Harry Potter:Diamond Heart.

'You've learned some manners,' the wraith whispered. 'No more chatting, Bertha, it is time.'

'Yes, master,' she smiled cheerfully.

The curly-haired witch waved Harry's wand at the cauldron and bright flames sprang up around it, but only for a moment.

The fires guttered out and Bertha stared at Harry's wand, puzzled. Harry was little confused too, the wand had never failed him, if anything it was almost too eager to throw magic at anything he intended.

'Use your own,' Voldemort hissed. 'It will not matter anymore.'

She nodded, tucking Harry's wand into a pocket, and withdrawing her own. It was a short, thick piece of what looked like hazel.

The cauldron fires were relit immediately and this time they stayed burning. Within a matter of moments the surface was sparking, releasing a scatter of glowing orange pinpricks every few seconds. They drifted across the nearby gravestones like fireflies, following the mist that fled from the heat of the fire.

Bertha Jorkins bent to the floor on one side of the cauldron, losing sight of Harry who took the opportunity to squirm on of his arms free behind his back. She was holding something hideous when she stood back up.

Harry only glimpsed a few patches of exposed skin before she placed it gently into the waters. Hairless, scabbed, leprous and slimy skin that sank out of sight into the cauldron. Its unnatural appearance made all the hair stand up down his spine.

He hoped it would drown.

He knew it would not.

'Bone of the father,' Bertha intoned, still cheerful, 'unknowingly given, you will renew your son.' The ground at Harry's feet cracked open, and a stream of white dust, and a single bone flew from within into the cauldron.

It sparked violently, orange specks exploding off it, then turned a poisonous blue almost too bright too look at.

'Flesh of the servant,' her voice was trembling now, 'willingly sacrificed, you will revive your master.' From somewhere in her robes she produced a gleaming silver knife and, placing her left hand on the edge of the cauldron, brought it down upon her wrist.

She screamed and paled, her hand half-severed and hanging over the potion. Harry began to tear frantically at the ropes to get free, this was his chance, while she was distracted. Half of the bindings seemed to have vanished, but the rest were still in the way, and he could not free himself before the witch had managed to steel herself and bring the weapon down once more.

Bertha Jorkins gave a strangled sob of pain that was all but lost in the splash her dismembered hand made as hit the surface of the potion. It rippled a raging red. Then she turned to Harry, who had really been hoping against all likelihood that he was just going to be a witness.

'Blood of the enemy,' her voice was thin and wavering, 'forcibly taken,' she winced and had to stop speaking. Bertha Jorkins' skin was pale, and, despite whatever enchantment the knife had possessed to cauterise the wound, the stump still oozed nastily.

'Looks painful,' Harry noted, kicking his feet free when she closed her eyes to try and block out the agony.

'You will resurrect your foe,' she finished, stepping next to Harry before he could finish freeing himself and slashing a shallow cut across his cheek.

Bertha Jorkins darted back from him and flicked the blood into the cauldron, Harry glimpsed the end of his wand protruding from the pocket facing him.

He ripped the rest of the ropes away.

The potion flared a blinding, shimmering white, steam pouring off it onto the floor in a thick creeping blanket that quickly rose to obscure anything more than a silhouette.

Something tall stepped towards him in the steam, something that was far too tall, and had far too little curly hair, to be Bertha Jorkins.

Harry hurled himself where Bertha Jorkins had been a moment ago, but only skidded across the dirt.

He turned to find himself looking directly up at Tom Riddle, but the wizard was not how he remembered from the chamber. His skin was pale, translucent and veined, with no hair, misshapen facial features, and slitted, serpentine pupils. Harry had the distinct impression that this ritual was only the most recent he carried out and that Salazar had been quite correct in his assumption that Riddle had made use of many others. He seemed only a little more human than he had as a wraith three years ago.

'Where are you going, Harry?' Voldemort asked, amused.

'Back to Hogwarts?' Harry tried, smiling wryly and pulling himself to his feet. Riddle had all but killed him twice, and that was when he hadn't had a body.

I'm stronger now, he reminded himself.

'I don't think so,' the Dark Lord whispered. 'I can understand why you would want to return there. It feels like home to begin with, a new world, a place where you belong, then that world turns out to be no better than what you thought you'd left behind. You'll see that soon enough, if you haven't already.' Voldemort's lips curled back in a cold grin. 'I didn't just want you here for the ritual, Harry, there were easier ways to get your blood, even if it needed to be taken against your will and still be fresh. No, you're here to bear witness to my return.'

'Bertha,' he commanded smoothly.

'My Lord,' she murmured, appearing from the fading cloud of steam around the cauldron, still clutching at her arm.

'Your arm, Bertha.'

The curly-haired witch proffered her unharmed limb towards her lord. 'Sorry, my lord,' she apologised, when Riddle had to push up her sleeve himself. Harry shot her an incredulous look. Nobody in their right mind would ever believe Bertha Jorkins culpable for that. Even Riddle looked slightly amused.

A black tattoo of a snake entwined within a skull, throbbed painfully upon her upper forearm, bulging half a centimetre from the skin and writhing under its surface.

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For some other reason this novel will only be published 3 times a week.

[Advanced chapters on my ko-fi page]

https://ko-fi.com/fictiontopia