An unexpected turn

The Death Eaters immediately changed tactics. Instead of continuing to attack the three of them separately, they swarmed around both flanks like a swarm of venomous bees acting on command, forcing a gap between Harry and Clara and Cedric.

Three simultaneous Avada Kedavras forced Clara to roll behind a crooked gravestone. Shattered stone exploded around her feet, and graveyard dirt splattered all over her. A few steps away, Cedric was trading spells fiercely with a Death Eater, the light at the tip of his wand flashing through the darkness. He was using the countercurses he had learned in class and from that book, barely managing to block his opponent's attacks one after another.

But both of them were being driven farther and farther away from Harry.

During a lull in the Death Eaters' attacks, Clara peered out from behind the gravestone just in time to see Wormtail dragging Harry toward a gravestone.

Harry was struggling, but he had been bound tightly with rope. The short man sliced open his sleeve with a dagger, exposing the pale skin on the inside of his forearm. A huge stone cauldron stood before him.

Then the short man closed his eyes and raised his wand toward the sky. "Bone of the father, unknowingly given, will renew your son."

The Death Eaters around them were still attacking, but much less frequently. Clara saw the ground beneath Harry's feet beginning to crack.

"Flesh of the s-servant, w-willingly given, will revive your master."

The short man chopped off his own right hand and groaned in pain.

Clara was stunned.

"Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken, will resurrect your foe."

Wormtail dripped Harry's blood into the cauldron, then staggered back. The liquid in the stone cauldron began to boil, silver steam shooting skyward and bathing the entire graveyard in an eerie light. The Death Eaters stopped attacking and turned as one toward the cauldron, like a group of puppets someone had paused. Clara seized the opening to rush to Cedric's side. She grabbed his arm and hauled him up from the ground. His forehead was still bleeding, and the tip of his wand was still pointed ahead.

"What was that?" Cedric's voice was hoarse and breathless.

The silver liquid in the cauldron exploded, and a flash of white light made everyone close their eyes on instinct. When the light faded, he stood at the edge of the cauldron—a long, pale body, a flat, snakelike face, and red eyes glittering in the moonlight. Wormtail knelt at his feet, holding a black robe in his only remaining hand and trembling as he draped it over him.

Clara's blood nearly froze.

Voldemort raised a hand, his long, pale fingers slowly curling in the moonlight, as though he were feeling every ounce of strength in his new body. His gaze moved from his fingertips, slowly sweeping over the Death Eaters kneeling on the ground, the cracked gravestone and Wormtail's still-bleeding stump, and Harry bound to the gravestone, before finally settling on Clara and Cedric. Then he smiled.

"Voldemort has returned."

"...Merlin's beard." Cedric's voice was barely audible.

Clara didn't answer. Her fingers gripped her wand tightly, her knuckles white, her mind racing. Now, at last, she knew what had happened here in the previous loops. She looked up. The silver tracking spell was still flashing in the night sky, but beneath it, a vast black cloud of tens of thousands of Dementors was slowly bearing down on them.

Dumbledore still hadn't arrived. For the first time, she hated the rule against Apparition inside Hogwarts.

"Cedric," Clara said quietly, without taking her eyes off Voldemort, "whatever happens, stay within three steps of me. If the Goblet of Fire comes near us, forget everything else and grab it. Whoever can get away should go. Professor Dumbledore knows where we are. They'll come."

Voldemort's high-pitched laughter echoed over the graveyard.

He sent a skull-like mark into the sky, one Clara had seen on the night of the Quidditch World Cup.

Then more and more Death Eaters appeared in the graveyard.

He began to pace, his long, pale fingers passing over the heads of the Death Eaters kneeling on the ground. He called them by name, one by one, recounting their betrayals and returns in that raspy, languid voice. Each person he named trembled as they kissed the hem of his robe and stepped aside, their eyes shining behind their masks with relief at having survived and with fervor.

Clara counted at least a dozen of them. On her side, there were only three-one was bound to a gravestone, and the other two were wounded and bleeding.

Their chance of winning was zero.

In truth, everything had probably happened in no more than ten minutes, but even so, ten minutes felt far too long. She had even begun to doubt whether Dumbledore had really received her location.

"It seems Dumbledore found you a good teacher. Snape, was it? Oh, and Flitwick too? They taught you to duel, taught you how to stay calm when surrounded, and taught you how to summon reinforcements with a tracking spell." He stepped forward, tapping his wand lightly against his palm. "Unfortunately, Dumbledore most likely won't be coming, at least not before you die. But you could consider joining us, along with this Mr. Diggory. People of your talents would be very welcome."

Clara didn't answer. Her right leg was trembling, her left arm had three cuts, and her mouth tasted of blood. Cedric stood beside her, breathing heavily and unevenly, but the hand holding his wand didn't waver in the slightest. The wound on his forehead was still bleeding, and the left sleeve of his tournament uniform had been soaked dark brown with blood, but he still took half a step forward, placing himself between her and Voldemort.

Voldemort's red eyes rested on Cedric for a moment before returning to Clara's face. The faintest trace of an amused smile appeared on his lips, like a hunter who had finally understood the relationship between his prey.

"I see. You care about him." His tone was that of someone stating an ordinary fact. Then he raised his wand and pointed it at Cedric. "Avada Kedavra."

Clara shoved Cedric aside, and a stone barrier conjured with Transfiguration burst into being in front of them. The green light struck it, shattering it instantly. The impact flung her backward, and her back slammed into a gravestone, sending a spike of pain through her spine.

She had no time to catch her breath. A second Avada Kedavra came flying after the first, then a third. Every one was aimed squarely at Cedric, and every one forced her to step in front of him, intercepting it with a stone wall conjured through Transfiguration and using her body to pull Cedric with her as they dodged through the line of defenses.

The sleeve of her school robe had been shredded by fragments of spells. A fresh wound had opened on her right leg, and blood ran down her calf, soaking her shoe and sock.

"Clara! Stop blocking them!" Cedric's voice was so hoarse she could barely make it out. He tried to pull her behind him, but each time she pushed him away first.

"Shut up!" Clara shouted as another Cruciatus Curse grazed her ear. Perhaps because of the physical pain and exhaustion, she had become unusually irritable.

But she knew she couldn't hold out like this much longer. Her spells were growing weaker and weaker. Voldemort seemed to be playing a game, using streak after streak of green light to drive them into an ever more desperate state, yet he was in no hurry to finish it.

As Clara twisted aside to dodge another Avada Kedavra, she caught sight of the other end of the graveyard. She saw Harry. He was still tied to the gravestone, but he had already freed his left hand from the ropes. They were still tight around his right wrist and ankles, but he was quietly pointing his wand at the Goblet of Fire. Clara snapped her head back around, not daring to look again for fear Voldemort would notice where she was looking.

She needed to buy Harry more time.

"Is that all you've got?" she shouted. "Didn't you call yourself the Dark Lord? You've been fighting for so long, and you still can't kill two students-your own subordinate was more ruthless than you. At least he dared to cut off his own hand!"

Voldemort's red eyes snapped toward her.

Clara knew those words would enrage him. But she didn't care. She needed his attention. She needed him to aim every spell at her.

Voldemort raised his wand, its tip flaring with blinding green light, then slashed it downward.

But Voldemort clearly hadn't granted her wish. The Avada Kedavra wasn't aimed at Clara. It was aimed at Cedric.

Clara didn't think. Her body made the decision before her mind did—she slammed into Cedric's shoulder, shoving him to the side. Cedric staggered back several steps and fell to the ground, while the green light flew past where Clara had just been standing and struck her in the back.

There was no pain.

Fortunately, Cedric hadn't felt any pain in any of the previous times, either.

But those people had called the boy she thought was the best in the world "the spare," and she was very unhappy about it.

She heard Cedric and Harry calling her name, and what seemed to be Dumbledore's voice too.

She heard the screams and cries of the crowd, just as she had countless times before.

Only this time, she was the one lying on the ground.

Her eyes were so heavy that she no longer had the strength to open them.

The moment she lost consciousness completely, she was glad-glad that she had finally saved Cedric—but she also felt a tiny bit of regret.

She wondered whether there would be another reset this time.

"Lyla! Hurry up and pack your things! Your mom and dad have agreed to let you come to the Quidditch World Cup with us!"

Clara's eyes flew open.

Sunlight poured through the window, making the drooping mint plant by her bed look as though it might melt into the light. Rowle was bouncing up and down on her bed.

The aroma of fried eggs and toast filled the air. From downstairs came the murmur of a match commentary on the radio, along with Dad's voice as he spoke to Mom in the kitchen.

She lay in bed, staring at the chandelier on the ceiling for several seconds, her mind completely blank.