Chapter 56: The Graveyard

Chapter 56: The Graveyard

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I would like to thank my beta, AvidReader2425, for his help in this chapter.

Again, before you start pointing out that I used a lot of cannon in this chapter, I agree with you. I saw no point in changing something that I had no intention on changing. I know it's a lazy but and edited canon will be better than something I write from scratch. I try not to do this much, but I was so busy when I wrote this. This will be the last time I use canon so blatantly so don't worry about it much.

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24th June 1995, Little Hangleton

(Nathan POV)

He limped over to the cup; he was going to win. He beat Jasmine, his life will finally go back to normal. He looked at the cup in front of him and grasped a handle. Instantly, Nathan felt a jerk behind his navel. He didn't know that the cup was a portkey. But at least now, he was safe from that nightmare of a maze.

Nathan felt his feet slam into the ground. He landed on his broken leg, and he fell over, letting go of the Triwizard Cup. He raised his head and took a look around.

He had left the Hogwarts grounds completely; he had obviously traveled miles, perhaps hundreds of miles, for even the mountains surrounding the castle were gone. He was standing instead in a dark and overgrown graveyard; the black outline of a small church was visible beyond a large yew tree to his right. A hill rose above them to his left. Nathan could just make out the outline of a fine old house on the hillside.

Something was wrong, he could feel it in his gut. The cup shouldn't be a portkey. He got up, wincing at the pain in his leg and pulled out his wand. He felt like he was being watched. He looked around to find a figure drawing nearer, walking steadily toward him between the graves.

He couldn't see the stranger's face, but from the way it was walking and holding its arms, he could tell that it was carrying something. Whoever it was, he was short, and wearing a hooded cloak pulled up over his head to obscure his face.

Seeing the figure as a non-threat, Nathan lowered his wand slightly. He regretted it immediately when he saw a flash of red light and he fell unconscious.

Nathan woke up, feeling something around his ankles and arms. He looked up around him, disoriented. He was tied to a marble headstone. The situation would have made him scared enough on its own, but it was the name on the stone that truly made him freeze in fright. The name on the stone was Tom Riddle.

Nathan struggled trying to get out of his restraints, but the hooded man hit him. The effort had made the man's hood fall off, exposing a familiar face. It was the traitor. His parents told Nathan about him. He was supposed to be in Azkaban. "YOU!" He shouted at him. "Pettigrew, you're supposed to be in Azkaban." Nathan snarled at him. The traitorous marauder did not respond, he waved a wand and gagged him, then turned and hurried away.

When he came back, he was pushing a stone cauldron to the foot of the grave. It was larger than any cauldron he had ever seen before. 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 Pettigrew tending the fire.

The traitor removed the robes he was holding, revealing what he had underneath. It was one of the most disgusting things he had ever seen in his life. It looked like a sickly baby, but there was nothing natural about it. It was hairless and scaly looking, a dark, raw, reddish black. Its arms and legs were thin and feeble, and its face was flat and snakelike, with gleaming red eyes.

The traitor lifted the ugly baby thing and lowered it into to cauldron.

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

A bone now levitated from the grave in front of him and fell softly into the cauldron. The bone immediately burst into flames and disintegrated into the potion.

"Crucio," Nathan heard and suddenly, he felt pain. The pain was so intense, so all-consuming, that he no longer knew where he was. White-hot knives were piercing every inch of his skin, his head was surely going to burst with pain, he was screaming more loudly than he'd ever screamed in his life. It only lasted a moment, but he was shaking uncontrollably, still bound to the stone. Voldemort had vanished the gag just to hear him scream.

"Nice to have back with us, Nathan Potter." Voldemort said to him, with a malicious smile on his face.

"It's sad that people actually think that you defeated me somehow. They called you, my downfall. What happened that night almost fourteen years ago, is not known to even me. But what I do know that whatever was done was ancient magic, very ancient and very powerful and with my demise, my memories of that night are fragmented. Something that no child should be able to power. I'm even more surprised that I chose to cast the killing curse at you. Your sister was far more impressive and held far more potential. Perhaps, I chose to dispose of the waste first and it backfired somehow."

Nathan could not believe what he was hearing.

"I would have chosen her for my rebirth, had I not wanted to make a statement. You will not leave this place alive, Nathan Potter. And the world will know that what happened that night was a fluke. I fell for a trap, I know not who would be able to create something so elaborate but even then, I am alive, survived death itself and there is nothing that can stop me."

Nathan screamed at him, "Dumbledore will stop you"

Voldemort just silenced him with a wave of his wand. The shiver ran once more around the circle of listening Death Eaters. Voldemort let the silence spiral horribly before continuing.

"It truly is a shame about your sister, Nathan. She had a lot of potential, to be able to hold on against Dumbledore being only fourteen years old. Had she survived the encounter, I would have extended her an offer to join our ranks."

Nathan was gaping at his enemy. Jasmine was dead. Dumbledore killed her. How? The headmaster doesn't kill. Why would they fight in the task?

Voldemort laughed cruelly at the expression on his face, "You don't know, do you? Your precious leader of light attacked your twin with the intention of killing her. He hunted her down to kill her because he wanted an artifact. She fought valiantly; I would admit that she even reminded me of a younger me. What a shame, such potential being stifled so early. What cunning, she displayed. To trick the manipulator himself into revealing his deeds and his plans to the world. She has just benefited us so much without even meaning to. With Dumbledore hunted down like a common criminal, by the light and dark alike, we can easily take over Britain. That girl with just this simple act of revenge, handed us the key to conquer magical Britain."

Dumbledore had done all this. He tricked him. He killed his sister, his twin. He would never make it up to her. He abandoned his other half and now she was gone. It doesn't matter, he will probably join her soon in death.

"He even mentioned you, Potter. He was preparing you as a martyr. He wanted to use your death to unite the magical community under his reign. He raised you like a pig to slaughter. You will die knowing that you lived a meaningless life that was always going to end in an early death thanks to the machinations of your mentor. But I will not kill you, yet. I wish to break you first, you're so close Potter. We only need to wait for him to arrive."

"Who?" Nathan asked.

"My most faithful servant, and who has already reentered my service, at Hogwarts. He entered your name in the goblet of fire, he made sure that you win, for this moment. He will arrive soon, and he will have someone with him. Someone dear to you, your sister Rose."

Nathan thrashed at his bindings, "you will not touch a hair on her shoulder." He shouted at the dark lord.

"Crucio!" He felt the torture curse, once again and screamed in pain.

"To think I believed such a silly prophecy. As high as your potential could be, you are hardly my equal."

"Prophecy?" Nathan gasped out.

"You don't know, do you? You truly do not know why I attacked you, all these years ago. I have hated you for so long, Nathan Potter but now I cannot but pity you. But if you want to save your sister, you only have to defeat me. I will allow you to fight, prove to everyone that you're stronger than me, boy."

The Death Eaters stood watching.

"Now, untie him Wormtail and give him back his wand."