The moment Harry stepped into the circle, the candles flared, their emerald flames spitting sparks like angry serpents. The runes around his feet pulsed red, then settled into a low, steady throb like the heartbeat of some ancient thing slumbering deep beneath the earth.
With almost physical effort, Harry forced himself to stand still, arms stiff at his sides, trying to keep his breath even, as the the air suddenly grew heavy, pressing in like invisible hands.
Grandma Addams moved next, hobbling toward the edge of the circle with a crooked silver dagger in one hand and a bundle of roots in the other; her gnarled fingers moved with careful precision as she crumbled the dried dragon's breath root into a steaming black bowl held by Pugsley, who looked unusually solemn, his usual manic smile, for once, gone; a soft plume of red smoke rose from the bowl a moment later, curling in shapes that twisted and hissed.
"Lazarus water," Grandma rasped, beckoning; Wednesday stepped forward at once, uncorked a bone-white vial, and let three slow drops fall into the bowl, causing the mixture to shimmer and glow with an unearthly sheen. Yet even as the concoction pulsed and seemed to move as if alive, she said nothing as she stepped back, her black eyes never leaving Harry, who was suddenly breathing a little harder, as if he had just completed a workout. Something in him was screaming to run, yet Harry couldn't understand why…
Then came the mandrake — withered and shivering, its tiny mouth gagged with iron thread to keep its scream contained. Grandma spoke three words in a language so old it made the stone walls groan, and the mandrake withered into ash between her hands.
Harry flinched as the elderly Addams dumped the ash into the bowl, a feeling of wrongness suddenly sweeping through him as something brushed against the back of his mind, like the brush of spider legs crawling across his brain.
And then came the goat.
It was led in by Lurch, who gave a solemn grunt as he held the angry beast by its rope. It snarled and stamped its hooves, eyes burning red as if it knew its fate; beside the animal, Fester clapped gleefully, a wicked smile firmly in place. "Angry goat! Perfectly furious! Look at him, he's seething!"
Grandma didn't wait. With a swift, practiced motion, she plunged the silver dagger into the goat's throat, causing the creature to let out a terrible sound — a bleat of fury and pain — before collapsing into a heap; its blood spraying in a graceful arc across the circle, spattering Harry's white dressing gown and making him cry out in shock.
The blood sizzled as it touched the runes, and they flared crimson like molten iron, causing Harry to whimper slightly and move as if to back away from them, as Grandma meticulously carved out the goat's heart before crushing it in her grip and dropping it into the bowl.
"Do not move, sugar bat!" Grandma called at once, forcing Harry to freeze in place. "It begins now!"
Harry was frozen — part from terror, part from the strange heat that had begun to rise beneath his skin, as if his very essence was being set ablaze. The blood from the slaughtered goat was warm, sticky, and smelled of copper and smoke as it ran lines down his gown and the few bits of skin that it had struck. He wanted to scream. He wanted to run!
But then Morticia spoke as if sensing his inner terror:
"You are brave, my darling viper," she said calmly, hands clasped before her. "I know you're afraid, just remember that what stains you tonight will be gone by daylight…"
Gomez stood behind her, holding a silver censer that belched dark smoke. His expression, normally gleeful, was grim — eyes narrowed, jaw tight. "We're with you, Harry," he said, and the boy could feel truth in every word. "Every shadow. Every scream. Every breath."
Grandma Addams began to chant, her voice rising in a cadence that made the runes crawl like living things. The shadows in the chamber deepened. The bones on the shelves rattled softly. And then — the circle screamed.
Harry clutched his head as agony unlike anything he had ever experienced ran through his very being. This was worse than the beatings he had received from Uncle Veron! Worse than the crippling hunger he had been forced to endure when his Aunt refused to feed him due to some supposed wrongdoing! At that moment, Harry would have given anything for it to stop!
A moment later, a voice — his voice — and not his voice, shrieked in rage and fear as the runes surged like lightning around his feet, and the air crackled with raw magic.
"Fools!" hissed the Horcrux-Voldemort, rising like smoke from the scar on Harry's head as the boy fought with everything in his being to stay standing, gripping his head in both hands, his mouth open in a silent scream of agony as the smoke churned and twisted until it resembled a face, connected to Harry's skull by a trail of black smoke. "You dare? You think this will cast me out? I am eternal!"
A moment later, the battle proved too much, and Harry fell to his knees inside the circle, still clutching his skull, as his scar seared like a brand.
"You are nothing but a cowardly parasite…" Morticia whispered harshly, stepping closer. "A craven fool so afraid of facing the end that all living things must face that you forced a child to house of piece of your disgusting soul. MY CHILD! And for that, I will dance on the ashes of your destruction."
"I am part of him!" The face snarled. "Remove me and you'll kill the boy!"
"No," Wednesday said, stepping forward, eyes like cold steel, causing the room to suddenly grow much colder, as though a sudden winter's breeze had blown through the room. "You poor, pitiful specter, how fragile you are… How needy. You cling to Harry like a tick clings to warm blood, whispering lies and promises like a cheap ghost at a child's séance."
Morticia smirked at her daughter's bravado as the shade seemed to choke on its own rage at Wednesday's words as she stepped forward and tilted her head, almost curious as she continued:
"You say he's yours? How quaint… As if power means possession. As if your filthy little shard of soul could ever own something as rare and precious as Harry…"
Wednesday took another step, stopping just beyond the circle of runes. Her voice darkened, not in volume but in temperature, like frost forming on glass as she stared into the burning red eyes of Voldemort's shade.
"No. He is mine. Mine to torment and torture when he forgets to set the traps correctly in his bedroom. Mine to protect when the world sharpens its knives. Mine to teach — slowly, carefully — how to love the shadows that dance on the walls when the lights go out… I will teach him to disembowel prejudice with wit, to dismember fear with facts. And when the monsters come knocking—"
A cruel smile spread across Wednesday's face as she stared at the shade. The entire room was deadly silent, as if even the air was listening to the girl's words—"He will smile, because he will know where the sharpest knives are kept."
Wednesday began to slowly walk around the circle, now, her hands clasped behind her back, her eyes locked with those of Voldemort's shade. "You don't love him… You need him. There's a difference. Love does not rot and cling. Love does not carve itself into a child's skull like a parasite. You are not his destiny, you are his infection!"
As she reached the front of the circle, where she had started, Wednesday's eyes turned almost completely black, and her smile turned positively venomous; behind her, the rest of the Addams clan all seemed to have the same smile, as if they couldn't be prouder of the little girl who was currently talking down to the spirit of the darkest wizard in the last century as if he were nothing but a disobedient child. Voldemort, on the other hand, was staring in stunned disbelief; no one had ever spoken to him like this before, and now a seven-year-old child was doing so!
"So scream, shade. Rage. Threaten! But understand this: you were outmatched the moment you chose to haunt MY boy. Because Harry Potter is no longer yours, he belongs to the Addams family now…"
"Well said, my little scorpion!" Gomez laughed out loud. Behind him, Fester loudly clapped his hands over his head, followed by placing two fingers in his mouth and whistling in appreciation as Wednesday stepped back next to her mother, who placed a pleased hand on the girl's shoulder.
A moment later, the shade opened its mouth to retort, but before it could, Gomez dropped something into the bowl in Pugsley's hands — a pinch of powdered silver — and the flames from the black candles shot skyward, bathing the chamber in green fire as the scar on Harry's head burst into light, causing Harry to release an ear-shattering shriek of pain, tears running down his face as he collapsed onto his back.
And then, finally, something tore loose — a mass of shadow, oily and writhing, shrieking as it peeled itself from Harry's soul, and began to billow out of the boy's scar like smoke from a chimney. For several minutes, the Addams clan watched as a seemingly never-ending pillar of smoke poured from the boy as he lay on his back, his eyes open wide, yet seeing nothing, his mouth open in a silent scream. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the last of the smoke poured forth from Harry's scar and the boy collapsed to the ground, falling unconscious in an instant as the smokey face expanded, twisting and warping until it took on the form of what appeared to be the amalgamation of a man and a snake, the smoke pouring around it like a black cloak. For a single instant, the figure hung there, suspended above the unconscious form of Harry, before rushing forward in an attempt to attack the ones who had removed it from the boy, only for the runes to pulse an angry red as he connected with the edge of the circle, throwing him back with a cry of pain, as if he had just been punched.
"You filthy wretches!" Voldemort snarled with fury as it tried to escape the circle repeatedly, only to be repulsed at every turn. "You think you can hold me! I am Lord Voldemort! The greatest Dark Lord in history!"
For a heartbeat, the chamber was silent; then Grandma Addams threw her head back and laughed. It wasn't the polite, brittle laughter of an old woman — it was rich, genuine, and filled with wicked amusement. "Greatest Dark Lord, he says!" she cackled, wiping a tear from her eye. "Oh, sugar bones, you're not even in the top ten!"
The shade froze, thrown off by her mirth. "What?"
"Oh, child," Grandma wheezed, catching her breath. "You think murdering Muggles and orphans and hiding bits of yourself in trinkets makes you a dark lord? Please. Please."
She began counting on her crooked fingers. "Ekrizdis — there's a dark wizard! Built Azkaban, filled it with dementors just because he liked the sound of screaming. Morgana Le Fay — terrifying woman, could curse a king from two countries away. Grindelwald — now he had flair. Drove half of Europe mad and still managed to look good doing it! And don't even get me started on the way that man could make love…"
A wistful look came across her features for a moment before she tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Oh, and we can't forget Baba Yaga! Delightful woman. Terrible dinner guest…"
The shade vibrated with fury, its crimson eyes burning brighter as its form flickered and churned. "I am immortal! I—"
"Immortal?" Grandma interrupted. "You split your soul into pieces like a coward chopping firewood before a storm! You literally named yourself 'flees from death!'" She snorted at that before regaining control of herself. "You should have called yourself Lord Cowardmort, dear."
Morticia smiled faintly, sipping from a goblet of something thick and black that Lurch had just handed her from a silver tray. "He does lack a certain elegance..."
Gomez nodded sagely. "Terrible branding."
"Silence!" Voldemort howled. "You dare mock—"
"Mock?" Grandma's grin widened. "Oh, sweetie, this is me being polite. You wouldn't survive my mockery..."
She stepped closer to the glowing circle, her shadow stretching long and sharp across the floor. "You don't even understand the dark, child. You ran from it! We live in it! You feared death. We toast to it every night!"
The shade screamed wordless fury — but no one in the chamber flinched.
Pugsley's small voice cut through the noise like a blade:
"Grandmama's right. You're not a dark lord. You're a frightened boy who made a mess and called it a kingdom..."
Voldemort snarled with fury at having been so thoroughly mocked, his eyes moving around the circle for some weakness he could exploit, before finally coming to a stop on the unconscious boy lying beneath him.
"Fools! I'll just repossess the child! And this time, I will crush his mind so completely that nothing will be left! Only I will remain!"
Before the shade could move an inch, however, a sudden 'gong' echoed throughout the chamber, like the toll of a church bell, causing everyone to freeze in place at the sound.
As the sound echoed throughout the room again, the temperature seemed to drop below freezing, and ice began to spread across the floor and up the walls as Voldemort watched in sudden fear.
Yet, to Voldemort's confusion, the Addams Family only smiled — each of them, in their own way, as the temperature dropped further by the second, and the bell (that damnable bell!) continued to ring out.
Morticia's lips curved with dark delight.
Grandma cackled with dark mirth.
Wednesday's eyes gleamed with quiet contempt.
Fester giggled softly, and Pugsley was literally bouncing in place, the bowl in his hands sloshing dangerously.
And Gomez — Gomez simply grinned, the glint of his teeth catching the light like a blade.
The shade faltered mid-rant, its swirling form twitching with unease.
"Why do you smile?!" it shrieked, the sound distorted, as if spoken through broken glass and rotting flesh.
Gomez took a single, deliberate step forward, his shadow stretched long across the blood-soaked stone floor, reaching toward the flickering runes like a living thing. Slowly, he pulled a dark cigar from his jacket pocket, struck a match on the heel of his boot, and lit it. He took a deep draw, holding it for a moment before exhaling a plume of smoke that drifted lazily across the circle — straight into the face of the shrieking shade.
When he spoke, his voice was smooth as silk and cold as the grave.
"Because," he said quietly, "you played a dangerous game, amigo… and now, you've lost."
He took another puff, eyes narrowing.
"And it's time to pay the price for your arrogance."
The shade twisted backward, rage collapsing into something older — raw, primal terror.
"What price?! What have you done?!"
A moment later, the shadows behind it began to move.
Not twist. Not flicker.
Move.
Something vast and dark stirred in the corners of the chamber — older than the stones, deeper than death; the runes around the circle flared bright crimson as a sudden gust extinguished the candles. And then—
The chains came.
They didn't slither.
They didn't clink.
They exploded from the darkness like harpoons — spectral and glowing a cold, eldritch blue. Hooks gleamed at their tips, jagged and cruel, forged in shadow and wrath. They ripped through the air with impossible speed and struck the shade from all directions, sinking deep into its incorporeal form.
Voldemort screamed.
Not a human scream. Not a magical one.
A soul scream.
Shrill, endless, pure.
The Addams Family stood unmoved — Wednesday's eyes glinting with vindicated fury, Morticia with the calm satisfaction of a mother who had promised protection, and Gomez still puffing his cigar like a gentleman watching a long-awaited finale.
The shade writhed, limbs flailing, mouth gaping in silent agony as more chains lashed around it — dozens, maybe hundreds — dragging it downward, pulling.
Then from the void beyond the circle, a figure emerged.
A tall, cloaked entity stepped into view, its face hidden beneath a cowl that devoured light. The chains extended from the abyss of its robes, shifting like serpents with a will of their own.
As the shade of Voldemort saw the figure step out of the darkness, all pretense of bravery disappeared, and the once proud dark lord screamed in terror.
"NO—! NOT YOU—! NOOOOOOOO!"
It thrashed wildly, shrieking, pleading, begging, but the chains only tightened; the figure said nothing, it only reached out a gloved hand, and the chains snapped taut with a sound like a thunderclap. A moment later, the shade yanked forward toward the figure; Voldemort's final scream shattered every unlit candle in the chamber, and he vanished into the folds of the figure's cloak — consumed in silence…
Then, with one final rattling of chains, the figure turned, and the Addams family bowed; all of them — Morticia, Gomez, Wednesday, Fester, Pugsley, even Grandma Addams — heads lowered in deep, reverent respect.
The figure inclined its hood once in acknowledgment, and then it was gone, the chains with it; only the faint smell of smoke and old fear remained… and the boy, unconscious in the center of the circle — peaceful at last.