Harry Potter and the Triwizard Gambit - Chapter - 21

Cold seeped into Barty Crouch Sr.'s robes and chilled his spine. The granite tombstone he was bound to pressed painfully against his back. Ropes constricted his wrists and ankles, tightening whenever he struggled, only to loosen slightly to remind him he was trapped. The damp air smelled of earth and rust, while mist lingered in the dips between leaning gravestones like a breath held too long.

The other wizard shifted, his wand tip dropping toward the ground, as if anticipating instruction. Crouch felt a deep unease looking at him—a clear reflection of a mind dismantled and reassembled, the emptiness created by the Imperius Curse fitting perfectly.

"Don't waste time," came a high, unsettling voice.

Both men turned to see Barty Jr. approaching a fallen column, carefully lifting an object wrapped tightly as if he were a caretaker. He revealed it in the moonlight.

It was a child-sized form, but any resemblance to a child ended there.

Its pale skin stretched tightly over fragile bones, the skull bald and shining. The face resembled a nightmarish drawing—wide, slanted eyes glimmering red, with vertical slits for a nose. The mouth, thin and unnaturally mobile, appeared frighteningly alive. Even bundled, the little body emanated a cold that seeped into the already frigid graveyard atmosphere.

"Don't waste time," the creature repeated in a barely moving voice. "Begin."

Barty Jr. bowed reverently. "At once, my Lord."

Crouch gasped, recognizing the name he had overheard whispered in dimly lit offices and transformed into euphemisms in newspaper articles. It had always felt like a mask to him, but now that mask loomed eerily from a visage the size of an infant's skull, the name he had loathed his entire career sinking like lead in his stomach.

Voldemort.

The clerk took the bundle with a calm demeanor, cradling it with the same detached professionalism he would have for a stack of documents. He stood frozen, eyes blank, while Barty Jr. moved to the waiting cauldron to begin his work.

The cauldron itself was grotesque—ancient iron with a surface that seemed alive with runes worn away by time. The potion within lay still and black, transforming to green when disturbed. As Jr. circled, tracing patterns in the air with his wand, the cauldron reacted and released soft hisses of steam that danced away like serpents.

"Let us call a body back to itself," Jr. murmured, adopting a low, ceremonial tone. "Let the old ties bind."

With a flick of his wand, he directed it toward the stone beside Crouch. Dirt slid away easily, revealing weathered bones, a chalky-white hand of a long-dead man reaching for nothing. The topmost bone lifted as if tugged by an unseen force and floated toward the cauldron. Barty Jr. caught it with a flourish, examining it as if it were a precious gem.

"Bone of the father," he intoned—not the ancient phrases from courtroom archives, but close enough to instill a chill. "Taken without knowledge. Lend what lineage can lend."

The bone sank into the potion without a splash. The mixture contorted, darkening to the color of an impending storm, filling the air with a scent reminiscent of dust and old books.

Crouch flinched against his bonds instinctively. His son's eyes sharpened—not with compassion, but with concentration. A knife appeared from his pocket, functional and dangerously sharp.

"Don’t do this," Crouch implored, his voice shaking, filled with dread. "You’re making a huge mistake—"

“Let the future decide.” Barty Jr. stepped close enough that Crouch could feel his breath on his skin. For a fleeting moment, the knife hovered, and Crouch glimpsed memories flickering across his son's expression—images of a boy at a trial, a hooded man, a son hidden behind curtains. Then the knife made its move.

Pain erupted beneath Crouch’s ribs. The air left his lungs along with a sound he couldn't suppress—a thin, raw noise. The world narrowed to the fiery sensation in his chest and the cold grip of the ropes. His son was efficient and precise. A vial appeared as blood drops darkened it.

"Blood of the enemy," Barty Jr. said softly, with almost a tender tone. "Wrested, not offered. Let power answer power."

When the vial’s contents poured into the cauldron, the mixture transformed from dark to warm reds and oranges, shimmering like a sunset. The scent that wafted from it was both metallic and sweet, like coins held tightly in a fist for too long.

Crouch leaned against the stone, forcing himself to breathe in sporadic gasps, his vision blurring as if night had crept closer. He concentrated on his son, clinging to the habit of remaining a witness to the unfolding events.

Barty Jr. stood immobile for a heartbeat, as though receiving instructions only he could discern. Then he firmed his jaw and lifted the knife to his left hand.

"Flesh of the servant," he stated, voice unwavering. "Freely given."

The cut was precise. His index finger fell into his other palm, then into the potion. He suppressed a flinch until after, when the cauldron swallowed the blood and the surface rippled. He pressed his hand against the wound, exhaling through clenched teeth.

"Bind your master to earth again," he concluded, a tremor now apparent in his voice. Not out of fear, but exultation.

The cauldron shuddered.

Its contents lost all color, becoming a brew reminiscent of moonlight against bone. A high-pitched whine filled the air, grating against Crouch’s senses. Steam billowed out, not green or black, but a pearly white that crawled like a living being. It enveloped Barty Jr., the clerk, and the base of the gravestones in its embrace.

"Now place me in the cauldron," commanded Voldemort’s small voice from the bundled mass.

The clerk complied without hesitation. His hands remained steady as he lowered the ghastly infant into the cauldron, which accepted it without disturbance, followed by the sound of wind slipping through a cracked door.

The graveyard listened.

Crouch reclined against the stone, pressing his eyes shut, the pressure making him see red. In the rush of his blood, he heard other echoes: papers sliding across his desk, Winky’s soft steps, the rasp of a mother's cough, a younger man calling him Father. Each sound disintegrated to dust beneath the weight of the present moment.

The cauldron overflowed—not with liquid but with light. It spilled out like rain in reverse, splattering the grass and casting a sickly sheen on nearby stones. Wherever the light touched, frost formed and shattered in intricate patterns. Crouch’s breath frosted despite the burning of his skin.

"Stand ready," Barty Jr. whispered, unsure if addressing himself or the clerk.

The cauldron toppled.

It fell with a muted thud rather than a crash, as though trying to avoid drawing attention. What spilled out was not potion but shadow, which spread in an eager wave and then retreated toward the form emerging from its center.

Long, pale hands appeared first, tipped with almost inhuman nails. A head rose, slick and unnatural, the face smooth and uncanny, as if shaped from concepts rather than flesh. The body unfolded with a disturbing elegance, joints moving like a puppet controlled by an expert hand. Within moments, a man stood where the childlike entity had fallen—tall, thinner, paler, and colder than before.

Moonlight cast over him, finding nothing warm within. The face bore no nose, only slits; the eyes glowed with a contained heat; the mouth smiled without any warmth. As he inhaled his first breath of free air, frost crackled along the nearest gravestone like lace knitting itself instantly.

"My Lord," Barty Jr. gasped, dropping to his knees in the wet grass, clutching his wounded hand to his chest as if it were a precious gift.

The clerk followed suit moments later, jerky and delayed, like a marionette with tangled strings.

Voldemort opened his eyes fully, surveying the night. Then his gaze shifted to his servant, and finally, to Barty Crouch Sr.

“Ah,” he said, the tone falsely soft yet echoing with a bone-deep chill. “Proper witnesses.”

Barty Jr. fell forward, pressing his forehead into the mud. “My Lord, I have fulfilled all your requests—each step. I have observed, I have guided, I have—”

“Be quiet.” Voldemort raised a finger, silencing him.

He took a step closer, then another, until he was near enough for Crouch to see the little flecks of darker red in his irises, the way his pupils were slits, even in the night. An aura of power radiated from him lazily, like heat from stones at sunset.

“We have much to discuss,” he murmured, tilting his head with serpentine curiosity. “Old loyalties. New purposes.”

He smiled, the expression not reaching his eyes.

“And debts,” he added almost playfully, then turned away from Crouch as if he were already a completed task.

Barty Jr. made a small sound of delight, a fervent reaction akin to a zealot before an altar.

In the graveyard's dismal silence, Barty Crouch Sr. finally comprehended: the messages Percy had proudly carried, the Ministry's peculiar quietness, the faltering of a government he had once considered efficient—none of it held value anymore. The world had shifted while he was preoccupied, and his son had been the one to pull the lever.

Voldemort's pale fingers flexed and then extended toward the unmoving clerk. His voice, though soft and sibilant, struck hard like a whip crack through the graveyard.

"I need a wand."

The Induced clerk complied without a moment’s pause. He drew his wand and presented it with both hands, as if offering a sacrifice to a deity. Voldemort's red eyes glimmered as he accepted it, turning the simple stick in his grip like an old companion.

“Ah,” he whispered. “This will do.”

The wand pulsed eagerly in his grasp. He lifted it lazily, directing it at the clerk still motionless before him.

“Avada Kedavra.”

A blast of green light erupted from the wand, illuminating the stones in sickly brilliance. The clerk stiffened, his face devoid of expression, and then collapsed lifelessly onto the grass, hitting the ground with a dull finality.

Barty Crouch Sr. strained against his bindings as bile rose in his throat. Despite years spent in the Ministry and sentencing others to their deaths, the casualness of this murder sent a chill through him. Voldemort hadn’t flinched, hadn’t even raised his voice.

With a nonchalant flick of his wrist, Voldemort summoned a swirling shadow that coiled around him like smoke, solidifying into fabric until a cloak settled regally over his shoulders. What had once been a grotesque figure in its vulnerable state now appeared magnificent, fearsome, and unmistakably sinister.

At last, he exuded the aura of a Dark Lord returned.

“Crouch.”

The name stung like a whip.

Barty Crouch Jr. fell to his knees so abruptly the ground trembled beneath him. His expression was a mix of awe and desire, his eyes wide as if beholding salvation itself. “My Lord,” he breathed.

“Your arm.”

Swiftly, Jr. tugged up his left sleeve, revealing his pale forearm. There, faded yet nearly invisible, was the serpentine skull-and-serpent brand—the Dark Mark. For years, it had been little more than a scar, but now it seemed to pulse under Voldemort’s gaze.

Voldemort pressed his wand tip against the mark.

Pain surged.

Barty Jr. screamed, his body arching backward, his teeth clenched against the suffering as if it were ecstasy. The mark ignited to a deep black, vibrant as fresh ink, the serpent twisting as though alive. The scent of burnt flesh filled the air.

“Rise, my loyal servant,” Voldemort hissed, his eyes shining with cruel delight. “Let’s see who dares to come forth. Let’s see who remains hidden, too frightened to stand with me. Let’s see who claims loyalty… and who dares to feign it.”

The mark pulsed anew, unleashing an invisible call into the night. Somewhere, distant yet nearby, other marks ignited, echoing the same summons.

Voldemort’s smile widened, serpent-like, as the mist thickened around him.

“They will come,” he whispered. “They cannot resist. Tonight, my loyal followers will gather, and the world will remember the name they once tried to bury.”