The Schemes of VoldeBaby

*** Riddle Manor, several days ago, (before narrative present)

Barty Crouch Jr nursed the Voldemort-baby, as his infantile master mulled over his plan.

Voldemort knew he needed the blood of his arch-enemy for his chosen ritual to work. The only three whom he thought would work would Albus Dumbledore, Arcturus Black and Harry Potter. The first two were highly dangerous wizards, and while he could probably beat them at his peak, in his current form, he was useless and Barty, despite his astuteness and considerable duelling prowess would be about as good as a sack of potatoes in front of the wizened wizards. Not to mention, Dumbledore and Black were both in Hogwarts with no real way to lure them out of the castle.

This left only Harry Potter as a possibility, though the Potter boy was also in the castle, he would be the easiest to lure out of it.

Voldemort flicked through several hundred ideas per second to lure out the Potter Heir, each as implausible as the next.

Voldemort cursed his lack of power at that particular moment, he was immensely grateful to have a competent minion in Barty but he missed the great monies of his Pureblood lords, his dueling powerhouses in the form of Avery and Bella, his hundreds of minions and most of all, his own body and power.

Still, Voldemort narrowed down his ideas quickly. He surmised that the quickest way to get the boy to himself would be through the Triwizard tournament somehow. Perhaps through creating a portkey in the form of the cup at the end, he could probably imperious one of the sponsors, maybe the Chess representative.

The harder part would be to rig the goblet to spit out Potter's name in the first place. He was apparently one of the favorites for the Hogwarts champion position but Voldemort wasn't one to leave his plans to chance, he would have to find some way to rig the goblet in the next couple days.

Voldemort wished for the utmost time that he had a foothold within the castle, he wasn't sure exactly how much he could trust Severus Snape, and he wouldn't risk being sold out to Dumbledore and being entirely done for. The Head of Slytherin, with his mastery of Occlumency, was too slippery to be trusted, a true Slytherin.

He had hoped to plant Barty in the castle as the Defence professor but that plan was thwarted by that damn Black who had managed to circumvent his curse entirely, and he would be unable to place such a curse on the position without intimate contact with the castle and a ward-stone to connect to.

He briefly considered attempting an exorcism of Binns but decided that not only did he not have the resources for that, but it would make Dumbledore insanely suspicious.

No, he had to go inside Hogwarts himself for his plan to come even remotely close to working.

He would need a homunculus.

This led him back to his original problem.

To acquire a homunculus, he would need Potter's blood.

To get Potter's blood, he would need to acquire a homunculus.

He was stuck in circular thinking. Voldemort berated himself, he had to plan with what he had, it was how he had become so big in the first place.

Voldemort wondered whether a transfigured body would work.

He remembered his own research into alchemy, which was basically what he'd be attempting with the ritual.

The main advantage of alchemically transmuted objects over the same transfigured objects are the magical properties. Transmutation not only keeps all magical abilities, it is also immune to magic and never reverts back to its original form.

Still, he didn't need the transfiguration to last forever, if Crouch could power it properly, he could stick his own soul into the damn thing temporarily. What he needed to work out was whether his magic would transfer over with him, because that would be integral to his plan.

Furthermore, he would need to be able to use his animagus ability to infiltrate the wards, one of the few weaknesses, and the only one he could exploit, in the wards.

Voldemort, with a little help from Crouch, worked out the complex arithmantic calculations of the possibility of the temporary homunculus.

Voldemort found that regular transfiguration wouldn't work for his needs, but he wasn't the greatest Dark Lord of the century just because of his (former) good looks and charm, his intelligence was second only to that of Dumbledore and possibly Black.

Voldemort managed to work out a partial alchemy that would suit his purposes, he wasn't an expert in the field of alchemy but he knew enough to get by. Transmuting an actual human body required great sacrifices and even his own final homunculus plan worked several integral parts of his body on enchantments and only used as much alchemy as strictly necessary to keep himself alive.

Voldemort devised a ritual to transmute basically only skin and bone, with the complexities of a real human body including the brain up to transfiguration and some short enchants which Crouch should be astute enough to manage.

Within a few short days, and a few dozen kilos of refined gold, and one spared 'bone of father' were used to create the temporary body of Lord Voldemort. Alchemy always struck Voldemort as an uncomfortably sentimental art. The one bone of father was probably worth more in this particular alchemy than all of the gold because of the emotional value it held (or should hold) to the father's son, in this case, Voldemort.

Voldemort took a few heaving breaths, straining his transfigured lungs uncomfortably. He had only a few hours to do this.

It was now or never.

With a crack, Voldemort was outside the gates of Hogwarts.

Voldemort turned to his animagus form, panicking when the transfigured parts of him groaned in protest at the re-transfiguration but finally managing to turn into the thin snake that was his animagus form.

He simply slithered through the gates of Hogwarts, altering the enchantment on the goblet to allow for four schools, after masterfully rerouting the alarm ward on the goblet to Dumbledore's very own phoenix-podium.

The Dark Lord entered the chit of paper, forcing the goblet to recognise it as a fourth school before exiting the premises victoriously.

His plan had worked!

Harry Potter would be in the Triwizard tournament.

As his homunculus fell apart in front of his very eyes, as Voldemort had just about managed to escape back into the Volde-baby body in time, he felt jubilant and surer than ever, that at this point next year, he would have his very own body.

*** End of Chapter