For disclaimer, see chapter one. For fiction of great literary worth, look elsewhere.

Oh yes, and while I'm writing this, I realize that I have no idea what time frame I'm working with. Voldermort has been restored to his body, so that would put it at book four, and Harry and Co. are in Grimmauld Place, which might put it at the beginning of book five. Any other attempts to define its boundaries are then left floundering at the deep end of unnamed cess pools.

It's not worrying me too much though. If it worries you, please, take some Happy Pills and chant a mantra or two.

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Harry climbed down the stairs, rubbing the scar on his forehead and frowning. He'd had an odd nightmare, and the sound of ten thousand feet pounding against the earth kept ringing in his ears. He wondered if Fred or George had managed to slip anything into his pumpkin juice the night before, while everyone was feeling particularly exuberant about the fact that Voldermort had been keeping a low profile for two whole weeks. Now, as his scar continued smarting, he couldn't help but wonder despondently if that had been the calm before the storm.

Hearing Snape's voice in the kitchen seemed to confirm his worst fears. Taking a deep breath, he entered the kitchen and waited for the hushed silence to fall.

"Morning." He mumbled, flopping into a chair next to Sirius and reaching for a piece of toast.

"Morning, Harry dear, how are you?" Mrs. Weasley bustled over and poured Harry some piping hot tea.

"Why is he here?" Harry asked, looking at Snape, who bristled.

"I do not have to account my business to you, Potter." He spat.

"So there's no particular reason why my scar hurts this morning then?"

A second hushed silence fell over the kitchen. Tonks stopped trying out different hair colours. Lupin stopped stirring his tea. Sirius stopped rustling his newspaper in irritation at Snape's presence. Mrs. Weasley stopped bustling around. Mr. Weasley stopped whistling. Snape stopped scowling.

"Your scar what?" Lupin asked.

"Hurts." Harry replied, digging into his toast. He was feigning nonchalance, because nonchalance seemed to be the only way to get anyone to tell him anything. Sure enough, Lupin exchanged a meaningful look with Sirius, who then cleared his throat and turned to Harry.

"Sometime last night, Snape's scar turned jet black." Sirius began.

"Snape has a scar?" Harry wondered, raking Snape's forehead with his eyes. There was nothing there but beads of sweat and wrinkles of anger. Then comprehension dawned on Harry. "Oh. It's not really a scar, is it?"

"It is a scar!" Snape burst. "It was burnt into us! Burnt!"

"Clearly, you have issues." Sirius said flippantly. He turned back to Harry. "We think Voldermort may be stirring again. We'll have to step up the watch. We don't know where he'll come from, or what he'll do."

Mrs. Weasley hustled past with a tea cloth, making clicking noises that sounded highly disapproving.

"What are we going to do?" Harry asked.

"Nothing." Mrs. Weasley interrupted. "Nothing. Nothing at all. You will go back to Hogwarts in two weeks, and you will study hard, and you will get excellent grades, and you will not get yourself and your friends into trouble or any sort of mortal danger." She paused to take a breath and glower a little. "Do we understand each other?"

Harry nodded quickly as everyone went back to doing their own things. Snape got up and swept off with much billowing of the cloak before the other children of Grimmauld Place began to descend into the kitchen with muffled yawns and subdued 'good morning's.

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Voldermort drummed his fingernails against the arm of his throne, humming in the manner that makes pretty spring birds want to migrate to some place very far away. It was a new throne, and an entirely uncomfortable one. He'd only been sitting in it for two days and already his lower back was trying to mutiny.

Voldermort wasn't worried though. Even his body parts didn't have the guts to question his authority, no pun intended.

He drummed his fingernails some more. This had a strangely soothing effect on his soul. Or lack thereof. Therefore, he immediately stopped drumming his nails and contemplated actually chopping the tips of his fingers off, but common sense and the dislike of any pain caused to himself prevented him from following through with that train of thought. He did, however, have to set a good example for his Death Eaters to follow.

Speaking of Death Eaters, here came one now.

Followed by another.

Followed by a third.

As the rest of his Death Eaters apparated into place, Voldermort smiled. They were all very late, but this was a bad thing, and was therefore excusable. Wormtail came into the throne room, dragging with him something that squeaked under a cloth cover.

"Where is Malfoy?" Voldermort asked after it because apparent that Malfoy was not among the very-late crowd.

"Here, master." Malfoy zipped in upon a broomstick, followed closely by his son. As it happened to be pouring outside, they were both drenched and considerably disheveled. "My apologies. My son is not yet capable of Apparation, and besides, we might catch pneumonia, which is bad, and therefore I trust it will be pleasing to you, my lord."

Voldermort settled back into his throne (his lower back cricked unhappily) and waited for his other Death Eaters to stop giving Malfoy death glares. Malfoy ignored them pointedly as he started to steam dry his son with his wand.

"Now that we are all gathered here, you know our purpose. What have you brought for me? Avery?"

"A computer virus, my lord!" Avery lay a diskette at Voldermort's feet. "This virus is particularly vile. Not only does it cause your computer to crash, but it also seeks out all your beloved files and folders (for example, movie screen caps, thirty chapter fics, cherished IM conversations) and turns them into gibberish before replicating itself and sending itself to all the friends in your address book! There is no cure!"

"Except, wizards and witches don't actually use computers, do they?"

Avery glared around the room, challenging the owner of the question to own up. But it was too late.

"TO WAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRR!!!"

"MacNair?"

"Master, I bring you a Stalker!Bug." MacNair said. He produced a tiny glass cylinder from his pocket and laid it down next to the virus. "It is truly a demonstration of how evil Mother Nature can get. This Stalker!Bug is no ordinary insect. It may be smaller than the eye of a needle, but it is cunning, swift and stealthy. It stalks its prey with undiminished determination, weaving its way about a person's hair but always staying just out of the range of the person's view. That is, until it zooms in for the kill and proceeds to suck the life blood out of its prey, rendering the prey as dead and a doornail. The Stalker!Bug multiplies at a rate of twenty thousand offspring per month!"

Voldermort summoned the glass cylinder to himself and inspected the bug. It certainly looked harmless, but Voldermort could see, and at this a delicious thrill of horror crept down his spine, that its mouth was nothing but a continuously moving circle of razor sharp teeth.

He was impressed, but chose not to say so. "Nott?"

"My lord, I. I." Nott wrung his hands nervously, eyes darting back and forth. "I tried a great many things! Poisons, swords, the occasional nuclear weapon. But none of them. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!"

Voldermort waited for someone to finish rolling the mutilated and charred carcass of Nott into another room. He had no patience with those who could not follow orders.

"Wormtail?"

With a flourish, Wormtail uncovered a cage of squeaking mice. An unpleasant odour pervaded the room. No, that was an understatement. Someone leaned bent over and retched.

"Rats, my lord! Thousands and thousands, millions and millions of rats, all under my command and therefore under yours! With these rats, we can infect the entire globe! Disease! Plague! None will be spared!"

"You're salivating, Wormtail. Do get a grip."

"Pardon, master. I just get so excited sometimes." The little man wiped his chin with the back of his hand. "What do you think, master?"

"It will not do." Voldermort sighed. "But at least you have tried your best. However, lest Avery accuse me of favouritism."

"TO WAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRR!!!"

"And you, Rookwood?"

Rookwood came forward with a small black jewelry box. He laid it next to the glass cylinder containing the Stalker!Bug and opened it. There was a murmur of approval when it became known that the box contained one very beautiful amethyst necklace.

"Master, I bring this to you from the Department of Mysteries. Whoever wears this necklace may bend others to his will."

"How is this different from the Imperius Curse, Rookwood?"

"Ah, master, the ingenuity of it is that it bends the will subtly. The victim does not even realise that his opinions are not his own. Also, as no spell is used, no spell can be broken, and the victim will continue in his mistaken plight unless some great shock wakes him up."

"And now we come to you, Malfoy."

Malfoy made a great show of straightening up and flicking his hair back over his shoulder. "I present to you my son."

"Your son?" His fellow Death Eaters chorused.

"Yes, my son." He nudged Draco Malfoy forward with his cane. Draco stood in the center of the room trying furiously to avoid eye contact with Voldermort. "I believe that with the right kind of training, Draco will become charming, sophisticated, eloquent, well-groomed and an all round Adonis. He will attract the entire female population of the world, and admittedly, a fair portion of the male population too. Then these unfortunate souls will battle each other to win his heart, or what they think is his heart but is in actual fact a rather embarrassing birth defect, and will kill each other in the process. The remainder of the world will then be left without any females to assist in reproduction and will slowly die out. The world will be a void of destruction and desolation. There will be pain, despair, horror, and everything else you asked for, my lord."

"How will this help me to cause immediate torture upon Harry Potter?" Voldermort asked. "Does the boy sit on that side of the fence?"

Draco Malfoy made a distinct squeaking sound that could have been disgust or hope. Voldermort could not tell.

"Finally, I come to the two of you, Crabbe and Goyle. As the two of you seem to share the same clothes, breathing space and grey matter, I suppose you've shared the same idea as well?"

"We have, master." They answered together.

"And what is it?"

The two wizards exchanged looks. Voldermort fingered his wand in anticipation. He had not performed the dreaded Body Splicing curse in a while, and it would amuse him to see Goyle coping with Crabbe's legs while Crabbe coped with Goyle's head. To his surprise, Crabbe wheeled out a trolley. Perched on it was a young girl who looked about eighteen.

"I present to you the Mary Sue." Goyle said, dragging forth a chart diagram.

The room squinted at him. Then they squinted at Crabbe. Finally, they squinted at the young girl who was apparently asleep on her feet.

"What does she do?" MacNair asked.

"Uhhh." Crabbe scratched his head. Voldermort thought this put him on more familiar ground. His eyes kept straying back to the young girl, though. Was it just him, or did her skin have the texture of ivory and glow with the light of undiminished stars? Voldermort blinked and rubbed his eyes. It was definitely just him.

Goyle finished scanning over the first few pages of what seemed to be his user manual and looked up. "Lucius?"

"What?"

"May we borrow your son?"

The son was duly procured and placed in front of the Mary Sue. Draco stared at her nervously for a few minutes, cringing, quite sure he was about to be pounced on and ripped into shreds. When, after three minutes, this clearly wasn't about the happen, he grew cocky and sauntered over to peer closer at the girl. When something again failed to happen, he poked her.

This was when she stirred.

This was also when her eyelashes fluttered open and her eyes fell upon Draco.

"Do mine eyes deceive me? What prince doth stand before me, clad in such array of. cloth-type armour? Am I in heaven or some foolish dream? Take my hand, mine prince, I beseech thee. Tell me thou art real, not imagined, nor some trickery of th' light." She stretched her hand out to Draco and looked pleadingly at him.

Draco turned to look at his father for instructions. The elder Malfoy nodded curtly, and Draco leant forward and gingerly took the tiny little paw in his. Suddenly, there was a great explosion of lights and something began to whirr threateningly. Smoke enveloped the Mary Sue, hiding her from view. Draco shrieked at the top of his lungs, attempting to wrench his arm out of its socket. Anything to get away.

Eventually, the smoke cleared. Draco stopped shrieking. Everyone leaned forward (except Draco, who leaned backward, as far as he could go).

The Mary Sue stepped off the trolley, a long black cloak swishing behind her. Her hair tumbled down her shoulders in thick black tresses, and her eyes flashed an intelligent green behind thick black rimmed spectacles. There was a scar on her forehead in the shape of a daisy.

Draco flung himself backwards with such force that he broke his elbow, but didn't care. He skittered behind Voldermort's throne, wailing that it was Judgement Day, and surely it was the devil himself come disguised in Draco's worst nightmare. It was awful, it was horrendous, blah blah blah.

Voldermort shifted his attention from Draco Malfoy to Crabbe and Goyle, who were looking quite pleased with themselves.

"Where did you obtain this devilry?" He asked.

"Mattel, Creators of Barbie."

"Ah."

He beckoned for the Mary Sue to come to him, but changed his mind when she started gliding and bade her to halt.

"Why are you the ultimate weapon?" He asked.

"Ultimate weapon, sir? I don't understand. All I know is that I can change my appearance to suit my audience, win the heart of any man I desire, speak three hundred and fifty two languages, and much more, all of which is detailed in the manual that kind gentleman holds over there." The Mary Sue said, all in a voice that tinkled like a bell and resonated like a gong. "Oh yes, I'm also perfect."

"Can you win his heart?" Voldermort asked, gesturing towards MacNair. The Mary Sue flipped her hair over her shoulder in excruciating slow-mo and gave MacNair a cursory glance. Then she began to stride towards him in a purposeful gait. It was hard to believe, and if one blinked, one missed it, but slowly, she was morphing.

What finally paused in front of MacNair was a full grown woman with her electric blue hair pulled firmly into a bun above her head. Her eyes were narrow slits, like a cat's and she was dressed in a tight lycra cat suit which, amazingly, did not bother to crumple and squeak. She flicked a whip lazily about her ankles.

"MacNair, what have I told you about standing before me?" She asked, her voice deep and powerful. MacNair quivered and fell to his knees before her. "Good boy. Now, how much do you love me?"

"Very much, so much, my mistress. I love you. I love you." MacNair crawled forward and began to kiss the toes of the Mary Sue's booted feet.

Voldermort shut his eyes, repulsed. "Enough." The Mary Sue stepped away from MacNair and became the soft, glowing girl she first arrived as. "What else can she do?"

"Uh." Goyle held up the manual. Voldermort took it and flipped through a couple of pages, his smile growing wider and wider. Then he stopped.

"What's 'canon'?" Voldermort asked.

"What, like I'm supposed to know?" The Mary Sue crossed her arms and frowned. "I don't care what it is. I just destroy it."

"Hmm." Voldermort mused. "You destroy even what you have no comprehension of. If I asked you to destroy, say, truth, beauty and love, would you?"

"Only if I don't have to get dirty doing it."

The Stalker!Bug, the necklace, or the Mary Sue? Voldermort heard sniffing from behind his throne and looked around for its source. Oh yes, the son of Malfoy too.

A movement caught his attention. The Mary Sue was glowing yet again. She watched him with a careless nonchalance and thinly veiled curiousity. Then their eyes met.

"The Mary Sue," Voldermort croaked. He frowned in puzzlement, then cleared his throat. "The Mary Sue it shall be. Our champion and weapon." His voice dripped with evil. Much better.

"Um, just a question?" Everyone turned to the newly appointed Ultimate Weapon. "Could you all hail me now?"