IMPORTANT INFORMATION - PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO READ THIS

Chaotic Neutral: Chaotic neutral characters follow their whims. They are individualists first and last. They value their own liberty but do not strive to protect the freedom of others. They avoid authority, resent restrictions, and challenge traditions. Chaotic neutral characters don't intentionally disrupt organizations as part of a campaign of anarchy. To do so, they would have to be motivated either by good (a desire to help people) or by evil (a desire to hurt people).

Our story begins after the events of Chamber of Secrets. Harry never befriended Ron, was placed in Ravenclaw instead of Gryffindor and relies on Hermione as his only friend. The story so far has played out mostly as it did in the canon version, only that Ron wasn't there. For now I will mostly ignore the plot holes that creates, as his first two years really aren't all that important to my version of the story. Please just go with it for now.

Pairings as of right now consist of Harry/Hermione, and Neville/Luna Lovegood. However, this will most likely change in the future, depending on certain factors.

Now I have been told that the first chapter of this story may come across as slightly "gung-ho", and may give the impression that this is a crackfic. Trust me, it isn't. So please, do try to work your way past the second or third chapter before deciding if you want to continue reading or not.

In addition, if you ever feel like the pace is slowing down at certain points in the story, please don't be alarmed, as this is intentional. Most of what will happen in this fanfic has been planned out ahead of time, so certain segments may feel like they are dragging on when, in reality, they are just setting up events that are going to happen later.

And of course, Harry Potter is the property of J.K. Rowling and her associates. Please support the official release.

DADA Class

Harry Potter hated the British Wizarding Community. He hated the utterly corrupt government masquerading as a functional governing body. He hated the downright defective economy that lacked any sort of logical sense and allowed goblins to completely rip off any wizard with their monopoly on wizarding banking services. But most of all, he hated the members that the community consisted of. The wizards themselves.

In Harry's more-than-a-little biased opinion, every wizard he had encountered seemed to suffer from a harsh case of Tunnel Vision. In other words, their mind seemed incapable of critical thinking, or thinking "outside of the box", if you would. To provide an example, most wizards went about their daily lives without a care in the world, rarely questioning the more than questionable decisions being made by the Ministry of Magic. From a logical standpoint, every man or woman with at least five braincells should be able to see that Cornelius Fudge was an absolute wanker and a push-over with zero understanding of how politics actually worked outside of popularity votes. This, however, seemed not to be the case, as the man kept getting reelected every time the position for Minister of Magic came up. No wonder nefarious little shits such as Lucius Malfoy had an easy time manipulating the political landscape to adhere to his bidding, with Fudge acting pretty much as consequential evidence that human evolution could actually go backwards.

Prospects were not looking much better when it came to the economical side of things either. Seeing as Gringotts was the only bank dedicated to storing wizard currency in Britain, the goblins who managed it possessed a tremendous amount of power over the wizarding economy. This was not helped by the fact that the currency the goblins had put in place for wizards to use was nothing short of mind-numbingly retarded, with one Galleon equaling 17 Sickles or 493 Knuts (who the fuck even came up with these values).

That was not to say there were no loopholes in the goblins' system though, because there obviously were. As a matter of fact, one of the first things Harry had done upon learning about the Potter Family Vault's existence was to research possible ways of circumventing the Regulations placed on minors when it came to withdrawals of currency. You see, according to wizarding law, any minor under the legal age of 18 was not allowed to withdraw more than 1,000 Galleons every month from their family's vault. This meant that Harry, despite being the only surviving member of the Potter family, had very restricted access to his family's funds.

He had, however, managed to find a work-around to this of sorts by opening up a secondary bank account to which he would deposit the maximum amount of Galleons allowed to be withdrawn every month like clockwork. Over time, the monthly 1,000-Galleon-deposits would accumulate into a bigger pool of money in his secondary account, of which he had total control of and could do with as he pleased. A rather simple plan indeed, but definitely functional due to the goblins stupidity of not implementing another law simply denying minors the possibility of opening up their own bank accounts.

"Mr. Potter, your attention please," his teacher Remus Lupin coughed, dragging him out of his daydream. Harry had a tendency of zoning out in classes, spending his time daydreaming about pretty much anything instead of paying attention.

"Sorry," he muttered, rubbing the tiredness out of his eyes. Seeing as he had been plagued by a constant stream of nightmares ever since his First Year at Hogwarts, Harry struggled to get even a single night of good sleep, and often resorted to sleeping in class as a way of keeping himself energized, much to the dismay of the teachers. Harry wasn't overly bothered by this though, as he had long since surpassed the curriculum and was way ahead of the rest of his class.

When Harry was first introduced to magic, he had developed somewhat of an unhealthy obsession with it. Look at it as the result of Harry not being in a particularly happy place when he got the Hogwarts letter. To him, magic had been so much more than the ability to perform kickass spells and incantations. It had been an escape, a ticket out of his previous life with the Dursleys, a life which had left him scarred on a psychological level. He still hadn't quite gotten over his paranoia of belt buckles for example, as that had been Vernon's primary form of punishment whenever he decided Harry needed to be disciplined.

So when he got the opportunity to come to Hogwarts, he'd been ecstatic to say the least. Finally, a world that would accept him for who he was, without people like Vernon and Dudley in it. He had spent most of his First and Second Year in the library with Hermione, reading pretty much everything he could get his hands on. Even back in his old life, when he didn't know magic existed, he had loved to read. Harry liked to think it had helped give him an advantage over his fellow piers. Either that or he was just born a complete fucking genius, but Harry hated bragging more than just about anything else, so he chose to believe it was the books.

It was during one of these reading sessions in the library that he had learned about the existence of prophecies, and after realizing that he was a Parselmouth during his Second Year, he had quickly made the connection between him and Voldemort. They had to be bound by some sort of prophecy, it was the only reasonable explanation as to why they kept clashing with each other. When he went to Dumbledore to present his findings, the old man had been surprised to say the least, no doubt scared by how quickly Harry had learned of the prophecy. He had, however, chosen not to tell him about the fact that he would have to eventually die at the hands of Voldemort for the prophecy to come full circle, so Harry remained ignorant of that to this very day.

Sadly, due to the Dursleys hatred and poor (borderline illegal) treatment of him, Harry had developed something of a cynical world view, often thinking the worst of people before he had even gotten to know them. This had, however, proved useful to him when dealing with Wizards, because no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't quite shake the feeling that everyone was out to dupe him. Which was kind of true, at least to some extent. He was The Boy Who Lived after all, so he supposed it would be unnatural for people NOT to take advantage of him.

The goblins had tried to scam him of his money, Dumbledore, who he had originally thought to be on his side, had apparently been trying to rope him in to this so-called prophecy he quite frankly wanted nothing to do with, and Draco Malfoy had offered him false friendship under the pretense of improving his own standing. Luckily, he had been able to see through that last one, and subsequently told Draco to fuck off at the start of his First Year.

There was no doubt that Harry had been through quite a lot during his two years at Hogwarts. He'd fought his own Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher over the Philosophers Stone in his First Year, battled a monstrous Basilisk living underneath the girls' bathroom in his Second, and moved out from the Dursleys house at the start of his Third (and nearly died due to what could only be described as the most suicidal bus ride he had ever had the pleasure of participating in).

If you really took a moment to think about it, Harry was about as far from normal as you could possibly get. This didn't seem to bother his fellow students though, who all just seemed to expect Harry to just keep pulling miracles out of his arse like some kind of twisted slot machine. Take a spin at the Harry Potter wheel and see what kind of deus ex machina the young wizard will pull today!

He was, to be quite frank, really tired of it all. He was tired of being everyone else's slave, doing whatever they asked or commanded him to. Dumbledore in particular had a nasty tendency of trying to manipulate him to do his bidding. That's part of the reason why Harry had decided to study Occlumency already in his Second Year. He had a slight feeling that Dumbledore was using surface-level Legilimency on the people he was talking to in order to get a sneak peek at their thoughts. Call it a sixth sense, but that man was a little too good at controlling a conversation.

And that was not to mention the whole "Voldemort" prophecy. He had already fought the Dark Fuck in some way or another twice in his life, and he could wholeheartedly say he wasn't exactly thrilled at the idea of facing him again. Voldemort just didn't seem to want to die, no matter how hard they tried. Heck, even Dumbledore had been fighting the guy for years already, and they had only succeeded last time because Harry's mom sacrificed herself to save him.

The familiar sting that always came at the thought of his mother returned once again. Lily Potter had been a good woman, and a loving mom from what little he could remember of her. She hadn't deserved to die the way she did, begging for mercy at Lord Voldemort's feet. Harry felt a twinge of grim satisfaction at the thought of Voldemort realizing that he had made a grave mistake by killing Lily, just as his body exploded from the recoil of his own spell.

"Harry, what did I just say… I know you don't find this particularly enjoyable, but you have to pay attention," Remus sighed, shaking his head at the child of his former friends. When was the boy ever going to learn?

"I'm sorry Professor, I just… Well, I have a lot on my mind," Harry replied, pushing himself up so he sat with his back straight.

"I know my boy, but that doesn't excuse poor behavior during class. I'll let you off this once, but please pay attention from now on, okay?" Remus nodded as he turned around to face the blackboard behind him yet again. It was one of the first DADA classes of the year, and Harry was already nodding off. That didn't bode well for the rest of the year.

The professor was, of course, none other than Remus Lupin. The new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. They seemed to get a new one each year, with every teacher that had ever taught the class being forced to step back due to weird circumstances that just seemed to come out of nowhere. Rumor had it the position was cursed, and could never have a permanent teacher. So far, that rumor seemed to be true, with Lupin being the third DADA teacher Harry had had, and he had only been here for three years.

Remus had proved to be more interesting than the others though. True, Quirrell had tried to kill him and technically been the host for a piece of Lord Voldemort's soul, but Remus had saved him on the Hogwarts Express at the start of the year, when the train had come under attack by several Dementors. One of them had apparently sensed something about Harry that had made it attack him, with Harry being completely helpless as none of his spells worked on the wretched abomination. He hadn't known about the Expecto Patronum spell back then, but had since researched it thoroughly and tried to cast it multiple times on his own. However, he just couldn't quite seem to muster up a positive enough memory for the spell to work. Even the one with Lily sacrificing herself for him didn't seem to cut it for some reason. And he couldn't think of any other explanation as to why he was unable to cast it, as Hermione seemed to be able to do it quite easily. Then again, Hermione was generally amazing at everything magic, so maybe that wasn't such a smart way to measure his own strength, by comparing it to hers.

Harry couldn't really say he had a lot of friends. His cynical view towards practically everyone and everything had a tendency of driving away any interested parties, but Hermione was different. She had seen his negative attitude as a challenge, and looked at him more as a rival than anything else. They had eventually established a friendship of sorts, based on the competition they had between each other. It had taken Harry weeks to lower his pride to the point where he would sit next to her in the library, but had since not chosen to sit by himself once. It was one of the few decisions he did not regret making. Hermione Granger was a genuinely interesting person, one that he felt comfortable enough with to talk to without there being any tension or hostility. That was rare for Harry, seeing as just about everyone couldn't seem to stop pissing him off. There was something about their… simple, optimistic look at life that just annoyed him to no end, that hopeless, childish belief that "everything would be alright", because he knew damn well it wouldn't be. He had nearly died multiple times already during his relatively short life, which had taught him that walking around with that sort of attitude could be dangerous.

Hermione, on the other hand, had a surprisingly neutral mindset when it came to these things. Despite her tendency to overthink, she was reliable and intelligent. It was the best Harry could hope for in a friend, at least.

If Harry somehow managed to survive long enough to actually graduate from Hogwarts, he did have a couple of plans for the future. One of his most prominent ones was to find a way to reverse engineer the Elixir of Life to provide him with true immortality instead of just an expanded lifespan. But that would require a Philosopher's Stone, and as far as he knew, Nicolas Flamel was the only one who had been capable of making one of those. And he was believed to be long dead at this point.

Some people might ask the question of what one would do with immortal life. Harry thought that those people were stupid. He for one would delve deeper into the nature of magic, unlock every secret known to wizarding kind and weave new and complex spells that only he could use. He would be the mightiest wizard known to man, undefeated by sickness nor death.

One could perhaps say that he was blinded by delusions of grandeur. But he chose to look at it as more of a pragmatic goal, something to work towards as he gained more knowledge about the mystical (and sometimes downright retarded) world of magic.

The Hogwarts Library

"Hey, Hermione, take a look at this," Harry said as he leaned over towards his female friend so she could get a better look at the book he was holding.

"Hmmmmm…" she mumbled as she worked her way through the wall of text Harry had highlighted. "You are reading about the Draconifors Spell, right?"

Harry nodded.

"Huh… I mean, it's an interesting spell to be sure, but what are you going to do with it? I can't see how turning objects into small dragons could have any sort of practical use…" she perplexed, fixing him with a quizzical look.

"Ahh, but can't you see how elementary this is, my dear Doctor Watson," Harry grinned, more than a little satisfied with his own wordplay and reference. Hermione on the other hand, was not, and simply rolled her eyes as the black-haired boy launched into yet another explanation.

"I intend to use the dragons as a means of transport, you see".

The flat stare she sent him told him that she was not impressed.

"You are going to use dragons to fly you up to the Ravenclaw Tower because you are too lazy to use the stairs, aren't you?"

"Precisely."

Letting out a sigh, Hermione leaned back and used her hands to gently massage her temples.

"You never cease to impress, Harry", she muttered with clear irony.

"I know; I am an underappreciated genius. Blame the administration for not installing some damn escalators around here," he responded matter-of-factly, closing his book on Transfiguration before reaching over towards the next one in his stack. He still had a plethora of subjects to get through before supper, including but not limited to the study of Grindylows, the inner workings of the Expecto Patronum and a deep-dive into the theory behind Animagi. The last one was especially interesting.

Ever since he had learned about Animagus forms, Harry had wanted to take a closer look at the magic behind it. Hermione had long since advised him to give up on this particular desire, as learning how to become an Animagus required vast amounts of patience and knowledge about your inner animal, but Harry still felt like the positives outweighed the negatives. However, after taking a surface-level look at the subject, he had quickly surmised that learning how to perform the transformation would be a strenuous process involving a ritual that would take months of preparation to get right, which was quite frankly something he didn't have the time to do right now.

"Well, well, well, what have we here? Potter and his mudblood friend, enjoying each other's company I see".

Harry didn't have any trouble recognizing that voice. Draco Malfoy had apparently decided to pay a visit to the library, no doubt just to take yet another futile shot at mocking him and Hermione, as that seemed to be his favorite pastime activity.

"What do you want, Malfag?" Harry shot back, still pretending to be reading in his book as if Malfoy wasn't even worthy of the slightest bit of his attention. An indignant scoff told him that Draco didn't appreciate his subtle insult.

"I was just going to peruse over some books at the library, but I think I might have come to the wrong place, seeing as there is nothing but trash here."

"Clever as always Draco. Tell me, does your bigoted father enjoy your incredible sense of humor as much as I do?"

A dark shadow cast itself over Malfoy's face at the mention of his father.

"I won't allow you to speak like that, Potter," he warned.

"Or what, Malfoy? You'll punish me? You know damn well that I am stronger than you, and from where I'm standing, you're the one who came in here looking for trouble". Pointing out the power difference between them did little to satiate Malfoy's anger, and Harry could see the boy growing more and more furiated by the second.

"You're really itching for a fight, aren't you Potter?" he sneered, pulling up his sleeves in a ridiculous attempt at intimidation. Harry wasn't bothered by it in the slightest though. He had already decided that he wouldn't be fighting Draco today, seeing as it was an utter waste of time and would most likely result in little else but get him into trouble with the Professors.

"I am not going to fight you Draco, so just go back to circlejerking with those two numbskulls and leave us alone," Harry replied, his voice perfectly calm. By "those two", he was obviously referring to Draco's designated bodyguards, Crabbe and Goyle, who always followed him around no matter where he went. "Actually, I'm curious; do they follow you to the toilet whenever you need to take a shit too?"

"Very funny Potter. Crabbe and Goyle have simply learned their place. They were born to serve under the Malfoy family, and one day, you'll serve us too," Draco retorted, managing to be even more arrogant than before.

"Not gonna happen Malfoy. There is no way I would ever serve someone as self-obsessed as you, much less the entire Malfoy family. But I'm tired of having this pointless discussion with you, so if you could just do me a favor and fuck off that'd be great". At this point, Harry had already gotten up from his seat and walked past Draco and his entourage, heading for the door leading out towards the corridor. He had been planning on going to the Great Hall to eat supper anyway, and would gladly do so now that he knew Draco would not be there.

"What, running away Potter? Too afraid to fight me? I bet your parents wish they could've done the same thing when they had to face the Dark Lord".

Harry stopped dead in his tracks, his back still turned towards Draco.

"… What did you say?"

An evil grin flashed across Draco's face as he saw Harry's reaction. He knew he had struck a nerve. What he didn't know, however, was when to stop.

"It hurts, doesn't it? Knowing how your parents begged for mercy, how your mother screamed as she watched your father fall to Lord Voldemort, how she must have trembled at the thought of her only son being taken from her. Well I'm going to let you in on a little secret, Potter," he continued as he slowly made his way towards Harry, the smirk on his face growing wider with every step.

"They deserved to die".

"…"

A wave of pure, unadulterated anger flooded the library, showering everyone in the room with fear the likes of which they had never experienced before. The temperature seemed to drop at an unnatural pace, hitting sub-zero in a matter of seconds.

What… is this? Hermione thought to herself as she watched in petrified silence. This isn't… that isn't Harry, it doesn't feel like Harry, it's not Harry. In fact, the person that was standing in front of her did not feel much like a person at all. It felt more like a lifeless husk, its singular purpose to act like a host for the endless abyss and void that seemed to permeate the room, erasing any memory of happy thoughts.

Harry Potter was a man of great pain, and in this very moment, he was forcing said pain on everyone else in the library.

"What are you doing, Potter?!" Draco squealed, visibly flinching as the waves of malice rolled over him.

"You will never…"

Fear swelled in Draco's eyes as Harry ever so slowly turned around to face him.

"Talk about my parents…"

He was clamoring up against the bookshelf behind him now, desperately looking for an opening past Harry. But Harry was not going to give him one.

"That way…"

He was close now, so close that he could practically smell the anxiety and dread Draco was feeling. For a split second, it felt good. It felt good to know that he held such power over the Malfoy boy, the power to make him feel fear unlike any other. After this, the boy would never attempt to agitate him again, because he would know the consequences.

"Ever again!"

The end of the sentence also marked the end of Harry's patience, as he jerked his hand forward in a push-like motion. The hand never even touched Draco, but the boy felt the pressure all the same, the pressure of Harry's magic being ruthlessly forced upon him, shoving his frail body against the bookshelf with such force it immediately broke his hip.

As the young boy fell to the floor, he let out a bloodcurdling scream of pain that echoed out into the hallway and far into the castle, no doubt attracting the attention of every Prefect and Professor at Hogwarts.

This seemed to wake Harry up from his trance-like state, which immediately put an end to the waves of anger and caused the temperature to steadily rise back up to normal. Whilst the others present were more than a little relieved, Harry was already starting to feel the repercussions of his anger-induced use of magic. His mind went fuzzy, his body throbbing from the overexertion that he had just put it through. Forcing magic to obey ones wishes without the use of a shortcut such as a wand could be an incredibly taxing affair, especially if it involved manipulating reality in the way Harry had just done. He had wanted Draco to get hurt, and forced this wish upon reality itself (or whatever it was that controlled the laws of physics).

Hermione must have noticed the paleness of his skin, because she immediately rushed over to his side to support him.

"Thank you," he gasped, leaning himself against her.

"Harry, what was that?!" Hermione hissed back, a mix of emotions swirling through her. Harry could not really blame her for that though. She had just witnessed her friend turn into the epicenter for a whirlpool of anger after all.

"I… we'll talk about it later, ok?" he whispered back, feeling more than a little uncomfortable. This one was going to be hard to explain. I mean, how did you really explain that you thought you had an Obscurus growing inside of you?

Harry wasn't quite sure of whether or not his Obscurus theory was actually correct. After coming across the subject during a rather late-night reading session in the library, he had been almost convinced that what he had just stumbled upon was the explanation for his apparent uncontrollable anger, however, after thinking about it for more than 5 minutes, he wasn't so sure.

An Obscurus could be explained as the manifestation of the repressed energy of a magical child, which would certainly fit the bill for Harry. He had, after all, been told to suppress his magic every day whilst living with the Dursleys, and beaten when he failed to do so. That would be the perfect environment for an Obscurus to take hold and grow, especially considering the total seclusion that Harry had been subjected to.

On the other hand, on every recorded instance of an Obscurial going wild, the host of the Obscurus lost any resemblance of control, and was at the complete mercy of his inner demons. Now, whenever Harry got so angry that he started triggering "self-imposed accidental magic", he never truly lost control. He could always direct the unstable force towards something, whether that was a person or an object. An Obscurial could not do this; they usually just ended up lashing out at anything in the nearby vicinity.

Many a night had been spent with Harry pondering this exact issue, trying to think of an answer as to why he seemed to be able to do something that most Obscurial could not. Due to this, he had ultimately decided to look for other possible causes of his "accidental magical outbursts" as well, and noted down the Obscurus theory as speculation and possible explanation for a later date.

Prof. McGonagalls Office

"Harry Potter… If I had to pick one person I would not expect to see in this office, I would pick you," Professor McGonagall said, shaking her head with clear disappointment. "You know why you have been called here, I presume?"

"Yes Professor," Harry answered, deciding not to delay the inevitable. Everyone and their grandmother had seen him attack Draco in the library, so he really didn't see a point in lying about it now.

"Then I must tell you that I am extremely curious as to why you saw it fit to attack a fellow student like that," McGonagall remarked, fixing him with an iron stare. "What could possibly have been going through your head for you to think that such an act would be acceptable?"

"Not to nag or anything Professor, but it was not like I just randomly attacked Malfoy out of nowhere. Draco came to the library for the sole purpose of provoking me, which, as made obvious by the fact that I am sitting here right now, he succeeded in. It just didn't end so well for him this time," Harry refuted, his face an expressionless mask.

"Didn't end so well for him? Harry, you broke the poor boy's hip, for Merlin's sake!"

"I didn't mean to. I overestimated his ability to handle my magic, and put a little more power into the push than strictly necessary, resulting in… well, a broken hip." Harry knew he was technically lying when he said that. He had wanted Draco to get hurt, and would quite frankly have been a little disappointed if the boy walked away with nothing more than a few, insignificant bruises.

"Harry…" McGonagall sighed, rubbing her tired eyes with one hand. "You have to understand that these things have consequences. You can't just go around hurting people that provoke you, even if you believe they deserve it. There is a reason rules exist."

"I know, Professor, and I promise that I'll try my best to uphold them from now on". Plus, Draco had already gotten what was coming to him, so Harry had a feeling he wouldn't be bothered by him for a while.

"I can ask for no more, but sadly I am expected to enforce the school rules, and therefore have to issue some kind of punishment, especially considering the nature of the violation," the Professor frowned, clearly not happy with the prospect of having to punish someone she was convinced regretted his actions. Harry obviously didn't, but the Professor did not need to know that.

"As such, I am giving you mandatory detention for the rest of the week". A small groan escaped Harry's lips as he heard his punishment. Detention was by far the cruelest thing they could have done to him, simply because it was mind-numbingly boring, and Harry hated being bored. He had the discipline not to complain about it aloud of course, but he made sure his dissatisfaction was visible in his facial expressions.

"Then I believe we are done here, right?" he asked, shooting a quick look towards the door.

"Yes, we are. You may leave, Potter".

As Harry got up from his seat and was about to leave the relatively small office, McGonagall coughed lightly to get his attention again.

"In fact, before you go, answer me this…"

"Yes, Professor?"

"According to what I've heard, you never physically touched Draco… and judging by your wand records, you have not used it to cast a single spell since Charms class earlier this day… but the young Malfoy was still pushed into the bookshelf with such power that it had to be the result of magic…"

Harry already knew where this line of questioning was going, and he didn't like it. He had no time to indulge the Professors' wishes to know about his accidental magic, and on top of this, it would be rather hard to explain just HOW he was able to do it in the first place.

"Let's just say that it was the result of multiple years of pent-up emotions and a dash of anger issues, Professor".

Malfoy Manor

Lucius Malfoy sat in silence as he watched the piece of parchment he had just read slowly catch fire and burn to ash. Draco's weekly letters were usually filled with nothing but mundane information that he quite frankly had no interest in hearing about, but this time, something interesting had actually happened. Harry Potter had apparently attacked his son in the library. The whole situation was… well, most troublesome. The Potter boy had turned out to be more proficient in wielding the magical arts than Lucius had initially expected, something that would no doubt trouble the Dark Lord, should he ever decide to return.

You see, ever since that night in Godric's Hollow, Lucius hadn't felt truly at peace. He had been relieved, of course, after hearing about Lord Voldemort's demise, but not at peace. There was something about the way he died that made him worry. The Dark Lord had often bragged about his seemingly immortal soul to his followers, so that he would go ahead and die at the hands of a toddler seemed a little too good to be true.

When Lucius had decided to take on the mask and don the robes, he had not been aware of just how cruel his new master could be. He would kill mercilessly and torture those who dared disobey him. Lucius himself had in fact been on the receiving end of said torture multiple times, despite being a sworn Death Eater, and he still remembered the overwhelming pain he had suffered under the Dark Lord's Cruciatus.

Despite the thought of Voldemort returning to power never failing to send a shiver down his spine, he couldn't write it off as an impossibility, simply because of the immense power the wizard had wielded. If his master had somehow found a way to make himself truly invincible… well, then they would all have to be prepared for his return.

The young Harry Potter therefore represented a threat to all of them, and Lucius would have liked nothing more than to get rid of him as fast as possible. This, however, had proved to be a rather difficult task, seeing as the boy was under the protection of Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix. And no wizard, dead or alive, would dare stand up against HIM singlehandedly, no matter how much gold Lucius tried to bribe them with.

But I can't just let the boy walk away without any punishment, that would bring great shame to the Malfoy name and honor. I have to find a way to hurt him somehow…

With the crackling fire as his only companion, Lucius sat for hours pondering about ways of bringing harm to the Potter heir. At last, he finally gave in to his sleepiness, and headed off to bed.

It was, however, not before his head hit the pillow that an idea struck him, an idea so brilliant he immediately flew back up onto his feet again, waking up his sleeping wife in the process.

"W… what are you doing, Lucius?" Narcissa Malfoy murmured, opening her sleepy eyes ever so slightly so she could look at him.

"Nothing you should concern yourself with, my dear. Go back to sleep now, I have some urgent business to take care of".

"Mmhhhh… Okay then, if you say so," she resigned, happily returning to the land of dreams.

Leaving the bedroom he shared with his wife, Lucius headed down the hallway that lead to his own personal study. He had already worked out the rough outlines of his plan, his mind going into overdrive at the thought of finally getting back at the Potter brat.

Sitting down behind a beautifully decorated mahogany desk situated at the back of the room, he quickly pulled out a piece of parchment and a quill, and began writing a letter. Tomorrow morning, he would be visiting Gringotts in order to make a withdrawal, and as such, he would have to inform the goblins in advance so they could fill out the necessary paperwork. If everything went according to plan, he would have the item he was going to retrieve ready to be shipped again shortly afterwards.

The best part about all of this was that none of it could be traced back to him. If what he had heard about Potter was true, the boy would be the one inflicting this harm upon himself, without ever knowing of Lucius's involvement.

This time, there was no room for failure. Harry Potter had to die. And Lucius Malfoy would be the one to do it.

Transfiguration Classroom

"Curse the person who came up with the idea of detention…" Harry muttered to himself as he stared blankly at the wall. He had been stuck in the Transfiguration classroom for what felt like a small eternity already, and even Hermione had long since abandoned him to his boredom. Even a person as "academically inclined" as her couldn't stand to sit in one of the classrooms this late after class had ended, even if it was to keep him company.

Detention at Hogwarts worked more or less exactly like detention at a normal high school would, the likeness being that there was absolutely nothing magical about it. The students would stay behind after the final class had ended, forced to stay in the classroom for a predetermined amount of time. Here they could work on their homework, read, draw or just do whatever the fuck it was regular students did these days.

Harry, being the knowledge-addict that he was, had no homework left to do of course, and as such had no other choice but to sit in silence and think. Contemplate… in this case, suicide. Speaking of suicide, he would actually rather prefer to go up against Voldemort again if it meant he could skip his remaining days of detention. At least the Dark Lord would kill him quickly.

Just as he was about to give up and let himself fall into an eternal coma, Professor McGonagall coughed, catching the attention of everyone present.

"You may leave".

Finally…

Leaving the classroom behind, Harry couldn't help but feel a wave of newfound respect for inmates who were stuck in prisons all around the world, forced to stay in the same collection of rooms for years on end. He was quite sure he would have lost his mind and gone crazy relatively fast in a place like that, if he ever had to go to prison for something.

"Finally let you go, huh?" Hermione said as she caught up with him on his way to the Ravenclaw Tower.

"Yeah, even the Professor was starting to look a little bored by the end there," Harry responded, shaking his head in exasperation. "I can't believe that anyone would willingly subject themselves to be stuck on guard duty for a bunch of teenagers like that."

"Well, unlike you they are actually getting paid to sit there," Hermione pointed out with a shrug. "And it's not like they have much of a choice anyway. Someone has to do it."

"Yeah, I guess you are right. Oh, and by the way, you wouldn't have happened to find the book I told you about earlier, would you?"

"If by "the book", you mean the book on Dark Rituals from the Restricted Section you have been eyeing for the past couple of days, then no, I didn't find it," she responded with a deadpan expression on her face. "There's no way I'm sneaking in there just so you can feed your obsession with Dark Magic."

"Fine. I was going to pick it up tonight with the Invisibility Cloak anyway so no harm done," Harry retorted nonchalantly, ignoring the disappointed look Hermione was shooting him.

"Harry, dabbling in the Dark Arts is dangerous and often leads to disaster, you know that, right?"

"Yes."

"You are going to do it anyways, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"You really don't care about the school rules at all, do you?"

"No."

Hermione knew when she had been beaten, and let out a defeated sigh as the duo arrived at the entrance to the Tower.

"The person who made it, never used it, and the person who used it, never saw it. What is it?" the eagle knocker placed on the door asked them. This was without a doubt the most obnoxious thing about living in the Ravenclaw Tower. Every time someone wanted to enter the common room, they would have to answer correctly to a riddle posed by the knocker. Harry had long since memorized most of the answers, but every now and then the shifty little bastard would throw in some new ones just for the hell of it.

"A casket," Hermione answered, requiring nothing short of a second to figure out the answer. The door flew open, allowing them entrance into the common room, and Harry immediately set course for his room. He had to get back to the library before it got too late so he could pick up the book on Dark Rituals, and he also wanted to check out whether or not he could find the "mysterious" room he had heard about that seemed to pop in and out of existence on the 7th floor. Hermione, however, had other plans, and grabbed his shirt-arm with an iron grip before he managed to get very far.

"Harry, aren't you forgetting something…?" she asked, doing nothing to hide the poorly concealed threat he sensed in her words.

"Uhm… No? I don't think so?" Harry answered carefully, measuring her reaction to his words. Oh no. Her brows furrowed. His answer had been wrong. He was in trouble now.

"Oh, you don't think so? That's odd, considering your promise to help me with my Charms homework..." The ice in her voice was crystal clear this time, but Harry still didn't want to go down without a fight.

"Please, Hermione, have some mercy! I've just spent several of the most excruciating hours of my life stuck in a Transfiguration classroom, I just want some free time, please don't do this!" he pleaded, desperately trying to convince her to let him off the hook. Hermione wasn't having any of it though.

"Mr. Potter, you are coming with me this very second!"

And Harry had little choice but to do as she said. He didn't want to risk suffering the wrath of a Hermione on the warpath. Women could be downright terrifying sometimes.

Diagon Alley

Diagon Alley was referred to as being the center of magical activity and shopping in Britain, with thousands of wizards and witches visiting their stores and locales every day. It was, by all accounts, one of the busiest areas in England, but on this particular Friday morning, the usually crowded streets were all but empty, save for a couple of stray cats. This suited Lucius well, because it meant that he wouldn't have to bulldoze his way through the thick crowd that normally surrounded the Gringotts Wizarding Bank to get to his vault. The decreased activity also meant that the chance of someone eavesdropping or spying on you was considerably lower than normal, which was just how he liked it. Lucius preferred to be the one doing the eavesdropping rather than the opposite. Approaching the massive bronze doors leading in to Gringotts, he let out a determined sigh before walking in.

The goblins all looked up from their desks along the wall as he entered the bank, all of them eyeing him with a mix of curiosity and hatred. It was a well-known fact that most goblins hated wizards, despite being the ones in control of their economy. The bloody Goblin Rebellions had, after all, only stopped due to a flimsy agreement between the goblins and the Ministry of Magic, in which the goblins retained the right to administer Gringotts, the only bank dedicated to storing wizarding effects in all of Britain. Needless to say, tensions were still high between the two races, and things would most likely stay that way for eternity, at least until someone with the skill and charisma to unite them came along.

But that was not why Lucius was here today, to spar with the goblins. He was here to retrieve a rather special item from one of his vault, an item that had the potential to wipe the Potter boy off the face of the earth forever. That was, if he could get the item to Hogwarts in the first place.

Lucius walked with his head held high all the way up to the front of the marble hall, coughing lightly to get the attention of the goblin that sat behind the quite frankly massive desk in the middle.

"Ahh, Lord Malfoy. Pleasure to see you here today," the banker known as Bogrod droned with false hospitality. "Judging by your letters, I would presume you are here to pick up the item you wrote about?"

"That would be correct. And I would deeply appreciate it if this matter could be taken care of and finished with as fast as possible. I have places to be, after all."

"Why of course, Lord Malfoy. Right this way," the goblin answered, a rueful grin plastered on his face. Lucius knew the creature was only remaining formal out of necessity, and would most likely have flipped him off if what they were doing hadn't been related to the goblins job. They took their responsibilities very seriously, after all.

The goblin lead him down a collection of connecting hallways and staircases, down to a hollowed-out cave that contained one of the mine cart-like contraptions they used to access the lower vaults. He hated these things. They had always made him feel nauseous ever since he had to visit the Malfoy Family Vault for the first time. The goblin must have noticed the hesitation in Lucius's eyes, because a big grin appeared on his face as he made a hand motion gesturing for him to get in.

Wretched creature, Lucius thought-projected as he found his seat.

Wizarding scum, the goblin laughed back mentally, taking great pleasure in seeing the flustered Wizard grab the edge of the cart with an iron grip.

It didn't take long for the cart to start moving, rapidly increasing in speed and transporting the duo deeper and deeper into the underground abyss beneath Gringotts. After a series of loops, twists and turns, they finally arrived at their destination.

Lucius slowly got out of the cart, his strong pride the only thing stopping him from bending over and throwing up right there on the spot. The goblin, however, seemed completely unfazed by the trip as he walked up to the door leading in to the Malfoy vault.

"As you know, the door to the vault is locked with a multitude of security measures. These measures include, but are not limited to, a lock requiring a very specific key, a detection spell that only triggers if it senses the presence of authorized personnel, a secret combination of words that only our employees know and a hand sensor," the goblin informed as he started deactivating one lock after the other. "This makes it virtually impossible for anyone but trusted Gringotts personnel to access this vault, thus making it the safest place in existence to store your Galleons".

The door finally swung open, setting fire to a multitude of torches that illuminated the vast amounts of riches inside the room.

"Here you go, Lord Malfoy".

Lucius gracefully approached his family's wealth, any thought of nausea vanishing at the marvelous sight of such bountiful treasures. The Malfoys had managed to accumulate a rather enormous amount of Galleons over the ages, making them one of the richest pureblood families in existence. He was now staring at approximately 50 percent of all that wealth. However, Galleons was not what he was here for today.

"Open the innermost sanctum, if you please," Malfoy said, turning around so he could address the goblin. The creature looked shocked for a second, before regaining its mask of professionalism and nodding its head.

"I have to tell you, nobody has requested the inner sanctum to be opened in at least a decade. I cannot promise that the item your family placed within that room still retains its original quality, as it has most likely suffered degradation during the course of time," the goblin droned whilst approaching the hidden door that rested at the back of the vault.

"That matters not, goblin, just open the room," Lucius stated, starting to feel impatient. He had wasted enough time here already. He had to get this over with, and return to Malfoy Manor as soon as possible.

"As you wish," the goblin responded, bowing his head ever so slightly before pulling out a rather peculiar-looking rock out of his jacket. He then proceeded to hold the rock up against the door, whispering words of ancient magic. As he finished, the rock vanished as if it had never even been there, and the door let out a shriek as it slowly opened up.

"Here you go, the sanctum is now open."

"Thank you."

Taking one last deep breath, Lucius strengthened his resolve and stepped inside of the small cave. The room itself was nothing special, just a small compartment that had been locked off from the main vault, but the item it guarded was nothing short of priceless.

And there, on a small stone table right in front of him, it lay, wrapped in cloth to hide its title. It was a thick grimoire, a seemingly innocent item with no extraordinary qualities. But Lucius knew better. This was perhaps the most exceptional relic in the entire Malfoy vault, containing knowledge that certain wizards would die to get their hands on. And they most likely would too, if they tried to perform any of the rituals this book described.

Lucius reached out and carefully grabbed it from its stand. It was heavy, heavier than it looked, but other than that, it appeared to be nothing but an insignificant thing that could easily pass unnoticed if placed in a proper bookshelf. He did not remove the cloth covering its title, however, because doing so could be dangerous if done in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"If I may ask, Lord Malfoy…" the goblin started, his curiosity finally getting the better of him. "What are you going to do with that?"

Lucius shot the goblin a quick look, the traces of a small smile flashing across his lips.

"I'm going to give it to someone," he answered.