Author's Note: These are standalone scenes rather than the usual incomplete starts to a story, but they weren't enough to merit a separate oneshot.

Inspired by PiBrain's review on Watermelonsmellinfellon's Harry Potter: Master of Malicious Compliance:

[...] it seriously annoys me (SPOILER ALERT) that just about every FanFiction has Voldie return in the same way, like every time I read about the ritual I get annoyed, especially when it's in a fic where Harry is smart/cunning enough to not actually be caught in the trap, though the author manipulates it to repeat the same resurrection rather than orchestrating a different one [...]

The gag about Voldemort being corrupted by getting the wrong blood comes from Harry Potter and the Champion's Champion by Driftwood1965.

Humble Harry

"No, no, I insist," Harry repeated for what must have been the tenth time. This time, Cedric sighed and nodded.

"You're a good man, Harry," he said, taking the Cup by the handle -

As soon as the swirl of colors gave way to solid reality, he heard somebody let out an obscenity, then a Stunner.

When he awoke, he found himself tied to a headstone. A rat-faced thug inspected him glumly. "Definitely not Potter, and he came alone, milord," the man called to someone Cedric couldn't see; the only response he received was a wordless hiss of rage. "Well, might as well find some use for you," he said, turning back to Cedric. "Now, tell me honestly, boy: do you serve the Dark Lord?"

Cedric swallowed hard, well aware his next words might be his last -

"Never," he snarled, and spat in the thug's face. Inexplicable delight flashed over the man's features.

"Bloody wonderful!" There was a flash of silver, and Cedric let out a shout of pain as blood spurted from his arm. The thug produced a vial and collected it with ill-disguised relief, murmuring, "Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken..."

Three weeks later, Peter shuddered with nausea as he overheard a bit too much of the Dark Lord's idea of love-play.

Honestly, what had gotten into the man? Yes, the Dark Lord looked more dignified now that he no longer appeared to have botched an Animagus transformation into a snake, and the current whinging was vastly preferable to past rages. But why did he feel the need to constantly travel under a Sparkling Spell? What had possessed him to return Bellatrix Lestrange's feelings? And why did he feel the need to express his feelings for the woman by telling her constantly how much he wanted to devour her?

And what in Merlin's name was wrong with Bella that she considered that a turn-on?

Humble Harry v.2: Cursed Child Edition

"Well, might as well find some use for you," he said, turning back to Cedric. "Now, tell me honestly, boy: do you serve the Dark Lord?"

Cedric mulled it over for a moment. However, despite all prior indications, he was a prideful, petty brat who had nothing resembling moral fiber and something resembling sympathy for the Death Eaters' cause - after all, interbreeding Purebloods and common filth was how you got creatures like Potter, who of course had cheated to get into the Triwizard Tournament, no matter what he said. Ordinarily, the complete absence of a spine would prevent him from taking a side, but, with a man holding him at wandpoint, the choice was obvious.

"Yes sir!"

To his surprise, the thug scowled. "Oh, bugger." He started to walk away from Cedric, shaking his head, and then stopped and gave him a cool, appraising look, as though eyeing up the best cut of meat. "Actually, that takes care of 'flesh of the servant', doesn't it? Looks like you and me will be together a bit longer, Righty." Massaging his wrist, he added, "Slight delay, milord, but we'll be right on track in a little while. I've just got to owl Barty for a bit of the fellow he's got in the trunk."

On second thought, maybe he should've let that rotter Potter have the Cup after all.

Severe Sabotage

Albus Dumbledore frowned and double-checked his spells as everyone went to pieces around him. Fleur Delacour, after awakening from unconsciousness, had shot up red sparks, and her rescuers had stumbled across Imperiused Krum nearby, torturing Cedric Diggory into catatonia. Emergency investigation had found a crudely-painted Harry-sized puppet just inside the entrance (well, that explained why he'd looked a bit gormless as he shambled into the maze), the Cup untouched, and the real Harry nowhere in the maze... Yet his monitoring enchantments said that Harry was perfectly safe. In fact, he was safer than he was with his relatives. So where was he?

While Albus wondered if he'd gone senile and botched a spell somewhere, the boy in question was tied to a chair and fuming. "LET ME GO, YOU BLOODY BASTARD!" he shouted as his captor calmly stirred a cauldron. "I'VE GOT TO COMPETE IN THE TOURNAMENT!"

"You don't have to do anything, Potter," the man drawled, adding a pinch of cinnamon. "Your ego will survive somehow. I'm sure of it."

"MY EGO? THIS ISN'T A MATTER OF MY EGO? MY LIFE'S AT STAKE!"

"I knew, ever since you showed up to that idiotic First Task just to show off your flying skills, that you have extreme difficulty distinguishing the two," his captor said, checking the color. Hmm... still too blue. He sprinkled in an extra measure of mistletoe. "But don't worry. You'll learn to get over it."

"GET OVER IT? GET OVER IT? I'M GOING TO LOSE MY LIFE! OR MY MAGIC! POSSIBLY BOTH!"

"Potter, you're not..." The man paused, took a moment to hastily stir the potion counter-clockwise three times, and then stared into space again. "You didn't really..." He whirled on the red-faced boy. "You honestly believe that rot about a binding magical contract?"

"THAT ROT?! THAT... What do you mean, 'that rot'?"

"You can't believe that, Potter. It would be as absurd as thinking 'bonded for life' means wizards never get divorces." A moment passed. "You... surely don't believe that."

"Everything I read said that breaking a binding magical contract means the loss of my life or my magic!"

There were several seconds of silence, filled only by the bubbling of the potion. "That's a religious phrase," the man explained slowly. "The common superstition is that an oathbreaker won't be permitted to enter the afterlife - the loss of your eternal life. Obviously that doesn't apply to the sects that believe in reincarnation instead, so their version is that oathbreakers will be incarnated as Muggles for eternity - thus losing your magic. And then there are we secularists, who believe this life is a horrible place of abject misery and suffering - and then you die."

"And so you've dedicated your short time on this earth to sharing the gospel?" the boy said dryly. The man ignored him.

"And you're attempting to tell me, Potter... you literally believed you were going to die on the spot if you didn't participate in the Tournament? You literally did your best to provoke a nesting mother into a murderous rage because you thought you were choosing between certain death and merely almost-certain death? You..." His captor stared at him. "Didn't you see anything a bit odd, perhaps, about being coerced to carry out a magical contract on pain of death when you were trying to claim you didn't even consent to it?"

"Did I see anything odd about the magical justice system being comprised of literal soul-sucking monsters?" the boy spat. "About my Muggleborn best friend, at twelve, being able to correctly identify Slytherin's monster when all the adults couldn't put 'snake' and 'petrification' together? About Voldemort teaching at this school in my first year, and the Headmaster setting me up to have a showdown with him? I don't know what the bloody hell is wrong with your world!"

The man paused. "Elaborate on that last one, Potter. I think we may be long overdue for a talk."

Elsewhere, Albus rechecked his monitoring spells in alarm. Why had they just changed to showing him in mortal danger?

Trusting The Traitor

"Just a moment, milord, I need to check one last thing about the potion..."

Voldemort fumed as Wormtail deposited him with Nagini and wandered over to the cauldron. Potter should surely be here any moment! They couldn't afford to fuss any longer! Such incompetent serv-

The crack of Apparation split the night. In shock and indignation - not fear, never fear! - the greatest Dark Lord of all time ordered Nagini to raise him up higher so he could see what was going on. A moment's glance revealed the only thing that could have been worse than someone unanticipated entering the graveyard.

Wormtail had left.

He had no one to help him with the most important of tasks save a giant snake... and, if he could somehow contrive a way to slither and crawl all the way to Hogwarts, Barty Crouch Jr. It... it was a rather long way to Hogwarts...

Adding insult to injury, he suddenly heard stumbling and groans in the dark. "Where are we?" he heard an unfamiliar voice ask.

"Dunno," a certain idiotic, hateful voice grunted.

"Keep your wand at the ready, Harry," the first voice cautioned, and Voldemort felt, through Nagini, the subtle tremors produced by an adult human treading towards them.

"I will, Cedric," the brat affirmed. Voldemort's mind raced. What could he do? Did he dare attack Potter, especially with backup? Nagini ought to be invulnerable to all but the most powerful of spells, but... he'd already made her a Horcrux... Potter's Mudblooded mother's protection would defend against her, too...

He grasped that he had, in fact, been in better shape for the confrontation in the boy's first year. At least he'd had an adult body then... and, if he hadn't lost his temper and ordered Quirrell to deal with the boy, a functioning wand... That vile, cowardly little rat hadn't even left him his wand...

Though he was in no way comparable to such a lowly wretch, perhaps discretion was the better part of -

"Cedric, do you hear that?" the brat whispered as Nagini began to move, her belly rustling over the ground.

"What? Yes, that sound - I bet that's what we need to beat to win the Tournament! Let's get it!"

...fate was a cruel and vicious wench.

Elsewhere, a grimacing Peter Pettigrew cinched off the stump of his left arm, Transfigured a block of wood into a passable prosthetic, and practiced the false face he would wear on his way out of Britain. To keep his mind off the pain, even through the anesthetic potion he'd been skimming off of his "Lord's" weekly ration for months, he ran through his plan to Confound, Obliviate, and Imperius the Muggle workers into letting him on a plane to the United States. From there, he'd disappear into the morass of Californian cults and mystics, with that state's infamous hands-off attitude toward preying on Muggles so long as you never attracted too much attention from Muggle authorities... and once he'd squeezed enough money from the rubes, who knew? Maybe he could pass himself off as a powerful and mysterious last heir of a lost line - worked for Tommy Riddle, after all...

Speaking of Tom-Tom, he could almost feel sorry for the poor bastard... if his arm didn't hurt quite so much. But really, what did the idiot expect? That Peter's "undying loyalty" had meant any more towards him than it had toward James? Oh, he'd been afraid of him, all right. He'd been afraid of Sirius, too - it didn't take a genius to know James's mad dog would go even madder without his master to bring him to heel. At the time, however, he'd been more afraid of the Dark Lord. This time, he was more afraid of the rising boy, who had a ludicrous knack for escaping unimaginable danger unscathed, than the fallen Dark Lord. Let him chew on Riddle for a little - long enough to let a man put an ocean between them before the boy could remember pathetic Peter Pettigrew.

It was easy to stay one step ahead of the devil when you always had another soul for Him to claim for His own.

Author's Note: The power the Dark Lord knows not: Pettigrew's eternal treachery.

Recommended: RobSt's Knowledge Is Power, which has the nuttiest version of the resurrection going awry for Voldemort that you will ever see. Guaranteed.