HOGWARTS, CHAMBER OFF THE GREAT HALL / SEPULCHER

The stage is blackened by shadow, but not entirely. We are looking at a single vast room inside Hogwarts, a chamber off the Great Hall. Its walls angle to the back of the stage, foreshortening the space so the room appears very long. It is empty. Rectangles of discoloration line the walls where portraits once hung. A cold fireplace lies dormant.

Then a single torch bracket flickers with golden fire. We see that the room, this hollow, haunted space is not, in fact, empty. In the center of it is a tall, monolith shrouded in a dark sheet that moves subtly, almost seeming to breathe. A second torch bracket on the opposite side comes alive with flame. And suddenly a hooded man appears on the stage, hidden beneath a silvery translucent fabric – an Invisibility Cloak. The hood is lowered and we see that it is HARRY.

He pulls off his cloak, folds it, and places it carefully on the stone floor along with the worn square of parchment he had been holding – the Marauder's Map. HARRY looks around the room with a serious expression. He raises his wand ominously as he steps further into the sepulcher. Two more torch brackets alight on their own from either wall. This continues. One by one, they illuminate the space with dim firelight. HARRY stares at the curious, covered object as each step brings him closer.

Behind HARRY, a grumpy-looking house-elf dressed in loincloth lurches to the doorway - KREACHER. He enters the room — slightly unsure — then snaps his little fingers and, at once, the rest of the torches burst with flame. HARRY swivels back, pointing his wand. He lowers it and nods. HARRY was expecting this.

KREACHER (with a bow, croaking and muttering): They told me it was you. Kreacher didn't think Master would be so stupid as to trespass in the dead of night, no, Kreacher did not. "Master knows the house-elves run this castle," Kreacher said. Wanted to prove them wrong. But here Master is — in the one room no wizard would dare enter since the Battle of Hogwarts, in which Harry Potter and Dumbledore's Army won the day. Nor are they permitted, except the Headmistress.

HARRY stows his wand and half smiles

HARRY: I thought I'd be seeing you.

KREACHER: Kreacher has done as Master requested. It is Kreacher's job to guard the chamber off the Great Hall, once a storage room for holiday decorations and meeting hall for Triwizard Champions. Now, a sepulcher for the dead but not forgotten. No, never forgotten. Kreacher would much rather be cleaning and keeping Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, but Master sent him to Hogwarts... sent Kreacher far away from his mistress.

The house-elf steps forward, his small face brightens.

Has Master come to deliver Kreacher back to Master's house?

HARRY (looking regretful): I'm sorry, Kreacher. I had no use for it.

KREACHER (with a choking cough): Master sold Grimmauld Place! Oh, poor mistress. That property was never to leave the Noble House of Black. Mistress will never forgive Kreacher —

HARRY: You needn't be concerned. I passed the home down to a distant relative. A Lestrange squib.

KREACHER: Then mistress will not be so displeased. Kreacher thanks Harry Potter for such news.

KREACHER tilts his head curiously.

What has he come for, Kreacher wonders?

HARRY glances back at the covered monolith, looking afraid for the first time. There is a gap in the fabric... A gap through which is visible... a glorious blue light...

HARRY: Am I really the first to have visited the sepulcher in these many years?

KREACHER (he nods): No more than a few mischievous students a decade ago. Kreacher stopped them, Kreacher did.

HARRY: I have to see him. (beat) Are you going to stop me?

KREACHER studies HARRY's face and sees the sincerity he needs to see.

KREACHER: While Kreacher dislikes blood traitors such as Master, Harry Potter is certain to have Kreacher's best interests at heart.

KREACHER nods. HARRY approaches the monolith. He stands a moment more and examines it. A soft and disturbing melody is heard through the silence, like a few voices singing a chorus out of sync. HARRY raises a tentative hand. Many sobering thoughts give him pause before he takes hold of the fabric. Suddenly, a long shadow casts over him. HARRY turns to see it precede the arrival of a great, big man with a long and grizzled, salt-and-pepper beard holding a lantern. It is HAGRID.

HAGRID appears in the doorway. He looks through with restraint. He enters the sepulcher. HAGRID looks left and right. And then he sees KREACHER. And KREACHER sees him. He sets down the lantern and removes a folded pink umbrella from his overcoat.

HAGRID: Who's there? Dunno what yeh're thinkin'. It's against school rules fer students ter be out o' bed this late. This room is off limits, strictly. Do yeh even know what's in here? This is where...

He squints, bewildered.

Harry?

HARRY: Hello, Hagrid.

HAGRID: What're yeh doin'?

HARRY (gesturing to the umbrella): Can't you get a proper wand now?

HAGRID: You step away from there. The less yeh 'ave ter do with tha', the happier yeh'll be.

HARRY: I... I have to see.

HAGRID moves into the room. He looks at HARRY, concerned.

HAGRID (in a harsh whisper): Why would yeh wanna do tha'?

HARRY: I don't want to, Hagrid. I need to.

HARRY steps forward decisively. He looks at them, they look back. HAGRID winces. With a forceful yank, HARRY pulls down the fabric to reveal a chilling sight. Hovering in an upright casket of glass, engulfed in a fog of neon blue light is the preserved corpse of LORD VOLDEMORT.

There's a moment of pure silence. All three of them breathe in and out. HAGRID turns towards the casket, scared. HARRY sees something he doesn't want to see.

HAGRID: Merlin's tooth! He hasn't aged a day.

HARRY lets the fabric fall from his hand. He looks at the body, dismayed. HARRY moves close to the glass and inspects every detail. Thinking deeply, he stares at the blue light around VOLDEMORT. It's almost an aura. HARRY looks down, wearily.

HARRY (now supremely confused): This doesn't make sense. He can't be here.

HAGRID: Why's tha', Harry? Don' we want 'im 'ere?

HARRY: Yes. It's... hard to explain.

HAGRID: I seen what yeh been havin' ter do, Harry. No wonder yeh've come. With all Percy's bin goin' on 'bout lately — an' the Daily Prophet, o' course — yeh should take 'im on a ruddy parade. That'll shut 'em up.

HARRY: That's not why I'm here, Hagrid.

Harry walks back to his cloak and map. He picks them up and stands, a thousand thoughts whir inside his head.

HAGRID: Harry, I haven' seen yeh like this since... Well, I don' think I've ever seen yeh like this. Yeh almost look like Dumbledore, back when he was runnin' things. Always walkin' round late at night. "Can' sleep, Rubeus," he'd say. "'S not fair ter have nice dreams when summat's gone wrong with Voldemort again." Actually, I think I got tha' wrong. I was never very good with words, sayings an' tha'. Not like Dumbledore. Great man, Dumbledore.

HAGRID tilts his immense head downward, inspecting the shapes that the stones make in the floor, doing whatever he can to avoid looking at VOLDEMORT's floating body. KREACHER stomps past HARRY. He mutters to himself as he straightens out the fabric sheet.

Funny how Dumbledore was always so sure of Voldemort comin' back. 'Course, no one would listen, see. Now tha' he's gone fer good, no one believes. 'S like there's no truth at all. Nothin' but lies, stories. They wanna be scared, I think. (beat) Why're yeh here, Harry? Why'd yeh need ter see 'im?

HARRY: Because of how these stories began, Hagrid. The wizard who convinced Percy claimed to have seen Voldemort.

HAGRID: Tha's jus' a lie. Percy should know better than ter scare so many people. An' the children. The Minister's not s'posed ter lie!

HARRY: That's what I thought. Then the same wizard tracked me down, made me read his mind.

HAGRID: Did, did he? And?

HARRY: It was Justin Finch-Fletchley. He saw Voldemort walking the streets with high-ranking members of the Tempest. Alive, at least through magic. Which is why I'm here. And why I'm even more confused. (HARRY turns to face VOLDEMORT) I knew that the only possible way to see Voldemort up and walking would be if they stole his body and turned him into an Inferius. But the body never left Hogwarts, so I am at a loss.

HAGRID: A bewitched corpse?

HARRY: I can't think of any other reason. Voldemort can't be back. We destroyed all the Horcruxes. Dumbledore couldn't have been wrong. I felt it — in my scar (HARRY touches his forehead, questioning his own convictions) — he was killed.

HAGRID: We were all there, Harry. He died. That's why we kept his body, is'n' it? As a reminder.

HARRY: Then what did I see, Hagrid — if it wasn't an Inferius?

HAGRID (shrugs his big shoulders): Well, maybe it still was.

HARRY: How is that possible?

HAGRID: Them Tempest folk jus' used his other body, I reckon.

HARRY (taken aback): What?

HAGRID: The other body. Yeh know, the firs' one.

Beat. HARRY doesn't understand this at all.

HARRY: What — are you talking about?

HAGRID: This is'n' the only body of Voldemort.

HARRY (losing patience): Hagrid, you aren't making sense!

HAGRID: Seen it, didn't I? He was lyin' next to yer mother. Next to yer crib, after Sirius Black left me tha' motorcycle... when he went off ter find Pettigrew. I stood there, holding yeh — little baby Harry — in me arms. I looked down an' seen 'im, jus' as dead as tha' thing in the box.

HARRY (thoroughly discombobulated): Hang on, so you're saying... (beat, he nods to himself) Of course! Why did I never think of that before? When Voldemort came back after the Triwizard Tournament, that was not the same body. It couldn't have been. He was born from my blood.

HARRY hesitates and then makes brave eye contact with HAGRID, whose face changes as he takes in enormous information.

"Blood of the enemy forcibly taken. You will resurrect your foe." They used my blood, which is ultimately why he couldn't kill me. My mother's blood, and her sacrifice, was running through his veins, tethering me to life. So, that body — this body — was a replacement. Voldemort's original body must have been what Justin saw that day. It really was an Inferius. (beat) Then... if that's the case, what ever happened to his original body?

HAGRID: Only person who knew is gone, I'm 'fraid.

HARRY turns his attention back to the body of LORD VOLDEMORT.

HARRY (contemplative): Dumbledore.

Hagrid nods.

HAGRID: Took the body into hidin', wha' I recall. Maybe fer this very reason. No one knows where it went.

HARRY's face falls with every word.

HARRY: Well, someone knew. If I can find where the body was hidden all those years, I might find the ones responsible for bringing it back to life.

HAGRID: Back ter life? But it wouldn' be You-Know-Who now, would it?

HARRY: No, but it might be enough to gather an army of followers who believe it is. Darkness is coming, Hagrid. I can feel it. And if I don't locate the Tempest quickly, they'll use the animated corpse of Lord Voldemort to start a new wizarding war. I have to stop them.

HAGRID: And how're yeh plannin' ter do tha'?

HARRY: I wish I knew.

KREACHER has finished laying out the sheet. Wheezing and muttering furiously, he snaps his fingers. The fabric rises to cover the glass casket. And the torch lights go out.

Cut to black