The Tenth Weasley - CH - 152

Voldemort did not hesitate.

Peace, patience, restraint—those had never been among his virtues. The moment Harry finished speaking, the air itself screamed.

Power exploded outward from Pettigrew’s stolen body in a savage wave, flattening grass, shattering gravestones, and ripping chunks of earth free. Harry threw himself sideways as the space where he had been standing collapsed inward, soil compressing as if crushed by an invisible giant’s fist.

He did not raise a shield.

He ran.

A streak of burning pressure ripped past his shoulder, close enough to sear fabric and skin. Harry rolled, came up on one knee, and moved again before his body could register pain. Another blast struck the ground behind him, erupting into a column of fire that roared skyward.

Voldemort advanced relentlessly.

“You flee,” Voldemort hissed through Pettigrew’s mouth, voice layered and unnatural, echoing as though spoken by several throats at once. “Wise. Your defenses would not endure.”

Harry didn’t answer. He couldn’t afford to.

He didn’t know half of what Voldemort was throwing at him. Some spells twisted space. Others sucked heat from the air, leaving frost creeping across tombstones. One passed so close that Harry felt his thoughts blur for a heartbeat, his vision warping as if the world were tilting sideways.

Unknown magic, his mind screamed.

Ancient. Experimental. Lethal.

Blocking blindly would be suicide.

So Harry danced.

He ducked beneath sweeping arcs of force, vaulted over ruptured stone, slid behind a toppled headstone as it disintegrated under the next strike. The graveyard became a storm of lightless violence—earth exploding, iron fences bending like wax, the cauldron rocking violently as its runes flared brighter with each surge of magic.

Voldemort raised one hand, fingers clawing through the air, and the ground beneath Harry’s feet grabbed him.

Roots burst upward, wrapping around his ankles, thick and unyielding.

Harry reacted instantly.

He didn’t aim at the roots.

He aimed at the space around them.

The pressure snapped outward, and the roots disintegrated as though sliced by an invisible blade. Harry tore free and hurled himself forward, breath burning in his lungs.

“You fight well,” Voldemort snarled, eyes blazing. “Always moving. Always refusing to meet force with force.”

Harry skidded to a halt and finally turned to face him fully, wand steady despite the tremor in his arm.

“That’s because,” Harry said evenly, “force is what you expect.”

He struck.

The magic he released was nothing like Voldemort’s overwhelming floods. It was thin. Focused. Almost delicate.

It slipped between attacks, threaded through the chaos, and struck Voldemort’s raised defense.

The shield held.

Voldemort laughed. “Is that all?”

Harry’s eyes sharpened.

The spell didn’t break the shield.

It went through it.

The magic pierced like a needle through stretched cloth and slammed into Pettigrew’s left shoulder with a wet, cracking impact.

Voldemort screamed.

Not in pain—but in fury.

Pettigrew’s body spun violently as the arm separated at the shoulder, severed cleanly by force so precise it looked unreal. The silver hand clattered uselessly onto the grass, still twitching faintly, fingers spasming.

For a fraction of a second, Voldemort staggered.

Smoke poured from Pettigrew’s mouth and eyes as the possession faltered.

Harry did not let up.

He pressed forward, unleashing another strike, then another—each one angled, controlled, merciless. Voldemort threw up shields instinctively now, layering them desperately.

One shattered.

Another bent.

A third barely held.

“You—insolent—” Voldemort roared, clutching the ruined shoulder as Pettigrew’s body struggled to remain upright. “This body is temporary! You think this matters?”

“It matters to him,” Harry replied coldly, eyes flicking briefly to the severed hand. “And it matters to you because you didn’t expect it.”

Voldemort’s breathing grew uneven. The arrogance that had defined his posture moments earlier cracked, replaced by something sharper.

Caution.

“You are very powerful,” Voldemort said slowly. “Not truly.”

Harry circled him, boots crunching over gravel and bone fragments. “You finally noticed.”

The cauldron behind Voldemort pulsed violently now, reacting to the unstable magic flooding the graveyard. Runes flared, then dimmed, then flared again, as if the ritual itself sensed danger.

Voldemort glanced at it—just for an instant.

Harry saw the calculation.

He needs time.

Voldemort raised his wand again, fury returning tenfold. This time, he did not attack in bursts.

He flooded the field.

Fire erupted in a sweeping arc, not wild but controlled, bending unnaturally as it chased Harry’s movements. Harry sprinted, leapt over a burning trench, rolled beneath a collapsing headstone, heat blistering the air around him.

One blast clipped him, sending him skidding across the ground. Pain exploded through his side.

Harry forced himself upright, teeth clenched.

“You will kneel,” Voldemort snarled. “Every brilliant mind eventually kneels or breaks.”

Harry wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand and smiled thinly.

“You’re confusing me with your followers.”

He raised his wand again.

The magic he released this time did not explode.

It collapsed.

The space around Voldemort folded inward violently, pressure compressing from all sides. Pettigrew’s body shrieked as bones cracked under the strain. Voldemort snarled, forcing the pressure away in a brutal counterwave that hurled Harry backward.

Harry slammed into the ground hard, breath ripped from his lungs.

Stars danced in his vision.

Voldemort staggered too now, possession flickering visibly, smoke leaking uncontrollably from Pettigrew’s mouth. The missing arm made the host body unstable. Each movement looked more difficult.

“You are interfering with matters beyond you,” Voldemort hissed, voice strained. “This world will burn whether you stand against me or not.”

Harry pushed himself to his feet slowly, every muscle screaming.

“Maybe,” he said hoarsely. “Or may be not.”

They faced each other across the shattered graveyard, both breathing hard, magic crackling thickly between them.

For the first time since arriving, Harry saw it clearly.

Voldemort was not invincible here.

Not yet.

And Voldemort—brilliant, ruthless, terrifying Voldemort—had realized the same thing.

The Dark Lord’s red eyes narrowed.

It wasn’t intuition alone—it was experience. Voldemort was not a man who accepted defeat, and he was certainly not one who lingered in a fight he could no longer dominate. The borrowed body was failing; Pettigrew’s strength was bleeding away with every heartbeat, every violent surge of magic. The severed arm, the cracked bones, the instability of possession—all of it dragged Voldemort down like chains.

He would not stay.

Harry steadied his breathing and shifted his stance slightly, making no outward sign that he had already anticipated the Dark Lord’s next move. Voldemort’s kind never retreated on foot. When a body became a liability, they abandoned it.

Smoke. Shadow. Flight.

Harry’s fingers slipped into the inner pocket of his cloak, closing around a small, cold object. An orb, smooth and dark as polished obsidian, faint runes barely visible beneath the surface. It hummed softly against his palm, alive with containment magic—magic he had once designed to imprison a Dementor for study.

He had never expected to use it for this.

Across the shattered graveyard, Voldemort’s borrowed body straightened unnaturally. The red eyes flicked once toward the cauldron, then toward the sky. Harry saw the calculation finalize.

Now, Harry thought.

He needed seconds. Just seconds.

So he spoke.

“Do you remember the first time we met?”

The question cut through the tension like a blade.

Voldemort paused.

Not because he was confused—but because he was arrogant enough to indulge memory.

The red eyes narrowed. “Of course,” Voldemort said coldly. “Hogwarts. A child meddling where he did not belong. The Philosopher’s Stone.”

Harry nodded slowly, taking a step closer, keeping his wand lowered—nonthreatening, deliberate. “My first year. You were wearing another man’s body then too.”

Voldemort’s lips twisted. “Quirrell was… weak. But useful.”

“And do you remember what you told Charlie?” Harry asked, voice steady, deceptively calm. “About twins?”

Voldemort’s gaze sharpened.

“You told him,” Harry continued, “that he wasn’t special. That he wasn’t the Boy Who Lived. That his twin brother was.”

Silence stretched.

Then Voldemort smiled, thin and cruel. “Yes. I remember.”

Harry returned the smile—but his was colder.

“Well,” he said softly, “you were right.”

The graveyard seemed to hold its breath.

“I am that twin,” Harry said. “I was born Harry Potter.”

The name hit Voldemort like a physical blow.

For the first time since Harry had arrived, Voldemort hesitated.

Harry didn’t stop.

“I know the prophecy,” he went on. “I know why you marked my family. I know why you’ve been circling Charlie and I since the moment we were old enough to hold a wand. And I know something else too.”

He raised the orb slightly, just enough for Voldemort to see it glint faintly in the moonlight.

“Today was supposed to be your return,” Harry said. “But today is going to be your last.”

Panic flickered—just for a heartbeat—but it was enough.

Voldemort reacted exactly as Harry had predicted.

The possession snapped.

Black smoke tore violently from Pettigrew’s mouth, ripping free in a torrent of shadow. Pettigrew screamed once—a thin, broken sound—before his body collapsed to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, limbs splaying lifelessly in the dirt.

The dark cloud surged upward, vast and furious, a floating mass of hatred and magic twisting in on itself as it tried to flee.

“NO—!” Voldemort roared, his voice echoing from everywhere and nowhere at once. “THIS IS NOT OVER—!”

Harry moved.

He intercepted.

The orb flared in his hand, runes blazing white-hot as Harry poured power into it. The containment field snapped outward like a net made of light and will, slamming into the fleeing shadow.

Voldemort shrieked.

The dark mist slammed against the invisible barrier, swelling, writhing, lashing violently as if trying to tear itself apart to escape. The graveyard trembled as the orb dragged the mass inward, compressing centuries of malice into something smaller… denser… trapped.

Harry’s arm shook under the strain, teeth clenched as he forced the magic to hold.

“LET ME GO!” Voldemort screamed. “YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU’VE DONE!”

Harry stepped forward, eyes blazing.

“I understand perfectly,” he said. “You’re not ready. You’re not whole. And now you’re contained.”

With a final violent contraction, the black mist collapsed fully into the orb.

The light died.

Silence crashed down over the graveyard.

Harry stood there for a long moment, chest heaving, staring at the small sphere in his hand. Inside it, something moved—thick black vapor swirling endlessly, pressing against the containment field but unable to escape.

Voldemort.

Imprisoned.

Harry exhaled slowly.

Behind him, Pettigrew’s body lay motionless in the dirt, eyes staring sightlessly at the sky.

The ritual circle flickered once… then went dark.

Harry closed his fingers around the orb and slid it back into his pouch.

“This isn’t over,” he murmured—not to Voldemort, but to the night itself. “But it won’t be on your terms anymore.”

The wind stirred the grass. The graveyard was quiet once more.

And for the first time since the Triwizard Tournament had begun, Harry Weasley—Harry Potter—allowed himself to believe one impossible truth:

He had won.

The night did not stay quiet for long.

A sharp crack split the air, followed by another—and another—until the graveyard seemed to fracture under the sound of repeated Apparition. The cold wind stirred violently, whipping cloaks and rattling the broken iron fence as figures appeared one after another amid the shattered headstones.

Harry barely had time to straighten before the clearing filled.

Dumbledore appeared first, staff already in hand, blue eyes blazing with sharp intelligence as they swept the battlefield in a single, terrifyingly quick assessment. He took in the cracked tombstones, the scorched earth, the unstable remains of the ritual circle, and finally Harry—bloodied, swaying slightly on his feet, but still standing.

Then James Potter appeared beside him, wand raised instinctively, green eyes wide with alarm.

Sirius Black materialized half a second later, already moving, already searching for threats that might leap from the shadows.

And then—

“Harry!”

Arthur Weasley appeared directly in front of him, not bothering with caution, not pausing to assess the danger. He crossed the distance in three long strides and pulled Harry into a fierce, shaking embrace.

“Merlin’s beard,” Arthur breathed, gripping him as though afraid Harry might vanish if he let go. “Are you hurt? What happened? Are you all right?”

Harry felt the strength leave his legs all at once now that the danger had passed. He leaned into his father’s grip, allowing himself that single moment of safety.

“I’m… I’m okay,” he said hoarsely. “Mostly. It’s over.”

Arthur pulled back just enough to look at him properly—and his face drained of color.

Harry was scraped and bruised from head to toe. Dark scorch marks marred his robes. Blood streaked his temple, his knuckles, his side. His breathing was steady but shallow, the kind that came only from exhaustion layered over pain.

“This is not ‘okay,’” Arthur said sharply, anger and fear tangled together in his voice. “You’re injured.”

“I’ve been worse,” Harry replied faintly, attempting a smile that didn’t quite land.

Behind them, James Potter had moved away, drawn by something else in the clearing.

“Over here,” James called grimly.

Sirius was at his side in an instant.

They stood over the motionless form of Peter Pettigrew.

James knelt, checking for a pulse, his jaw tightening. “He’s alive,” he said after a moment. “Barely.”

Sirius stared down at the traitor with naked loathing. “Figures. That rat never dies when he should.”

Dumbledore approached slowly, gaze flicking between Pettigrew, the shattered cauldron, and Harry. His expression was carefully controlled, but there was no mistaking the gravity beneath it.

“The ritual,” Dumbledore said softly.

“Didn't began,” Harry replied.

Dumbledore’s eyes sharpened. “And Voldemort?”

Harry felt the weight of the orb hidden inside his cloak press faintly against his ribs, as though aware it was being spoken of.

Before he could answer, Arthur stepped forward, placing himself squarely between Harry and Dumbledore.

“Albus,” Arthur said firmly, his voice brooking no argument, “my son can barely stand.”

Dumbledore paused.

Arthur continued, “He’s bleeding, exhausted, and has clearly been through something no student should ever face. Whatever questions you have can wait.”

Dumbledore studied Arthur for a long moment. Then his gaze softened—just slightly.

“You are correct,” he said quietly. “Harry needs medical attention. Immediately.”

Arthur nodded once, relief and stubborn protectiveness warring in his expression. He wrapped an arm around Harry’s shoulders again, steadying him as Harry swayed.

“We’re going to St. Mungo’s,” Arthur said. “Now.”

Harry felt a hand grip his arm from the other side—Sirius.

“Hang in there, kid,” Sirius said, his voice low and fierce. “You did good. Whatever happened here… you survived it.”

James met Harry’s eyes, something like awe and fear mingling there. “We’ll talk later,” he said quietly. “But… thank you.”

Harry didn’t trust himself to answer.

Dumbledore lifted his staff, casting a final, sweeping glance over the graveyard as Aurors began to arrive at the perimeter, drawn by the magical disturbance. “We will secure the site,” he said. “The cauldron, the wards, Pettigrew—all of it will be contained.”

Arthur adjusted his grip on Harry. “Ready?”

Harry nodded weakly.

With a sharp crack, the two of them vanished, leaving behind the ruined graveyard, the remnants of a resurrection that never was, and a secret far darker and heavier than anyone else present yet realized.

As the Apparition pulled him away, Harry’s fingers tightened instinctively over the hidden orb beneath his cloak.