Sore and exhausted, Neville struggled to pull himself up into a sitting position. He leaned against a hedge and breathed deeply, rubbing the ugly bruise that had appeared on his forehead. Slowly, as his mind cleared, he began to realise the truth: it was over. It was all over.
The Triwizard Tournament, which had dominated Neville’s life for almost all year, had come to an end. It seemed like a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders; a burden he had carried for so long. No longer would he have to desperately try to learn spells far beyond his capabilities; no more would he have to fret over unknown dangers. For the first time in eight months, he could relax.
He looked up into the night sky and took one last deep breath. What now? he thought. All was still silent about him. Even the magical tornado into which he had foolishly thrown himself had faded away. He could not hear any cries of celebration from outside the maze, or anything besides a gentle breeze blowing between the hedges. He wondered what he was supposed to do next.
He had been surprised to see Cedric disappear when he had grabbed the Triwizard Cup to seal his victory, and wondered what it meant. They’d not been told anything about that happening beforehand. Neville guessed that the cup was a Portkey, it was the only explanation he could think of, but to where? Had he gone on to some other final challenge, or had he been taken back to the spectators at the entrance? But if so, why couldn’t Neville hear anything?
He glanced up and down the path. He didn’t much fancy wandering through the maze looking for the entrance again; there was no telling what else he might run into. Nor did he relish the idea of waiting around until someone eventually came to find him. Figuring it didn’t matter much anymore, he raised his wand and fired red sparks into the sky. The Tournament was over, Cedric had won, and he had done his part. It was time to leave.
He sat waiting for a couple of minutes for help to arrive, rubbing his bruises and stretching his aching limbs. The night seemed to be getting darker and only a thin crescent moon was visible in the cloudless sky. Neville was just beginning to wonder if anybody was coming when he saw the light of a wand appear from round a corner in the distance. The light hurried towards Neville, and as it got closer it illuminated the figure of Mad-Eye Moody.
“Neville, are you all right, what’s happened?” asked Moody in a worried voice.
“I’m fine,” replied Neville. “I just didn’t want to make my way out by myself.”
“What are you talking about? You know you can’t just withdraw from the Task for no reason. Unless you’re genuinely unable to compete, you have to carry on.”
“But the Task’s over. We’re finished. Cedric grabbed the Cup; he won.”
Moody looked puzzled. “That’s not possible. If he’d touched the Cup, we’d know about it. Are you sure of what you saw?”
“Yes! I was right here and Cedric took the Cup from right up there, and then he vanished.”
Moody’s puzzled expression turned to one of concern and worry, and his magical eye began roving this way and that. “Vanished? But how… that’s not…”
But before Moody could complete his sentence there was another loud cry of “Neville!” from up the path. Moody spun round and levelled his wand. Neville finally pulled himself to his feet to see who it was. He was astonished to see Cedric running down the path towards them in a desperate, almost panicked sprint. Moody looked at Neville in confusion, but Neville could offer no explanation for Cedric’s sudden reappearance.
“What is it, Diggory?” asked Moody when Cedric reached them.
Cedric stopped in front of Moody, paused a moment to take in a deep breath, then lifted his wand and, to Neville’s astonishment, cried, “Stupefy!” There was a flash of red light and Moody collapsed to the ground, Stunned.
“What are you doing?” Neville demanded wildly.
“It’s a trap!” cried Cedric. “Neville, come on, you’ve got to come with me.” He seized hold of Neville’s wrist. “Neville, come on, this way. Leave him,” Cedric urged.
Panicked and bewildered, Neville didn’t know what to think. He looked from Cedric’s imploring face to Moody’s unconscious form and back, before finally allowing Cedric to pull him away, back up the path the way Cedric had come.
Cedric was sprinting and Neville’s tired legs found it hard to keep up, but Cedric kept a tight hold on Neville’s wrist. “Cedric, where are we going?” he asked, but got no reply.
They turned a corner in the maze, and there, lying on the ground in front of them, was the gleaming Triwizard Cup. Cedric pulled Neville towards it. “What’s going on?” Neville asked. “Cedric, you’re hurting my wrist.” But Cedric did not respond. He dragged Neville over to the Cup and seized hold of it with his other hand.
Instantly, Neville was jerked forward, feeling as if he was being pulled through himself as the world seemed to collapse around him. A moment later, he was sprawling across uneven ground, finally coming to rest against a stone slab. Pulling himself up to see where he was, Neville discovered that the slab was a tombstone.
The Cup had indeed been a Portkey. Looking around him, Neville found that he was standing in a graveyard. He did not recognise it, yet it seemed strangely familiar. He turned to Cedric, who was getting to his feet a few yards away, next to where the Cup had fallen. “Where are we?”
But at that moment, an intense pain shot across Neville’s forehead, such as he had never experienced before. It felt like something was trying to burrow his way out through his skull, through the lightening-shaped scar. He screamed and doubled over in agony. As he did so, he became aware of someone approaching. Looking up as the pain overwhelmed him, he saw a small, scruffy man carrying some kind of bundle under his arm. The man raised a wand and Neville was thrown against another tombstone, this one large and grand. Neville lost his grip on his own wand and it fell away out of reach. Ropes appeared out of nowhere and bound Neville to the stone.
“Cedric!” Neville yelled, but Cedric just stood there, unmoving, watching on. “Cedric, help me!” he cried as the ropes pulled themselves ever tighter around him, but Cedric seemed deaf to his pleadings. He stood stock still, staring out across the dark graveyard as if Neville was not even there.
“Excellent,” said a high, chilling voice that seemed to emanate from the bundle under the man’s arm. “It goes to show that even the best laid plans can always benefit from a little improvisation when needed. Pettigrew, remove the Imperius Curse from the boy and dispose of him.”
Pettigrew pointed his wand at Cedric. For a moment, for one terrible moment that Neville could never forget, he saw Cedric’s eyes focus, and saw the realisation begin to spread across his face of where he was and what he had done. Then, Pettigrew intoned, “Avada Kedavra,” there was a flash of green light, and Cedric fell dead to the ground.
Neville’s skin went cold and his stomach lurched. His mind refused to acknowledge what his eyes had clearly seen. His mouth opened to scream, but no sound came out. No, he thought. No, he can’t be. Nothing seemed to make sense to him. How had this happened? What did it all mean? The pain in his scar continued to burn, and he felt hot tears trickle down his face.
Pettigrew, meanwhile, was paying no attention to him. He had set down the strange bundle and had fetched a large cauldron full of a clear potion, which he set up in front of Neville. After lighting a fire underneath, he took up the bundle and dropped its contents into the cauldron. Neville caught a brief glimpse of it; it looked like some horrible mutation of a baby, with snake-like features.
Next, Pettigrew pointed his wand at the patch of ground in front of Neville. It began to shake and tear apart, and a bone rose up out of it and floated over to the cauldron. “Bone of the father, unknowingly given. You will renew your son,” spoke Pettigrew, and dropped the bone into the potion. Neville desperately wriggled to see what was carved on the tombstone behind him, but all he could see was the first name Tom.
Pettigrew had now drawn out a sharp blade, and held out his right hand over the cauldron. “Flesh of the servant, willingly given,” he said, and sliced through his wrist. His severed hand fell with a splash. “Y-you w-will revive your m-master,” he stammered in agony, blood pouring from the wound before he sealed it with his wand.
Now he approached Neville with the same knife. Neville closed his eyes, anticipating the worst, but Pettigrew pulled back Neville’s sleeve and cut into his arm, drawing a thin flow of blood. When Neville opened his eyes, he saw that Pettigrew had collected his blood in a vial and had returned to the cauldron. “Blood o-of the enemy,” he whimpered, grimacing in pain, “forcibly… taken. You will res… resurrect y-your foe.” And he poured in the blood.
Thick black smoke began to rise from the cauldron, twisting and swirling around like some pillar or column of cloud. Slowly the fumes began to dissipate, and out of them, rising up himself from the cauldron, emerged the figure of a tall man, hairless and with pale scaly skin. He stepped from the cauldron and Pettigrew wrapped him in a black robe. As he did so, the man turned so Neville saw his face for the first time.
The face was flat, as if the nose had been eaten away and had left only two small slits for nostrils behind. But the features that most dominated were the eyes. They burned red, like fire, piercingly bright in the darkness.
This was no boggart. This was Neville’s greatest fear made flesh, and the reality was far more terrifying than what his imagination had conjured back in the maze. Lord Voldemort had returned.
Voldemort held out his right hand, and Pettigrew placed into it the wand that he had been using. Voldemort held up the wand, twirling it in his long, spidery fingers and feeling his grasp upon it. “Ah, reunited with an old friend once more,” he said to himself. “The time has come at last, Pettigrew. My time.” He seized Pettigrew’s intact left arm and pushed a bony finger into the flesh. Pettigrew screamed in agony and Voldemort let him fall to the ground, whimpering once more. “They will come,” declared Voldemort. “At least, those not too cowardly to refuse.” Neville saw on Pettigrew’s forearm a prominent, blackened tattoo in the shape of the Dark Mark.
Ignoring Pettigrew’s cries, Voldemort turned and slowly walked towards Neville. The pain from the scar rose to agonising levels once more and Neville longed to pass out and be relieved from the torment. But he did not. Voldemort stopped in front of him and stared down with his red eyes. “Neville Longbottom,” he said softly. “We meet once more. Three years it has been since Quirrell and the Stone, since your mother’s protection was all that saved you. But such obstacles can be overcome. Your mother’s protection lives in you, and so by using your blood to restore this body, it now lives in me.
“Do you think you are here by accident? No, months of planning and careful work have brought you to this place, away from Hogwarts and Dumbledore’s watchful eye. And now your blood is in me, and you can no longer harm me.” He seized hold of Neville’s arm from where the blood had been drawn. Neville cried out as the scar burned, but Voldemort only laughed, a thin humourless laugh laced with malice.
Voldemort released Neville and made to turn away. It was only then that he noticed the body of Cedric lying close by. “And yet, so nearly all that planning went to waste,” he mused. “No plan is foolproof if one really is relying on fools to ensure its success. I should have realised that despite all the efforts of my faithful servant, you would still be incompetent enough to fail to reach the Triwizard Cup first, Neville.
“So, really, this boy’s death is on your account. Given all that was being done to ensure your victory, if you had any sort of talent you would have got through the maze first. If you had, then he would never come here, and I would not have been forced to have Pettigrew put him under the Imperius Curse and send him back via the Portkey to collect you. I shall leave you to ponder that, Neville. My Death Eaters are coming.” Voldemort turned and walked away, leaving Neville staring at Cedric’s body in anguish and despair.
Neville Longbottom and the Goblet of Fire by Sonorus
Chapter Notes: In which certain parties are forced to improvise to bring about a terrible conclusion.
Chapter Endnotes: The spell to return Voldemort to his body is taken directly from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, chapter 32, "Flesh, Blood and Bone".