 then, without warning, Harry's scar exploded with pain. It was agony such as
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he had never felt in all his life; his wand slipped from his fingers as he put his
hands over his face; his knees buckled; he was on the ground and he could see
nothing at all; his head was about to split open.
From far away, above his head, he heard a high, cold voice say, "Kill the spare."
A swishing noise and a second voice, which screeched the words to the night:
"Avada Kedavra!"
A blast of green light blazed through Harry's eyelids, and he heard something
heavy fall to the ground beside him; the pain in his scar reached such a pitch that
he retched, and then it diminished; terrified of what he was about to see, he opened
his stinging eyes.
Cedric was lying spread-eagled on the ground beside him. He was dead.
For a second that contained an eternity, Harry stared into Cedric's face, at his open
gray eyes, blank and expressionless as the windows of a deserted house, at his
half-open mouth, which looked slightly surprised. And then, before Harry's mind
had accepted what he was seeing, before he could feel anything but numb
disbelief, he felt himself being pulled to his feet.
The short man in the cloak had put down his bundle, lit his wand, and was
dragging Harry toward the marble headstone. Harry saw the name upon it
flickering in the wandlight before he was forced around and slammed against it.
TOM RIDDLE
The cloaked man was now conjuring tight cords around Harry, tying him from
neck to ankles to the headstone. Harry could hear shallow, fast breathing from the
depths of the hood; he struggled, and the man hit him - hit him with a hand that
had a finger missing. And Harry realized who was under the hood. It was
Wormtail.
"You!" he gasped.
But Wormtail, who had finished conjuring the ropes, did not reply; he was busy
checking the tightness of the cords, his fingers trembling uncontrollably, rumbling
over the knots. Once sure that Harry was bound so tightly to the headstone that he
couldn't move an inch, Wormtail drew a length of some black material from the
inside of his cloak and stuffed it roughly into Harry's mouth; then, without a word,
he turned from Harry and hurried away. Harry couldn't make a sound, nor could he
see where Wormtail had gone; he couldn't turn his head to see beyond the
headstone; he could see only what was right in front of him.
Cedric's body was lying some twenty feet away. Some way beyond him, glinting
in the starlight, lay the Triwizard Cup. Harry's wand was on the ground at Cedric's
feet. The bundle of robes that Harry had thought was a baby was close by, at the
foot of the grave. It seemed to be stirring fretfully. Harry watched it, and his scar
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seared with pain again . . . and he suddenly knew that he didn't want to see what
was in those robes ... he didn't want that bundle opened....
He could hear noises at his feet. He looked down and saw a gigantic snake
slithering through the grass, circling the headstone where he was tied. Wormtail'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 Harry's
range of vision, and Harry saw him pushing a stone cauldron to the foot of the
grave. It was full of what seemed to be water - Harry could hear it slopping around
- and it was larger than any cauldron Harry had ever used; a great stone belly large
enough for a full-grown man to sit in.
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. The movements
beneath the robes became more agitated. And Harry 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."
"Now ..." said the cold voice.
Wormtail pulled open the robes on the ground, revealing what was inside them,
and Harry let out a yell that was strangled in the wad of material blocking his
mouth.
It was as though Wormtail had flipped over a stone and revealed something ugly,
slimy, and blind - but worse, a hundred times worse. The thing Wormtail had been
carrying had the shape of a crouched human child, except that Harry 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
Wormtail's neck, and Wormtail lifted it. As he did so, his hood fell back, and
Harry saw the look of revulsion on Wormtail's weak, pale face in the firelight as
he carried the creature to the rim of the cauldron. For one moment, Harry saw the
evil, flat face illuminated in the sparks dancing on the surface of the potion. And
then Wormtail lowered the creature into the cauldron; there was a hiss, and it
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vanished below the surface; Harry heard its frail body hit the bottom with a soft
thud.
Let it drown, Harry thought, his scar burning almost past endurance, please. . . let
it drown. . . .
Wormtail was speaking. His voice shook; he seemed frightened beyond his wits.
He raised his wand, closed his eyes, and spoke to the night.
"Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you wil lrenew your son!"
The surface of the grave at Harry's feet cracked. Horrified, Harry 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.
Harry realized 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 Harry 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.
Harry couldn't stand to look . . . but the potion had turned a burning red; the light
of it shone through Harry's closed eyelids. . . .
Wormtail was gasping and moaning with agony. Not until Harry felt Wormtail's
anguished breath on his face did he realize that Wormtail was right in front of him.
"B-blood of the enemy . . . forcibly taken .. . you will. . . resurrect your foe."
Harry 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 Wormtails 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 Harry's cut,
so that a dribble of blood fell into it.
He staggered back to the cauldron with Harrys blood. He poured it 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.
The cauldron was simmering, sending its diamond sparks in all directions, so
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blindingly bright that it turned all else to velvety blackness. Nothing happened. . . .
Let it have drowned. Harry 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 Harry, so that he couldn't see Wormtail or Cedric or
anything but vapor hanging in the air. ... It's gone wrong, he thought. . . it's
drowned. .. please . . . please let it be dead. ...
But then, through the mist in front of him, he 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 onehanded
over his master's head.
The thin man stepped out of the cauldron, staring at Harry . . . and Harry stared
back into the face that had haunted his nightmares for three years. 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.
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CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE - THE DEATH EATERS
Voldemort looked away from Harry 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 