"Remember, I get first dibs on anything dangerous or cursed," said Richard.

"And I get the snake, I know. How did you convince them to ignore us for the rest of the day anyway?"

"Told them I was out hunting for actual human hearts on Valentine's Day," shrugged Richard.

Harry stopped what he was doing, and turned to look him.

"I would ask if you were joking, but I have a feeling you aren't. That being said, is it possible for you to cover for me while I hide from fan girls?"

"I'll do you one better. I'll give the others a chance to get out of target practice and you can spend the day grading, therefor have a legitimate excuse for why you're not around," said Richard.

"And thus give me an alibi not even Snape could dispute."

Judging by Harry's grin, it was pretty clear he was going to multitask...or at least abuse his time turner for a bit of fun.

"Do share..." grinned Richard.

"Know what water balloons and water guns are?"

"Toys, and thus not very useful for outright chaos," said Richard.

"Not if you're only using water. Here's what we're going to do. Since you're leaving the castle for a bit anyway to get the hearts, I want you to pick up six hundred water guns and buy the balloons in bulk, along with funnels. Since Valentines is next week, I'm going to lend my time turner to the twins so they can do a mass brewing spree for prank potions, spend the night before carefully pouring them into the guns and balloons...then spread them around without Filch or the other teachers finding out until the war starts."

"You could always bring the house elves in on it, with the agreement to let them enchant the guns to make it easier for them to clean up...otherwise Filch is sure to kill you."

"Hmm...makes it easier to put the potions into the guns and balloons that way..."

The two entered the infamous Chamber...and the first thing out of Harry's mouth was...

"Tacky. Very tacky..."

And it was. Having a snake theme was fine, but this place made it look like Salazar was obsessed with the damn things. The twin snake statues lining the walkway to the relief at the back of the chamber looked horrendously lame.

"Even I have better taste than this. He took the 'evil snake' theme way too far."

Still, they had a job to do. Harry made sure to hold the bag open enough that the snake wold have no other choice but to go into the thing once it came out of the relief.

~Speak to me Slytherin, Greatest of the Hogwarts Four!~

The basilisk slithered out, and didn't realize the trap until it was already halfway into the bag. Harry closed it quickly once the tail cleared the relief, and then set it out the way.

Above him was a light spell, while his wand was continuously casting the 'scourgify' charm. He would explore the inside of the relief in hopes that the basilisk was just the guard dog for something really cool...or possibly eggs.

Richard would explore the various tunnels in hopes of finding something interesting.

Who knew what he would find growing down here?


With Harry...

The relief went about five feet into the rock face before it opened up to a much bigger room. From the looks of it, the basilisk would curl around the center of it while the rest seemed very clean. In fact it almost looked like...

"A ritual room, really? He had the snake guarding a boring ritual room?"

Ritual rooms were almost unheard of these days, as wizards had grown very lazy and were used to instant results. Some rituals could take days, even weeks before the effects could be felt. Even if they were more powerful as a result.

Richard had a ritual room in his home, but he didn't really use it anymore. That was only for special occasions.

Harry scanned the place, cleaning off the various dirt, grime and who knew what else the snake had picked up slithering through the pipes that housed the schools plumbing.

He was about to leave when he found something lying in the dirt just outside the ritual circle.

He picked it up and immediately felt something prick his hand. He could feel something judging him...before settling over his shoulders like a cloak.

Harry shrugged, then stuffed the thing into his backpack before crawling out.


With Richard...

Richard wandered around the tunnels, almost disappointed. At least until he found something that really made his day.

It was a wall of roses...and not just any roses as when he went to examine them, they tried to eat his hand off. The sharp rows of tiny teeth almost hidden in the petals made Richard smile so widely you could almost see the barest hints of his mouth past the mask.

"And here I thought those fools in Brazil had made these beauties extinct years ago..."

Nightblood Roses. Hunted down by herbologists and damn near made extinct because their primary food source was blood, Richard had been trying to find some for his garden for decades.

Nightblood roses could survive in daylight, but they thrived best in darker areas, making them sought after by dark lords and the less than moral families to guard their homes.

Richard just liked them because they looked like normal roses right up until the point they tried to eat your face off. The more blood they consumed, the bigger and more beautiful the rose would become.

With a skilled and careful hand, Richard extracted a small section of the roses so he could transplant them later. He got two smaller ones for Neville and Pomona, seeing as how they were the only ones who shared his passion for gardening and would likely trade something even rarer and harder to get later.

Hearing something from where the relief was, Richard left the roses behind...but not before marking where he found them for later.

"Find anything interesting?"

"Let's see..."

Harry reached into his bag...and pulled out a strange artifact.

"Well it looks like this trip proved fruitful for both of us. You got a new pet to unleash untold amounts of death and a new toy to play with, and I finally got some Nightblood roses for my garden."

"What is this anyway?"

"Overlord Gauntlet. Allows you to take control of the Overlord tower, which was ransacked by the wizards a thousand years ago when the last one was kicked out. Gives you a bunch of annoying minions that you can use to cause damage and destruction, a bunch of rather boring spells, some armor and weapons. I was wondering why that idiot Gnarl hadn't tried to bring a new one around," said Richard.

The only reason he knew about the Overlord tower was because Hctib Elttil had threatened to try his luck with the Overlord as his personal imp if Richard didn't quit summoning him so often.

Which lead to a small altercation (only a few villages were destroyed!) between him and some fat idiot who thought that just because he could spawn untold numbers of minions who wouldn't think twice about dying for him that he could beat Richard. Gnarl had been impressed...so much so that Richard had a standing invitation to the tower whenever it was down an Overlord for tea and to use the outer areas for the dangerous and deadly flora he couldn't fit around his own.

Gnarl had almost been disappointed Richard was outright rejected by the Tower Heart. At least until he realized why.

Richard was too strong to actually need the gauntlet to cause evil. He was a step above most overlords Gnarl served.

Be interesting to see how that old minion handled the fact that the first new Overlord in a thousand years happened to be Richard's new apprentice/enabler/handler.


Harry's evil plan for outright chaos went off without a hitch. Upon explaining water guns/balloons to an overly interested pair of cackling Weasley Twins and promising they could keep their set (along with acting as supplier for more muggle toys for them to experiment with) the group settled in for a long night of filling, storing and then passing the muggle toys.

Harry would spend the entire day up in the ceiling of the Great Hall armed with enough water balloons to arm the entire Gryffindor house twice over under his cloak. Because his aim was quite frankly crap, it wouldn't matter how bad his throw was because either way he would get a massive splatter pattern considering he was armed with the bigger balloons filled with pink, red, and white paint, along with some glitter bombs.

It was mundane water color paint charmed to disappear in four hours, courtesy of the house elves who were more than happy for a bigger mess to clean, within reason.

They had done most of the filling for Harry in concerns to the bigger balloons, once he showed them how to tie them off.

Filch would be given the day off by Dumbledore, since Richard had successfully managed to cover the entire Great Hall with real human hearts, still bleeding.

It had been a suggestion of Harry. Dumbledore and McGonagall had no clue the hearts were only a distraction and an excuse to keep Filch occupied by staying with his beloved cat the entire day.

Harry would use the time turner to 'hide' in Richard's office grading the surprise papers, while in reality he would be reigning death from above with the twins.

Needless to say they were going to have great fun tomorrow.


The first sign of trouble, in Hermione's mind, was when she spotted something that shouldn't be in Hogwarts under Neville's cloak.

The second and biggest sign was when all the food abruptly disappeared shortly after everyone had eaten at least one plate of food...and everyone promptly brought out mundane water pistols.

McGonagall, who had long since developed a nose for trouble (as had Snape, who had vanished the second he saw what they were) had no chance to demand what was going on when the first volley was thrown.

Draco Malfoy was turn a bright fluorescent pink with enough glitter powder to make even Lavender Brown and her friend Parvati very happy.

With that surprise attack, all holds were off.

Students were aiming water pistols filled with bright water color paints at each other, the professors, even at the ghosts! Adding to the chaos was the random massive balloons which were more like missiles from above that splattered everyone indiscriminately.

Hermione, despite her studious nature, had to admit she was having a lot of fun nailing idiots like Malfoy and Parkinson with the bright paints and the occasional glitter balloon.

It was utter chaos, but no one outside the teachers seemed to care.

It was just the sort of mess to diffuse the tension of the year with all the attacks on students and release all the pent up fear.

Even Dumbledore, to the students surprise, got into the games. He was particularly colorful, as was Hagrid who was a surprisingly good shot with his balloons.

Once the chaos calmed down (mostly because the paints were finally emptied from the guns and the balloons more or less used up) several hours later, Richard walked up to the stage.

"I hope everyone enjoyed the 'surprise' my aide cooked up for Valentines day. You can thank him tomorrow when he comes out of hiding from McGonagall, Snape and his fangirls," said Richard.

Seeing the massive grins on everyone's faces, Harry knew he had done something right while he prepared his last volley of balloons.

To the shock of everyone, Richard went from evil DADA teacher bent on setting everyone on fire...to a pink, red and white colored warlock with enough glitter powder to keep an entire middle school's worth of young pre-teen girls happy for months. He outdid even Dumbledore.

Richard lifted his soaked cloak and said with an amused voice... "Pink is not my color."

Everyone, barring McGonagall and Snape, went to bed with smiles. It would go down in Hogwarts history as the most eventful and loved Valentine's day for years.

Needless to say Harry was thanked by many of the students who absolutely loved the chaos and the mess made. And the first-gens were very happy to learn they could keep the water guns to play with later.


It was History of Magic...and once again everyone was just shy of falling asleep.

After he did fall asleep...and somehow ended up on the floor after falling off his desk, Harry had had enough of Binns. That ghost had to go.

The next week Dumbledore made the announcement that Professor Binns had been forcibly exorcised...and that he would be teaching History until they could find a replacement until next year. It was too late to find one before the exams came.

To his surprise, this was met with even more cheering...everyone basically considered History a great place to get a nap.


"So tell me Professor Richard, seeing as how we're already short a teacher, are you planning to leave this year?" asked Dumbledore. He was almost hopeful the infamous 'curse' would hold true.

"Hmm... to be quite honest I find I enjoy teaching young minds. I do believe I shall stick around... at least until my young aides are old enough to join me properly on quests or I get bored. Harry is quite entertaining and Luna is a delight."

Snape made a strangled sound in his throat.

"You're coming back?!" he said horrified.

"Look at the bright side! You can use me as a threat against the overachievers like Granger who seem to think we actually enjoy reading overlong essays."

Snape's mouth snapped shut with a click. He had to admit, that was a valid point. About the only ones who enjoyed reading those were the elective professors like Vector and Babbling.

"In any case it would appear I need to hire a new History teacher for next year," said Dumbledore.

At least now they knew who to send in if Richard got out of hand. Harry was disturbingly adept at handling his brand of insanity.

It had to be genetic. That was the only explanation he would accept at this point. After all, Sirius Black was almost as bad as Richard, and look how easily James handled him!

"Coincidentally how long does Harry have to stay at that house for the wards you tote so much about to be charged?"

"A full week," said Dumbledore without thinking, before he realized what Richard had just asked. He had the unsettling feeling he had just signed someone's death sentence, and didn't know why.