Year Two - Chapter 7

Exile

Late that night, deep within the Forbidden Forest, a shadowy figure glided towards the dormant snake. Its cold, dark presence awakened the snake, the evil of the figure's presence fueling it with power. It slithered out, moving towards the castle. The figure merely watched as the snake made its way out of the Forest.

When the two Potters woke up, they took Luna and went to breakfast. When they arrived, they found that there were a half-dozen people missing from the Great Hall.

"I've got a bad feeling about this." Harry muttered. Hermione giggled at the familiar quote. Harry shook his head. "Come on, let's check out the Hospital Wing."

Harry's suspicions were confirmed when the six missing students were all lying on their beds, showing the exact same symptoms that Colin had showed. "We've got to find a way to cure this sickness." Hermione whispered.

"You're wrong." Luna said pleasantly. "It's not really a sickness, so much as a transformation. You need to find the source of it."

"What do you mean? How do you know? What's the source?" Hermione asked.

Luna shrugged. "Don't know. I just know that this is intentional and that something is changing within them."

Harry was worried. It was her Judge powers that had enabled her to find that little bit of information. It would take something with an incredible amount of power to hide something from her. He could do it, should he try, but if there was something out there with the kind of power that he had access to…

He was pulled from his musings when Hermione asked: "-think?"

"What?" Harry asked.

"What do you think the source could be?" She asked again.

"Um… I'm not sure. Since I don't know what is happening, I'm not sure what it could be. If Luna said that someone is causing this, then I'm sure it's true. All we know is that, when someone acquires whatever this is, they go catatonic."

"True. I don't really want to make decisions without all of the facts." Hermione said thoughtfully.

"They are all in danger." Luna stated.

They moved closer to the unconscious students when Harry began to hear a very quiet sound. If his hearing hadn't been enhanced by his magic, he probably wouldn't have noticed. It was a faint hissing, coming only from Colin.

"Can you hear that?" Harry asked.

"Hear what?" Hermione asked, confused.

"I'm not sure. I can hear a hissing coming from Colin." Harry explained. "Here." He waved his wand to temporarily enhance Hermione and Luna's hearing.

"I still don't hear anything." Hermione said.

"Me neither." Luna said. "But you are hearing it. Strange."

"Why don't we go look this up?" Hermione asked.

Harry suddenly had a thought. It had happened before. He'd heard noises in his second year last time too. He had been able to hear the basilisk, even though no one else had heard anything. He knew there were sub-vocal aspects of Parseltongue, but… If the boy was somehow speaking Parseltongue, he would be moving his lips and he would have been able to hear what the boy was saying, not just a hissing noise.

"I think it might have something to do with Parseltongue…" Harry said quietly.

"We should look into that." Hermione said, thoughtfully.

"Let me try something." Harry said. He ran back to Colin.

"Wake up!" He said in Parseltongue. The boy's eyes shot open. As Harry turned to walk away, the boy fell into a normal sleep, obviously drained, but still fine. The hissing had quieted, but was still present.

"He's fine." Luna said after waving her wand over the boy. "He's just tired. It seems that whatever you did woke him up."

"So apparently, Parseltongue wakes them up. Weird. I'll tell Madam Pomfrey that I have a way to wake them up. I don't think that I want everyone to know that I can speak to snakes."

"Why don't we make sure that it works on all of them?" Hermione suggested.

Harry shrugged, walked over to another student and tried again. "Wake Up." Nothing happened.

"What?" Harry said, confused.

"Maybe it only works after a certain period of time." Hermione suggested.

"All right. I'll go talk to Madam Pomfrey and explain that Colin is awake." Harry said. "Afterwards, I think that I'm going to deal with Dumbledore." As he walked into the Healer's office, a massive snake slithered away, heading back to the Forbidden Forest.

Harry decided that he would challenge Dumbledore to a duel. The terms would be that Harry would surrender his emancipation if he lost, while Dumbledore would swear to stop trying to manipulate Harry from afar. Dumbledore had accepted the terms. The duel was that night, on the roof of the school. Dumbledore had wanted to have it in the Great Hall, but Harry wanted to keep it away from the other students. He had a feeling that this battle would be intense.

The only ones that were present were Harry, Hermione, Luna, Dumbledore, McGonagall and Flitwick. They bowed to each other, then began. Dumbledore smirked. There was no chance that he could be defeated by a mere second year, no matter who it was. He fired off a barrage of stunners simultaneously, a solid wall of red light speeding towards Harry. With the Elder Wand in his possession, he could perform such feats. The Wand was the main reason that he'd been able to fight against Tom and not die, but Voldemort didn't know that.

Harry's wand tip glowed as he swung it in a circle around him. A dome of light enveloped him. The red wall smashed into the barrier and the two canceled themselves out. Harry fired off two jets of white flame. Dumbledore didn't even move and the bolts shot off into the empty space behind him.

"You should just give up now, Harry!" Dumbledore said with a chuckle. "Your aim is so bad that I didn't even need to block!" He felt an intense heat coming from behind him. He turned and fired off a massive wave of water. But it didn't stop the creatures made of blue fire.. The flame beasts smashed through the water, turning orange as the heat decreased. They smashed into Dumbledore, whose robes caught on fire. He bit back a scream as he put them out with a wave of his wand.

"I can't believe that you didn't expect that." Harry chuckled. "And you're considered one of the best duelists of the age."

Dumbledore was consumed with rage. He fired off a stream of black light at Harry. As he moved his wand, the beam moved as well, enabling him to manipulate the path of the deadly spell. Harry watched as the almost unblockable spell flew towards him. He thought of a half dozen ways that he could get rid of the spell, but decided to simply absorb it with his watch. Dumbledore laughed as the spell hit Harry, but was stunned when the boy was completely unharmed.

"That was a very Dark spell, Headmaster." Harry chided. "You shouldn't be using such magic." He sent a shockwave through the air towards the old man.

"I will use whatever magic I choose for the greater good." Dumbledore said, blocking the air attack.

"You don't even know what good is! You've lost sight of your path!" Harry shouted. He absorbed another Dark curse from the old man before firing off a jet of indigo light.

Dumbledore deflected the jet of light into the ground. The stone liquefied instantly, with cracks forming along the surface of the stone. Dumbledore waved his wand to repair the roof, before he had no more ground to stand on. Then, Harry was on him. His wand was replaced with the shining Sword of Gryffindor. He clove straight through Dumbledore's wand and deep into his left hand. He returned the wand to its normal state, so the power of the Elder Wand would be drained into his own.

Dumbledore was furious as Harry did that, ignoring his wound. "You idiotic child! I'll kill you! You'll regret ever opposing me!" He pulled another wand from within his robes and sent a whip of flame at Harry. However, the whip shot past him, towards Hermione and Luna. Dumbledore obviously intended to cut through all three of them at once.

Harry didn't give him the opportunity. He Apparated behind Hermione and caught the whip of flame in his hand, before it could reach her. Sparks of deadly golden light sparked from Harry's hand, as swirling power enveloped him. The whip of flame was consumed by golden light that streaked towards Dumbledore, pouring into his wand, which exploded. He stalked towards the old man, rage literally burning in his eyes. Space seemed to distort around him as he released his power. Dumbledore stared in horror as the young man approached.

"How dare you." Harry said, eerily calm. "You, the self-proclaimed Leader of the Light, attacking innocent schoolgirls! You were supposed to teach them, not kill them! Your job was to protect them." He took a deep breath. "It is decided. You cannot be redeemed. I, Lord Harry James Potter, Heir to the Four Founders and Master of Hogwarts hereby strip Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore of his rights as Headmaster. Hereafter, you will never set foot within Hogwarts again!"

Dumbledore fell back as power drained out of him. A massive portion of the old man's magic had been power that he had been draining from the school. As Headmaster, he had had the right to utilize magic from the school if necessary to protect the students, but he was not supposed to keep draining power from the castle for his own gain. As Dumbledore stumbled back another step, he found himself outside the gates of the school, which slammed closed.

After witnessing this, the dark figure vanished. The area around it instantly warmed as its evil aura was removed. Its black cloak fell to the ground and crumbled into dust before vanishing.

Don't worry, we haven't seen the last of the old fart. There is a lot of bashing for the Dumbles left.

I wonder if anyone will guess what the figure is. If you've read the books or seen the movies, you might be able to guess. Hint, it's not Voldy.

I want to know what people think about the details I've given on the Virus.

Please review!