Chapter Text
Saturday, 24 June 1995, early nighttime
The Little Hangleton graveyard, Lancashire County, (northern) England
Harry Potter was duelling Voldemort. The Death Eaters whom Voldemort had summoned, watched. A golden thread of light had connected Harry’s wand and Voldemort’s wand; also, the two phoenix-core wands together had made a golden, dome-shaped web round the duellers that kept the Death Eaters from interfering in the duel. The threads of this dome were singing phoenix-song. Something else strange was happening now: almost-solid ghosts were coming out of Voldemort’s wand—
****
But already, yet another head was emerging [from Voldemort’s wand], and this head, gray as a smoky statue, was a woman’s. Harry, both arms shaking now as he fought to keep his wand still, saw her drop to the ground and straighten up like the others, staring.
The shadow of Bertha Jorkins surveyed the battle before her with wide eyes.
“Don’t let go, now!” she cried, and her voice echoed like Cedric’s, as though from very far away. “Don’t let him get you, Harry—don’t let go!”
She and the other two shadowy figures [Cedric and an old Muggle man] began to pace around the inner walls of the golden web, while the Death Eaters flitted around the outside of it. Voldemort’s dead victims whispered as they circled the duelers, whispered words of encouragement to Harry, and hissed words Harry couldn’t hear to Voldemort.
And now another head was emerging from the tip of Voldemort’s wand—and Harry knew when he saw it, who it would be. He knew, as though he had expected it from the moment when Cedric had appeared from the wand—knew, because the woman appearing was the one he’d thought of more than any other tonight.
The smoky shadow of a young woman with long hair fell to the ground as Bertha had done, straightened up, and looked at him—and Harry, his arms shaking madly now, looked back into the ghostly face of his mother.
“Your father’s coming,” she said quietly. “Hold on for your father, it will be all right, hold on....”
And [indeed James Potter] came—first his head, then his body. Tall and untidy-haired like Harry, the smoky, shadowy form of James Potter blossomed from the end of Voldemort’s wand, fell to the ground, and straightened like his wife. He walked close to Harry, looking down at him.
****
Meanwhile, Voldemort’s face was now livid with fear as his victims prowled around him.
Before the ghost of James Potter spoke to Harry, the ghost of Harry’s mother spoke in a loud voice: “James, Cedric, please come here. There is something you need to hear now.”
The ghosts of Harry’s parents and the ghost of the true Hogwarts Champion huddled together for a short time. Ghost-Lily spoke so lowly to the other two ghosts that Harry could not recognise a single word.
The three ghosts’ conference lasted no more than fifteen seconds. Then the three ghosts moved apart from each other. All three ghosts turned to face Harry. Ghost-James spoke quietly to his son—
****
“When the connection is broken, we will linger for maybe only moments, but we will give you time. You must get to the Portkey, it will return you to Hogwarts. Do you understand, Harry?”
“Yes,” Harry gasped, fighting now to keep a hold on his wand, which was slipping and sliding beneath his fingers.
“Harry,” whispered the figure of Cedric, “take my body back, will you? Take my body back to my parents.”
“I will,” said Harry, his face screwed up with the effort of holding the wand.
“Do it now,” whispered his father’s voice, “be ready to run; do it now.”
“NOW!” Harry yelled; he didn’t think he could have held on for another moment anyway—he pulled his wand upward with an almighty wrench, and the golden thread broke; the cage of light vanished, the phoenix song died—but the shadowy figures of Voldemort’s victims did not disappear—they were closing in upon Voldemort, shielding Harry from his gaze—
And Harry ran as he had never run in his life, knocking two stunned Death Eaters aside as he passed.
****
Behind Harry, he heard the voices of his ghost-mother, his ghost-father and Ghost-Cedric yell, almost in unison, “Non, non revertar!” No, I will not return!
****
Harry zigzagged behind headstones, feeling their curses following him, hearing them hit the headstones—he was dodging curses and graves, pelting toward Cedric’s body, no longer aware of the pain in his leg, his whole being concentrated on what he had to do—
“Stun him!” he heard Voldemort scream.
Ten feet from Cedric, Harry dived behind a marble angel to avoid the jets of red light and saw the tip of its wing shatter as the spells hit it. Gripping his wand more tightly, he dashed out from behind the angel—
“Impedimenta!” he bellowed, pointing his wand wildly over his shoulder at the Death Eaters running at him.
From a muffled yell, he thought he had stopped at least one of them, but there was no time to stop and look; he jumped over the Cup and dived as he heard more wand blasts behind him; more jets of light flew over his head as he fell, stretching out his hand to grab Cedric’s arm—
“Stand aside! I will kill him! He is mine!” shrieked Voldemort.
Harry’s hand had closed on Cedric’s wrist; one tombstone stood between him and Voldemort, but Cedric was too heavy to carry, and the Cup was out of reach—
Voldemort’s red eyes flamed in the darkness. Harry saw his mouth curl into a smile, saw him raise his wand.
“Accio!” Harry yelled, pointing his wand at the Triwizard Cup. It flew into the air and soared toward him.
****
In the one-second-long eternity when the Cup was moving towards Harry and Voldemort was trying to kill Harry, Harry suddenly felt cold spots on his skin. It was as though snowballs were being pressed against different parts of Harry’s body.
****
Harry caught the Triwizard Cup by the handle—
He heard Voldemort’s scream of fury at the same moment that he felt the jerk behind his navel that meant the Portkey had worked—it was speeding him away in a whirl of wind and color, and Cedric along with him. They were going back.
****
One second later
In front of the judges’ platform, at the front of the spectator seating that surrounded the Quidditch pitch, back at Hogwarts
Harry felt himself slam flat into the ground; his face was pressed into grass; the smell of the grass filled his nostrils. He had closed his eyes while the Portkey transported him, and he kept them closed now. He did not move. All the breath seemed to have been knocked out of him; his head was swimming so badly he felt as though the ground beneath him were swaying like the deck of a ship. He was still clutching both the smooth, cold handle of the Triwizard Cup and Cedric’s body.
****
Speaking of Cedric, dizzy Harry now heard Cedric’s voice, which sounded worried: “Sit up, Harry, please sit up. You’re not safe now.”
Right after this, Lily Potter’s voice yelled, “We need healers here! Harry Potter is hurt!”
A split second later, James Potter’s voice yelled, “We need Amelia Bones here!”
Cedric’s voice said, “Good call, James. Amelia Bones now is Director of the DMLE, I don’t know if you knew this.”
Harry made himself sit up. He saw McGonagall staring at him, and he saw Mad-Eye staring at him with an unreadable expression. Headmaster Dumbledore and Susan Bones’s Aunt Amelia both were running towards Harry; Dumbledore was not as fast, but he was much closer.
Now surrounding Harry and the corpse of Cedric: the ghosts of Cedric Diggory, James Potter and Lily Potter. The ghosts no longer were almost-solid the way they had been in the graveyard, nor were their voices echoey like they had been in the graveyard. Now the three graveyard ghosts were transparent like Hogwarts ghosts and the three ghosts’ voices sounded like living people’s voices, the same way the voices of Hogwarts ghosts sounded.
The next thing that Ghost-Cedric in this new locale said to Harry was “Cast Rescindere Polyjuiceum on Mad-Eye Moody over there! Now, hurry, do it now, hurry!”