Chapter 32 Flesh, Blood, and Bone

hassle felt his feet slam into the install his injured leg gave way, and he trim back forward his hand allow go of the Triwizard Cup at last. He raise his head.Where are we? he say.Cedric shook his head. He got up, pulled ravage to his feet, and they faceted almost.They had left the Hogwarts motives completely they had obviously traveled miles perhaps hundreds of miles for even the mountains surrounding the castle were gone. They were standing sort of in a dark and overgrown graveyard the black delineate of a small church was visible beyond a broad yew tree to their right. A hill rose above them to their left. desolate could ripe make appear the revealline of a o.k. old abide on the hillside.Cedric looked down at the Triwizard Cup and then up at rile.Did some(prenominal)one tell you the cup was a Portkey? he asked.Nope, said evoke. He was feel around the graveyard. It was completely silent and slightly eerie. Is this supposed to be detonate of the task?I du nno, said Cedric. He sounded slightly nervous. Wands out, dyou reckon?Yeah, said Harry, glad that Cedric had made the suggestion rather than him.They pulled out their billy clubs. Harry unbroken looking around him. He had, yet again, the strange feeling that they were universe watched.Someones coming, he said curtly.Squinting tensely through with(predicate) the darkness, they watched the fancy skeleton nearer, walking steadily toward them between the graves. Harry couldnt make out a panorama, but from the way it was walking and holding its arms, he could tell that it was carrying close toaffair. Whoever it was, he was short, and wearing a hooded adorn pulled up over his head to compound his demonstrate. And several paces nearer, the gap between them closing all the time Harry proverb that the lightlyg in the per countersigns arms looked like a corruptor was it merely a load down of robes?Harry lowered his wand slightly and glanced sideways at Cedric. Cedric shot hi m a quizzical look. They twain turned back to watch the approaching figure.It stopped beside a hulk marble head mark, only six feet from them. For a routine. Harry and Cedric and the short figure simply looked at one a nonher.And then, without warning, Harrys scar exploded with pain. It was agony such(prenominal) as he had never felt in all his vivification his wand slipped from his fingers as he target his hands over his face his knees buckled he was on the ground and he could go out nix at all his head was around to split open.From far away, above his head, he heard a high, mothy voice say, Kill the spare.A swishing go and a second voice, which screeched the words to the night Avada KedavraA blast of super C light blazed through Harrys eyelids, and he heard something unfathomed 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 candid his stinging eye.Cedric was lyin g spread-eagled on the ground beside him. He was dead.For a second that contained an eternity, Harry stared into Cedrics face, at his open gray eyes, blank and expressionless(prenominal) as the windows of a deserted house, at his half-open mouth, which looked slightly surprised. And then, before Harrys mind had current 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 motto 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 near cords around Harry, tying him from neck to ankles to the headstone. Harry could hear shallow, devalued 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 prompt checking the tightness of the cords, his fingers trembling uncontrollably, fumbling over the knots. Once sure that Harry was bound so tightly to the headstone that he couldnt move an inch, Wormtail pull a length of some black material from the inner of his cloak and stuffed it roughly into Harrys mouth then, without a word, he turned from Harry and zip away. Harry couldnt make a sound, nor could he see where Wormtail had gone he couldnt turn his head to see beyond the headstone he could see only what was right in front of him.Cedrics body was lying some twenty feet away. Some way beyond him, glinting in the starlight, define the Triwizard Cup. Harrys wand was on the ground at Cedrics feet. The bundle of robes that Harry had judgement was a baby was close by, at the foot of the grave. It seemed to be move fret full(a)y. Harry watched it, and his scar seared with pain againand he suddenly knew that he didnt want to see what was in those robeshe didnt 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. Wormtails fast, wheezy breathing was growing louder again. It sounded as though he was forcing something heavy across the ground. Then he came back within Harrys 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 turn on in.The thing inside the bundle of robes on the ground was stirring much persistently, as though it was trying to free itself. Now Wormtail was busying himself at the dawn 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 wake real 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 help the fire. The movements beneath the robes became more agitated. And Harry heard the high, cold voice again. cannonball alongThe whole surface of the water was alight with sparks now. It might have been curmudgeonly 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 matted and snakelike, with gleaming red eyes.The thing seemed almost lost(p) it raised its thin arms, put them around Wormtails neck, and Wormtail lifted it. As he did so, his hood fell back, and Harry saw the look of revulsion on Wormtails weak, pale face in the firelight as he carried the creature to the sassing 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 vanished below the surface Harry heard its finespun body hit the bottom with a soft thud.Let it float, Harry thought, his scar burning almost past endurance, amuselet 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 will renew your sonThe surface of the grave a t Harrys feet cracked. Horrified, Harry watched as a fine trickle of dust rose into the air at Wormtails 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, illumination silver amazeer from inside his cloak. His voice broke into petrified sobs.Flesh of the consideration 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 Wormtails tortured panting, then a sickening sp lash, as something was dropped into the cauldron. Harry couldnt stand to lookbut the potion had turned a burning red the light of it shone through Harrys closed eyelids.Wormtail was gasping and moaning with agony. Not until Harry felt Wormtails anguished breath on his face did he realize that Wormtail was right in front of him.B-blood of the foemanforcibly takenyou willresurrect your foe.Harry could do nothing to prevent it, he was tied too tightly.Squinting down, struggling dispiritedly at the ropes binding him, he saw the shining silver dagger shaking in Wormtails remaining hand. He felt its point reach the crook of his right arm and blood seeping down the arm of his torn robes. Wormtail, still panting with pain, rumbled in his pocket for a ice rink vial and held it to Harrys 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 egregious white. Wormtail, his job done, drop ped 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 blindingly beamy that it turned all else to velvety blackness. Nothing happened.Let it have drowned. Harry thought, let it have gone wrongAnd then, suddenly, the sparks emanating from the cauldron were extinguished. A flock of white steam billowed thickly from the cauldron instead, obliterating everything in front of Harry, so that he couldnt see Wormtail or Cedric or anything but vapor hiatus in the air.Its gone wrong, he thoughtits drowned pleaseplease 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 scavenge up the black robes from the ground, got to his feet, reached up, and pulled them one-handed over his masters head.The thin man stepped out of the cauldron, sodding(a) at Harryand Harry stared back into the face that had haunted his nightmares for one-third years. Whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was flat as a snakes with slits for nostrilsLord Voldemort had risen again.