The Power the Dark Lord Knows Not

By: lbfan

Edits by: The Ink Stained One and Dreatonkslupin

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters and background of Harry Potter. JK Rowling, AOL Time Warner, and some publishers own all of it. This story is created for entertainment purposes only. No profit would be made from this.

Chapter 1 – Blood

On board the Hogwarts Express streaming towards Kings Cross Station, Harry and Ginny uncomfortably shared a compartment with their closest friends. While Hermione read a book, Harry petted Crookshanks, who was sitting on his lap. He tried to dig up the courage to talk with Ginny about their relationship (or the lack thereof).

At Kings Cross Station, while everyone gathered their things, Harry grabbed Ginny's hand, urging her to remain behind with him.

Irritated, Ginny quietly snapped at him, "I know what you want, and the answer is no. You can't treat me like this. I don't care about Moldy Shorts and his Merry Men. I'm in enough danger just being a Weasley. How do you think I feel knowing that you could get killed? Now you are pushing me away. This isn't noble. This is stupid. No, I won't hide away and be your girl in secret. Find yourself a different girl to torment."

Harry was dumbfounded at how well she read him. Feeling that he was still right to distance himself from her, he let go of her hand and looked at the floor, disappointed.

Fuming, Ginny stomped her foot and turned to leave. She turned back and gave him a kiss. It was forced, but full of emotions, love and hurt. He interpreted the kiss to either be his last to be savored for a lifetime, or a last minute effort on her part to get him to change his mind.

It must have been the latter. When he did not say anything, she stomped her foot again and growled under her breath. Turning for good, she grabbed her things and stormed off the train, leaving Harry alone with his thoughts.

As Harry made his way through of the barrier of Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, he caught one last glimpse of Ginny as she left the station with her family. She was looking for him too. He saw the hurt in her bright brown eyes. She turned away and urged her family to leave.

Hermione, who had been talking with her parents, ran over to Harry and gave him a big hug goodbye and another kiss on the cheek. "Take care of yourself, Harry. I'll see you at the end of the week. Ron and I are going to spend a little time with our parents before we join you. See you."

Harry muttered, "Yes, that would be fine. I have plenty to do until then. Bye." He waved to her parents as she ran back to them. At the end of the platform, near the doors, the Dursleys were impatiently waiting for him.

As Harry approached, he heard Dudley exclaim, "Dad, it looks like Harry has a girlfriend!"

Vernon bellowed, "Scum like you shouldn't be preying on innocent girls."

Harry shot him a contemptuous look before agreeing. "You're right. However, she is just a friend, more like a sister." Harry was still beating himself up over the happiness he allowed himself to enjoy over the last month. He realized it was not fair to endanger Ginny's life at the expense of his comfort and happiness. He thought he was scum, too.

Uncle Vernon refused to get a trolley for Harry; he had to drag his trunk all the way to the car, which was three blocks away.

While in the backseat of the car, Harry noticed that his uncle was not heading home. "Uncle Vernon, aren't we supposed to get on the expressway?"

After he shot Harry a dirty look in his rear view mirror, Aunt Petunia snapped, "Don't you start getting smart with your uncle. He knows where he's going."

Just then, Uncle Vernon drove the car over the curb and through a painting of a tunnel on the side of the building. Instead of crashing into the building, they simply drove into the countryside. Immediately, Harry noticed that it was much colder and the morning dew was still on the plants that surrounded them. They definitely weren't in England anymore.

Looking behind him, he saw the billboard they had driven out of. Big lettering above it said, "Come Visit London and Bring the Family."

No one seemed to notice anything unusual, not even how the air had become much thinner. Harry instinctively reached for his wand stowed in his jacket pocket. He suspected someone had placed a strong Suggestive Charm on the three of them to drive them through an enchanted mural to some place far away.

Uncle Vernon complained, "Look at these stupid drivers. They don't even stay on their own side of the road."

Petunia added, "They keep on shouting at us like we're the ones who aren't driving on the left side of the road. Oh, Vernon, here it is." She pointed at a driveway heading up a steep cliff.

Vernon pulled into the driveway, just avoiding another head-on collision. An arched sign over the driveway read, "Camp Blood."

His uncle parked in front of a rustic wood lodge at the end of the driveway. More cheerful than he had seen his uncle in years, he said, "Here we are! How do you like it?"

Dudley stepped out of the car and hesitantly looked around. "Don't know Dad, it doesn't look like much. Are you sure this isn't a fat camp?"

Petunia was beaming. "It looks beautiful. Oh my! Get that thing away. What is that? A rodent?" She was pointing at a small chipmunk stuffing some seeds into his cheeks on a rock.

Harry wanted to laugh, but he was busy worrying how and why his family had been coerced to transport him to this far away land. From all of the clues he had so far, he guessed that they were in the mountains of North America somewhere. The road signage narrowed it down to the States when it read in miles. That also explained the time difference going from late afternoon to morning.

He pulled out his trunk and released Hedwig. "Fly away, Hedwig. Go get help." His loyal owl flew off into the trees.

Uncle Vernon bellowed in amusement, "You aren't in trouble. You are at a boys' camp for troubled youths."

The front doors of the lodge opened and the camp counselor stepped out to greet them. "Welcome to Camp Blood. It is a pleasure to have you here. Come in."

Recognizing the voice, Harry pulled out his wand and cast, "Stupefy!" His opponent was faster.

Severus Snape shot out an "Expelliarmus" and dodged Harry's stunner. He caught Harry's wand in his hand as Harry was thrown back a few feet.

Harry screamed out, "Killer! Everyone run!"

Aunt Petunia objected, "You must be mistaken. This is Severus Snape. He is one of your mother's friends from school. She introduced me to him years ago. He offered to teach you some manners, and from the look of you, you need them."

Severus placed a Silencing Charm on Harry to stop him from screaming. "Now, Harry, that is not a very polite way to greet your teacher." Grabbing him roughly from the back of his collar, Severus marched Harry into the lodge.

Excusing himself, he told the others, "Allow me to show Harry to his room. I'll be right back."

Severus dragged Harry down some dirty stairs to the cellar. He threw Harry into a cold, dank cell with nothing but the floor to sleep on. He closed the iron door and locked it.

He returned later in the afternoon with a few scraps of food for Harry's dinner.

He explained, "Listen to me you little berk! You don't have much time, and you have a lot to learn. I'm not going to kill you, despite how much I want to. You are going to learn how to kill the Dark Lord and survive in a fight against him. Once you do that, then I can kill your miserable hide."

Harry spent weeks at Camp Blood learning Defense Against the Dark Arts, the Dark Arts, and Occlumency. Losing all patience for Harry in Occlumency, Snape had his assistant, Draco Malfoy, teach him how to block his mind.

It seemed that both Malfoy and Snape had a passion to be rid of their master, because they were putting in long hours into training him. Each night, they would take his wand away and throw him back into his cell.

One early morning, Harry heard them talking at the top of the cellar stairs.

"Why can't we snuff him and be done with it? He's worse than a Longbottom when it comes to doing Dark Magic. There's no way he will be able to match the Dark Lord," Malfoy growled.

Snape retorted back. "We shouldn't have waited so long to dispose of the Dursleys. By Petunia remaining here alive, as long as she had, she renewed the blood magic protecting him. Now, we are going to have to wait until he becomes an adult at the end of the month till we can exercise that option.

"The bloody bastard keeps on thinking about his girlfriend. There is no way I can get him into the proper mindset to cast any Dark Magic. The best we can do is teach him lethal ways of using normal magic spells. He is young enough. Perhaps we can get him in good enough condition to where he can outlast him."

Harry knew that his situation was pretty desperate. He knew that while they were molding him into a fighting machine to kill their master, they were analyzing him for his weakness. Ginny was his weakness, and they knew it. In all of their Occlumency training, they dug her image and his feelings to the forefront of his mind on multiple occasions. Breaking up with her was all to waste. In the end, it was his own thoughts that condemned her life, and there was nothing he could do to prevent it.

He knew that he could not stay away from her now. As soon as he could get away, he would go and protect her. He had to find a way.

After many days of training, Snape and Malfoy disappeared for a few days. Harry was left in the cell without food or water. He thought that they decided to just leave him for dead or allow him to weaken before he became an adult so it would be easier to kill him.

He awoke in the middle of the night from a violent shiver that spread from his feet to the top of his head. The feverous shake left him feeling stronger. He seemed to feel the magic around him. He could feel everything from the wards on the lodge to the magical lock on the door of his cell.

He had lost track of time days ago, but he realized that today must be his birthday. Dumbledore explained that something would be different in his abilities when he came of age.

Without a wand, escape had seemed impossible. Remembering the boa from seven years ago, Harry Vanished the cell door.

As he walked out of the cell, he mentally kicked himself for not trying it sooner.

He explored the lodge and found he was the only one there. After retrieving his trunk, cage and wand from a locked closet, Harry went outside to look for some way of escape. He knew he could Apparate, but he did not have his license yet. Wherever he was, he had no time to waste dealing with the local wizarding law enforcement officials. Finding a few Galleons in his trunk, Harry raised his wand to call the Knight Bus.

Out of nowhere, a large ghostly tour bus stopped in front of him. The air brakes made a hissing sound as the bus stopped and the front door opened. The bus driver was a ghost much like the bus was. The driver looked like an elderly Native American Indian in a vintage bus driver uniform. His long hair braids extended down his back under his driver's cap. He asked, "Where to?"

He answered, "The Burrow."

The ghost responded, "I can't take you there. Besides, what you seek is no longer there."

Irritated, Harry asked, "Please take me where I need to go." He hoped his vague request would get him there eventually.

The ghost looked at him with sad eyes. "That would be one Galleon, please. Just leave your trunk and case."

Reluctantly, Harry boarded the bus without his other possessions. The bus was empty except for the driver. He paid his fare and took a seat near the front. Harry peered out the window. His trunk and cage he left had disappeared.

The driver shut the door and released the air brakes. Harry did not remember much after that, because he immediately fell asleep.