The figures that burst from Voldemort's wand weren't the victims' souls.
They were echoes—images dragged out by the "Priori Incantatem" effect.
They could speak.
They carried the same temperament they'd had before death.
They remembered who killed them… and even what happened after.
When Arthur first learned that, he'd seriously wondered whether the Resurrection Stone had been built by copying the same principle.
James's voice was urgent, firm—nothing like the vague, dreamy comfort Harry had always imagined in his fantasies.
"We can only stay for a short while. We're buying you time. Do you understand?"
Lily—the Lily outside his body, the one standing there in light—looked at him like she was trying to carve courage into his bones.
"Sweetheart… are you ready? You can break it now."
Harry nodded.
His eyes flicked to James again—reluctant, aching.
This was the first time he'd ever been this close to his father.
Then he did it.
Harry cut off the magic he was feeding into his wand.
Instantly, the four white figures surged forward, rushing Voldemort as one, forming a bright curtain of light that blocked Voldemort's sight for the briefest, most precious moment.
Harry seized the opening.
With the last scraps of magic he had left, he cast, "Accio!"
The Cup—still lying where it had landed—shot toward him.
The moment it touched his fingers, the Portkey triggered.
Harry vanished.
He slammed back into Hogwarts—hard, stumbling, heart hammering—already half-turning to sprint toward Dumbledore.
Voldemort's back. Voldemort's back. Voldemort's back—
But then he froze.
Because the entire stadium was staring at him.
All of them.
Every face.
Every pair of eyes.
And Arthur—sitting comfortably like he hadn't just watched Harry nearly die—lifted a hand and actually waved.
"Yo," Arthur greeted cheerfully. "Back already? How'd fighting Voldemort feel?"
Harry's mouth moved before his brain caught up.
"…Not bad," he answered automatically, still dazed from adrenaline.
He blinked.
Realized what he'd just said.
No—wait—this is serious—
Harry spun toward Dumbledore in panic.
"Professor Dumbledore! Voldemort is back!"
Dumbledore nodded calmly.
"Yes, Harry. We saw."
"You escaped him again."
Then Dumbledore pointed upward.
Harry followed his gaze—
and his stomach dropped.
Above them, the sky was showing the graveyard.
Live.
Harry stared, horrified, as Voldemort raged on-screen like a man whose pride had been ripped out with a hook.
Even without sound, Harry could read the mouth.
A single word—
"NO!"
—stretched into pure fury.
Harry whipped back around, stunned.
"You… you just WATCHED?!"
His voice cracked.
He felt like the universe had gone insane.
He'd nearly been murdered.
His wrist was bleeding.
He'd been shackled, humiliated, tortured—
and not a single person had rushed to help.
Not one.
They'd just… sat there.
Watching.
Arthur shrugged, completely unbothered.
"What do you want us to do?" he said lightly. "Catching wanted criminals is the Ministry's job. If anyone's giving orders, it should be Minister Fudge."
It was a knife wrapped in velvet.
A polite sentence that stabbed the Ministry straight through the ribs.
And because it was true, it landed.
Hard.
Fudge looked as if someone had finally remembered to turn his brain on.
He hastily began barking orders, sending the Ministry workers who'd been patrolling the maze toward the Riddle graveyard.
As for himself?
He stayed right where he was.
Watching.
Because whatever Voldemort looked like on-screen, he was still Voldemort.
And Fudge liked his job exactly as much as he liked being alive.
His people weren't any braver.
They moved with the speed of men going to their own funerals.
Dragging feet.
Delaying.
Hoping—desperately—that by the time they arrived, the problem would have politely left.
Then the sky-picture shifted.
For the first time in a long while, the camera moved.
It swung back to Voldemort—
and someone stepped into the frame.
Hermione.
She revealed herself from invisibility as casually as someone walking into a library.
Her posture was relaxed.
Her tone was almost… friendly.
"Don't be so disappointed, Voldemort," she said, sounding faintly amused. "Harry ran away, sure—"
"But I can stay and keep you company."
Then, just to make it worse, she added with bright, infuriating cheer:
"Do you want me to wait until you recover some magic first?"
The excitement in her voice was unmistakable.
She'd been waiting for this.
She'd been starving for it.
Voldemort's face tightened.
His eyes narrowed as recognition struck.
"It's you."
Of course he remembered her.
That little witch from first year—the one who'd been beside Potter when his plans for the Philosopher's Stone collapsed.
What unsettled him was something else:
He hadn't sensed her.
Not until she decided to be seen.
Voldemort ignored her taunts and snapped, sharp as a blade:
"How long have you been here?"
Hermione shrugged.
"Since a few seconds after Harry arrived."
Voldemort's stomach went cold.
So she could have struck from the start…
She could have hit him when he was distracted…
She could have ruined everything…
And she hadn't.
Which made Voldemort decide, instantly, that she was arrogant.
Or stupid.
He sneered, beginning the same old tactic—divide the hero from their friends.
"You're not Potter's—"
Hermione cut him off with a single sentence.
A sentence so casual it was cruel.
"And you still couldn't keep him."
For a second, Voldemort looked like he'd been slapped.
The fury that hadn't fully drained from him flared right back to life.
"Filth." he hissed.
"I will teach you the price of provoking me!"
He didn't bow.
He didn't announce a duel.
He didn't pretend at manners.
He raised his wand and went straight for the kill.
"Avada Kedavra!"
Green light tore across the graveyard.
Hermione wasn't Harry.
Voldemort didn't need the drama with her.
And he didn't know how dangerous she really was—so he chose full power from the first strike.
Hermione slipped aside, the curse missing her with contemptuous ease.
And she frowned.
Not because she was afraid—
but because she was annoyed.
No warning.
No rules.
No decorum.
The pig-nosed freak was attacking her like a street thug.
Fine.
If Voldemort wanted ugly—
she could do ugly.
Hermione lifted her left hand, fingers snapping into a sword sign.
"Come."
A golden greatsword materialized—the Golden Order Greatsword, her bound weapon, her will forged into steel.
The moment it appeared, it moved on its own.
Its spirit was awake now.
It didn't wait for Hermione to guide it.
It lunged straight for Voldemort like a hunting hawk made of light.
Voldemort's eyes widened.
He'd spent his life fighting British wizards who threw beams and shouted Latin.
He had not spent his life dealing with a flying greatsword trying to cut him in half.
He slashed his wand, blasting it aside—
and the sword twisted mid-air, turned, and came back again.
The gold edge shimmered with a kind of sharpness that made Voldemort's skin crawl.
He didn't dare let it touch him.
While Voldemort jumped and dodged and forced it away again and again, Hermione didn't stand there admiring her own work.
She raised her wand and began firing—calm, precise, relentless.
But the terrifying part wasn't the number of spells.
It was the angles.
Curses didn't come only from her wand-tip.
They came from the side.
From behind.
From above.
From blind spots that shouldn't exist.
Because Arthur's rune-work had changed the rules for her.
With her spirit sense spread out, Hermione could cast inside her perception range—anywhere, from any direction—like the battlefield itself had become her wand.
So the situation became brutally simple:
Hermione stood with maddening ease, wand flicking lazily—
while Voldemort, the Dark Lord himself, was forced into frantic movement:
Dodging the sword.
Blocking the spells.
Turning too late.
Leaping again.
Twisting again.
For the first time tonight, Voldemort wasn't the one watching someone scramble.
He was the one scrambling.
And somewhere far away, in a stadium full of stunned spectators, the truth settled in with the weight of a stone:
the fight had changed hands.
Advance Chapters Available on Patreon
patreon.com/WhiteDevil7554