"I don't get it," said Harry. "Why can't I log onto Windows?"

"Maybe because Hedwig ate your mouse, mate," suggested Ron.

Hermione was about to explain that owls don't eat that kind of mouse when a flock of owls flew in and dropped a load of messages on Ron. "I was wondering when I'd get my o-mail."

He sorted them out. "Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam. Wait, here's something from my parents. Oh no, they can't log onto Windows, either. It's a network-wide shutdown!"

Harry looked puzzled. "Who would want to shut down the Weasels?"

"Oh, Harry," said Hermione, "isn't it obvious. There have been strange crashes ever since the fall. Mysterious, cryptic messages have been appearing regularly on the Allwarts Web site. Professor Dumbledos won't tell us what's going on, while Cornelius Gates, the Ministry of Microsoft, tries to fire him. Don't you see what this all means?"

"That it's a pretty normal year at Allwarts?"

"It means that everyone we know and love is getting attacked by the dreaded Voldemort Virus."

Harry stood up. "There's only one thing to do. We must reinstall Windows on my computer, then use it to enter the Internet and vanquish the Voldemort Virus."

Putting a Hex on Hex

At midnight, Harry, Ron, and Hermione got up, put on Harry's Encryption Cloak, and sneaked across the room to Harry's computer.

"Do you have a Windows disk?" asked Hermione.

"No," answered Harry. "It didn't come with one. Just this Restore CD." He turned on the computer, put in the CD, and waited. It wasn't long before the computer asked him "Do you wish to restore your hard drive, wiping out all of your work?" The two buttons read "Yes" and "Scream!"

"Don't do it!" cried Hermione. "You'll lose all your data!"

Harry took a deep breath. "It's the only way to stop the Voldemort Virus." He clicked Yes. Fifteen minutes later they received the ominous message "Press Enter to Reboot into Windows." Harry pressed Enter.

Instantly, all three of them were sucked into the computer and deposited onto a giant Start Button. "I hate this new Total User Interface," said Ron.

"We need your password to log into the Internet," said Hermione.

"Password," said Harry.

"Yes, your…"

A browser window opened up above them. Hermione disapproved. "You really need a better password."

"Now," said Harry, "we need to find Ron's home network, and get to the MBR of every computer on it."

"You can't just enter the Master Boot Record of any computer," argued Hermione. "They might have firewalls."

"Ron, did anyone in your family ever bother to install a firewall?"

"No."

"See what I mean, Hermione. No one takes proper precautions with their computer."

"Do you have backups of all that data you just lost?" asked Hermione.

Harry felt horrible. He was angry with himself, angry with Hermione, and angry with the world. He wished he could just hide somewhere and spend the rest of his life reading fantasy novels.

Interfacing with Evil

They soon found a gateway into Arthur Weasel's master boot record. It was dark, confusing, and filled with threatening code.

"Look," cried Hermione in fear, "a bad sector!"

"No," said a determined and resolute Harry, pulling out the stylus from his PDA. "That's not a bad sector. That's the Voldemort Virus!"

Suddenly the virus came alive and pointed a stylus at Harry. "Crashious!"

Harry and his friends leapt out of the way as a bolt of electrons missed them and wiped out an innocent accounting program.

"Format Diskious!" cried Harry as he pointed his stylus. A string of 0s and 1s shot out of it to engulf the virus. But the virus grabbed hold of a random piece of code left over from Windows Update and swung to freedom. The virus sneered as it pointed to the three of them and said "Fatal error!"

Luckily, they had just thrown up a virus shield. But when the virus smiled cruelly and said "General Protection Fault," they knew they were doomed.

But before the fault hit them, Professor Dumbledos appeared, blocking the curse with the most frightening counterbug of them all: "Blue Screen of Death!"

The virus vaporized.

Downtime

Harry woke up in the Allwarts hospital wing. Ron and Hermione were asleep in beds next to him. Professor Dumbledos, who was watching from the foot of the bed, smiled when he saw Harry's eyes open.

"That was a close one, Harry," said Dumbledos. "You lost an arm, a leg, and half your blood. But Madam Romfree patched you up and you'll soon be as good as new."

Harry felt dissatisfied. "Professor Dumbledos, what exactly happened. How come I was able to find the Voldemort Virus, and even seemed like I would vanquish it, but in the end you managed to appear in the nick of time and save us?"

Dumbledos sighed. "Harry, there are a great many things that I never explained to you. Strange things. Complex things. Things that don't belong in children's books. I should explain them to you now but—just go to my Web site and check the FAQ."