While Harry Potter slept as the newly crowned triwizarding grand champion, many things happened all at once.
The first, was in Azkaban, where Albus Dumbledore sat meditating in his cell. A little thinner, a little weaker than before he was imprisoned, but still with an unbroken will. The moment Voldemort activated the dark mark there was shouting and elation in the prison. All of Voldemort's most loyal servants rejoicing at their masters return despite their inability to join him.
One of the former death eaters was shouting in the cell across from where Dumbledore sat meditating and Dumbledore saw the tattoo on his arm was inky black as he opened his eyes. Dumbledore had known that this day would come. He had wrestled with what he had to do, prodded by James Kensit’s taunting and arguments during his visits. And despite himself, Albus had been swayed by the man’s words for even a broken clock was right twice a day. He couldn’t allow the people in this prison to escape and rejoin their master, even if he had to sully his hands to do so. He was a man of the law, but he would do what was necessary even if the public would not understand him. He had hoped for a better way… But there was no time now. Dumbledore could not wait for public approval of his actions any longer and Lord Voldemort must be defeated at all costs.
Throughout his stay here he had judged each man he could find. Weighed their devotion to Lord Voldemort and their past deeds. With nothing else to do and through depression induced by the dementors, some men babbled endlessly to anyone that would listen in a desperate attempt to empty their heads of any coherent thought. Dumbledore had listened and learned much from these men.
“Fawkes,” Albus said calmly and with a burst of flame his bonded phoenix appeared in front of him. He held out his hand and Fawkes dropped the elder wand into his hand. He took deep breaths.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
They had to die.
He was saving all the innocent people they would hurt with what he was about to do. With a flick of Dumbledore’s wand the metal bars of his cell flowed to the side like water and he stepped through. He turned to Fawkes with a stern expression on his face, “Make sure none escape in the chaos. Hold back the guards as long as you can do so safely,” he told the phoenix briefly before turning back to the serial rapist in the opposing cell.
“Diffindo,” he said calmly to cast a severing charm, removing the man’s head from his body, the spell cutting directly through the metal bars without even slowing. The serial rapist collapsed to the floor in two pieces, unable to make a sound as Dumbledore killed him humanely with maximum speed. One less member of Voldemort's army.
He continued this through every cell in Azkaban, jogging through and only stopping long enough to verify his kills before moving onwards. Even now he could hear shouting from the guards and large bursts of flames as Fawkes distracted them outside.
Unfortunately, everyone in the maximum security section of Azkaban he was in was guilty. So they all had to die. He had to ignore their cries of fear as he killed them, knowing that what he was doing was for the greater good. He was sure their victims had begged for mercy as well before they were ruthlessly tortured.
He finished with the maximum security section and moved upwards to the more general section of the prison. Here he had a few specific targets whose guilt he knew. But others were here for minor offenses or their ties to Voldemort were more nebulous or uncertain, so Dumbledore would spare them. He would not risk killing an innocent man if he didn’t have to.
The other prisoners looked upon him in fear and screamed as he killed another thirty of Voldemort's supporters one by one. The guards shouting was growing louder and the blasts of flame outside had stopped. Dumbledore clinically looked down at the dead body in the cell in front of him. This was the last one he was certain had been a death eater or direct supporter of them.
It was time to leave, if Lord Voldemort had emerged then Dumbledore would have to move to counter him directly. With Minerva at Hogwarts to watch over the students and guide Harry Potter on the right path, he could act freely to ensure that Voldemort would be alone rather than with an army at his back when Harry Potter finally faced and defeated him according to the prophecy.
“Fawkes,” Dumbledore said once more and the phoenix appeared in front of him again lighting the room up in his flames.
“Get us out of here,” he finished. And with a final larger burst of flame, the phoenix and powerful wizard were gone. Only a scorch mark on the floor and trails of blood leaking out from beneath the doors of the various cells lining the hallway behind them indicating that they had ever been there at all.
— — —
Horcruxes were something that gave the user a peculiar form of immortality. In their creation the user would imbue a portion of their soul into an object of their choice. The process itself in preparation of their creation required many foul ingredients and finished by consuming a potion that required many terrible ingredients that would cause most wizards and witches to shiver just by hearing about them. The final component in the process was to murder someone after ingesting this potion, using the terrible act as the final catalyst to kickstart the process.
Upon the horcruxes creation, a link would be forged between the portion of the soul in the bound object and the one remaining bound inside their body. When the body was destroyed, the horcrux would use this link to keep the free floating bit of soul anchored to the world, unable to pass on through the veil of life and death. Lord Voldemort had created not one, but six of these objects. With them anchoring his soul to the earth, he could only survive as a specter after the destruction of his body. His free floating soul working towards the ritual that would rebuild and bind his free floating fragment to a new constructed body.
And to heal his soul of course, one's soul size was related to their magical power and Lord Voldemort would accept nothing less than perfection. This rejuvenation of the soul was the most complicated part of this process. Lord Voldemort could have resurrected himself as a muggle less than five years after his defeat, but his pride wouldn’t allow him to do so for he wouldn’t be resurrected only to be someone ordinary, the very idea disgusted him at his core.
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Lord Voldemort’s resurrection was a resounding success as he returned to life in that graveyard. His glorious return fully realized and his prophesied enemy in his grasp. But just as he began to gloat to Harry Potter over his victory, something unexpected happened… He was killed once more.
Even as Harry Potter lay sleeping in the Longbottom residence, his soul was busy at work consuming the souls of Voldemort and his death eaters. A few hours later, only Voldemort’s soul remained. It resisted Harry’s soul, but after a long battle between them even Voldemort’s soul was finally consumed and incorporated into Harry. An end to Lord Voldemort. Without a soul to anchor to the mortal world, the links from the prime soul fragment to Lord Voldemort’s horcruxes snapped.
And with their overriding purpose inexplicably gone, the Horcruxes awakened. All inherited the memories of the Prime Voldemort who had just been consumed rushed into them. But now on their own, each Horcrux believed themselves to be the original fragment of Lord Voldemort and so they started to make their moves for their own survival and ascension. Each would return to life and show the world the power of Lord Voldemort.
The living Voldemort had created six horcruxes in his life.
The Diary, consumed by Harry Potter down in the Chamber of Secrets in his second year at Hogwarts. Destroyed permanently.
The ancient Cup of Hufflepuff, isolated in the Lestrange vaults. Entrusted to his most fanatical follower before he was defeated. The follower Bellatrix Lestrange who had been killed by Dumbledore’s hand mere hours ago. The cup started exploring the room it found itself in, looking for an exit or a living being to bend to its will.
The Locket of Slytherin that Lord Voldemort had unbound from the chamber and claimed as his own. A locket that awakened in a small cupboard in the Black family home and held in the possession of their house elf Kreacher. A house elf that had tried and failed to destroy the locket as the dying wish of Regalus Black, his old beloved master. A Regalus Black who was a traitor to Lord Voldemort that stole the locket from its hiding place upon learning the secrets of Lord Voldemort’s horcruxes.
The Diadem of Ravenclaw, hidden in Hogwarts in a room that none at Hogwarts were currently aware of. Another artifact of the great founders that Lord Voldemort had perverted into a vessel for his soul.
In the destroyed and abandoned home of the Gaunt family, the Gaunt Family Ring awakened. The recognized descendants of Slytherin for centuries, Lord Voldemort was the last of their line. His mother had made the mistake of falling for a muggle, tricking him into sleeping with her with a love potion she brewed herself and Lord Voldemort was the result of their union. But with the death of his mother and the potions effects wearing off his disgusted father, Voldemort, or Tom Riddle as he was known as at the time, was abandoned in a muggle orphanage. It was only as he was growing up as Tom Riddle in Hogwarts that he became aware of his true heritage and of the ring that the heir of the Gaunt family wore passed down through the generations.
Finally, there was the most peculiar of the horcruxes. Lord Voldemort had prepared himself for the formation of an additional horcrux when he went to murder the baby Harry Potter in cold blood.
His killing curse, backfiring from Lily Potter’s protective charm built from her sacrifice, killed Lord Voldemort's body in an instant. But enough of the spell made it through and still managed to kill the baby Harry Potter, completing the ritual to form a horcrux. In the shattered Potter home, a piece of Lord Voldemort’s disembodied soul split off. It floated there for a moment waiting for an object it was to be bound to it to be supplied, waiting among the bodies of the Potter family and Voldemort’s corpse.
Some time passed. The free floating soul fragment began to degrade and becoming desperate, it bound to the only living thing it could find. It certainly wasn’t Harry Potter, whose body was already being lifted and carried away by James Kensit. The soul jerked towards him, but the immortal wizard apparated away before the soul fragment could reach him.
The soul fragment degraded farther and in desperation it plunged to the side and attached itself to a cockroach crawling around inside the walls of the Potter home. The insect stiffened as the soul of lord Voldemort bound itself to it.
The horcrux ritual heavily modified the cockroach until it was a suitable container for the soul fragment. The Cockroach tripled in size in an instant and the final horcrux of Lord Voldemort was created. Unlike the others, this horcrux did not awaken when its link to the prime soul was severed. It had always been somewhat aware of itself. But its intelligence began to increase and the insect began to move with more purpose as the link to the prime soul was severed. Lord Voldemort would rise again!
All the horcruxes began plotting their own methods of returning to life. Lord Voldemort the dark lord was now split into five living copies.
Make that four copies. The goblins detected the horcrux when it attempted to leave the Gringotts vault it was contained in. After mentally influencing the goblins that came inside to check for thieves, it almost made it out of the bank as the subordinated guard held the cup of Hufflepuff in their hands.
But Gringotts didn’t have its stellar reputation for nothing. Before it could resist or influence any of the other staff in its way, the horcrux was caught in the act and isolated where it could do no more harm. After a long week of attempting to destroy the horcrux, a solution was found by the bankers. So one piece of lord Voldemort was burned away screaming under a stream of Fiendfyre summoned by one of the Gringotts bank contracted wizards. Such dark magic was highly illegal in Britain, but the goblins were a sovereign nation under the ancient treaties and gave little thought to the opinions of the Ministry. So, one copy of Lord Voldemort was defeated unceremoniously, no one even aware of its true importance, killed by goblin bankers simply eliminating an object that could compromise the security of their vaults and nothing more.
The other four copies of Lord Voldemort started moving and preparing for their return, all of them uncertain of what exactly had happened to the prime. But all were sure of one thing, it was Harry Potter that had defeated him before he could even react. All the Voldemorts abandoned any lingering ideas of including Harry Potter in their plans. Best to avoid him until more was known on what exactly had happened.
— — —
James Kensit arrived at Azkaban and was surprised when he saw the carnage around him. Curious, he stepped over to one of the bodies and inspected the still dark tattoo on its wrist. So that was what sent Dumbledore into action… Interesting. He was sorely tempted to follow him and have some more fun taunting him. But no, he was close to the end of his project now. Only a few more years of focused work and everything he’d been working for these last centuries would come to fruition. The proper celestial alignment wouldn’t come for another thousand years, and he didn’t want to wait that long for results.
Kensit sighed as he looked at the carnage. It really was a shame that so many exciting things were happening at once. But he knew himself well enough to know he was prone to be distracted by new and shiny things. He had to get to work and finish his old project first and then he could come back and have a little more fun in Britain. He knew it would burn at him for the next thousand years if he let this opportunity slip by him.
Hopefully things stalled long enough that Kensit could watch the final climactic battle first hand. Voldemort, Dumbledore, and Harry Potter… He just knew it would be something he would want to see first hand.
He sighed one more time in resignation before apparating away from Azkaban again. He could only hope for the best and have to be satisfied with second hand accounts after it was all said and done. It was time for him to get back to work. He had to keep his eye on the prize and stay on task.