The Reticulation, Part II

"I, the immortal Dark Lord, have yet again escaped death. You will never know how I managed it--all you need know is that I am back and that I will destroy you all!"

"This is impossible," Hermione said immediately. "He wasn't expecting McGonagall to kill him, so how could he have gotten back into the Reticulation so fast?"

"Well, apparently he did," Ginny replied as McGonagall stood up to walk up to the portrait.

"You must realize that there's no way you can get away with this," she said matter-of-factly. "The Ministry will eventually threaten to destroy you like they did last time." They heard Lord Voldemort's high, cold laugh.

"My dear Professor McGonagall, I'm simply not going to let anyone out of the castle this time. That way, if they destroy it, they will kill hundreds of innocent children."

McGonagall looked at the two giant eyes floating silently in the enormous portrait for a moment. In seeming defeat, she then turned to walk back to her desk.

"They'll find a way," she said eventually.

"Oh, I seriously doubt that, McGonagall. I'm going to turn Hogwarts into a school for the Dark Arts and train all the students to become Death Eaters. This castle will also become the new headquarters for my current followers."

"We would die before joining you!" Harry shouted.

"Maybe, but there will always be those that who wouldn't die before serving me. They will be trapped in the school forever, where they will eventually create generations and generations of Death Eaters to do my bidding."

"Wait, didn't he somehow force you to call us up here in the first place?" Ron asked McGonagall quietly as she sat back down at her desk.

"No, I didn't even know he was here until just now," she answered.

"But we heard your voice!" Ron insisted.

"Oh, Ron," said Hermione, sounding exasperated, "it's so obvious. He used the Reticulation to, in Muggle computing terms, synthesize Professor McGonagall's voice."

"You can do that?" Ron asked in surprise.

"Well, he doesn't have a body anymore," Hermione explained, "so, logically, he has to create his own voice artificially."

"Why didn't he improve his voice then?" Ron asked curiously. "I mean, seriously, his voice sounds pretty pathetic, you know."

"Because he wants us to know it's him," Hermione said in exasperation. "I mean, he's Voldemort, after all, isn't he?"

"So, if you can just talk in anyone's voice," Ginny said slowly, "then doesn't that mean that he might not be Voldemort and just someone impersonating him?" Hermione suddenly turned around to look thoughtfully at the giant portrait of Lord Voldemort's eyes. She looked at it for several moments...

"Umbridge," she said eventually. She glared at the two red eyes, but they didn't move or offer any hints as to whether or not her conjecture was right.

"Well you are, aren't you?" she asked hotly. "Voldemort didn't transpose himself over the Reticulation, he transposed himself with the Reticulation. He swapped his essence with the Reticulation so when he put his essence into your body, you ended up inside the Reticulation, didn't you?"

"How dare you speak such lies before the Dark Lord!"

"'Such lies,'" Harry repeated, "that sounds like something Umbridge would say." He, Ron, Hermione and Ginny all gathered around to look suspiciously at the two stolid eyes.

"And if you are Voldemort," said Ginny, "then why won't you tell us how you survived? Don't you always reveal your clever plans to your victims before killing them?"

Several moments of silence followed this inquiry. Suddenly, the eyes faded away and the clouds dispersed, revealing a portrait of none other than Dolores Umbridge. She was looking down into office with a smug, toad-like smile that made Harry feel sick.

"All right, it is me," the portrait said, "but it makes no difference. I now control the Reticulation and, make no mistake, that means I am no less powerful than Lord Voldemort was when he was in control."