Disclaimer: I am not J. K. Rowling. I do not own Harry Potter.

Note: The following is another one-shot in my series which look at various ways in which the climax of the 1997-1998 Hogwarts year might have gone off the rails in various alternate universes. This one takes place in the aftermath of the Gringotts raid, where Harry is spying on Voldemort's mind to try to discover the location of what he believes will be the last horcrux.

"…Hogwarts! The last horcrux is…"

Harry trailed off and frowned. And then he asked:

"Hermione: What's 'the internet'? It's something muggle, and Voldemort thinks he's successfully managed to turn it into a horcrux to replace the diary."

Hermione blanched.

"It's the worldwide web, Harry. It's a network of computers all connected up to one another by telephone lines right around the globe."

"Computers?" Ron looked hopelessly at sea.

"They're sort of like electronic books. And the worldwide web is sort of like one gigantic library." Hermione sighed.

"Right: so we destroyed his diary, so he's put part of himself in a lot of special muggle books as a replacement?" Ron said haphazardly, clearly trying to get a grip on this latest development.

"Right." said Harry.

"And this thing is big – it's in countries all over the world in fact?" Ron continued.

"Right again." Hermione's sigh was even bigger this time.

"I think", said Ron, slowly, "we're going to need a different plan to trying to destroy these things ourselves."

Author Notes:

Obviously Harry gets the information about what he's expecting to be the last horcrux is something hidden at Hogwarts, and then gets the bad news that actually there's another one in the way, now, too.

For the record, I suspect that contrary to what Voldemort believes, he hasn't managed to turn the whole internet into a horcrux, in this story, but simply inserted a bit of his soul into it, where it goes squirming round, from server to server, always on the move... Still, Ron, Harry, and Hermione don't know that - all they know is that they're suddenly looking at a task seemingly impossibly huger than the one that they were already having trouble completing. Another 'golden trio' major argument/falling-out is likely in the works.

This story is a one-shot.