, was ill adapted for possession, as all assumed him dead, and would attract far too much attention if noticed. However, he was the able-bodied servant I needed, and, poor wizard though he is, Wormtail was able to follow the instructions I gave him, which would return me to a rudimentary, weak body of my own, a body I would be able to inhabit while awaiting the essential ingredients for true rebirth...a spell or two of my own invention... a little help from my dear Nagini," Voldemort's red eyes fell upon the continually circling snake, "a potion concocted from unicorn blood, and the snake venom Nagini provided... I was soon returned to an almost human form, and strong enough to travel."

"That's when Jakob proved his loyalty to me by finding the two of us a week later. And now there was no hope of stealing the Philosopher's Stone anymore, for I knew that Dumbledore would have seen to it that it was destroyed. But I was willing to embrace mortal life again, before chasing immortality. I set my sights lower... I would settle for my old body back again, and my old strength."

"I knew that to achieve this - it is an old piece of Dark Magic, the potion that revived me tonight - I would need three powerful ingredients. Well, one of them was already at hand, was it not, Wormtail? Flesh given by a servant..."

"My father's bone, naturally, meant that we would have to come here, where he was buried. But the blood of a foe... Wormtail would have had me use any wizard, would you not, Wormtail? Any wizard who had hated me... as so many of them still do. But I knew the two I must use, if I was to rise again, more powerful than I had been when I had fallen. I wanted Harry Potter's and Johnathan Grindelwald's blood. I wanted the blood of the one who had stripped me of power thirteen years ago... for the lingering protection his mother and his aunt once gave them would then reside in my veins too..."

"But how to get at Harry Potter and Johnathan Grindelwald? For they have been better protected than I think even they know, protected in ways devised by Dumbledore long ago, when it fell to hi, to arrange the boys futures. Then, of course, there was the Quidditch World Cup... I thought their protection might be weaker there, but I was not yet strong enough to attempt kidnap in the midst of a horde of Ministry wizards. And then, the boys would return to Hogwarts, where they are under the crooked nose of that Muggle-loving fool from morning until night. So how could I take them?"

"Why... by using Bertha Jorkins's information, of course. Use my one faithful Death Eater, stationed at Hogwarts, to ensure that the Harry's name was entered into the Goblet of Fire. Use my Death Eater to ensure that the boy won the tournament - that he touched the Triwizard Cup first - the cup which my Death Eater had turned into a Portkey, which would bring him here, beyond the reach of Dumbledore's help and protection, and into my waiting arms. And here he is... the boy you all believed had been my downfall... and then there was Johnathan Grindelwald, who only needed a simple stunning spell to the chest, and a few days torture for good measure."

Voldemort moved slowly forward and turned to face Harry and Johnny. He raised his wand.

"Crucio!"

Johnny and Harry both let out yells.

And then it was gone. They were hanging limply in the ropes binding them to the headstone of Voldemort's father, looking up into those bright red eyes through a kind of mist. The night was ringing with the sound of the Death Eaters' laughter.

"You see, I think, how foolish it was to suppose that these boys could ever have been stronger than me," said Voldemort. "But I want there to be no mistake in anybody's mind. Harry Potter escaped me by a lucky chance. And I am now going to prove my power by killing him and his cousin, here and now, in front of you all, when there is no Dumbledore to help them, and no mother and aunt to die for them. I will give them their chance. Harry Potter will be allowed to fight, as Johnathan Grindelwald is too weak at the moment, and you will be left in no doubt which of us is the stronger. Just a little longer, Nagini," he whispered, and the snake glided away through the grass to where the Death Eaters stood watching.

"Now untie them, Wormtail, and give Harry back his wand."