This was the second time Sherlock had used a Portkey.
Just like the trip to the Quidditch World Cup, the moment his hand made contact with the old boot—now transfigured into the Triwizard Cup by young Barty Crouch—a powerful magnetic force clamped around his fingers and refused to let go.
The world before him began to warp and stretch.
The headmaster's office—the dark wooden bookshelves, Fawkes the phoenix perching on his stand, the spinning silver instruments, the hog-tied Crouch Jr. on the floor, Fudge's face twisted in pale terror, all of it shattered into countless points of light, blurring into a swirling vortex of colour.
A deep chill crept from his fingertips through his entire body. A choking sensation seized his throat. The violent spinning and the feeling of being pulled apart at the seams struck him simultaneously.
Sherlock felt as though he'd been hurled into a washing machine drum spinning at full speed, or dragged into the churning heart of a river whirlpool.
Mercifully, the ordeal did not last long.
In the span of a few seconds, there was a dull thud, and Sherlock's feet struck solid ground.
He stumbled two steps, then quickly steadied himself.
Harry landed almost at the same moment, swaying, and instinctively grabbed Sherlock's arm to keep from falling.
The Triwizard Cup, however, slipped from their hands. It hit the ground with a clang, rolled several meters away, and came to rest in a patch of weeds.
The sound was startlingly sharp in the stillness of the night.
Sherlock immediately raised his head and swept his gaze across the surroundings.
They were standing in a weed-choked graveyard.
The night was thick and moonless.
Only a scattering of sparse stars hung at the edge of the sky, casting a faint light that barely sketched the outlines of what lay around them.
A killing night, if ever there was one.
To the right stood a great yew tree, its branches dense and full, its trunk so broad it would have taken several people linking hands to encircle it.
Behind them, the black silhouette of a small church loomed faintly in the darkness, its spire piercing the night sky, radiating a cold and eerie silence.
To the left, a gentle hill sloped upward, and on the hillside stood a fine but decrepit old house. Its walls were crumbling and mottled, exposing the bricks and stone beneath; its windows were black and hollow, exuding a strangeness that defied description.
Harry was still tensely scanning his surroundings. Sherlock, however, recognized the house at a single glance.
It was the Riddle House in Little Hangleton—a place he had now visited twice.
"Interesting."
A faint smile tugged at the corner of Sherlock's mouth.
Voldemort had not set the Portkey's coordinates to the location of his mysterious ally, John Smith. Instead, he had chosen here.
Unexpected—yet, on reflection, entirely in keeping with his character.
He had always been that sort of man: obsessive, sentimental, and supremely arrogant.
Sherlock deduced that he must have intended to do something at the place of his own origins.
'Ritual'
That single word captured the man's inner world perfectly.
Harry glanced down at the Triwizard Cup lying in the grass, then scanned the desolate surroundings with wary eyes.
The shadows of the gravestones stretched long and thin across the ground, filling him with a creeping dread.
Still, remembering that Dumbledore and the professors were nearby, he steadied his nerves slightly and asked Sherlock in a low voice, "What do we do now?"
"We watch and wait."
Sherlock gazed toward the depths of the graveyard and said quietly, "We—the prey—have already arrived. The hunter will make his entrance shortly. The only question left is: who is truly the prey?"
As if to confirm Sherlock's words, no sooner had their exchange ended than a faint scuffling of footsteps drifted from the darkness.
Several figures moved slowly between the gravestones, advancing on them one step at a time.
The night was too dark for Harry to make out their faces—he could only discern a few tall, shadowy silhouettes.
Whether it was imagination or not, he couldn't be sure, but the darkness in that direction seemed somehow denser than elsewhere.
He was concentrating, trying to bring his sharp vision to bear—when a violent pain erupted without warning from the scar on his forehead.
It came on with savage, overwhelming force, as though a red-hot spike had been driven straight into his brain, flooding his entire body in an instant.
Harry couldn't endure it. His legs buckled, and he collapsed to his knees.
He cried out, clutching his head with both hands, his knuckles white with the effort.
It felt as though his skull was about to split open; the agony radiated along his nerves to every corner of his body.
Not long ago in Divination class, his scar had flared with exactly this kind of pain. And before that—last summer, the first time he'd dreamed of Voldemort—he had experienced something similar.
But those dreams had been nothing compared to that first year in the Forbidden Forest, or in the room of the Mirror of Erised, when he had faced Voldemort directly and the pain had been at its most agonizing.
Even so, this time it was worse still—the intensity felt multiplied many times over.
The Cheering Charm Dumbledore had cast on him mere moments ago was utterly dissolved in an instant by the force of it.
Not that the charm had been useless—without it, Harry suspected the pain would have already knocked him unconscious.
Tears spilled from his eyes unbidden, blurring his vision.
In that moment, he could see nothing, hear nothing.
There was only the needle-sharp agony reverberating endlessly through his mind, tormenting every nerve he possessed.
"Breathe, Harry!"
Just then, a familiar and steady voice reached him as if from a great distance.
"Trust yourself, mate—you can do this!"
Even though he had anticipated this moment, watching Harry curled on the ground in evident agony still struck Sherlock somewhere unexpectedly kind.
"Empty your mind. Push it back. Don't let his power touch you."
He crouched beside Harry and laid a hand gently on his shoulder.
"Focus. Think of something good—think of everything we've been through together."
Whether it was Sherlock's words taking effect, the lingering power of Dumbledore's charm, or simply Harry's own will—it was impossible to say.
But just as the nausea crested and his consciousness threatened to slip away, the tearing pain began, ever so slightly, to ease.
Harry slowly forced his eyes open. His vision swam, then gradually sharpened—and he found himself looking directly into Sherlock's grey eyes, filled with quiet concern.
"Take a sip."
Seeing Harry's state, Sherlock allowed himself a small breath of relief.
He reached into his coat and produced a slim, flat flask. Unscrewing the cap, he held it out; the rich scent of brandy drifted into the cold air.
Harry knew this was the flask Sherlock carried on his person—reserved for steadying the nerves in extreme situations.
He took a small sip. Warmth spread through him at once, and the alcohol seemed to dull the pain, if only a little.
Trembling, he reached out and gripped Sherlock's arm to pull himself upright, his voice rough as he asked, "Is—is it him? Has he come?"
"Self-evident, my friend."
Sherlock steadied Harry as he rose, and fixed his gaze on the darkness ahead.
"We meet at last, Voldemort."
His voice was not loud, but in the silence of the graveyard it rang with perfect clarity.
Sherlock knew, with certainty, that the other man could hear him.
"You are no ordinary man, Holmes."
A cold, shrill voice cut through the dark—like metal scraping metal, harsh and grating, yet carrying an undeniable note of approval.
"Clearly, you already knew this place would be your burial ground."
With those words, a tall, gaunt figure stepped slowly out of the darkness and came to a halt beside a nearby gravestone.
Neither Sherlock nor Harry could easily match this figure with the handsome young Tom Riddle they carried in their memories.
He was even more monstrous and terrible than the disfigured Voldemort they had witnessed in Dumbledore's Pensieve.
His face was paler than a skull, utterly devoid of colour.
His eyes, though large, were filmed with a cloudy red, the pupils narrow and slit-like as a serpent's, radiating a cold and murderous intent.
His nose was flat—absent, almost as though it had been sheared away, leaving nothing but two thin slits that were barely perceptible unless you looked closely.
His lips, a strange purplish-black, were pressed tightly together; when he spoke, they parted to reveal sharp, pointed teeth.
The very picture of a classic villain.
One look and you knew he was nothing good.
Sherlock's gaze swept over Voldemort with an air of studied calm. Privately, he allowed himself a quiet, resigned sigh.
Voldemort had, after all, returned.
After Harry's last nightmare, he had already reasoned his way to this conclusion—a frustrating one, but inevitable:
There was a nine-in-ten chance that Voldemort would regain a physical form sometime around the final task of the Triwizard Tournament.
His ally, the one who called himself John Smith, had proven far more reliable—and far more powerful—than Sherlock had anticipated.
And Voldemort had not come alone.
Behind him trailed several more shadows.
Each one was dressed in black robes, hanging back a pace or two behind their master.
Beyond them, a massive python dragged its thick, muscular body through the grass in sinuous coils.
It slithered to Voldemort's side and twined affectionately around his legs.
Sherlock watched it flick its forked tongue and emit a low, resonant hiss, its scales catching the faint starlight—and felt something stir in his mind.
"As to whose burial ground this turns out to be—that remains to be seen."
He set the thought aside and spoke in a slow, calm tone.
"I must say, your appearance is rather surprising. I had assumed that once you recovered your body, you would return to your former looks."
He paused.
"Looking at you now, I'd say you resemble less a Dark Lord who inspires fear and terror, and rather more like a malformed corpse that's just crawled out of the earth."
The moment Voldemort made his full appearance, the gathered professors—concealed under Disillusionment Charms—were struck with shock.
No one understood how he had returned, nor what method he had used to restore himself.
Fudge was very nearly beside himself with fright.
Fortunately, everyone had prepared for this, and no one gave themselves away.
But now, hearing Sherlock mock Voldemort so openly and without the slightest restraint, they broke into a cold sweat all at once, hands tightening around their wands, poised to act at any moment.
To everyone's surprise, Voldemort did not appear angry. His reply came with a languid indifference:
"Judging by appearances is a most shallow habit, Holmes."
His voice remained shrill, but there was little emotion in it.
"I had expected someone like you to be above such juvenile thinking."
"And so I am," Sherlock replied, his tone unchanged.
"But as I understand it, you yourself made use of your former face on more than one occasion over the years. Now that you have a body again, perhaps you've simply grown overconfident."
He let the pause stretch.
"Or perhaps you feel you no longer need that handsome facade—and can finally let the world see what you truly are beneath it?"
The words had barely left his mouth before a roar erupted from somewhere behind Voldemort:
"How dare you!"
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