A/N: FINAL CHAPTER TIME! Will good triumph over evil? Will I remember the storyline? Will Lord of the Net and three of the Eight be okay? Will the other five-eighths of the Eight fix the computer? Will Harry, Ron and Hermione escape from Voldemort? Will Voldemort finally bite the proverbial bullet? Will there be another sequel? Will I ever get on with this story before I start on another? Answers to all these questions and more in [and after]:
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Harry Potter
Lord of the Net
THE RETURN
Chapter 5: Endgame
'RUN!' Harry shouted as a red beam shot from the main cavern into the smaller one that held Voldemort's lair and the trio's hiding place, as the beam hit Harry dove into a small gap as the ceiling began to let loose small rocks, across the room he saw Hermione and Ron also dive. This is something else Ron had said, and while Harry hadn't liked it then he definitely didn't like it now, if this wasn't the other exit from the caves then where was it? And why hadn't anyone on the outside tried to get back in? Had the Stunning Curse actually hit them all?
* * *
In the hospital wing Stephen awoke with a sudden gasp as the cure for the stunner was administered, not actually having total control over his eyes meant that they whirled around the room but eventually he focused on an elderly witch who was sitting beside Wes. 'Enervate' she spoke and with a similar gasp Wes awoke as Stephen had earlier.
'Um…excuse me?' he said to the witch, 'but where am I?'
'You are in the hospital wing of Hogwarts Academy,' replied Madam Pomfrey as she moved beside Katy's bed and held her wand ready for the charm, 'you arrived by stretcher a few moments ago.'
'By…stretcher? Okay.'
'Yes, it was rather a surprise for me too, then I realised you must be the Muggle children who Albus and Mysis are trying to save, as well as Mr. Potter, honestly the scrapes he gets into. He was here about half an hour before you, then he runs off to Mysis's office without a word.' Preparing the charm again she turned back to Stephen to continue discussing Harry's mischief but the bed was empty, leaving only a barely conscious Wes to look at her with bemused puzzlement on his face. 'I suppose you'll want to know where you are now as well?'
* * *
'Monitor up!'
'How did you do that?'
'Well as hitting didn't work I threatened it with this vase of water.'
'Funny.'
'Thank you, I kicked it.'
'Will you please stop kicking the computer, not the least cos we're under it!'
'Look at the code, it's definitely a reducing algorithm.'
'Reducing to what?'
'Zero obviously.'
'Nobody likes a smart-alec.'
'Hey, it's just a guess, my speciality are hard drives, speaking of which…'
'What…?'
'Well it should be switching on.'
'What haven't you plugged in now?'
'Well it isn't a thingummy let me tell you that!'
'Quit with the thingummy accusations will you?'
'Fine, let's just get this up.'
'Suits me.'
'And me! I've cracked the code.'
'Excellent! Now we just need to wait for the hard drive to boot up and we can go.'
'Shouldn't the computer be booted up before the monitor can be on?'
'Yeah…but…'
'Are you saying we don't need to change anything down here?'
'It's a wizard computer, of course it can be both of and on!'
'And you know that for sure?'
'Well it's not letting us enter the code, it says hard drive down!'
'FINE! Just fix the hard drive and we can go – like I said.'
'Right, all we need to do is plug in the thingamajig and then we can.'
'THINGAMAJIG!'
'You two aren't on that again?!'
'I mean plug the damned plug in!'
'What plug, there's about twenty under here!'
'You mean this plug,' Stephen said as he connected the hard drive up to the mains, and with a hum the system came online. 'And Mark – thingamajig – we need to have a word.'
'Yeah, yeah, it's just nice to see you're okay.'
'I've got the code entered,' Katy said as Stephen leaned over the desk to look down on Mark, 'we should get that icon back any second.'
'Let's just hope were we quick enough,' James said to Dumbledore and Mysis who had been watching on the whole time in silence.
* * *
Inside the cave Harry was almost choking on the dust and was preparing for a mad dash out the exit when a teasing and malicious voice shouted through; 'Hello Potter! I know you and your friends are in there – ready to die yet?'
'Drop dead!' Ron shouted out towards the voice.
'Too late for that Ronald!' Voldemort shouted back shrilly, 'I already have done once, but this time it's your turn…'
'MOVE RON!' Harry bellowed and as his friend dove out from cover a vicious red beam sliced apart the alcove he had been sheltering in a second before hand, thinking quickly Harry also dove from his cover as the beam began to move over to where Voldemort guessed his voice had come from. 'We need a plan,' he muttered to his friends as he landed beside Hermione's hiding spot where Ron had also finished his dive, 'any ideas?'
'You're the brains of the operation aren't you?' Ron said as a new dust cloud began to fall from the ceiling onto them.
'Yeah,' Hermione agreed, 'I mean, you've done this before haven't you?'
'Done what?' Harry exclaimed, 'last time Sirius and Dumbledore and Arabella turned up to fight Voldemort, this time it's us!'
'I can see how this is different,' Hermione agreed in a strange tone, 'but you're still the one with first hand experience of being inside a computer game.'
'Yeah, but it's hardly like I can say 'I'll have a sword to fight him with' and have it appear in my hand!' he replied, waving his arm around when a blinding white flash lit the room.
'Do you think I could have a dragon to go with that?' Ron wondered as Harry stared in shock at the blade in his hand.
* * *
'Look at his face!' Ashley said, 'I'd laugh if this wasn't all so serious!' then she and Katy laughed anyway, following Stephen's lead, the three patients in the hospital wing had now joined Dumbledore, Mysis and the others in the room.
Sitting at the keyboard Stephen smiled, 'Pretty slick' Wes said over his shoulder, 'now how about we help them tie this up?'
'Hell yeah,' Stephen replied in agreement, 'do you think I should give him a dragon?'
'A large mirror would do the trick at the moment,' Dumbledore said as he stared at the pictures before him, somehow Stephen had managed to create multiple windows that showed larger images of what was happening in the caves.
'One mirror, coming right up,' Lord of the Net muttered to himself as he typed steadily on the keyboard.
* * *
'Just a small dragon would do?' Ron said suggestively to the air around him as if Stephen and the others were in the cave with him. Instead after another blinding flash he found a large mirror in his grasp. 'This is not what I had in mind!' he shouted to no one in particular.
'Ron!' Hermione fumed, 'stop thinking about using it on your hair and turn it to face the entrance.'
'Why?' asked Harry and Ron simultaneously, both still a bit puzzled by the appearance of the objects.
'You'll see,' she said cryptically as he turned it, then she shouted out the entrance, 'Oi Voldemort! Try and get me you great big bully!' then she dived behind the mirror.
'Not the best idea,' Harry said as she pulled him and Ron behind.
'YOU CURSED LITTLE MUGGLE HALFBLOOD WITCH! I'LL KILL YOU ALL FOR THAT!' and with powerful force another red beam shot into the cave, only to be sent back along the same path as it had originated from. Harry shut his eyes expecting a massive explosion or a great cry of pain from Voldemort as the curse hit him, instead all his brain processed was a deafening silence.
* * *
'Blip?! Is that all?' Mark said in disbelief.
'What did you expect?' Bandy said, 'a big fireball?'
'Well…yeah' he replied.
'Me too,' she agreed.
* * *
'I'm telling you that's all it was,' Ron argued with Hermione.
'Ron,' she said, fuming again, 'the most powerful evil wizard this century, and he disappears with a 'blip'!'
'Yeah, so what?!'
'BLIP what!'
While his friends argued in the background Harry moved outside of the cave to where Voldemort had obviously been standing when the beam had hit him. All that remained was the pointed hat he had worn and his broken wand, picking it up Harry looked inside to see the broken steam of a phoenix feather, the brother of which was in his wand. Oblivious to the chatter behind him Harry continued to examine the spot where Voldemort had fallen until a myriad of light patterns fell upon him and he saw the wall opposite begin to merge and shimmer as a new portal opened, out from it stepped Albus Dumbledore.
'Hello sir.'
'Harry.' Dumbledore replied the greeting formally. 'So this is where he fell?'
'Yeah'
'Not the exit he would have liked.'
'Doesn't bother me.'
For the first time in a while, Dumbledore smiled, 'I won't lose any sleep over it either.' With this he strolled past Harry and the arguing wizard and witch into the cavern that Hermione had earlier described as mission-control.
'What do you think sir?' Harry asked as he followed Dumbledore into the cave.
'Think?'
'About this place sir?'
'I think that that is a question that can never be answered, at least not by anyone I know.'
'What do you mean?'
'Well, unless anyone I know is a secret Death Eater in disguise, and admittedly there probably are a few,' he added his eyes twinkling, 'I doubt they would ever tell me what this is for.'
'So what now?'
'I suggest, we go home, and have a cup of nice cocoa with Stephen and 'The Eight', they are a colourful group and I would like to know them better, then I'll apparate them home and, well life will go on.'
'Life will go on?'
'Yes Harry,' Dumbledore said, letting a deep sigh of satisfaction escape from his lips, 'life will finally go on…'
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A/N: YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY! I finally finished and I hope you all liked it and enjoyed it and now I will answer the question that the story may or may not have answered for you, and the question concerns: a sequel. …Well the good news [if you liked this] is that I have an idea for a sequel in mind and while it won't involve Voldemort [yes he's gone at last] I have an idea that it will still satisfy. But before I go ahead and begin to write…I want some reviews – oh yes, you know they make me happy, and a happy Yoda is a creative Yoda. Keep on writing your own fics [and do email me at my address cos I don't have author alert anymore and can't afford the support services