Chapter 21
"It is astonishing what a few drops of your blood will do, eh Harry?" Voldemort grinned. "Imagine what I could have done with hers."
Harry opened his mouth to tell Voldemort off for even mentioning Rebecca, but Voldemort released him from the statue's hold so that he fell to the ground before he could say a word.
"Pick up your wand, Potter." Harry stayed on his knees a moment longer, confused by the command. "I said pick it up! Get up! Get up!" Harry scrambled backwards, scooping his wand up from where it had been taken from him and making his way to his feet shakily. "You've been taught to bow, I presume? First we bow."
Harry didn't move.
"Come on, now. The niceties must be observed." Voldemort glared at the boy as he dared to stand straighter. "Dumbledore wouldn't want you forgetting your manners, would he now? I said bow." Voldemort raised his wand and forced him to bend over painfully. Forcing him the other direction so that he landed on his back so hard the air was forced out of his lungs, Voldemort stood over Harry. "Crucio!"
The pain was more than anything Harry had felt before, every cell of his body screaming as his body moved in agony-fueled spasms.
"That a boy!" Voldemort laughed loudly. "Your parents would be proud. Especially your filthy, Muggle mother!"
Harry used his anger to distract himself from the pain and sent himself into motion the second Voldemort severed the spell. "Expelliarmus!" Harry's spell was waved away effortlessly.
"Is that all you have, boy?" Voldemort's face changed like he had put on a mask, unbridled rage snarling. "I'm going to kill you, Harry Potter. Then I'm going to hunt down your sister but I won't kill her, not right away. That would be too easy, too quick."
Harry tried to keep the words from sticking in his head, but he was tired. It had been hours since he and the others had first entered the maze and he couldn't keep his thoughts free of the threats Voldemort made towards his family and the loss that filled him every time he thought of Cedric.
Voldemort froze Harry's movements and walked in front of him again, lowering his voice so that each syllable was enunciated clearly. "I'm going to make her beg for death; She will be gone long before her heart stops."
Harry managed to free an arm from the spell, focusing like he was evading the Imperius curse. Punching Voldemort across the jaw, Harry was released from the spell and ducked behind a nearby tombstone as Voldemort shouted for the Death Eaters to stand down.
"Don't you turn your back on me!" Voldemort roared, wiping a line of blood from the side of his mouth. "I want you to look at me when I kill you!" Harry forced his body smaller as the first spells hit the stone in front of him, crumbling the aged grave marker. "I want to see the light leave your eyes!"
Harry stilled his heart and cleared his mind: He wouldn't die like this, cowering and hiding. If he was going to die, he was going to die like his parents--Upright and fighting. "Have it your way, Tom. But you'll never have her."
Voldemort narrowed his eyes at the insolence, the audacity. "Avada Kedavra!"
Harry's spell caught the other in the air, the green of Voldemort's spell hit the red of Harry's and sent off a shower of sparks. The meeting point of the spells fluctuated, slowly inching closer to Harry.
Summoning every smattering of power inside of him, Harry thought of all the lessons he had been put through by Rebecca, by Hermione that year. All the hours spent on making sure he knew how to defend himself if needed and how to come out of the tournament alive. Harry strengthened his spell and sent his spell closer to Voldemort.
"Stay back!" Voldemort directed again. "He's mine to finish!"
Harry's spell met the end of Voldemort's wand, sending pale trails out into the air. The shapes made their way to Harry quickly, the first taking the shape of Cedric. The second was the old man from the house in the distance. The last two, which Harry knew from photographs, were his mother and father.
"Harry," James directed sternly, needing his son to be strong a little longer. "When the connection is broken, you must get to the portkey."
Lily nodded, so proud of her children. "We can linger a moment to give you some time, but only a moment. Do you understand?"
"Take my body back, Harry." Cedric pleaded. "For my father, take my body back."
Lily knew that their time had come to an end, her heart achining in anguish at having to say goodbye to her other child so soon after having done so with Rebecca. "Let go and know how we love you, sweets. Let go!"
Harry cut the spell off and the four orbs rushed forward, blocking Voldemort's sight. Harry ran to Cedric's body and pointed his wand to the cup. "Accio!" The cup soared through the air, landing in Harry's hand and suching he and Cedric's body into the travel vortex.
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WHen Harry had been released from the Cruciatus curse minutes earlier, Rebecca had felt the connection to him cut off entirely. Her scar went silent and her heart beat painfully. She was filled with the fear that this meant Harry was gone.
Molly and Bill had moved her to the tent's wall, Fred continuing to stay at her side as she remained distant and withdrawn. Her body was coated in a sheen of sweat and frantic Weasleys moved about quickly. Molly was trying to get McGonagall down to them while Bill was demanding an update about those still inside the maze.
A solid thump was heard from outside the tent and the crowd began to cheer. Rebecca felt herself snap back into place, her mind and her body complete once more. She climbed to her feet quickly, pushing her way through the George, Ron, and Ginny at the door.
"Rebecca! Rebecca, where are you!" Harry screamed, sobbing over Cedric's silent chest. It had been too much to see their parents, to have to leave them between he and Voldemort once more.
Rebecca was running before she understood what had even happened, needing to get to Harry. Dropping to her knees in front of her brother, Rebecca pulled his face up so that she could see him clearly. He was dirty, speckled in blood and dirt, but he seemed okay.
One of the students realised why Cedric had yet to move, why his stomach didn't rise and fall with breath, why Harry was sobbing over his body. She let out a shriek that was contagious, fear spreading through the crowd. Dumbledore and McGonagall forced their way through the throngs of students in front of them and made eye contact before knowing what they both were going to do--They erected a makeshift wall of dirt between the crowd and the pitch, effectively blocking everything in front of them from anyone's sight.
Rebecca knew what she was going to do, but she couldn't do it with Harry hysterical. "Get him off!" She shouted back to where the Weasleys made their way out of the tent, watching nervously. Ron ran to Harry's side, bringing his friend up to his feet and letting Harry's arm wrap around his middle.
Rebecca grabbed the neck of Cedric's shirt and tore it down the middle, putting her ear to his chest and wishing she was wrong.
"My boy! That's my boy!" Amos' cried echoed across the pitch as the music faded out and the shouts grew louder and angrier at the wall blocking their sight.
Cornelius' voice rang out over all of the noise as angry as the rest of them. "For Merlin's sake, Albus! What is going on?"
McGonagall nodded for Dumbledore to go to the other side of their wall to deal with the crowd and cast a silencing charm over the side of the wall before catching Amos as he tried to run past her to his son. "Let me go! That's my boy!"
McGonagall shook the man once, forcing him out of his hysteria. "No, no he isn't. Not now." McGonagall looked to Rebecca who had turned back to the still-warm Cedric. "He still may be, though."
Fred, at first pleading and begging that Rebecca wouldn't dare try what he thought she would, realised he was right and wrong. Wrong to think that she wouldn't and right in that she was going to try to bring Cedric back. "We don't know anything about this!" Fred shouted, trying to get through his family to get to her. Bill caught Fred and fought him back, having to pin him to the ground to stop him entirely. "Don't do this, don't do this!"
Rebecca shook her head and took a deep breath before closing her eyes and laying her hands on Cedric. She only hoped it hadn't been too long since he had died, that his soul was still holding on. One hand on his shoulder and one on the opposite upper arm, Rebecca blocked out the noise, the clamour, the people and tried to reach out with her mind like she had with the unicorn.
It was like she put out a sensor, feeling for anything in the air around them that sounded with magic. Her hands began to warm and she felt the slightest trickle of what had been Cedric still in his body.
"What is this?" Cedric asked, confused. He was still looking back at his body, but something was happening.
"This is life." Rebecca sent out, her thoughts audible to Cedric. "This is a second chance." The simple act of communicating to him was strenuous enough, Rebecca needed him to decide quickly if she was to be able to try to bring him back and have a chance of success. "It's a yes or no, Cedric. Yes or no. We can't wait."
"Yes, yes!" Cedric shook his head, confused but willing to do anything for more life. "I...I don't want to die."
Rebecca focused her energies, grabbing what she had identified as Cedric's essence, his soul, and forcing it back into his body. The heat under her hands quickly grew to the inferno she remembered painfully from the unicorn, steam beginning to rise in a circle around them.
Harry's shoulders continued to shake as he sobbed into Hermione and Ron's arms, repeated exactly what Rebecca had been before. "He's back, he's back. Voldemort's back."
Images began to flit across the back of Rebecca's eyelids, things she didn't understand as they meant nothing to her. She saw Cho and Cedric in the library, their friends around them. She saw Cedric and his mother and father around a large table, a puzzle in the process of being put together around them. She saw boys and girls garbed in black and yellow laughing loudly. More images, more memories, flashed by as Cedric held on to everything that made his life worth returning to as the heat in her hands reached its peak.
For McGonagall, Harry, and those who hadn't been present in the Forbidden Forest, the sight was frightening. For those who had been, the sight was doubly so. Fred fought harder and harder against Bill to her, to rip her away from Cedric before she killed herself doing something impossible, something that has never been done before.
"What if a person is different? What if-" Fred's fight began to give way to sobs. Molly leaned down and pulled him into her arms, silencing and stilling him at the same time.
Rebecca pushed the last wisp of Cedric back into his body; the heat extinguished in her hands and exhaustion began to settle in. Harry saw the marks, the handprints left in the same ink-black colour that had been on the unicorn.
Molly released Fred and he took off like a jinx, sending clumps of grass up behind him as he pushed himself to her feet and took Rebecca's side as Cedric's eyes shot open and he gasped for air.
Harry moved forward, dropping to his knees next to Cedric as the older boy began to look around. McGonagall let go of Amos' arm, the father looking around wildly as he tried to understand how his son was sitting up. Ignoring the need for an explanation, Amos darted forward and pulled Cedric into his chest. "What are you?" He asked Rebecca.
Rebecca's eyes rolled back into her head. She had heard Amos speak, but the words couldn't register. Fred grabbed her face and forced her eyes open, speaking loudly. "Stay awake, do you hear me? Keep your eyes open!" Her head lolled back and her eyes closed. Fred took his wand and sent a stream of water of her face, startling her awake a moment longer.
McGonagall released the spell on the wall, the crowd privy to what was behind once more. Dumbledore and Fudge rushed ahead, seeing how Cedric was in face alive. Dumbledore looked to McGonagall, a discreet nod sent from the professor to the headmaster.
"Well then," Fudge cried, clapping his hands in delight. "He's alive!"
"He's back!" Harry shouted, repeating himself. "Voldemort's back!"
"He's telling the truth. We were there, we saw him." Cedric backed Harry up.
Fudge narrowed his eyes a moment at the boys before turning to Albus and barking orders. "There's too many people! They need to be moved!"
Rebecca blinked slowly, her thoughts sluggish and her head light. Fred pulled her to her feet, George taking her other arm and putting it over his shoulder without a word. They followed McGonagall and Dumbledore off in the direction of the Hospital Wing.
Moody had stayed at the back of the group of professors and parental figures that formed the procession making their way back into the castle, and when Harry was alone for a second, he made his move. "This is not where you want to be. It's alright, I got you."
Harry pulled back from the man's arms, looking to the others. "No, I need to go with them!"
"I'll take you to them as soon as you've calmed down, how about that?" Moody offered. The man led Harry off in a different direction inside the castle and, once a few corridors into their journey, Harry realised that Moody was bringing him back to his classroom.
The door squeaked as it usually did and Moody moved without pausing. "Sit." He told Harry, rummaging through a few vials on his desk before plucking one out of the others and handing it to Harry. "Drink this, it'll help."
Harry raised the vial to his mouth with shaking hands and was relieved to find that the potion warmed him and pulled his mind out of the fog it had settled into out of worry and fear.
"Are you alright, Potter? Does that hurt?" Moody asked, gesturing to the blood still oozing out of the cut down his forearm.
"Not so much now." Harry answered honestly. So much else had happened that a cut seemed hardly worth any attention.
"Perhaps I'd better take a look at it." Moody stood up from where he had leaned against the wall and took Harry's arm gruffly and ungently.
"The cup was a portkey." Harry said quietly. "Someone bewitched it."
Moody tore his gaze away from Harry's arm and looked into his eyes. "What was it like? What was he like?"
"Who?" Harry asked. His mind had been sharpened by the potion and he was growing more and more desperate to get to the Infirmary with the others--with Rebecca.
"The Dark Lord." Moody said as if the answer was obvious. He squeezed Harry's arm before walking a few paces away and turning his back to Harry. "What was it like to stand in his presence?"
"I don't know." Harry stared into the fire, not noticing how Moody began to tremor and seize. "It was like I'd fallen into one of my dreams. Into one of my nightmares." Harry's attention turned towards the professor when Moody stormed through a curtain to a box that he threw open, hurriedly lifting one after another glass bottle and finding them all to be empty.
"Were there others?" Moody asked, looking back to Harry with a strange glint in his eye. "In the graveyard, were there others?"
Harry's mind focused on the words instantly, his defences raising. "I...I never said anything about a graveyard, professor."
Moody stood in the archway, lowering his voice in an impression of Hagrid. "Marvelous creatures, dragons, aren't they?" Moody turned back and the tinking of glass could be heard again as he continued to look through the box. "Did you think that miserable oaf would've led you into the woods if I hadn't suggested it? Do you think Cedric Diggory would've told you to open the egg underwater if I hadn't told him first myself?"
Moody slammed the box closed and limped his way to more bottles, still not finding what he was looking for. "The second task was supposed to take care of the spare, a watery end making an ironic end to the insufferable annoyance."
Harry launched to his feet, outraged. "Don't you talk about her like that!" Moody put his face close to Harry's and grinned before shoving him back into his seat and searching again. "It was you, wasn't it? You put my name in the Goblet of Fire."
"So the girl didn't get all the brains." Moody intoned. "Yes, I did. You won because I made it so, Potter. You ended up in that graveyard tonight because it was meant to be so." Moody stepped closer to Harry, forcing the boy to lean backwards. "And it's done! The blood that runs in your veins runs within the Dark Lord!"
Moody crossed the room and spasmed sharply before turning back to Harry. "Imagine how he'll reward me when he learns that I, once and for all, silenced the Potter twins. You'll be easy enough and Rebecca has gone and made herself on death's doorstep now anyway." Moody lowered his voice, his mind wandering. "There's whispers about her, you know? Whispers about powers unimaginable. What happened behind that wall tonight?" Moody's eyes focused on Harry once more. "No matter, I guess those whispers will stay unimaginable after I end her."
Harry launched himself over the table in front of him, intending to tackle the man to the ground. The door was blown in, shattered to pieces, before Harry could succeed.
"Expelliarmus!" Dumbledore's voice shouted. Moody was sent flying backwards and Dumbledore grabbed him by the neck against the wall. The headmaster's wand prodded at the man's throat. "Severus!" Dumbledore called.
Snap walked in and uncorked a bottle, a green bottle with a golden stopper that Harry recognised as the Veritaserum he and Rebecca had been threatened with weeks earlier. Snape trickled a few drops in Moody's mouth just as McGonagall entered the room. She pulled Harry into her and held the back of his head. When he hadn't arrived to the Hospital Wing with the others, she had feared the worst.
"What's happened with-"
"She's breathing." McGonagall said, her tone dark. "She's gone unconscious like last time. Madam Pomfrey is watching her."
Both Harry and McGonagall fell silent at the sound of Dumbledore beginning to question Moody. "Do you know who I am?"
"Albus Dumbledore." Moody growled.
"Are you Alastor Moody?" Dumbledore asked. When no answer came immediately, Dumbledore shoved his wand farther into his throat. "Are you?"
"No."
"Is he in this room?"
Moody, or rather, Not-Moody, glanced at the trunk behind Harry and McGonagall. "Get away from there!" Dumbledore directed them as Snape unlatched the trunk. When the first lid opened, another rose up into its place over and over until a final lid popped open and required another latch to be undone. When it was finally open, Dumbledore leaned over the edge and peered inside. "You alright, Alastor?"
The man at the bottom of the trunk, the true Alastor Moody, answered. "I'm sorry, Albus."
"If he's Moody, then who's-" McGonagall began.
Snape opened the flask the imposter of Moody drank out of so regularly and smelt it. "Polyjuice Potion." Snape intoned.
"Now we know who's been stealing from your stores, Severus." Dumbledore called back down the Moody that they'd have him up in a minute while Snape's gaze moved to Harry. Harry put his lips together and said nothing about the accusation that was now proven to be false.
The Moody-imposter demanded their attention once more as he screamed when his flesh began to melt and move. The transition was painful after so many months of continued transformation. Harry bent closer to the floor to see the man's face.
The man let out a shriek and tried to jump forward, but McGonagall reached forward and pushed him back into the chair, holding her wand out in front of her and putting Harry behind her for good measure.
"Barty Crouch Junior." Dumbledore said slowly.
"I'll show you mine if you show me yours." Crouch said lewdly before pulling up his sleeve and revealed his Dark Mark in the renewed, darkened state. "You know what this means, don't you? He's back." Crouch's eyes shone madly. "Lord Voldemort has returned."
"Send an owl to Azkaban." Dumbledore demanded, guiding Harry from the room. Outside in the corridor, Harry found himself invigorated. Energy flowed to his exhausted limbs and he began to run once more. "Harry!" Dumbledore called after him, but the man's voice fell on deaf ears. Harry didn't slow until he reached the infirmary door and even then, he was running as soon as he was through.
The Weasleys and Hermione were standing around a bed at the back, a bed that Harry knew Rebecca would be tucked inside of. She was still, deathly still. There was only the slow, shallow rise and fall of her chest that betrayed the fact that she was still alive.
"Harry?" Rebecca asked weakly.
Fred's eyes shot to her from Rebecca's side opposite Harry where he held her hand gently, unaware of the fact that she had managed to hold onto this sliver of consciousness for so long.
"I'm right here, right here!" Harry spoke quickly, grabbing her other hand and holding it tightly. He was shocked at how hot her skin was.
"I know, Harry." Rebecca whispered, beginning to lose the battle she had been waging to keep awake.
"Know what, Becs?" Harry asked, sniffling once.
"He's back." Rebecca said before her eyes shut entirely and she was asleep at last.
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Dumbledore and McGonagall entered the Hospital Wing hours later; they had had to send out owls after the events of the evening. Dumbledore needed to coordinate Crouch's return to Azkaban and McGonagall needed to reach Sirius. When the two professors finally joined their champions, a black dog padded in alongside them.
The second the door was shut, Sirius morphed back into himself and hurried to the bedside of his goddaughter. McGonagall was left to quell the disruption the appearance of a widely-believed-to-be-a-murdered, but calm it she did.
"She did that to that boy, didn't she?" Sirius asked Harry quietly while gesturing to the sleeping Cedric beds down. "Brought him back?"
"Yes." Harry had yet to move from where he sat next to Rebecca, despite both Molly and Madam Pomfrey's nudging that he rest in a bed of his own. Sirius walked to the other side of the bed, Fred not taking his eyes off Rebecca despite Sirius settling next to him.
"I've heard what happened." Sirius began. "Heard what you saw."
Harry grimaced. "That he's back?"
Sirius nodded grimly. "Yes. But that takes the back-burner now. What happens here and now?"
"Now?" Fred clarified darkly. "Now we wait to see if she's going to wake up."
"When, Fred." George corrected gently. "We're waiting for when she wakes up."
Fred stood up quickly, sending the chair he had been sitting on back loudly. Loud enough to wake Amos and Cedric, loud enough to catch the attention of the adults a few paces away. "No, George! It's 'if'!" Fred's shouting was the loudest noise to be heard in the Hospital Wing since they all arrived. "We don't know how she does this! We don't know where this power comes from! Nothing comes from nothing--what is she giving up? What is she losing to do this?" His voice cracked at the end as it occurred to him how close he was to life without her again. "How could she do this?" Fred sat back down into his chair and laid his head on the edge of her bed, beginning to sob. For a second, a second he regretted as soon as the thought passed through his mind, Fred thought to blame Harry.
If he hadn't called her like that, perhaps she wouldn't have gotten to Cedric early enough to save him.
"Do what, love?" Molly asked, hurrying to her child-in-need and rubbing his shoulder as she eased herself kneeling next to him. "What do you mean?"
Fred's hand made its way back into Rebecca's, imagining that he was holding her in place so that she couldn't go anywhere without him. "How could she do something like this when she had no idea what would happen?"
"That's who she is." Hermione answered at the foot of Rebecca's bed next to Ginny, wiping her own tears before putting her arm around their younger roommate. "Rebecca will always do what she can, no matter the cost."
Fred's sobs continued, the softer weeping of those who watched her breathe slowly joining Fred before fading quietly. Time passed slowly without change in status, night fading into early morning. McGonagall woke Sirius before the sun rose, warning him that it would be time to go soon.
"Professor, have I ever been one to do as I'm told?" Sirius asked, fiercely reminding McGonagall of how obstinate he had been as a boy. Growing more serious, Sirius shook his head. "I'm not going anywhere until she wakes."
McGonagall sighed, but said nothing else on the topic. She know how pointless it was to argue with Sirius Orion Black when he'd made a decision. Both adults looked to the children around them. Fred and Harry both slept with their heads on the edge of the bed, despite the fact that Madam Pomfrey had turned enough beds down for them all to have their own. Fred's hand was still holding hers, their fingers entwined.
McGonagall brought a hand up and wiped at the tear that left her eye without permission. Sirius said nothing, but put his arm around his old professor. "These children..." She said softly.
"They'll be the death of us, won't they?" Sirius finished, trying to lighten the mood. Harry jerked awake and looked around him quickly, reaching for his wand and his glasses before he was even fully awake. Sirius and Minerva's hearts panged ferociously, watching what would only be the beginning of the shadows these children would collect throughout what was quickly shaping into the second Wizarding War.
Harry locked eyes with Professor McGonagall, but looked away when he saw how she looked at him. "Has she woken up at all?" Harry knew that she hadn't, but he needed the adults to focus on something other than him before he suffocated under their gazes.
"No, not yet." Sirius answered.
Harry looked across the room to where Cedric lie shirtless, Rebecca's hands burnt onto his skin forever. He looked to Fred, how his body was held awkwardly to not have to let go of Rebecca's hand. Madam Pomfrey went to Harry when he was awake and kneeled down to his seated level.
"I'd like to look at your arm. It needs to be healed before it can get infected."
Harry offered Madam Pomfrey his arm without moving in order to not leave Rebecca's side. He couldn't believe that the TriWizard Tournament had finished hours earlier and he tried to fight of sleep as long as he could despite his lasting exhaustion.
As it was the weekend, Dumbledore explained the delayed victory dinner as a movement out of respect to the medical attention needed by Cedric who, as both Dumbledore and McGonagall had decided was best, was said to have returned near death as opposed to dead-dead.
Fred stirred for a moment, saying only one word before returning to his dreams. "Rebecca?"
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"Darling? Oh, darling?" Rebecca's voice echoed in Fred's head. "It seems I'll have to find someone else to kiss...what a shame."
Fred opened his eyes, knowing deep down that he was still asleep but cherishing the relief of seeing Rebecca awake. Even if it was only an image in his head, this was as close as he could have her at the moment.
They were lying in a bed, in his dream. Rebecca was leaning over him as he continued to pretend-sleep.
"It would be silly to go off finding someone else when there's someone right here though..."
Fred opened one eye, smiling.
"Oh! You're awake!" Rebecca kissed the end of his nose. Fred cupped her cheek and directed her lips lower, kissing her gently. "I guess you'll do." Rebecca said when they were through.
"You guess?" Fred sat up quickly, putting himself over her. He leaned down and kissed her face repeatedly, pecks sprinkled cheekily. "What about now?"
Rebecca laughed the laugh he loved so much, the one that floated across his ears like someone playing a song. He wanted to hear it a thousand times over, ready for a thousand more.
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