Draco Malfoy hated Luna Lovegood more than he hated any other living being in the whole of existence.

Harry had taken to bothering the Dementors at the edge of the school grounds a few days prior and at first Draco had been horrified and about to run to tell Severus, but then the little bitch had cheered Harry on.

And, well. Draco was so furious with her encouraging Harry's recklessness that he started to scream at her and then she'd screamed back and at the end Harry hadn't gone anywhere because he was too busy separating the two of them. Small Mercies, Draco supposed.

But then it had happened again and this time Draco knew to control himself and marched directly to the staff room and tattled on both Harry and Lovegood. They both got detention. Separate detentions, which was even better.

It was now several days later and even though Draco new for a fact that Harry had gone back to chasing Dementors he wasn't about to tattle on him yet, not until he could incriminate Lovegood again. Besides, Draco strongly suspected that there was nothing the Dementors could really do to Harry. Harry hadn't even looked phased by them on the Express and Draco knew for a fact Harry was the strongest Wizard at Hogwarts, maybe even in existence.

It was Draco's job to remain loyal to him, till the bitter end.

"This isn't working", huffed Harry and threw down his notes on his. It was night and they were all preparing to sleep. Draco recognized the notes to be from Harry's multiple freedom speeches.

"Need help with you vocabulary?", Draco offered, even though Harry had an impeccable vocabulary – when he wished to use it, which wasn't as often as Draco liked.

"I mean the methods I'm using!", ranted Harry as he paced the small room they were forced to share.

"I've been giving speeches upon speeches and protesting and everything I could think of to solve the problems of the Wizarding World peacefully, but you've seen how dismissive everybody has been! You've all seen how I've been ignored and belittled by the grownups, the so called leaders of our world. Well, I say I'm done with it. I'm done with them!"

Draco blinked as he stared at Harry, not sure if Harry was saying what Draco thought he was saying.

"I'm going to take it over. I'll become the Overlord and then nobody will be able to ignore me. I'll rule the world and then all magical creatures will finally have the freedom they deserve!", proclaimed Harry to the room at large.

All the boys stood frozen as they watched Harry.

Oh Merlin, Harry was absolutely saying what Draco thought he was saying.

Harry ranted for another hour at least about all the things he'd do once he was Overlord of the world – world, because his plans were to start with Britain and then move on to the rest of the world.

Draco didn't even want to contemplate if he'd just been witness to the birth of the next Dark Lord. His father had told him about his grandfather witnessing the beginnings of the Dark Lord himself and Draco really wasn't sure if he was ready to fall into his grandfather's footsteps in this regard quite yet.

The very next morning Draco barged into Severus' office and upon finding it empty went to knock on his private quarters' door.

Severus opened the door and sighed upon seeing him, "What has he done now?"

"He ranted for over an hour last night about he's going to become the next Overlord of the world."

"He what?", Severus hissed, "That child! Each time I feel I make progress with him!"

What progress he saw in Harry Draco didn't know, he'd personally never seen much of this, but he supposed Severus would know best.

"I'll talk to him as soon as I can. Thank you for reporting this Draco", his godfather nodded at him and Draco took his leave.

"Let me back! Let me go back! We were understanding each other on a spiritual level!", shouted Harry as he was dragged away from the Quidditch Pitch currently swarmed by Dementors.

"You won't have any spirit by the time they're done with you!", shouted Draco. He'd barely been as scared as he'd just been in his life.

Harry had gone up high in search of the Snitch and somehow the Dementors took this as invitation to swarm the whole stadium and terrorize everybody.

To get Harry away the Slytherin team had come together to shove him off his broom and fly away with him as fast as they could. Draco didn't even know what had happened with Harry's broom. Dementors had probably eaten it for all he knew.

They eventually managed to drag Harry to the castle, where they were waiting for the teachers to call the game results.

"Well I guess Jimmy will be glad now that he didn't go", said one of the Weasley twins as the Gryffindor team also settled down to wait for the game results.

Draco snorted. Everybody had hoped that this game would relief some of the tensions that were still running high from Halloween when Sirius Black had tried to break into the Gryffindor Tower. Jimmy was taking it especially bad and even though Harry claimed that he wasn't worried since that was a trait unbecoming of the future Overlord, Draco had still seen him writing long letters for a Muggle friend called Nick that Draco had never heard him mention before. It just seemed fishy to Draco.

They ended up waiting for over an hour until the teachers came back. The Quidditch match was called as inconclusive and that it would played again within a week. Several members of the Gryffindor team groaned as their Captain cheered and began making plans out loud for more training. Ginny Weasley, who had debuted as their new Seeker was looking like she was ready to run away.

"That's it lads, let's get back to the common room and plan our next step", said Marcus and began herding them all away from the castle doors.

"Hey, did anybody grab my broom?", Harry wondered out loud.

They were only able to find the broom the next day, after the Whomping Willow decimated it to pieces.

"Wait, wait, you mean to tell me there's a tree capable of basically murdering people if it so wished on the school grounds?", Harry asked Draco when presented with what was left of his Nimbus 2000.

"Uh, yeah?", Draco was almost afraid of where this would lead.

"And nobody told me?!", Harry dropped his broom pieces on the floor, "I need to go there right this instant!"

Draco went along since he knew it was better if he tagged along, that way he could better help stop Harry whenever he came up with a new hare-brained idea.

Of course the tree didn't appreciate this and tried to murder Harry as soon as he went close, which Harry only took as a challenge and took to accosting Professor Sprout at every given opportunity about the care of the demon tree.

All the care for the tree and zero care for anything else led to Harry playing the Gryffindor vs. Slytherin match on an old Shooting Star that they found in the Quidditch cupboards. Also, since Harry was still obsessed with the Dementors he tended to fly high during most of the game and noticed too late when Ginny spotted the Snitch and wasn't able to beat her to it.

In public they blamed it all on Harry's terrible broom, but in private Harry got lectured several times by the Quidditch team and Severus, who also noticed what Harry had been trying to do during the game.

"You just need to learn to control yourself", Theo told Harry as they all made their way to their class of Defense.

"Easy for you to say. My best chance with trying to communicate with the Dementors was during that game, but the whole team dragged me away", grumbled Harry.

"Well I'm sorry there are people that care for your continued survival", sneered Pansy.

"I would have been fine!", Harry insisted.

"That doesn't mean we'll stop worrying you git!", said an exasperated Blaise.

"At this rate all we can do is be happy he hasn't gone after Black himself", mused Draco, who was honestly surprised this wasn't the case.

Harry made a face, "I don't care about Black. At most I'm upset that because of his fault I won't be able to go to Hogsmeade with you guys."

"Please don't try to sneak into Hogsmeade, by the way", said Blaise, "With your luck Black will just be sitting at the Three Broomsticks, ready to attack you as soon as he sees you."

Harry scoffed.

"I'll bring you Butterbeer if you promise not to sneak into Hogsmeade", Draco offered.

Harry gave him a considering look, "Add a few crumpets to that and you'll have a deal."

"Deal", said Draco and held out his hand to shake Harry's.

As soon as they arrived at the classroom Lupin was waiting for all of them at the classroom door.

"Is that all of you? Good, I have a surprise for you today", he said and guided them to the castle dungeons where a room waited for them with a rattling armoire that was held closed with chains.

Harry blinked owlishly when he saw this, "What is-a Boggart?"

"Exactly! Five points to Slytherin", said Lupin happily and proceeded to explain to them about Boggarts and how to counter them.

"Now, I want you to make a line and each take a turn at the Bogga-"

"NO!", shouted Harry, sounding distressed, "That poor Boggart wasn't bothering anybody! Who are we to come terrorize that poor creature in the home it has made for himself?"

Draco facepalmed and went to sit down hard on one of the crates lying about in the decrepit room.

"Harry this is a very important lesson that all Witches and Wizards ought to learn", Lupin tried to reason with Harry, but apparently he didn't know him at all. If he did he would know that there was no reasoning with Harry.

"So what? We learn at the expense of an innocent creature? How cruel can you be?!"

"Think I can take a kip on the floor while they talk it out?", Draco heard Ron ask Hermione, who in turn swatted his arm.

They ended up debating it for quite a while, with Lupin getting increasingly agitated and Harry insisted nonstop that the Boggart was innocent and didn't deserve this treatment. At the end Lupin allowed Harry to leave the room if he didn't want to participate and made the rest of them go through his with his class plans.

As soon as Draco joined Harry to walk to their joined Study of Ancient Runes class he got a stink eye, probably for not also walking out of the class with Harry.

"When I'm Overlord these type of things will be outlawed", said Harry.

"Well, at least you didn't give Lupin your Overlord spiel, he'd probably have something to say to that", mused Draco.

"He'd also probably tell Professor Snape and I really don't want him on my case again this soon", said Harry with a wince.

"You really shouldn't go about advertising your plans to become Overlord", Draco pointed out.

"It is better if everybody just makes their piece with it", huffed Harry.

Draco just shook his head.

Harry trudged down to his dorm room as soon as he got back to Hogwarts after the Christmas holidays. These vacations had been anything but relaxing. James had been practically vibrating out of his skin with anxiety, Lily was even more drunk than usual and Jimmy was too nervous to be of much conversation.

'Home at last', said Voldemort as soon as Harry stepped into his dorm room.

"Home at last", Harry echoed out loud since there was nobody there to hear him.

He came up to his bed and then suddenly stopped.

There was a wrapped up broom resting on his bed.

'SHIT, SHIT, SHIT, SHIT', was all Harry could think.

'Vol, what do I do?!', he asked in a panic and then he heard the voices of his dorm mates getting closer.

"Shit!", he hissed and quickly weaved his magic around him. The broom floated to the bed next to Harry's and a little card full of hearts appeared next to it saying 'Happy Christmas'.

Just before the door opened Harry dove for his bed and made as if he was casually lying down.

"Hey, what's this?", asked Draco as he came to inspect the package – and Merlin's fucking pants Harry had forgotten in his panic that the bed next to his belonged to Draco.

"OH MERLIN IT'S A FIREBOLT!", shrieked Draco as he held up the broom with reverence.

"Wow, that's great", said Harry with a forced expression of shock.

"THEO,BLAISE, LOOK! YOU TOO GREG AND VINCE! IT'S A GENUINE FIREBOLT!"

"Who would give you a Firebolt", said Theo, making a face as if he didn't think anybody would send Draco a Firebolt.

"I GOT A FIREBOLT!", shrieked Draco as he tore out of their dorm room and went running to the common room where his screams could still be heard.

"Aaand we lost him", said Blaise with a sad shake of his head.

"I've never seen anybody react like that over a broom", said Theo, "Like a true madman. Think its those Black genes finally shining through?"

'Could be that the broom was cured', mused Voldemort and Harry felt his blood go cold.

'What?'

'Yeah, well, suspicious package lying on your bed when you have a known mass murderer on your and your family's tail. I mean, I was going to suggest you burn it, but-', Voldemort gave off a motion that Harry identified as a shrug.

'Merlin what have I done?!', Harry thought. This was the dead Merfolk situation all over again.

The next morning Harry was up before anybody else in his House to race to Professor Snape's private quarters.

Professor Snape gave him a raised eyebrow when he opened his door, "What are you doing here at this hour of the day Potter? What have you done now?"

"Nothing Sir, but I'm very worried about Draco", Harry explained, "He found a new Firebolt lying on his bed last night and went absolutely crazy about it. He's even slept with it during the night, like a teddy bear. Thing is, nobody knows where it came from. There was only a note that said 'Happy Christmas' attached to it."

Professor Snape narrowed his eyes at Harry.

Harry kept a steadfast stare on his Professor's nose.

Professor Snape kept staring.

Harry could start feeling sweat beat on his forehead when Professor Snape gave a sigh and said, "Fine. I'll go have a look at this broom."

Harry felt a weight lifting from him, "Thanks Professor!", he said in the most heartfelt way he could muster.

"Yes, yes", his teacher grumbled and stalked ahead of Harry in the direction of the Slytherin entrance.

Upon seeing Draco's deep infatuation with the Firebolt and judging its origins to be suspicious at best Professor Snape took away Draco's broom to examine it further.

Draco was on the verge of sobbing for all of five seconds before he looked at Harry and snarled at him in anger.

"This is your fault! Why'd you have to go ruin this for me?!", and then he truly did run away to go sob in private.

"This is the top notch drama I'm here for", commented Blaise as he watched the whole ordeal while he snacked on dried fruits.

Draco ignored Harry for the next couple days, so Harry took to spend some time with his brother in the meantime.

"I get what you're feeling Harry", said Hermione one day as they all sat in the library. Hermione was looking more haggard than usual and had a truly obscene amount of books surrounding her. She was also at least doing homework for two different classes as she talked with Harry.

"I've had this problem with Crookshanks trying to eat Ron's rat, so now he's mad at me for my cat doing what cats do!", she huffed in anger and looked at Harry with half-deranged eyes, deep bags under her eyes, "Is any of that my fault Harry? This is how nature works! How life is! I can't help that Ron's been living in la-la land his whole life!"

"Er", said Harry. Jimmy scooted away from Hermione and exchanged a nervous look with Seamus. Dean looked resigned.

He later ran into Ron, who asked him if it was true that he'd made Draco lose his broom.

"I mean, it's good for us, you know. But what a git move Harry, what a scumbag, lowlife-"

"Okay, bye", said Harry and walked away.

"But still, thanks Harry!", Ron shouted after him.

Harry went to the school grounds and sat on a rock near Hagrid's hut. Hagrid was currently giving his classes to a group of fifth years, which if Harry's memory served him right meant that he would be showing them how burb his Blast-Ended Skrewts. They truly were magnificent creature, but needed a lot of work, which meant Hagrid was almost constantly taking some class to take of them. This all prevented Harry from visiting Norberta as often as he wished he could.

Still moping Harry barely even noticed a black stray dog come up to him until it was sniffing at Harry's hand.

"Hey boy", said Harry and patted its head.

Spot growled in the back of Harry's consciousness.

'Yeah, he's a good boy, just like you are buddy', thought Harry.

"What you doing here? You alone?", Harry scratched it behind its ears and noticed there was no collar.

"Poor you, want some food?", Harry got up as the dog gave a huffed bark.

"Come, Hagrid won't mind if I give you some of Fang's food."

After feeding the dog Harry took him to the Slytherin common room where he was cooed over by everybody and given a spot to lie in front of the fireplace.

A week later Draco got his broom back with a promise that it wasn't full of any sort of harmful spells. Draco slowly started to talk to Harry again, but he mostly just clung to his broom.

'Just marry your broom already Malfoy!', jeered Voldemort as Harry watched his friend carry the broom with him absolutely everywhere. Several of the teachers were already prohibiting him from bringing it into his class. This was the closest Draco got to wanting to complain to his father of something in a long time. He'd mostly stopped in his first year after Harry had laughed one too many times at him, but it all was coming undone now.

"You won't ever abandon me over a broom, would you?", Harry asked the dog he'd picked up previously and who now permanently resided in the Slytherin common room.

The dog gave him a soulful look with his dark eyes and huffed.

"You're my one true friend", lamented Harry.

'What am I? Chopped liver?'

"My second true friend", amended Harry. The dog gave him a confused look.

Spot growled.

"My third true friend."

"Harry, are you okay?", asked Greg as he eyed the dog giving Harry an even more confused look.

Merlin, Harry must be truly going crazy cause he swore the dog was looked at him with worry.

"You know what, I'm going to get Luna. We'll go poke at some Dementor. See ya Greg."

'Harry, no.'

"Harry, no", said Greg, "Professor Snape is gonna get mad at you again."

"Harry yes", said Harry and left.

Harry was still serving his second week of detention with Professor Snape from the fall out of accidentally poking a Dementor in it's eye – it was an accident, he swore – when they all got woken up in the middle of the night for a head count.

"Wha'samatteh", slurred Harry as he was hurried to the common room.

"Black broke in again", said Marcus.

"What?", Harry woke up immediately.

Marcus shrugged, "Don't know much else. Heard it from one of the prefects."

"He didn' break in here, we should all go back sleep", said Draco, half slurring his words as he hugged his broom close to his chest.

"Hey, has anyone seen Shaggy?", asked Pansy.

They all looked around for the stray dog Harry had brought in, but couldn't find him.

"Oh, I hope he's okay", said Millicent as she wrung her hands.

At the end they were all accounted for and allowed to go back to sleep. Nobody was really able to sleep after all the excitement and most of everybody was out early to hear the gossip.

Turned out Black had almost killed Ron.

"But the thing is, and get this cause its golden, is that Ron eats at his bed. Literally every day he'll bring some stuff to eat, throw his trash at the side of the bed for the elves to clean. It's a right pigsty. Anyways, so we all woke up from Ron screaming when he saw Black standing over him with a knife, but the scream startled Black as well and then he stepped on a banana peel that was on the floor by Ron's bed. He shouted 'bloody hell!' as he went down and by accident grabbed Scabbers, Ron's pet rat, and then made a run for", explained Seamus to the crowd that was gathering to listen.

"You can't be serious", said Draco in disbelieve, still holding his Firebolt.

"It's true", said a despondent Ron, "I guess it was Scabbers' fate to die this year. First it was that terrible can and at the end it was Black", he sniffed, "He didn't deserve to go like this."

Neville patted him on the back, "He's at a better place now Ron."

"Where's Jimmy?", asked Harry.

"He's locked himself into the bathroom since last night. Nothing we say or do can get him out. Dean's at the bathroom door now trying", explained Seamus.

Harry is still wondering how he can help his brother when a loud alarm sounded through the whole school.

"What now?", moaned Theo.

"Did he break in again? What kind of security does this school have? What are the Dementors for then?", complained Draco when their prefects came running to urge them back to the common room.

Not even everybody had left to have breakfast so extra food was sent to their common room as they all sat down to wait.

"Hey, Gemma, what's going on?", asked Blaise when she came back with the last stragglers and officially closed off the Slytherin common room.

"They found a body", she said grimly.

Everybody gasped.

'Well, guess he wasn't that harmless as I thought', mused Voldemort.

After the shock wore off the rumours started to spread around, but since barely anything was known they ran out of things to add fairly quickly. The wait was long and boring.

After about five hours of no news and several people making inquiries about lunch Professor Snape came into the common room. He looked pale and anxious as he called for Harry to come with him and ignored all the questions that everybody was asking.

Harry gave his card of Exploding Snap to Vince and followed him.

Professor Snape led Harry to Dumbledore's office.

Upon entering the first thing Harry saw was that the office was swarming in Aurors. He also saw Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall, Remus, a pale Jimmy, a sobbing James and finally Sirius Black himself.