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Chapter 103 - Cast Out

Dimension: 1375 - Earth
Date: 24th October 2001 AD
Country: Scotland
Location: Hogwarts - Infirmary
Time: Early Morning

Hermione was nervous; she rarely was so her nervousness made it evident that the situation was very dangerous indeed. The heated debate about how to proceed regarding Ginny had been very long and drawn out. Everyone knew that an exorcism was needed, but who should perform it, which of the several different known exorcism techniques should be used and who should be present were the major points of contention. Snape, Buffy, Anne and Harry had been most vocal about this and they only managed to reach a solution when Dumbledore intervened.

Eventually it was decided that three exorcisms techniques should be combined; Giles and Dumbledore would conduct a joint exorcism, containing elements or phrases from both of their know techniques with some choice words, actions and items contributed by Adam, the theory being that with the combination of three different techniques it would make it that much harder for the possession to hold.

It was not certain yet that Riddle was the presence residing within Ginny but it was a safe bet with all those familiar with her first year at Hogwarts.

Since the event where the possession was first realized Ginny had been completely unresponsive; they knew she was alive but she had not so much as raised her head from the bed that she had been strapped to since the uncovering of the deception.

At this moment though, she was strapped to a trolley that had been tilted so that she was leaning back slightly to prevent her from hanging forward by the restraints around her wrists and ankles.

The trolley was in the centre of a large circle with lots of small religious markings filling the spaces around the large symbol of the Ankh, which reached from one side of the circle to the other. The circle was large enough to contain the trolley and quite a few people; the people in question were still a matter of contention amongst the group but the number and selection had finally been resolved.

Hermione was going to be there as was Harry, Spike, Ron, Draco, McGonagall, Flitwick, Fleur, Neville, Anne, Luna and Snape. They had been chosen to be a part of the ring of people sitting around the edge of the circle, most volunteered though some, (ie. Snape) were only there to act as boosts in the magical shield, a majority of the others being younger than twenty it was thought best to have a few more experienced magic users within encase things went wrong.

Around them, Willow, Tara and Adam would be holding a powerful shield in place to prevent anything getting out in case something managed to bypass the inner ring.

Around that were the rest of the Weasley clan as well as most of the DA (who were insistent about attending), many of the Professors including Tonks, Colette and Remus, and lastly the rest of the Scoobies.

And at the very centre of it all were Dumbledore and Giles both wearing robes covered in religious symbols, Ginny strapped to her trolley and a small wooden table containing various magical objects including a large square box to capture the spirit of whatever came out of Ginny.

"If everybody would please get into position we will begin." announced Dumbledore. "Those of you in the inner ring please sit and hold hands."

Hermione, who along with Harry, Ron and Draco had been standing beside Ginny reluctantly moved and sat down in their designated order. Most willingly took the hands of those next to them, though some like Draco and Ron, and Harry, Snape and Luna were more reluctant, the former because of their general dislike for each other and the latter because Snape could not seem to imagine how he had got put in this position where he had to hold hands with Potter and Lovegood in the first place.

"Remember as soon as the ritual begins and you start chanting you will not be able to release hold of each other and above that you MUST keep chanting to keep the inner barrier in place, it is more powerful than the outer barrier but can be more easily disrupted."

"Willow, Tara, Adam," began Giles. "Please raise your shield, inner circle begin the chant."

As the inner ring began to chant the words they had learned, a shield began to develop around them, originating from the areas immediately behind each speaker and spreading as they continued to chant to form one large shield which reached up and touched the ceiling.

At the same time as this was happening Hermione heard Adam, Willow and Tara cast their spells.

"Both shields are in place." Adam announced from behind her.

With a nod to each other Dumbledore and Giles each picked up one of the gold Ankh signs laying on the table and held them up in front of Ginny.

There were many gasps as Ginny's head flew back hard against the trolley in an attempt to get away from the religious symbols, letting out a deep demonic gasp as she did so.

The inner shield flickered as Hermione and several other people unconsciously stopped speaking at Ginny's reaction.

"Keep chanting." ordered Adam, as those that had stopped hurriedly started again; the gaps in the inner shield closing as they did so.

"Everto," began Dumbledore. "Licentia somes nostri carus sanctimonialis."

"Malum unus," continued Giles. "Creatura of obscurum , licentia is vas , solvo is ut suus verus erus , licentia is vel exsisto iacio sicco."

As they began the creature inside Ginny got more and more aggravated, struggling against the restraints, black streaks spreading across her skin and making her eyes turn black.

Most of the assembled group were in shock at what they were seeing; only the Scoobies having ever done something like this before.

"Merlin!!" Hermione heard Colette gasp from outside the shields as Ginny's hair began to bleed black. "Is that supposed to happen?"

"It's fighting." Spike explained from somewhere out of Hermione's sight range. "It doesn't want to leave so it's entrenching itself as deep as it can go, even Ripper and the Wizard of Oz over there may have trouble with this one."

While this was going on the creature continued to struggle, the restraints on the trolley straining under its strength.

Giles and Dumbledore were getting louder in response, the sweat on their brows showing the effort and strain the magic was having on them. Now speaking in unison, they pressed the Ankh's onto her neck and shoulders eliciting a high pitched scream from the creature inside Ginny as the flesh under the marks began to smoke.

Hermione definitely heard the sound of some of Ginny's brothers crying as their sister screamed out but before she could think more about this, things started to go wrong.

The restraint holding Ginny's left arm snapped, she immediately lunged for Giles, her hand which now had turned completely black and had sharp pointed nails on each finger wrapped around his neck, breaking the skin where the nails squeezed.

"Giles!!" shouted all three of the Summers women, including Anne, causing the inner shield to dissipate around her.

Ginny's eyes snapped to her as the shield fell on her location.

Grinning evilly she threw the gasping Giles at Anne and those around her.

He landed hard colliding with Anne, Neville and Luna, knocking all three onto their backs, the magic ensuring though that they did not lose contact with each other, forcing them to stay where they were as Giles attempted to climb off them.

As the gap expanded where Luna and Neville's chants had been stopped the gap expanded further despite Snape and Fleur intensifying their own mantras.

Laughing at the group the creature swung Ginny's hand towards Dumbledore and let a burst of flame.

Raising his hand the Headmaster raised a partial shield before most of the flames hit, knocking him down immediately in front of Hermione, he was essentially unhurt but definitely dazed.

Before Dumbledore could regain his feet the creature dropped Ginny's hand to her side before her body started to strain and tense.

By this time Giles had regained his feet and moved to bring his Ankh down on Ginny's face.

As he approached a translucent arm rose out of Ginny's arm and knocked the arm aside, the black stain and extended nails vanishing from Ginny's real as the translucent version separated from her own.

Giles paused for a moment in shock giving the second arm that appeared enough time to knock him out.

With a twisted laugh a complete body pulled itself out of Ginny revealing the twisted and distorted face of Tom Riddle, his skin blackened, his nails and face more pointed, and his eyes pools of black.

"Hello everyone," it grinned. "Guess who's back."
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As the younger form of his enemy pulled itself out Ginny's body Harry strained to get up but no matter what he tried he could not release Snape's or Spike's hands.

"Hello Harry," it smiled, revealing sharp pointed fangs behind its lips "It's been too long, too many years since we have seen each other, but unlike you I am not the same person I was before; my older self's friend James saw to that."

He paused briefly, raising his clawed hand to block the curse that the recovered Dumbledore managed to throw at him.

His shield barely flicked as the curse hit it.

"That's weak old man." He grinned before black electricity leapt from his hand.

Dumbledore hastily raised a shield but could do nothing else as Riddle continued the assault while casually turning back to Harry.

"As I was saying, oh yes, James saw to that. You see Harry when you thought you had defeated me by destroying the diary you had failed to remember that I had been possessing Ginny for months, making her write those words and all the other little things that went on. Part of me survived in her, buried deep in her psyche. It took me years to regain enough strength to be able to influence her, but this time inside her own mind rather from the pages of a book. I used her fondness of you to great effect, it was easy to make her buy that pretty necklace she gave you, tricking her into thinking that it was supposed to draw out your true feelings for her, when in reality it was simply a love, lust and mind clouding charm making you powerless whenever you got too close to the person who gave it to you."

"You used her." Harry growled, he was dimly aware of the shouting of people outside of the shields but was deaf to whatever they were saying.

"Yes, I did," Riddle smiled. "And although I could not use her to kill you the way I wanted, I can still kill you now."

"No you won't!" shouted Hermione from her point in the circle. "We won't let you!"

Riddle let out an evil laugh as he swung his head towards her.

"Do you really think you can stop me little girl? You tried to stop me taking full control of little Ginevra but I still found a way."

Hermione's expression turned to one of confusion.

"Oh, I forgot. You don't know about that; well....let me make it clear for you."

He paused briefly to catch Dumbledore's wandlessly thrown curse before sending it back at him, sending him flying into the surrounding shield to fall on top of Anne and Neville.

"Oh, for God's sake!" She exclaimed from underneath the mass of robes. "Can't you throw people in another direction?"

"Remain silent Slayer," hissed Riddle. "I will get to you in a minute."

Turning back to Hermione he continued.

"As I was saying, you were rather affective at trying to prevent my power boost. That snake that would not leave her alone during the attack on Hogsmeade, its venom was filled with magic special tuned to me, if she had been bitten the power would have come straight to me and I could have taken control of her then if I had so wished, but as it was it had to bite you and it did nothing more than poison you. As such James and Trixie had to take Ginevra with them and apply the spell manually, programming it to give me the power boost a few days after we returned, I was supposed to kill Harry and make you all think Ginny had done it before making my escape and joining my older self, that is obviously out of the question, but you cannot stop me killing Harry now."

"Who says I need them to stop you."

Riddle turned to Harry and grinned.

"Why do you need them to stop you?" asked Riddle rhetorically "Because you and the rest of these fools are bound together, none of you can reach your wands, my too evictors over there are unconscious, your Wiccan friends and the Guardian have to hold up that shield to prevent me from escaping and those outside of both shields can do absolutely nothing, so when you ask me why you need them to help you I thought it would be obvious."

"The one thing you have failed to realise Tom," Harry grinned. "Is that I don't need my hands to defend me."

The flash of concern that crossed Riddle's only just beat the flame that erupted from Harry's mouth.

Being thrown backwards he collided hard with the inner shield above the heads of Anne, Luna and Neville, fluctuating as he did so.

Recovering from the attack Riddle raised a shield as the next inferno rushed at him, this time impacting harmlessly against his shield, but Riddle barely noticed, he was much more interested in the fluctuating shield behind him.

As soon as they saw what he was doing, everyone but Harry (who continued his attack) began chanting harder, particularly the three at his point of contact who were still struggling under the weight of Dumbledore.

Firing a curse at the shield he watched it harmlessly dissipate upon impact.

"Hmm, looks like I need a bit more power, any volunteers?" Glancing around for a second his eyes settled on the pinned down form of Anne "Ahh, thank you Slayer, so nice of you to offer."

With that he dropped down beside her and placed his hand firmly on her head.

Instantly she started to convulse as black electricity seemed to pass from Riddle's arm and down over her skin.

"Anne!!" cried Xander from somewhere outside of the shields.

The black electricity seemed to flow into her then reverse course and begin pulsing back up Riddle's arm and into him, as the magic flowed back into Riddle's the hair on Anne's head began to fluctuate, changing colours like Willow's did when she turned dark except Anne's hair was pulsing in all directions and couldn't seem to make up its mind what colour it wanted to become.

Blond, light brown, red, blonde, dark brown, black, red, blonde.

The fluctuations got faster and faster as Riddle siphoned off her magic.

The grin on Riddle's face only stopped when Neville gave Anne's arm a hard yank and managed to rip her head free of Riddle's clutches.

Her eyes rolled in her sockets as she was released before she collapsed backwards onto the floor.

"Lucky for you Longbottom, I already have all the power I need."

Conjuring two spheres of crackling energy in his palms he dropped them on top of Luna and Neville, both of whom convulsed briefly before passing out, completely dropping the inner shield at their location.

"One down." He grinned, stepping over the trio, Dumbledore still lying on top of them.
________________________________________________________________________

"This isn't going well is it?" asked Xander.

"You think?" replied Dawn.

"Isn't someone going to do something?" asked Ron.

"We're open to suggestions Ron." Replied Tonks "But that second shield won't let anything in or out and they can't lower it without letting that thing out."

"And those inside the ring are either unconscious or stuck together." Added Colette. "There's nothing we can do."

"Whose dumb idea was this?"
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Tara was getting worried, it was only their shield keeping the evil spirit contained now, and those still conscious members of the inner ring could not raise a complete shield with so many gaps.

The Riddle creature moved around inside the ring to stand in front of her.

"You seem to be the weak link in this little trio, so much power but no idea how to use it. Right now you are all that stands between me and freedom. Let's see what we can do about that."

Thrusting both his hands forward they made contact with the shield exactly where her hands were on the opposing side.

She immediately began feeling the effects of his contact, his resistance to the shield, trying to cancel it out and disrupt her concentration.

"You can't beat me little girl, your Wiccan magic's can't defeat my dark sorcery."

Small gaps started to appear in the shield around her hands as Riddle continued to force his power against hers, the shield sparking in several places around them as sections of its surface flicked into and out of existence.

A gap appeared between the pairs of hands, around them the shield continued to flicker but between them the hole expanded.

"Not long now little girl." grinned the creature.

As the gap reached twenty centimetres wide, he thrust his hand through grabbing her wrist.

"Got you." He grinned as she felt waves of exhaustion begin to pass through her as he siphoned away her energy.

"More power morARGH!!"

He recoiled as a well aimed spell from Colette founds its mark and left a large gash on his wrist, a fowl smelling black liquid spraying out of it as he recoiled back through the shield.

Tara staggered backwards as she was released, her area of the shield falling as she was unable to maintain it, Willow and Adam began moving around to stand opposite each other so as to make the shield as complete as possible.

"Quickly, get inside!!" Tara heard Buffy shout as she and Colette dived through the rapidly shrinking hole in the shield.

Shaking herself off , Tara was just fast enough to roll through the gap before it sealed behind her, Ron and several others bouncing off it as they tried to get in to help.

Rolling over she caught sight of Buffy engaged in hand to hand combat with the Riddle thing while Colette went about reviving Dumbledore and Giles.

Taking her chance she ran over and checked on Ginny.

Running her hands over her body she was unable to detect any negative effects from the possession, her skin was now back to normal and she appeared to simply be unconscious.

Or at least that's what she thought until she passed her hand a few centimetres over her chest, a massive pain exploded from her hand as she did so.

Gasping back the pain vanished immediately.

Taking the opportunity while Buffy and now Colette kept Riddle busy, she cast another spell.

"Reveal."

As soon as the words left her a strand of white light appeared in the air connecting Ginny to the fighting Riddle, she must have passed her hand through part of the beam.

"He's still drawing power from her." She gasped before turning and bracing herself just in time as a feathered Colette fell into her.

"He is really strong!!" she exclaimed before jumping back into the fray, several broken feathers dislodging from her wings as she did so.

With a well aimed diving tackle she managed to knock the Riddle creature to the floor and pin his left arm down.

Not to be outdone Buffy dropped down at their side and grabbed his other arm.

"Exorcise him for god sake!!" She shouted at Giles and Dumbledore who having recovered themselves had continued chanting, moving towards the struggling trio they pressed their Ankhs into Riddle's flesh.

Coming around beside them Tara used her magic to pin his legs, but even with all three of them holding him he was still incredibly strong and hard to hold.

They chanted for at least a minute though it felt like eternity, the pair pushed all their strength into banishing Riddle but nothing happened, by now the spirit should have been banished to places they would rather not know about but it was still struggling against the strength of the Slayer and Veela and the power of Giles and Dumbledore.

"Why isn't it working?" asked Buffy through clenched teeth.

"I don't know." Colette replied roughly through her clenched beak.

Sensing that they were tiring, Riddle threw the pair off him using a short burst of magic, followed immediately by Dumbledore and Giles.

With another burst of power he threw Tara backwards, falling to the floor, making her shield fall.

Groaning as she began to get back up she could hear who she thought was Buffy attacking again only to get thrown out of the way.

As she got to her knees and prepared to climb to her feet she came face to face with the stream of magic connecting Ginny to her possessor.

Of course, he's still drawing power from her, that's why we can't get rid of him; he's anchored himself to her.

Standing she turned to Buffy as the Slayer got back to her feet a couple of feet away after another throwing.

"Excuse me." Tara gasped as she grabbed the handle of the knife Buffy had concealed in her boot and pulled it out.

"Hey!!" she complained, but Tara didn't stop as she brought the knife down into the stream of light connecting the pair.

As the flat reflective surface of the blade blocked the flow of energy Riddle staggered and gasped out in pain, clutching his chest as he did so.

"No!!" it shouted staggering towards her, the stream of magic dissipating as those elements on the Ginny side of the blade began to flow back into her followed by those from the Riddle side of the blade that had not made it to his body "You can't kill me!"

"You are already dead Tom." replied Dumbledore, coming to stand between Riddle and Tara.

Riddle began to fade, wisps of light breaking off from him and heading back towards Ginny with the odd black wisp diverting towards the containment box, each step becoming harder and harder until he took one last step, attempting to grab a hold of the Headmasters robes, but as his foot touched the ground he dissipated into smoke, the last remnants of Riddle flowed into the box and the lid slammed shut and magically sealed itself.

"Goodbye Tom." sighed Dumbledore, before turning. "Well done Tara, an excellent piece of deduction."

Tara just sighed and dropped to the floor in relief, it took less than three seconds for both the shields to be dropped and the others to rush in.

As soon as Willow's arm wrapped around her she relaxed enjoying the sensation and the relief over what just happened.
________________________________________________________________________

"Well that was definitely not fun." Groaned Anne as she climbed to her feet, rubbing her neck as she did so, she definitely felt more than a little drained after that experience. Stretching out her joints she looked over at Giles and Dumbledore.

"Next time you two decide to go for a short flight, please find someone else to land on."

It was then she realized that everyone was staring at her.

"What?"

They continued to stare.

"What!!"

As she said it she flicked her head slightly causing some of her hair to fall in front of her face. She idly went to put it back when she noticed the colour.

"What the!!" she exclaimed grabbing her hair and bringing it in front of her eyes.

And then another bit from the other side of her face.

It was white....Completely white.

"Oh God!!...That spirit thing aged me!! I must be older and wrinklier than Giles!! I...."

"Buffy!" interrupted the Watcher in question. "Ignoring the comments about my appearance, I can assure you that you are not older and ‘wrinklier' as you put it than me."

"My hair....has gone....white!!" she exclaimed again as if they weren't quite grasping the point.

"And yet your hands are not wrinkled." replied Dumbledore.

"So what if my hands are not wrink....Hey?" she paused looking at her hands which were just as they had been before except for a few pressure marks from where the others had been holding her hands.

"Anyway, your hair is not all white." added Giles. "In fact not even a third of it is white."

"What?" she asked even more confused as Dumbledore began conjuring a mirror.

As soon as it was completely she literally grabbed it out of the air and looked into it.

"What the...." she tried but understandably she could not figure out a good way to finish her exclamation.

At the front of her head was a band roughly one to one and a half inches thick of pure white hair while the rest of hair was now a bright vibrant red, almost matching Willow's shade.

"Welcome to the club." grinned Bill Weasley, who like the other members of the Weasley clan were gathered around Ginny who had been transferred to a bed and although still unconscious, was looking significantly better.

"I'm....I'm...."

"One of us." smiled Willow, moving towards her now redheaded friend and hugging her.
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AUTHORS NOTE: I apologise for the Latin, it's almost certainly wrong, but that's what you get when you use an online translator.

TRANSLATIONS: Everto , licentia somes nostri carus sanctumonialis.[Demon, leave the body of our beloved sister.]

Malum unus , creatura of obscurum , licentia is vas , solvo is ut suus verus erus , licentia is vel exsisto iacio sicco [Evil one, creature of darkness, leave this vessel, release it to its proper owner, leave it or be cast out]