Chapter Sixteen: After-shock
"You're just as sane as I am." -Luna Lovegood
It didn't come as a shock to Azalea when she was plagued with nightmares that night. All of them, she noticed, being connected to Riddle. And though she hadn't come face-to-face with him until her fourth year at hogwarts, she already felt like, even then, that he already knew the way to unhinged her heart in more ways than one.
A silhouette outline of a church in the distance was all that could be seen from the eerily dark and overgrown graveyard.
Three figures: two boys and a girl had just been mercilessly dropped down by the portkey they were holding just minutes ago. "Where are we?" The boy with unruly black hair asked.
The second boy responded with an: "not sure, Harry." A fourteen-year-old Harry turned to look at the girl that accompanied the two boys. "You've gotta have some clue, Right, Lea?" A thirteen-year-old Azalea tentatively examined the perimeter and apprehensively shook her head no.
The three stood in a huddle-like position as they quickly and lowly talked to each other. They soon decided that this definitely wasn't a part of their task, but a hitch in it.
Their quiet rumbling ceased when the second boy abruptly straightened up. "What's wrong, Cedric?" Azalea asked, looking at him confusedly. "Someone's coming!" The siblings squinted concentratedly in the vast darkness and noticed a stumpy figure round closer and closer. The shadowy figure stopped and watched the three of them between two graves. "I don't like this, Harry. I don't like this at all." She said nervously, pressing closer to Harry's side. The figure was on the move again. Although it was concealed and completely immersed in the darkness, all of them make out that the figure was holding something wrapped in a bundle of robes and clutching onto it like a mother afraid that something might separate her from her child.
The figure continued his journey closer to them. The sweeping distance between them cut down to a mere couple of metres when it stopped beside a towering, marble headstone. Simply looking at the three of them. The three of them were looking back when Harry suddenly started gasping in pain and trying to clutch at his scar. "HARRY!" Both Azalea and Cedric screamed. Neither Azalea nor Cedric got a response since Harry continued to cry in agony, his hands trying to cover his face and his knees buckling.
"Kill the spare," a cold, high pitched voice spoke out. "There's two of them, my lord. Do you want to kill both of them, my lord," the figure's voice asked, panicked. "It seems like Azalea Potter wondered in with them, my lord."
The child-like figure make a noise that sounding like contemplation. "Stun her. We will deal with her later. Kill the spare."
After the orders, the two chilling words that Harry and Azalea knew all too well were hissed into the night sky. "Avada Kedavra!" Before either of the siblings could react, a flash of green light hit Cedric, causing his body to thud to the ground. A blinding flash of red followed, hitting Azalea.
Harry started at the two bodies on the ground. First to Cedric who was sprawled on the floor, eagle position. His once vibrant, grey eyes now dull and lifeless. They were currently staring off at noting. Staring, but not seeing. Harry's eyes moved along to his sister. Spread on the ground, looking as if she had just merely laid herself down and fell into a slumber. He, however, knew that wasn't the case. Stunned and unable to move was the position his sister was in, and just like Cedric, he wasn't able to save her from that either.
A numb feeling spread over Harry's body, making him unaware of the man that was currently dragging him towards the marble headstone. The moonlight hit against the stone as Harry was restrained against it, making the name on the stone decipherable to read. TOM RIDDLE.
After bounding Harry, the man walked off, leaving Harry alone with the two out of commission bodies. Harry continuously struggled against the bound with no avail, but stopped when he heard sounds that sounded like scrapping. The man had now come back and was pushing a large, stone cauldron to the foot of the grave. With every push from the man the substance inside the cauldron swooshed around, which made the thing in the bundle of robes wiggle around more persistently. Readying his wand at the cauldron, the man spoke a spell which caused flames to erupted under the cauldron.
"Hurry!" The thing in the robes said impatiently. The man went over to the robes and picked it up, bringing it over the the bubbling cauldron. "Do it! Do it now, Wormtail!" Realization made its way to Harry's face. Wormtail lifted the robe above the cauldron and dropped the thing in it.
Azalea's vision was fuzzy as she slowly pried her eyes opened. A soft groan of pain from her got the attention of both Harry and Wormtail. She didn't have the reaction time or the strength to block a spell that Wormtail cast at her. Before she knew it, invisible, magical bounds were wrapping around her like a snake suffocating its prey before devouring it. She wiggle and squirmed but the bounds only got tighter and tighter. As the bounds were finishing up wrapping around her, she looked away from the scene in front of her. It was a bad idea on her behalf. As soon as she turned her head, she was meet with the blank stare of Cedric. A scream of fear and anguish erupted out of her, following by her frantic sobbing.
Harry stared helplessly at his sister and she sobbed at the lose of a life. Her sobs drowned out the muttering that Wormtail was doing. "....bone of the father, unknowingly given." He lifted his wand up and the earth beneath Harry's feet starting rumbling until it eventually cracked. What came out of it made the graveyard go dead silent. Azalea's cries abruptly stopped as she looked in horror at the bone that was floating into the cauldron. "....flesh - of the servant - w-willingly given." An even louder scream came from Azalea as Wormtail lifted his hand over the cauldron, sawing it off. Only when Harry felt a musty breath breathing on his face did he realize that Wormtail was right in front of him. "...blood of the enemy ... forcibly taken." A hissed came out of Harry as a silver dagger penetrated the crook of his right arm. Wormtail staggered back to the cauldron and let Harry's blood drip into the potion.
A surge of white fogged was seemingly being pumped out of the cauldron into the night. The fog didn't stop until every where was cover with it, blocking everyone's sight.
The fog slowly started to dissipate, leaving just the outline of a tall, skeletal man. "Robe me." Said the man, coldly. The man stepped out of the cauldron and connected eyes with Harry. His scarlet eyes were glowing with sadistic amusement at Harry's compromising position. The man's eyes left Harry's and found the two bodies laying on the ground. Making his way to them, he tsked as if he regretted the notion he took. "What a handsome, young man," he said, using his foot to turn Cedric's face to the side.
"Get away from him!" Azalea found herself growling through her teeth. "Ah, Azalea! I almost forgot you were here," he said as if she were a friend he hadn't seen in years, "but then again, everyone always forgets you're there when you're with your brother, don't they." Moving passed her swiftly as if she had no importance, he went straight for Harry.
That night, Azalea could remember every thing about. How she used to invisibility cloak to sneak into the tournament with her brother. Cedric lifeless eyes. The exact second Wormtail's hand sunk to the bottom of the cauldron and the summoning of the Death Eaters. The screams of agony from her brother's mouth as Voldemort used the Crucio curse on him. Everything. But what was permanently etched into her brain was the moment she realized just why Voldemort couldn't rise back to power.