Chapter Three: Into the Web
'Call me Stephen, Lord of the Net is for online…I suppose you want to get straight down to it then?'
'Yeah,' Harry followed the boy into his dimly lit house, past the kitchen and up a curving staircase, 'is anyone else at home?'
'Nah, mum and dad are at work, my brother's in a boarding school and went on holiday with friends, what about your family?' the question was innocent enough, but Harry bit his lip at this point.
What sounded better? My parents are dead actually and I live in Hell with my relatives, or my parents are both in a hospital for mental disorders and I live with my vulture-hat-wearing grandmother. Neither wanting to give details about his personal life or Neville's own, Harry picked on the Weasleys instead; 'they're all at home except for my two eldest brothers, they work in Egypt and Romania.' Inwardly sighing Harry almost walked into Stephen as he stopped to open a locked door, on it hung a cardboard sign reading 'Stephen's Room' in chunky wax crayon.
Harry followed into a small attic room that was crammed to the brim with computers, he heard the terminals buzzing from three units while the rest were powered down, gingerly stepping over cables he pulled out the letter and list that Dumbledore had sent him. Stephen sat down and flicked switches on one of the dormant machines, Harry sat down and listened as it eerily whirled to life in the small room, then turned his attention to Stephen, who had just swivelled in his chair to look at Harry. 'You're not really Neville Longbottom are you?' he had a shrewd look in his eyes, 'I know who you are, you're Harry Potter, you used to go to my school, everyone talked about you because of that Dudley Dursley kid.'
'My cousin, I actually live with my relatives, my parents…Dumbledore gave me Neville's name to contact you with.'
'I know, he wrote me yesterday to say he was 'owling' you?'
'Yeah, that means he sent me a message by owl, it was mine actually.'
'Oh…is that the list of contacts?' Harry glanced down at the list he forgot he held and handed it to Stephen, 'good, most of these names I already have, Dumbledore told me some of them to make a contact list. I've already messaged them telling them to be online in ten minutes, I can type in his message and they can all read it together.' As he spoke the computer behind him churned to life and the screen flickered on, already Harry saw they were connected to the internet, he watched with his mouth slightly agape as Stephen typed in the address of the chat site in about ten seconds. A few seconds later it appeared, and a list of bright red names appeared down the left hand side of the screen, followed by an equally long list of Hello's and Hi's on the main screen as the wizards all responded to Stephen logging on. Harry watched as the boy typed in a message that came up on the screen in a familiar green script:
Message from Dumbledore received, copying and transmitting as we speak.
'Can I have the message now Harry?' wordlessly Harry gave Stephen the script Dumbledore had sent him, then as the boy copied it out rapidly he returned his gaze to the screen and read some of the names. He recognised a few of them as being on his list, but there were so many others, he couldn't help but ask Stephen a question as he typed intensely.
'How did all these extra wizards get online?'
'It's all down to the main names Dumbledore gave me, I contacted them and they used friends all over the world…' he cut off as the PC beeped and a new message appeared from a MizFigg@hotmail.com, it read:
Snuffles says hi to Harry, and do come round for some cake later dear.
Harry gave a small chortle, then wondered how Sirius knew he was here, then he remembered Sirius had a separate agenda. 'Who's Snuffles?'
'My godfather, he was convicted for murdering 13 people after one of Voldemort's followers framed him, they also think he helped Voldemort murder my parents.'
'Wait, who's Voldemort?'
'Has no one told you? Oh, they probably refer to You-Know-Who, or He Who Must Not Be Named, he's the one we're fighting against.'
'Hold on, let me post the message, there's something familiar about that name, I don't like it.' Harry watched as with a beep Dumbledore's message was entered into the chat room, and slowly the list of names began to turn grey as the message was copied down and wizards left with goodbye's to Lord of the Net and Harry. As he watched Stephen brought up his list of contacts in a separate window, he hurriedly scanned down the list of over a hundred names, Voldemort, I've seen that somewhere, then something flashed on the main screen and his window popped shut. 'What the hell?'
'What's going on?'
'I dunno, I was scanning the list of contacts when it shut…on…' Stephen's sentence was left as his gaze refocused on the main screen, there among the continually greying list was a single blue name that was turning red slowly, letter by letter:
Tom Marv
'I know that name…' Harry muttered, scarcely breathing, a deep icy feeling in his gut, as he and Stephen watched as the name swapped letters with increasing speed:
Tom Marvolo Riddle
I am To Mrvolo Rddle
I am Lor To Mvlo Rdde
I am Lord Vol T Mo Rde
I am Lord Voldemort
Even as he read the words Harry was steeling himself for the inevitable shock that was bound to emerge, but nothing could have prepared him for the suddenness with which everything occurred. His scar suddenly erupted with such pain that he threw himself off the chair Stephen had given him, on the screen the Dark Mark had erupted into colourful glory as Voldemort's tag turned into an emblem of fiery letters. With fingers moving furiously over the keyboard Stephen was fighting with the machine code to break the virus that was in the chat room, he watched helplessly as all the grey names were now deleted, he was just thankful that he had a separate list on paper, Dumbledore had warned him against everything.
'To hell with this,' he shouted and turned instead to Harry who was now gasping from the pain as he sagged against one of the PC drives that were scattered about the room, ignoring the boy's protests he pulled Harry's hand away from his forehead and saw the scar was… 'Harry what's wrong, there's nothing going on with your scar?!'
'It burns underneath when Voldemort's…' Harry gasped but not from the pain, 'when he's nearby!' as he uttered the words Harry knew what had to be done, 'go, out, we've got to leave, he's here!'
'What, how can he be here?' Harry didn't know the answer to the question and at the moment he didn't care, he just wanted out from the house and threat zone, of course he wasn't the only one thinking that.
* * *
'What the hell is going on Arabella?' Sirius shouted as he saw the Dark Mark spring up on the screen and the names began disappearing from the list.
'It's Voldemort…Sirius he's on the net!'
'The what?' he was near hysterical now.
'The web, the internet, the net.' Furiously Arabella typed with her old fingers that seemed to have halved in their age, 'he's hacking into the addresses and finding out where they live, he's after everyone, I've go to log off.'
'Wait, did he find Harry and that Lord of the Net boy?' Sirius now had sheer panic o his face.
Quickly Arabella turned back to the screen, and saw that the glowing blue emblem of their host had disappeared, 'he took that one first Sirius.'
'Quick, where does the boy live? Dumbledore must have told you Arabella, where is he?'
Thinking along the same line as Sirius's ideas, Arabella shut down her PC and ran for the front door, 'Follow me' and from number sixteen, Privet Drive a large, black haired dog and silver streaked cat took off with such speed that they were gone from the street when the door slammed shut.
* * *
There was no more time for them to delay, and with surprising force Harry picked up Stephen by his shirt and dragged the poor boy to the door from the attic, waiting for it to open in the now scary silence, Harry's heart leapt into his mouth when he heard a drawn out;
Creeeeeeeeak!
Both boys looked at each other and Harry put a finger to his lips, that had come from the other side of the do- and with this the door promptly exploded inwards in a shower of splinters and chunks, sending both boys crashing into the stacks of spare parts lying around the room. Feeling a stinging Harry put a hand up to his right eye and felt a deep gash above it where a splinter had peeled back the skin, Stephen was unhurt but looked very shaken, it was lucky he had landed where all his free mousemats had gone, but then his attention was drawn elsewhere.
'Hello, Harry Potter and Lord of the Net…' the sibilant voice came from the shadowy form that now filled the space in the doorframe, and with cold dread in his stomach Harry saw the snakelike eyes and nose of Voldemort beneath the hood of his cloak, 'amazing what the internet can do for you, isn't it?'. With this he laughed coldly as he casually whipped out his wand and blew the PC that had been humming contentedly to pieces, 'my how clumsy of me, better get another one going Stephen, Imperio' and with this Harry watched as Voldemort puppet walked the dazed boy across the room, turning on the screen of one of the other computers. 'Good, now join Harry,' and with another casual flick the boy flew across the room and landed with a thud on Harry's feet, much to both their discomforts.
As the PC whirred its way to operational status, Harry found his voice as he lifted up Stephen beside him, 'What do you want scumbag? I thought you were finished with the little people, or is this another way to get cheap kicks out of death.' The remark was scornful as Harry reminded Voldemort that no matter what happened he could never live again, Harry and his mother had seen to that when he was a little baby, all those years ago. Instead of responding to the jibe though Voldemort turned his back on Harry and began humming as he typed away on the PC, Harry rolled his eyes as the dirge cut through, he had thought the Dark Wizard bad enough already, but to hum as he worked, he was sure he would go insane before he could be killed by Voldemort.
'Done,' Voldemort said, then turned to Harry and Stephen, 'are you boys comfortable there? What a shame, I'm about to make your lives much more interesting, catch!' and he threw a small black box at Harry. Instinctively he grabbed and felt Stephen's hand clasp over it as well, then a familiar tug grabbed Harry's belly, and as his mind began to whirl from the effects of the pseudo-Portkey, Harry's last vision was of the PC screen getting larger and larger until it swallowed him.
Smiling with a mixture of cruelty and joy, Voldemort apparated from the room as a scrabbling sound echoed from the staircase and a cat and dog emerged into the dimly lit room, until Sirius swept up the blinds with one swift movement. All he saw was the empty room, and then the computer beeped suddenly, he and Arabella turned to the screen with apprehensive feelings.
UPLOAD COMPLETE: NEW SYSTEM, BEGIN PROGRAM?
Below the words was a small icon, not of the Dark Mark, but a tiny red scar…
'We're too late.' Arabella whispered.
A/N: If you can figure out what's happened now then you should take all the credit in the world, post your guesses for next chapter title and content and we'll see if you're right real soon.