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Harry used the distraction Voldemort's last victims gave him, sprinted to Cedric's corpse and accioed the Triwizard cup. He breathed a sigh of relief when the cup touched his hand, only… only nothing happened. Why did nothing happen?! He was still at the graveyard-
Harry slowly turned around, horror pouring from every part of his being, even the Death Eaters had stopped breathing.
Voldemort was marching towards him, his fury contrasted by the maniacal grin spreading on his monstrous face. "Did you really think you could escape Lord Voldemort?" the dark wizard laughed, and his followers stiffly jeered along. "Any last words?"
Harry opened his mouth, no thoughts besides 'Shitshitshit I'm so dead' going through his mind—but Voldemort never intended to grant him this mercy, too angry that Harry nearly escaped him.
"Avada Kedavra," Voldemort whispered, etching every second of his enemy finally falling into his mind. The widening of the boy's eyes, the intake of breath that was never exhaled, the light leaving those once vibrant eyes. Dead. The Boy Who Lived was finally dead. Voldemort had won, the Prophecy was over.
Yet…the air felt strange. Something was different. Not as it should be.
"Am I dead?"
Despite himself, Voldemort's whole body flinched, and even the few followers of his fell over themselves in shock. Voldemort turned around and…there was the Potter boy. He looked just like he had about a minute ago, just a bit more transparent.
A ghost.
"Why in Salazar's name are you so hard to get rid of?!" Voldemort nearly shouted, but tried to keep at least a semblance of control. Barely.
Harry's eyebrows twisted in confusion, but then his eyes fell on his corpse lying on the ground. "Oh. Am I a ghost?"
"No, you are a nuisance," Voldemort said. Harry just blinked at him, and Voldemort had never looked at a ghost long enough to notice that they still did that. Blinking. Was that normal or just a Harry Potter thing?
When Harry just kept staring at Voldemort, the wizard gave an annoyed sigh and pinched the white skin where there had once been the bridge of his nose. Between clenched teeth, he impatiently said, "Of course you are a ghost! What else do you think you are?"
Harry shrugged and walked over to his dead body, crouching next to it, touching it. His milky hand went right through it, making the boy frown. "Why is my hand going through things, but I'm not sinking through the ground?"
"Ghosts can float, you are probably just floating."
"Am I?" Harry wondered, and Voldemort couldn't believe he was standing here discussing such needles things with the boy he had just triumphed over.
"Go haunt someone else," Voldemort told him and turned towards his dumb-looking followers. "We are leaving. Lucius, I expect to use your Manor as a headquarter."
Lucius bowed, still shaking a little like the pathetic baby that he was, and said, "Of course, my Lord."
Voldemort apparated himself and Nagini into Malfoy Manor, not sparing the ghost a second glance. Once there, he made himself at home in a comfortable armchair in front of a fireplace that was still burning in summer. Next, he called a house elf for a meal for him and his familiar.
"Do you think I can still eat?"
Voldemort nearly jumped out of the armchair in startled surprise, heart beating wildly. Only with his superior self-control did he manage not to shout a curse. The Potter boy had followed him.
"Didn't I tell you to go somewhere else?!" Voldemort snarled. Ghost Harry looked as nonchalant as he had at the graveyard, shrugging his shoulders and wandering through the room. He discovered that he could move a portrait, so he began to make all the paintings crooked.
"You only said I should haunt someone else. Maybe I want to annoy you as revenge? Or I am actually here to haunt the Malfoys; in that case I am even following your orders."
Voldemort took a deep breath in and decided he would ignore the menace. On second thought, he cast a silencing charm around Harry so Voldemort would not need to hear him. Perfect.
In that moment, the shaky elf brought him a steamy dish, and a dead rabbit for Nagini. Everything was going well, until the boy decided he wanted to test his question. Only just in time did Voldemort manage to pull his meal out of reach. "This is my food. Hands off."
The boy's mouth opened and closed, but Voldemort's spell spared him of having to hear Potter's annoying voice. "Shush," he said, making a hand motion for Harry to leave.
This only made the boy petulantly cross his arms, before he visibly got an idea. Instead of trying to touch the food, he reached out for Voldemort. Not having anticipated this, Voldemort did not pull away in time. While the ghost's hand went clean through Voldemort's robe, he felt a cold hand touch his rib. The hand did not go through him. This was not normal. Voldemort was starting to panic; he knew what a ghost's touch felt like, he had lived seven years in Hogwarts, for Salazar's sake!
Harry seemed to have come to the same conclusion that he should not have been able to touch the dark lord. Something was wrong. Maybe a remnant of Lily's protection? But Voldemort had used the boy's blood for resurrection–
His spiralling thoughts were interrupted by the dark grin that was spreading on Harry Potter's face. Maybe, Voldemort's panicked mind supplied, the Prophecy wasn't over after all.