บท 255: Tom, Arth, and Voldemort
Arth frowned as the sudden swirling sensation stopped and made him appear in a gloomy place. He gave a quick glance at the triwizard trophy in his hand before throwing it onto the ground.
"So the triwizard cup was portkey. How interesting. Is this supposed to be a final challenge for the champion or something?"
Arth gave his surroundings a scan as he searched for anything suspicious. It was quite obvious to him that he had been teleported far away from the maze as he was standing in a dark and overgrown graveyard; the black outline of a small church was visible beyond a large yew tree to his right. A hill rose above him to his left. Arth could just make out the outline of a fine old house on the hillside.
It was completely silent and slightly eerie.
Arth frowned. He could sense that something was very wrong.
"Alfred. Come."
More silence.
"Dolorem? Sebastian?"
Even more silence.
".... Corvus?"
Even the little black bird who had been with him all this time didn't answer to his summons this time.
Arth's frown grew even deeper as he took out his wand. He waved it once as he tried to force himself to apparate. That also failed.
"An anti magic barrier was set up?" Muttered Arth as he put away his useless wand away. "Is this a target specific barrier or an area of effect cast?"
Most anti magic barriers were casted in magical prisons or magical shackles to prevent wizards from using wandless magic. It required several wizards to cast such a barrier.
Or one monstrously strong wizard.
Then, a familiar voice called out to him. "Welcome, Arthur Kingscrown. I've been expecting you."
Arth slightly tilted his head towards the source of the voice before narrowing his eyes. "Tom Riddle... it seems that this is where you've been hiding all this time. It seems almost fitting that you made a graveyard into your secret base."
"It was most certainly annoying trying to evade your dementor servants. But nothing too difficult."
A handsome man with jet black hair and dark eyes appeared from the shadows with a slight smirk painted on his face. He looked no different from the time Arth saw him 2 years ago in the chamber of secrets.
"I have finally recovered my full power," said Tom as he gave Arth a smile. "I am no longer the weak memory I used to be."
"And now you don't have a basilisk to help you either," replied Arth as he rolled his eyes. "Killing you once and for all will be easy this time around."
"And you don't have a phoenix to help you either this time," shrugged Tom. "Nor that annoying shadow magic that you used against me in the chamber of secrets."
"I don't need magic to kill a memory like you," said Arth before muttering to himself quietly, "I really hope this isn't a target specific magic barrier."
"You haven't been listening to me have you," smirked Tom. "I am no longer a mere memory. I am stronger than the past, more powerful than the present, and I have become the future Lord Voldemort. Crucio!"
Arth felt an incredible pain fill his body and wanted to collapse onto the floor and scream out in pain. But it was nothing when compared to what he had experienced before.
With deep breaths to regain his composure, Arth gave Tom a condescending grin. "It seems the self proclaimed dark lord still needs to resort to tricks in order to beat a fourteen year old. Why don't you take down this anti magic barrier and fight me like a real wizard?"
Tom shrugged. "That will happen in due time. Currently, this barrier is only meant to prevent you from escaping. We will soon have our battle once I finish what I have mean to do."
"And what is that?" Asked Arth with narrowed eyes.
But instead of Tom answering, a high, cold voice from far away interpreted, "Enough talk."
Arth felt a sense of danger that he had never sensed before.
"Of course," said as he conjured tight cords around Arth, tying him from neck to ankles to the headstone.
Then, Arth heard noises at his feet. He looked down and saw a gigantic snake slithering through the grass, circling the headstone where he was tied. It was a beautiful creature, in Arth's opinion, a species that he had never seen before in his life nor in a book. It was a shame that ropes prevented Arth from patting the snake.
Tom disappeared in the moment the giant snake appeared but soon came back with a floating stone cauldron to the foot of a grave. It was full of what seemed to be water and was big enough to fit a curled up man inside.
Tom then lit a fire underneath the cauldron as the large snake curled around Arth and started very distractingly hissing into his ear.
The liquid in the cauldron seemed to heat very fast. The surface began not only to bubble, but to send out fiery sparks, as though it were on fire. Steam was thickening, blurring the outline of Tom tending the fire.
Arth heard the high, cold voice again.
"Hurry!"
The whole surface of the water was alight with sparks now. It might have been encrusted with diamonds.
"Patience," said Tom in an annoyed manner. "Its almost done."
"Now ..." said the cold voice.
Tom took out a bundle of clothes from thin air and unwrapped it revealing what was inside them, and Arth widened his eyes.
The thing Tom had summoned had the shape of a crouched human child. It was hairless and scaly-looking, a dark, raw, reddish black. Its arms and legs were thin and feeble, and its face - no child alive ever had a face like that - flat and snakelike, with gleaming red eyes.
The thing seemed almost helpless; it raised its thin arms, put them around Tom's neck, and Tom lifted it before lowering the creature into the cauldron; there was a hiss, and it vanished below the surface; Arth heard its frail body hit the bottom with a soft thud.
"Are you insane?" Yelled Arth as he resisted against his bonds. "Do you even know what you are doing?"
But instead of replying, Tom smiled and started to chant.
"Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son!"
The surface of the grave at Arth's feet cracked, which read Tom Riddle, and a fine trickle of dust rose into the air at Tom's command and fell softly into the cauldron. The diamond surface of the water broke and hissed; it sent sparks in all directions and turned a vivid, poisonous-looking blue.
Tom was now smiling maliciously. He waved his wand as a severed leg appeared over the cauldron.
"Flesh of the servant willingly given. You will revive your master. "
Arth then heard a sickening splash as the leg was dropped into the cauldron. The potion had turned a burning red.
"You fucking bastard," cursed Arth with anger and panic as Tom appeared before him with a silver dagger. "You fucking piece of shit."
Tom just smiled.
"Blood of the enemy forcibly taken. You will resurrect your foe."
Arth could do nothing to prevent it, he was tied too tightly and his magic was disabled. Squinting down, struggling hopelessly at the ropes binding him, he saw the shining silver dagger penetrate the crook of his right arm and saw blood seeping down the sleeve of his torn robes. Tom took out a glass vial and held it to his cut, so that a dribble of blood fell into it.
He made his way back to the cauldron with Arth's blood and poured it inside. The liquid within turned, instantly, a blinding white. Tom, his job done, slowly stood beside the cauldron.
The cauldron was simmering, sending its diamond sparks in all directions, so blindingly bright that it turned all else to velvety blackness.
At first, nothing happened.
Then suddenly, the sparks emanating from the cauldron were extinguished. A surge of white steam billowed thickly from the cauldron instead, obliterating everything in front of Arth.
Then, through the mist in front of him, he saw, with an icy surge of terror, the dark outline of a man, tall and skeletally thin, rising slowly from inside the cauldron.
"Well done, my other self," said the high, cold voice from behind the steam, "we have taken another step to becoming invincible. To overcoming death."
"Of course," replied Tom from somewhere within the steam.
The thin man stepped out of the cauldron, staring at Arth . . . and Arth stared back into the face that had haunted the world for many years. Whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was flat as a snakes with slits for nostrils...
Lord Voldemort had risen again.
(A/N: I'm back. But I need to read my book first. I forgot everything that happened and I need to regain the plot etc. enjoy this extra long chapter for now.)
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