The Syndicate

Harry Potter disappeared from Privet Drive that day, never to return to his hated 'home' again. At least they would not miss him. Shortly after his disappearance, the Dursley's decided to move so that if that freak returned to that house one day, he would find another family inhabiting it. Hermione and Ron tried to have a relationship that year while they worried about their friend, but they found that without Harry there would have never even been a friendship between them because they were too different. The world missed Harry Potter, the boy-who-lived, all except for the Slytherins and Minister Fudge. Fudge, being the dumb jackass that he was, actually refused all stories about the Dark Lord and even went so far as to put out an arrest warrant for the hero whom he thought suffered from serious mental problems, though most of the public believed in the return of Voldemort, and the secret training of their savior by the great Albus Dumbledore.

Vicious, in the mean time, took advantage of his absence from Great Britain. He missed a few people, but realized that he would not and could not return until he had the power to defeat the snake and his army. He had accepted the offer of the Syndicate, and found out that it was started by a person that magical history had forgotten, Merlin's brother. The Order of the Phoenix, which was currently lead by Albus Dumbledore, was created by the fool Merlin. The world believed that Merlin was an awesome and a powerful wizard, but they didn't know that he was just like that fool Lockhart and took credit for things that he did not do. He was pampered by his parents, unlike Mylin (Merlin's brother), and never worked a day in his life. Mylin let Merlin take credit for his actions, and never was mentioned in the old texts unless you were reading between the lines. In the journal of Merlin, there is found a riddle that doesn't make sense unless you know how to solve it. If you took out the letters of the name Mylin, then the riddle made sense. The riddle simply stated: Power beyond Power will be yours if you choose to seek it, but self-centeredness leads to the grave.

These words of wisdom spoke to Vicious. Power must be earned, it could not be granted. It didn't matter if you knew someone who was famous, or if you were famous because power has to be fought for. Sweat, blood, and tears must go into it, not press conferences or a confortable life. The group of sixteen warriors that made up the Syndicate, would influence history. Each of them hailed from a different magical community, and even though they had performed great deeds before, noone knew what they had done. Well, everyone knew what Harry did, but that was because of a fluke. Vicious wanted to earn his power, and thus he would train his body, mind, and soul to the extreme for the next year.

For several months, he trained with the man that brought him here, invited him to join. There were very few of them, and they only allowed people that they thought had promise, which was very rare. The man was from America, and his name was Spike. Spike taught Vicious everything that he knew. Martial Arts, Apperation, and Sword fighting were the main focuses of this. He had agreed to teach the young man a small amount in these areas, and was surprised by the power and determination that this boy wielded.

After that, he lived on a volcanic island in a remote part of the world. Since the volcano was still active, wizards and muggles tended to avoid it. He stayed here and pushed his body beyond human bounds. He had taken to wearing two thousand pound weights on both his arms and his legs, a total or eight thousand pounds in total. Vicious was also wearing the shackles that were used to contain magical prisoners in the dark ages. The spells were placed on the same bands that were magicked to weigh him down. These shackles were designed to hold a person's magical energy. One was enough for any wizard to never be able to do magic again, until a password was said to release the shackle, yet he wore four and could do simple spells. By the time he returned, he should be able to do even more complex spells above the grade level of a seventh year.

When he was looking at the flames of the volcano one day, he pondered on whether or not he could make them rise. That was when he noticed something weird. You may be thinking right now that the flames would do his bidding, but it wasn't the flames that answered his call. It was the shadows.

A few days after that, Vicious decided that it was time to move on to the frigid environment of the arctic. After arriving , he began to train his power over shadows. It was slow at first, as no gift comes easily, and this one Harry had to work extremely hard for. There were such things as people that could control water and fire, but noone, and I mean noone, could ever do wandless magic. It was all a fluke. If a persons temper got out of hand, that was when strange things would happen. After months of training he found, quite alarmingly, that the shadows would do whatever he wanted, even kill.

Vicious needed food, every human needs food to survive. On the volcanic island, there had been a lot of fruit and fish, but there didn't seem to be very much here. Once a month he would disguise himself then go and buy very, VERY advanced spell books. He could not use the money that he had in his vault, but luck was on his side when he stayed on the volcano. He only used money as a last resort, and would catch and kill his own food. Not that he didn't have the money, he had become quite wealthy when he found gold near the volcano, but he saved the bulk of this money so that if he ever needed it to escape, he could use it and wouldn't have to worry. He was out hunting one day when a polar bear decided to have a little snack, him! Vicious used his power over shadows to a deadly degree. The shadows went down the bears throat when it opened its mouth to roar, and exploded out of it, making the creature burst open. The shadows disappeared, leaving scattered blood and chunks on the once pure white snow, never to be pure again.

Vicious had applied for a teaching position at Hogwarts, and was surprised that they had so readily accepted. He strapped two Japanese style swords on his back in a criss cross fashion, and shrunk his belongings, placing them in his pocket. He had changed a lot over the past year, and didn't look overly muscular, plus he had had a black lightning bolt cross the silver one, forming an X, in case anyone got suspicious of him at his old school. He was ready to leave the cave, his self inflicted exile, at last. He was ready to return home. Hogwarts.