Chapter 80

“Such a pretty boy…”

“Don’t!” Atlas yelled as Voldemort approached him, hearing some vague noise of recognition from Cedric, who was looking around, that blindfold still firmly fixed to his face. He was sweating, there was blood at his temple and he was pale. He was scared. “Don’t touch him with your filthy fucking — !”

A sharp tug had her eyes to the sky, a sharp blade to her throat as the Monster, Achlys stared into her eyes, her very soul. Atlas swallowed, staring back at her angrily, teeth gritted as she tried to relent, tried to look back at Cedric. Voldemort seemed to wave her off, laughing amusedly, as soon Achlys was gliding back to Cedric’s side, her claws glinting and Atlas realised then, it hadn’t been a blade to her throat.

The graveyard was silent again, save for Voldemorts manic laughter and Harry’s painful struggling in the background. Cedric was looking around blindly, frantic and panting as Atlas felt the finger on which his ring decorated, throbbing, growing hot with how his heart pounded, so heavily, so fearfully. Voldemort circled to Cedric’s back and reached one of his long slender fingers to hook just beneath his blindfold, peeling it back slowly and when his eyes were revealed, the terror and absolute fear within them exposed for the whole graveyard to see, Atlas started to silently cry.

Next was his gag.

“Atlas!” He cried, blood pooling down the side of his head. “Atlas, don’t listen to anything he says! Ok!? Don’t worry about me!”

And at his words Atlas realised, Cedric was not scared for himself, he was scared for her and that pained her even more. It shattered her because she realised that his heart was pounding for her, the panic in his voice was for her, the tears in his eyes were for her, it was all because of her. Everything. 

“How warming,” Voldemort laughed, walking to stand beside Atlas, his hand back in her hair. “Achlys, get Harry.”

“…yes, My Lord,” that hesitance again. Achlys had Harry in her grasp in mere seconds, throwing him to the ground beside Atlas, the vines still tight around him as he panted, looking at Cedric and then to Atlas. But Atlas was frozen, she was locked in a daze, tears swimming in her eyes as her mouth hung slightly open, terror and pain on her face that reflected in Cedric’s, but again, not for himself, for her.

“Now, it’s a simple offer…” Voldemort began, gliding over to Cedric and caressing the boy’s face. “If you join me, Astraea, I will let your brother live.”

“No! No, don’t do it Atlas!” Cedric yelled as Harry simply went wide-eyed. 

“You will be my right hand,” Voldemort continued as Cedric yelled and fought, as Harry remained silent, not knowing what to say. Should he argue and let Cedric die? Or remain silent and let what little family he had left, slip through his fingers? He thought Sirius might never forgive him but then, if he let Cedric die, Atlas might never forgive him either. “You will be feared, you will be powerful and…your brother gets to live.”

“Atlas, don’t!” Cedric cried as Atlas simply stared at him, her throat suddenly dry. “Please, Atlas!” Voldemort grinned. “Don’t do it, your mother died so you wouldn’t become his right hand, his weapon! You told me so yourself! You can’t do this!”

Silence blanketed the graveyard again.

“I’ll…” Atlas began, tearing her eyes from Cedric as the boy shook his head, frantic now as he resorted to pleading with Harry, pleading that he say something before Atlas finished her sentence. Before she swallowed and trudged on. It was too late. “I’ll join you…”

Voldemort grinned, his red eyes gleaming brighter as he then turned to his audience, his Death Eaters. “Do you see? How powerful fear is? Do you all see?” He laughed again, mouth wide and almost hysterical as Atlas dropped her gaze to the floor, swallowing as more tears built up in her eyes. “Very well, Astraea, I will spare your brother…”

Achlys came and dragged Harry away, pinning him back to the Grim Reaper so he rested in deaths clutches. Atlas watched them and then turned back to Voldemort, ready to be taken to who knew where but nothing happen, no, instead Voldemort was grinning as he pulled out his wand and before Atlas realised, before she could even comprehend what was happening; Voldemort had raised his wand, pointing it at a teary-eyed but smiling Cedric. 

The boy seemed to have understood before her because he whispered a tender declaration, pure and true. “I love you, Las. Thank you…for being my little sister.”

“Cedric, no — !”

“Avada Kedavra!”

And he was gone, in a green flash like the setting sun, he was gone. So needless, a pointless death born from a rash and unneeded act of violence, he was gone, a mist over his eyes, dull and lifeless, he was gone, with a smile on his face and a singular tear falling down his cheek, he was gone. But all Atlas could pay attention to was how cold her hand was, how her finger no longer pounded, how there was no reassuring warmth against her skin, instead, an isolating cold that had the blood draining from her face and a guttural cry expelling from her lungs.

He was gone.

The Death Eaters laughed. They laughed. And Atlas cried, she cried and she hurt and she was cold, she was suddenly numb, her eyes were glowing and her bones were cracking and everything was shifting, growing smaller and smaller and suddenly she was towering over them all. There was foam at her mouth, her claws were bared and her fangs glinted in the moonshine as she heaved and she panted, her heart aching and the ground beneath her cracking, the headstones falling and trees bending, as a white mist blanketed them.

Now suddenly, everyone was scared, everyone felt fear beyond anything they had ever felt, everyone was yelling, cowering, hiding from their very worst horrors, their nightmares come to life, as that mist continued to seep out of her, out of Atlas. The fear was coming from her, the same way the sadness had once wafted from Achlys in the Forbidden Forest. It was pandemonium as they tried to run, but it caught up to them, it controlled them.

Then there was Voldemort, still laughing, still revelling in his latest kill and Atlas felt more of whatever it was falling off of her, as everything, all of her pent up anger, her stress from the tournament, everything came rushing back. She could hear everybody’s cries, everybody’s screams of absolute terror. Everyone. And she felt good, she felt that this was justice. 

But that mist was after everybody, it did not discriminate and it included Harry. So when she heard his cry, his screams she felt it all shift, she felt herself shrinking until she was human again, until her knees were buried in the floor once more and the tears were still falling but now she was staring at Harry. Watching as the boy whimpered and whined, waking up from his terror to stare over at Atlas, eyes wide as everything clicked behind them.

“Fear!” Voldemort shouted as Achlys came forward, whisking her hand so that a muzzle was forced around Atlas’s mouth. The girl did not flinch when it confined her, instead, she slumped further into the earth, a dull golden sheen fixed in her eye, leaving her eyes misted with a glaze like death. “Do you all see how powerful a weapon such as fear is? Yet it can not touch me, do you see? I am fine, she cannot harm me yet you are all writhing, screaming, trying to run.”

A cold hand wrapped around her arm as Atlas was once again dragged away, back over to the Reaper Harry was strapped to. The boy had not taken his eyes off of Atlas, still fidgeting to get free as he looked down at his god-sister.

“You lied…” Atlas managed through the bar that was pushed into her mouth. Voldemort turned to her, the Death Eaters slowly standing to their heights, staring at her also. “You killed him…even though I said I’d join you…”

“I promised not to kill your brother –“

“Cedric was my brother…he was — he was my big brother.”

“Ah…a misunderstanding then,” Voldemort grinned. “I was under the impression Harry was your only brother…and I kept that promise, for now.”

Laughter, but this time quiet, as if wanting to appease their Lord but also not wanting to set Atlas off again, they did not want to cower again, to see what they had seen, not in front of their Lord. It was a dishonour. Then, one came forward, it was Lucius but he was wearing his distinct mask once more.

“Master, we crave to know…we beg you to tell us…how you have achieved this…this miracle…how you have conquered fear and managed to return to us…” He whispered, frightened and unwilling to take another step forward.

“Ah, what a story it is, Lucius,”  Voldemort started. “First, I shall tell you how my dear Astraea can not affect me with her…old magic…” he pointed a boney finger over to the cauldron he had crawled from, the one where he had been reborn. “In my quest to revive myself the potion needed only three, key ingredients, yet I added a fourth. The magic of both Achlys and Astraea…now, their magics cannot harm me, I am invulnerable to them. I have had this planned for many years, of course, they were, in the first place, made to be my…weapons. Grief and Fear.”

Atlas looked down at herself, through the muzzle over her head and to her fingers. She was Voldemorts weapon.

“But…as to the question of how I have returned to you…it begins – and ends – with my young friend here.”

He walked lazily over to stand next to Harry, so that the eyes of the whole circle were upon the two of them. The snake continued to circle and then roamed over Atlas, slithering up so it confined her as the vines did and let its tongue brush against the dried blood on her cheek and broken nose.

“You know, of course, that they have called this boy my downfall?” Voldemort said softly, his red eyes upon Harry. “You all know that on the night I lost my powers and my body, I tried to kill him. His mother died in the attempt to save him – and unwittingly provided him with a protection I admit I had not foreseen…I could not touch the boy.”

Voldemort raised one of his long white fingers and put it very close to Harry’s cheek.

“His mother left upon him the traces of her sacrifice…This is old magic, I should have remembered it, I was foolish to overlook it…but no matter. I can touch him now.”

He pressed the cold tip of his finger into his skin and Harry cried out in agony, trying his best to get away. Atlas did not move, she didn’t even speak for she had not heard over the sudden ringing in her ears. Voldemort laughed softly, then took the finger away and continued addressing the Death Eaters.

“I miscalculated, my friends, I admit it. My curse was deflected by the woman’s foolish sacrifice, and it rebounded upon myself. Aaah…pain beyond pain, my friends; nothing could have prepared me for it. I wandered as a spirit, using my only ability to possess the bodies and minds of others to take over Professor Quirrell four years ago but I was again…thwarted by Harry Potter.

“Then, not even a year ago, when I had almost abandoned hope, it happened at last…a servant returned to me. Wormtail here, who had faked his own death to escape justice, was driven out of hiding by those he had once counted friends and decided to return to his master. He sought me in the country where it had long been rumoured I was hiding…helped, of course, by the rats he met along the way. They told him of a place, deep in an Albanian forest, that they avoided, where small animals like themselves had met their deaths by a dark shadow that possessed them…

“But his journey back to me was not smooth, was it, Wormtail? For, hungry one night, on the edge of the very forest where he had hoped to find me, he foolishly stopped at an inn for some food…and who should he meet there, but one Bertha Jorkins, a witch from the Ministry of Magic.”

Harry jerked at the name, looking to Atlas, trying to catch her eye but the girl was blind to it, staring into her lap now, dazed, null, void of any understanding, any recognition of the name. Her hands twitched every time the snake brushed across her fingertips, but otherwise, she was unresponsive, present in body but absent in mind.

“Now see the way that fate favours Lord Voldemort. This might have been the end of Wormtail, and of my last hope for regeneration. But Wormtail – displaying a presence of mind I would never have expected from him – convinced Bertha Jorkins to accompany him on a nighttime stroll. He overpowered her…he brought her to me. And Bertha Jorkins, who might have ruined all, proved instead to be a gift beyond my wildest dreams…for – with a little persuasion – she became a veritable mine of information.

“She told me that the Triwizard Tournament would be played at Hogwarts this year. She told me that she knew of a faithful Death Eater who would be only too willing to help me, if I could only contact him. She told me many things…but the means I used to break the Memory Charm upon her were powerful, and when I had extracted all useful information from her, her mind and body were both damaged beyond repair. She had now served her purpose. I could not possess her. I disposed of her.”

Voldemort smiled his terrible smile, his red eyes blank and pitiless.

“Wormtail’s body, of course, was ill-adapted for possession, weak and powerless, as all assumed him dead, and would attract far too much attention if noticed. However, he was adept enough to follow instructions and aided in the making of a vessel for myself,” Voldemort’s red eyes fell upon the snake still wrapped around Atlas’s torso, “a potion concocted from unicorn blood, and the snake venom Nagini provided…I was soon returned to an almost human form, and strong enough to travel.

“I knew that to achieve this – it is an old piece of Dark Magic, the potion that revived me tonight – I would need three powerful ingredients, but I wanted a fourth, as you know. Well, one of them was already at hand, was it not, Wormtail? Flesh given by a servant…

“My father’s bone, naturally, meant that we would have to come here, where he was buried. But the blood of a foe…Wormtail would have had me use any wizard, would you not, Wormtail? Any wizard who had hated me…as so many of them still do. But I knew the one I must use, if I was to rise again, more powerful than I had been when I had fallen. I wanted Harry Potters blood. I wanted the blood of the one who had stripped me of power thirteen years ago…for the lingering protection his mother once gave him would then reside in my veins too…

“But how to get at Harry Potter? For he has been better protected than I think even he knows, protected in ways devised by Dumbledore long ago, when it fell to him to arrange the boy’s future. Dumbledore invoked an ancient magic, to ensure the boy’s protection as long as he is in his relations’ care. Not even I can touch him there…Then, of course, there was the Quidditch World Cup…I thought his protection might be weaker there, away from his relations and Dumbledore, but I was not yet strong enough to attempt kidnap in the midst of a horde of Ministry wizards. And then, the boy would return to Hogwarts, where he is under the crooked nose of that Muggle-loving fool from morning until night. So how could I take him?

“Why…by using Bertha Jorkins’s information, of course. Use my one faithful Death Eater, stationed at Hogwarts, to ensure that the boy’s name and Astraea’s was entered into the Goblet of Fire. Use my Death Eater to ensure that they won the tournament – that they touched the Triwizard Cup first – the cup which my Death Eater had turned into a Portkey, which would bring them here, beyond the reach of Dumbledore’s help and protection, and into my waiting arms.”

Voldemort moved slowly forward and turned to face Harry. He raised his wand.

“Crucio!”

Harry screamed, he cried out in ways unthinkable, that unimaginable pain coursing through his body, as if his bones were on fire. His eyes were rolling to the back of his head as Atlas suddenly twitched, looking up slowly, her eyes widening as she set them on her god-brother. She tried to fight free from Nagini’s coil, tried to move, her mind coming back to her, but it was useless, she was bound and weak. Trapped in a cage.

Voldemort pulled away his wand, leaving Harry to hang limply by the ropes that bound him to the headstone, staring up into the eyes of Voldemort. Everyone laughed now, fully and heartily, with no restraint and Atlas continued to stare at him, calling his name, begging for him to wake up, it was quiet, a pathetic plea, her energy waning, but she persisted, that panic returning to her gut, grasping and twisting her stomach. She could not lose another brother.

“You see, I think, how foolish it was to suppose that this boy could ever have been stronger than me,” Voldemort said lowly and unbound Harry from his ropes, the boy falling to the floor beside Atlas. “But I want there to be no mistake in anybody’s mind. Harry Potter escaped me by a lucky chance. And I am now going to prove my power by killing him, here and now, in front of you all, when there is no Dumbledore to help him, and no mother to die for him. I will give him his chance. He will be allowed to fight, and you will be left in no doubt which of us is the stronger. Just a little longer, Nagini,” he whispered, and the snake uncoiled from around Atlas, gliding into the grass around the Death Eaters. “Now, Wormtail, give him back his wand.”

Harry was pulled to his feet, thrown to the middle by Achlys, the woman remaining silent as she did this and then she approached Atlas, hooking a cold hand under the girl’s arm as she hauled her over to the crowd of Death Eaters, all of them inching backwards and away, afraid she might have them trapped in their own minds again.

“A gift,” Voldemort called, “for coming back…you may do with her what you wish…torture her in any way you might want to. However, do not kill her…I have use for her yet,” they were all still hesitant, not because of the kindness in their hearts but again, because of fear and at this Voldemort grinned. “Powerful, isn’t it, fear? She is bound and unable to cast a spell yet you are still afraid? Very well, let me start for you.”

Atlas shuffled so she was on her back and pulled at the muzzle around her face once more. If only she could get it off, if only she could throw it aside, if only she could cast a spell, a simple one but one that would scare them enough to back off. But it was no use, the muzzle was made for situations like this, a specialised spell for those marked as Animagi.

Voldemort stopped over her and raised his wand and just as he had done to Harry, just as Krum had already done to her, he yelled, “Crucio!”

Atlas didn’t know why she’d expected something different, expected that maybe, after going through it already once before that it would be easier to handle, that it wouldn’t affect her as much, but she was wrong. So wrong. If anything it was worse, even when Voldemort stopped and moved away, that grace period still felt like fire and then, when the first of the Death Eater took their turn, it grew into a tremendous blaze.

Consuming everything. Her mind, her lungs, her veins, her bones, her heart all the way to her soul. Pain overtook her, again and again. Again and again. Until there was nothing but pain and anguish. She didn’t see Harry and Voldemort duelling in the distance, she didn’t see how they fought, she didn’t even see the faces — the masks of her attackers. She concentrated on the sky, staring up at the stars as her body contorted and twitched, the veins of her neck bulging with every curse.

The stars looked very nice.

And suddenly, they stopped and Atlas breathed, she felt the blaze flicker to embers and though her body twitched she could feel it again, the grass beneath her, the breeze against her skin, the subtle wetness to the blades she lay upon. She could feel that rather than the torment of fire she had before and it was sanctum.

“Atlas!” 

She didn’t move, still staring up at the sky.

“Atlas!”

There was a jet of red light overhead and she realised some spell must have gone awry.

“Atlas, stand up!”

A body landed beside her, stunned and unconscious, it was a Death Eater.

“We need to go back!”

Go back? Atlas tried to sit up, her whole body screaming at her as she did, telling her to just lay back down but she couldn’t, not now that she had seen Harry, ducked behind a marble headstone, shooting hexes at Death Eaters and a misty shadow. They locked eyes and Atlas remembered, she remembered what was happening and pushed herself to her knees, whimpering quietly as she forced herself to her feet and fell into a run, no chance of stopping as the momentum continued to build, sending her body barrelling through clueless Death Eaters.

Harry held out his hand when she got close enough.

“Cedric…we need to get Cedric…” Atlas managed over the noise and through the bar that still remained in her mouth, looking faint still, and weak. 

Harry nodded and in one synchronised movement they ran over to where he lay, his body, pale and still with that sad smile on his face. Atlas fell to her knees beside him as Harry put up a quick protection charm, stopping a handful of stunners. She pressed her hand over his cold, still, heart, his ring on her finger remaining just as hollow, just as dead and she pressed her forehead to his, her tears like warm rain falling against his skin. She heard Harry’s voice ring out through the graveyard, that familiar tugging soon to come to her navel.

“Accio!”

They were going back.