Harry Potter:Diamond Heart.

Voldemort regarded it carefully, then pressed his long, pale forefinger firmly into it. Bertha's fingers curled up into a fist, and she squeezed her eyes tightly shut again.

Suddenly they were no longer alone in the graveyard.

How did they apparate in?

Once more Harry attempted to apparate out, picturing the chamber, where he would be safe, within his mind and willing the world to twist him away.

Nothing happened.

'Ah,' Voldemort sighed, 'my family returns, my friends, my so very loyal followers.' A circle of robed and masked figures surrounded the two of them, Bertha Jorkins stumbled away into one of the many gaps.

'It feels just as it did thirteen years ago,' Riddle smiled, 'only then you had not betrayed me, not abandoned me, not forsaken the oaths you swore to stand beside me.' An ice cold cruelty crept into his tone as he continued.

'Lucius,' he whirled on the nearest Death -Eater, 'you were content to continue following the old ways, having your fun at the World Cup, but never did you search for me.'

Riddle ripped the skull mask from the face of Malfoy.

'Crabbe, Goyle,' he prowled round the circle, 'Nott, all of you have forgotten the words you said when I gave you your marks. You are hale, healthy and enjoying the full comforts of your powers just as you have been for the last decade.'

'Master,' the stooped figure of Nott quailed.

'Silence,' Voldemort hissed. 'These gaps, these are where those who truly stood with me have their place. Those who never renounced me, were never disloyal, those who are in Azkaban, and those who are dead.'

He stalked around the inside of the circle, bare-foot, robes whispering along the floor.

'You have disappointed disappointed me gravely…'

me,

you

have

all

A figure stepped out of the circle, trembling, to prostrate themselves before Voldemort. 'Please, master,' he begged piteously, 'forgive me, forgive all of us, we were afraid.'

'Forgive you,' the Dark Lord's voice was very very cold. 'Get up, Avery,' he ordered. 'Stand next to me, like you swore you would.' He reached out and took Avery's chin between his thumb and forefinger. 'You ask for my forgiveness? I do not forget. I do not forgive…'

It struck a very familiar chord with Harry. Riddle's words might as well have been taken from the tip of his tongue for how close they were to his own.

He began to laugh.

'You find their betrayal funny, Harry?' Voldemort's attention snapped back to him and the laughter died instantly as he met his eyes. The slitted pupils bored into him relentlessly, then Riddle turned away. 'I suppose I might find the similarity amusing too,' he whispered, 'were I in your shoes. Harry slammed his occlumency barriers down, clearing his mind of every thought.

Voldemort laughed. 'I will have my repayment from all of you. A second chance to prove you meant the words we spoke together when you took my mark. When you have fulfilled your debt to me we will stand alongside each other once more, and remake this country in our image.'

He moved back to the centre of the circle. 'Perhaps, though, some of you feel that Avery was right, that there is a reason to fear. Dumbledore, that champion of the undeserving rabble, walks in your nightmares, or maybe you even fear Harry Potter.'

The sinking feeling had begun to creep back, driving his stomach further and further down.

'Bertha,' he commanded sibilantly, 'our wands.'

'Of course, my lord.' The witch passed both Harry's wand and another, slightly longer, pale wand to Voldemort. She made to step back into the circle, but Riddle caught her injured stump in one hand.

'You have never asked repayment for the sacrifice you made to restore me to my body,' he said smoothly, 'such devotion is admirable.'

From the tip of his wand a hand of shimmering steel spun, attaching itself to the stump of Bertha's arm.

'Thank you, my lord,' she whispered reverently, flexing her shining fingers.

'Back you go, Bertha,' Voldemort whispered, 'your reward is not for your devotion, but for understanding that no follower of mine need ever beg what they deserve from me. Only those who suffered Azkaban rather than renounce me will be more exalted than you.'

Malfoy looked horrified at the thought, but he'd looked rather unhappy about the return of his master from the very beginning.

'Now.' Riddle turned back to Harry, spinning his ebony wand around his fingers just as he had spun Harry's holly wand in the chamber of secrets. 'I shall prove to you, my friends, that there is nothing to fear, not from Dumbledore, and not from his pawn.'

A shard of ice formed in Harry's chest. He was nobody's pawn.

Stepping across the circle Voldemort extended Harry's wand back to him, a cold smile on his face.

'Now, Harry, we duel, and you die, just as you would have done thirteen years ago, had your mother's magic not interfered.'

I don't want to die. I refuse. Voldemort stepped back to the circle edge and Harry warily mirrored him. He knew that etiquette demanded they bow to each other before the duel began; it was the only thing Gilderoy Lockhart had actually taught him.

Riddle inclined his head, folding gracefully at the waist.

Harry reciprocated, copying the inhuman looking wizard. If he was going to die, he would leave an impression. He shot a glance at the Triwizard Trophy that had brought him here. It was still faintly glowing. He very much hoped it was still a portkey, because the first opportunity he got he was leaving.

'Crucio,' came Voldemort's cold whisper.

Harry threw himself to one side, and then back when a second red curse hissed through the air where he had been. He wasn't as fast as Harry expected.

I can survive. I can escape.

His wand burst into warmth, the heat flooding up his arm. 'Osassula,' he retaliated, sending the curse flying back at Voldemort who batted it aside casually, but seemed a little shocked at the spell.

'Such dark magic, Harry,' he remarked, circling around the edge, deflecting every bone-splintering curse and hex into the ground around him. 'What would that old fool Dumbledore, say?'

'There is no such thing as dark or light,' Harry quipped.

'There is only power,' Voldemort finished, amused again. 'I did not expect you to listen, Harry, when I told you that three years ago.' 'I didn't listen,' Harry dismissed, unleashing every powerful spell he knew, keeping Riddle on the back foot was essential to his escape plan, all he needed was a moment of distraction.

'There is only intent,' he told Voldemort, steeling himself for the drain of the spell, then bathing the circle of Death Eaters in fiendfyre. The cloaked figures scrambled out of the way as tombstones, grass and even the cauldron were consumed.

Riddle's serpentine eyes studied him curiously though the hungry, red flames, even as the fiendfyre twisted back around Voldemort's wand at Harry, swirling into a serpent's maw.

Harry's wand flared red at the tip and the fiendfyre roiled down into the ground, billowing out of existence in a wave of searing heat.

'Perhaps,'

Riddle

murmured,

'there

was something to that prophecy after all.'

Prophecy?

That was certainly something to investigate.

'If you were anyone else, save that old fool Dumbledore, I would offer you a place within my inner circle, Harry,' he said smoothly, gesturing to the ring of Death Eaters now reforming around them. Some, to Harry's pride, looked slightly scorched.

'I'm already within your inner circle,' Harry replied dryly, gesturing to the ring himself.

'Indeed you are', Riddle' s lips curled in amusement.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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

[All chapters on my ko-fi page in format PDF]

https://ko-fi.com/fictiontopia