Harry didn't even need to warn him. The moment Voldemort stepped out of the cauldron, he realized there was a young, vigorous body standing right behind him.
"Who are you?!"
He spun around so abruptly that if the cauldron hadn't been large enough, the two of them would have looked like they were about to fence.
Still, Voldemort got a clear look at the man's face.
Black eyes. Tall. A pale face, though not the same dried-out pallor Voldemort had. He looked young, yet his features were sharply cut with an almost unnatural maturity.
Other than the occasional red glint in his eyes, there was nothing arrogant or aggressive about his appearance.
No one would have believed this was what he had looked like when he was young.
For an instant, the mirror-like resemblance dragged Voldemort back into his memories, but he only faltered for a second.
"You're not just trying to steal my soul, you're even using my hand to resurrect yourself?! Don't you have enemies of your own to use as ingredients?!"
The moment he realized Marvolio's plan, rage flooded his face.
Hearing that, Marvolio suddenly felt that maybe what he'd done really was a little too much.
"Uh... actually, that's what I told Tver too. But he said one pot was enough, so there was no need to waste more ingredients. After all, there really isn't much of my old father's bones left."
"But why do we look so different?"
He stretched out a hand and kept examining, touching, and feeling out this sturdy, solid body.
Judging by this, he hadn't even been this robust when this Horcrux had first been made. This had to be the condition he'd been in just after graduation.
After leaving Borgin and Burkes and spending ten years traveling, his flesh had already withered quite a bit from making too many Horcruxes and experimenting with too much dark magic.
So he had become younger?
Still, now that he had finally gained a genuine body of flesh and blood instead of a shell patched together from life force, Marvolio couldn't care less about a minor detail like that.
At the very least, the way he looked now was much closer to Tver's age.
Across from him, Voldemort's face darkened further and further.
He didn't care what the body looked like on the outside. The real issue was that Marvolio was being so shameless about it.
The original owner of the soul being stolen was standing right there, and Marvolio still had the nerve to show off that body.
"Isn't this body still my former body? You're nothing more than an abandoned vassal!"
Voldemort flicked a hand, sending Marvolio flying backward. The robe he had just thrown to the ground flew up and wrapped itself around him, and more importantly, his wand was back in his hand.
"Abandoned?" Marvolio's expression soured the moment he heard that word.
"Did you forget that your name is Tom Riddle too?!"
"No."
Seeing Marvolio visibly rattled, Voldemort curled his lips in satisfaction.
"Tom Riddle is in the past. Now, and in the future, I am Voldemort, and I will only ever be Voldemort!"
Marvolio stared at Voldemort coldly. With a wave of his own hand, a robe he had long prepared wrapped around his body.
As his hand emerged from the sleeve, the wand clenched in it came into Voldemort's view.
That only made the smug look on Voldemort's face deepen.
"I used to think you just hated Father's name," Marvolio said, sounding a little disappointed.
He had known all along that once Voldemort began merging with other souls, it meant he wanted to sever himself from the past.
He just hadn't expected him to do it so completely.
"That's right!" Voldemort ran his crimson tongue across his lips, like a snake tasting the air before a strike.
"As long as there's a past, there will be weakness. The name Tom Riddle is nothing but a burden to me!"
"Avada Kedavra!"
His wand slashed through the air with a sharp hiss, and he went straight for the kill against the other half of his own soul without hesitation.
Marvolio tilted his head aside to avoid the green light and gave a relieved smile.
I, Marvolio, have inherited Tom Riddle's past, present, and future.
And Voldemort was born at this moment, but will forever be only Voldemort, with nothing more to do with Tom Riddle!
"You really should have found yourself a better teacher. People who remember the past are the ones with the strongest will!"
"Diffindo!"
He snapped back with a Severing Charm.
"Ha. This is your strongest will?" Voldemort dodged the spell that sliced past his head with open contempt.
Marvolio didn't get angry. He didn't even seem interested in continuing the fight.
"How about you look behind you first?"
Crack.
A tearing sound rang out. Harry instantly felt his whole body relax, and before he knew it, he dropped from the air.
Honestly, he quite enjoyed watching Voldemort fight someone else. He really did not want Voldemort's attention on him.
Meeting Voldemort's furious, humiliated glare, Harry hurriedly scrambled to his feet.
"Uh, you two carry on? Just pretend I'm not here..."
"How dare you..."
Thud.
A small figure was suddenly thrown down in front of Voldemort.
And the ones walking toward Harry were Viktor, Fleur, and Cedric.
"Cedric!" Harry shouted in delight. It was like a slap straight across Voldemort's face.
"How did you survive? Uh, I mean, what just happened? I remember the Killing Curse hit you!"
Thinking back to the moment between life and death, Cedric broke into the smile of someone who had barely escaped disaster.
"It was the Imp Spell Professor taught us! The Shield Charm can't block the Killing Curse, but an imp can!" he said loudly, full of relief, completely unlike his usual gentle self.
Seeing Harry's confusion, Viktor explained, "Imps are formed from the soul, so it took the Killing Curse in Cedric's place, but his soul wasn't hit!"
"Of course, the force of it was still there. After all, it was a Killing Curse cast by You-Know-Who." Cedric rubbed his chest, which was still faintly aching.
The instant he was hit, the impact had knocked him over. Combined with the pain of slamming into the ground, he had blacked out on the spot.
He only gradually woke up after being caught in the aftershock of the fight between Peter and Viktor, and he took the chance to ambush Peter.
"M-Master..." Peter Pettigrew said awkwardly.
He had learned some magic from Voldemort, so dealing with two students should have been easy. He had never imagined he would be taken out by Cedric from behind after assuming he was already dead.
"You idiot!"
What should have been a flawless resurrection plan had been running into one setback after another since last summer. It had even cost him the final split fragment of his soul.
And now he had even failed to kill a student.
The more Voldemort thought about it, the angrier he became. His soul was already extremely unstable, and the magic around him immediately began to surge more and more violently.
Sensing that something was wrong, Marvolio hurriedly raised his wand.
"Get away from there, you children!"
Tver, who had been observing from the shadows, also realized something was off. He did not even want to waste time walking. With a crack of Apparition, he appeared right in front of Harry, the closest one to Voldemort, and shielded the students behind him.
"Professor!" Harry had never felt so safe. Even the blood pouring from the wound on his face felt strangely warm.
Wait, the wound was still bleeding?!
Before he could even cover his face, a massive surge of magic suddenly exploded outward from Voldemort and swept toward them.
"M-Master!"
Through the pale blue Shield Charm cast by Professor, Harry saw Peter's face twisted in terror.
Voldemort, however, seized Peter by the throat and hauled him up in front of himself, letting his legs kick wildly in the air.
"You useless coward, offer me your last loyalty!"
Voldemort's eyes turned deep and eerie, and Peter instantly went rigid and unable to move, exactly like last time.
But this time, Voldemort showed no mercy.
With the lack of air and his soul being ripped away at terrifying speed, Peter could only make a sound like air hissing from a punctured balloon.
"I am braver than all of you ever imagined..."
Voldemort gave him no chance to finish, even though only one simple word remained.
Brave.
The hands clutching at Voldemort fell limp. In Peter's eyes, a faint glimmer of remembrance flickered, but as more of his soul disappeared, that light slowly faded away.
Just like his wretched life.