Harry Potter took out a long drag of his cigarette as he stared out over crowd in Flourish and Blotts. People of all ages were swarming the author GIlderoy Lockhart, desperately trying to receive his invitation. He was amused to see Ron Weasley's mother was among them. He was about to make like a tree and leave when, out of nowhere, Draco Malfoy sauntered up to him, smirking.

"What are you doing here, Potter?" He asked. "I know you can't read."

"And I know you can't take a punch." Harry responded, without missing a beat. "Get out of here before I knock your teeth in."

Malfoy opened his mouth to retort, but the a, hooked cane tapped him on the shoulder. He fell silent as Lucius Malfoy moved past him, his eyes squarely on Harry Potter.

"Ah." He said. "Mr. Potter. My son has told me a lot about you."

"Yeah, he's always telling me about how you're going to stop me from beating him up." Harry said, his voice casual. "Hasn't stopped me yet."

Lucius' eyes narrowed.

"You are as obstinate as they say."

"No, I'm just an asshole." Harry said. "But I least I don't go crying to Daddy every time things don't go my way."

He put on a high pitched falsetto imitation of Draco Malfoy's voice. "My father will hear about this, Potter!"

Draco looked almost ashamed, but Lucius looked very unimpressed. "Your defeat of the Dark Lord has given you a false sense of bravado. I do not think your muggle upbringing will get you very far in wizarding society."

Harry flicked the cigarette onto a nearby pile of books. The still smoking stick puffed up an unhealthy amount of smog into the air.

"Society?" Harry repeated. "The same society that thinks that guy." He jammed his thumb at Gilderoy Lockhart. "Is worth fussing over?"

"The same society that worships you as if you were a hero." Lucius said coldly. "Mr. Potter…."

"Mr. Potter?"

Harry turned. In a flash he found himself standing beside a beaming Gilderoy Lockhart.

"Harry Potter!" Lockhart boomed. "The boy who lived!" He wrapped his arm around Harry's shoulders, preventing him from pushing away.

The crowd erupted into great cheers at this. Harry could seen Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger beaming in the crowd. He found himself annoyed that Hermione seemed to be more interested in Lockhart than in him.

"Yeah, I'm Harry Potter." Harry said. "Let me go."

Lockhart continued as if he had not spoken. "I had no idea you would be coming in to see me!" He boomed. "Please, have signed copies of my entire collected works… free of charge."

Harry almost threw them back in his face, but quickly decided that he would be better off immediately re-gifting them to Hermione. She was swooning over them when he handed them off, and made his way out into the street.

The cigarette he had left burning eventually set alight, burning all of the Gilderoy Lockhart books Flourish and Blotts had in stock, preventing many Hogwarts students from receiving passing marks in Defense Against the Dark Arts.

Harry found himself taken aback when he arrived at school and realized that Ron Weasley was the center of attention for the night rather than him, but found it difficult not to understand why. Ron, in a fit of inspiration, had stolen his parents car and flown it straight into the Whomping Willow.

"Why'd you do it?" Harry asked.

"Malfoy said he would throw me off the train if he found me, and I didn't want to risk it."

Harry rolled his eyes.

"If he says anything to you, you come to me, you got it?" He asked.

But something about the flying car story had him thinking all night long. It was not until he awoke the next day, drenched in a cold sweat, that he realized what it was.

"I want to fight that tree."

So Harry, before his first ever second year class, found himself heading down to the grounds in the wee hours of the morning, intent on taking out the legendary Whomping Willow.

It was a great fight, he thought, but the tree eventually knocked him out cold. He awoke in the Hospital Wing to Professor McGonagall berating him, and found himself getting his first detention of the year. Madame Pomfrey scolded him when he asked for a cigarette, and found himself spending the night in the Hospital Wing under heavy supervision.

And then Dobby the House Elf appeared on his knees.

"Weren't two black eyes enough?" Harry asked the elf, his eyes narrowed. When the elf had visited him over the Summer Harry had beaten him within an inch of his life for trying to prevent him from coming back to Hogwarts.

"Harry Potter." The Elf Squeaked. "You must go home!"

"No one tells me what to do, Elf." Harry said coldly. "I'm a free man."

Dobby shook his head wildly. "A free man, sir, who is in great and terrible danger at this school!"

"I'm the most dangerous thing walking these halls these days." Harry said. "What could possibly pose a threat to me?"

He got his answer that Halloween, when he started hearing voices in the walls and found Filch's cat dangling by its tail next to the Moaning Myrtle's Bathroom.

"The Heir of Slytherin, huh?" He murmured, as he surveyed the corpselike cat. It was clear to him: He needed to find whoever the Heir of Slytherin was and punch them in the face.

"Harry, this person is dangerous." Hermione said, alarmed, as he brought up his thoughts on the situation to her during Potions class.

"Yeah, so am I." Harry said. "Whoever is doing this is going to have to answer to me. This school is my turf, and I won't let anyone ruin it."

And so, reluctantly, Hermione agreed to help him narrow down the list of subjects.

"It's someone from Slytherin, obviously." Harry began, but Hermione shook her head.

"Not necessarily." She said. "We can't jump to conclusions."

"Well, okay then. It's someone who hates Filch."

"No one likes Filch." Hermione said, unhappily.

"Well, it was probably Moaning Myrtle then. It happened right outside her bathroom."

"Now you're just being ridiculous." Hermione snapped.

It was eventually decided that Draco Malfoy was the most likely culprit. Hermione came up with a plan to brew Poloyjuice potion, enter the Slytherin Common Room, and interrogate him. Harry, however, simply reached over one day at lunch and put him in an armlock.

"O-ow!"

"Admit it, Malfoy. You're the heir of Slytherin!"

"Unhand me, Potter! Or my Father-"

"Crying to Daddy again, are you?" Harry asked, as he more cruelly twisted Malfoy's neck.

"Mr. Potter!" Snape roared, as he got to his feet and stormed over from the staff table. "Unhand him this instant!"

"Not until he spills the beans, Professor." Harry told him. "Spit it out, Draco."

"I told you, I do not know!"

Ignoring Snape's protests, Harry slammed Malfoy's face into the Ravenclaw table. A shocked looking Cho Chang met his eyes, and he winked.

"Potter!" Snape's wand was in his hand. In a flash Harry was dangling upside down from his ankles.

"Detention!" Snape roared. "For the rest of the year!"

"Alright fine." Harry said. "But I'm warning you, Snape… everyone in your house is going to be relentlessly bullied until we get to the bottom of this."

All three of the houses glared daggers at the Slytherin table, and true to Harry's word they took it upon themselves to bully the shit out of the Slytherin's any chance they got. When fifth year Slytherin girl Margaret Bulford was slipped a love potion to Hagrid while she studied for her O.W.L's in the library, she made a fool of herself in front of her boyfriend, who dumped her on the spot. Sixth year Marcus Flint, relentlessly trying to avoid confrontations from other sixth years, found himself in a bit of a hot spot when Gryffindor's Quidditch captain, Oliver Wood, teamed up with the Hufflepuff reserve seeker Cedric Diggory to pelt him with bludgers after locking him in the Quidditch shed. The two exchanged high fives afterward. Ravenclaw first year Luna Lovegood found herself in an unusual position when older students would approach her with large sums of money to approach Slytherins in the halls and start telling them all about how the Goblins were seeking to undermine wizard society by controlling the banks, and how current Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge was attempting to put a stop to it by having Goblins baked into pies.

Despite their best efforts, however, the attacks continued. Colin Creevey was not particularly missed when he got petrified, but when Gryffindor House Ghost Nearly Headless Nick got it the Gryffindors bullied their Slytherin classmates with even more vicious fervor. And yet the attacks did not stop.

Harry Potter must have beaten the shit out of every Slytherin his age and younger, with a number of older students as well, before he came to the conclusion that his tactics, although deeply amusing, were not getting any real results. He went to go find Hermione and ask her for ideas, but soon learned that she had just been petrified the night before.

"Who's going to do my homework now?" He complained to McGonagall, who promptly gave him another detention.

He was sitting in the Common Room, fuming about his own lack of free time, when he spotted Ron's little sister crying feverishly as she scribbled frantically into her diary. Harry, trying to distract himself, went over to her.

"Hey, kid." He said gruffly, as he leaned over the side. She froze, looking shocked, as he patted his shoulder. "I know it's hard." HE told her. "But we're going to get to the bottom of this, alright? The Heir of Slytherin won't know what hit him."

She gave him a shocked glance, and then glanced back down at the diary. Harry's eye followed it, and was surprised when words slowly appearing on the page.

Trust me, Ginny. Everything will be fine. Why don't you come down to the Chamber of Secrets tonight and we can talk about it?

Harry's hand squeezed Ginny's shoulder roughly. She winced.

"Ginny." He said coldly. "What is this?"

She burst into tears.

"Harry, I think I'm the one hurting all those people!" She sobbed. "This diary… I… think it's controlling me!"

Harry pushed her aside and she fell to the ground with a crash and a scream. The rest of the common room looked up as Harry feverishly starting scribbling into the diary.

"Listen here you little shit. I don't know who you are or what you're about, but if you touch her again I swear I WILL kill you."

His message sunk into the Diary, and then a response came forward.

"I'm sorry, but who am I addressing?"

It took Harry just a moment to come up with a plausible theory:

"When Slytherin left this school centuries ago, Gryffindor was aware of the monster he left behind. With his great magical powers he bestowed upon this school the ability to destroy Slytherin's Monster. You have lost, Heir of Slytherin, without even a single death."

He waited, with bated breath, as the diary replied.

"So you have destroyed the Monster. Well done. I am thankful that the tragedy of fifty years past did not repeat itself."

"What the fuck are you talking about, you little cocksucker? You are the Heir of Slytherin!"

"Language." The diary chided. Harry, in a fury, turned around and threw the diary into the flames of the Gryffindor common room fireplace.

Ginny screamed, hands to her mouth, as the diary lay there in the fire, completely unblemished. The whole room stared. Harry, sensing an ill omen in the air, stared at it.

"My precious Tom!"

Ginny, in a mad dash of fire, flung herself into the fireplace and ripped the diary out with her bare hands. Harry yelled, pursued her, slapped her down, and ripped the book out of her hands. He stared at it, darkly.

"It's quite cool." He murmured, noting the lack of real damage to the text. "I_"

A burst of pain ran through his scar and he collapsed, the diary dropping to the ground. Ginny dove forward, grabbed it, and then raced down the hallway.

"Get back here, you little SHIT!"

Ignoring the shocked looks from the rest of the common room, Harry chased Ginny throughout the school. He was surprised to see just how quick she was. She leapt onto the rails of the great staircase, slid down, and made her way to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.

Harry followed her. By the time he arrived she was speaking to an isolated sink.

"Come to me, Monster of Slytherin, and destroy the enemy of the Heir!"

The sink slid open, and Ginny stepped back as a giant snake slid into the room and dove towards Harry. Harry, upon seeing the snout of the creature, instantly dove back and slammed the door in its face without catching a good look at its head.

"The gaze of the Basilisk will kill you, Potter!" Ginny's voice cackled from behind the door. "All those who cross Lord Voldemort will die!"

Harry pressed his weight against the door, trying to hold it against the weight of the attacking snake. But the iron door could not hold, and the door burst. Harry slid forward as the Snake pushed him out further into the hall.

Time to end this.

Harry ripped the broken door up and over his head and slammed it back down onto the Basilisk's head. It roared in pain and squirmed as the broken wood of the door impaled both of its eyes, ripping them out of the sockets and rendering the creature blind. Harry ripped the door up, and then down again, this time aiming for the Snake's head.

It cried out in pain as blood poured from the open wound on its head. Harry spit on it as he walked past the limp body of the Snake and advanced on Ginny.

"Ginny." He said. "You were Lord Voldemort all this time?"

"You fool." Ginny rasped, with a demonically deep voice. "I am merely possessing this girl. You think you have bested me, just because you have destroyed a worthless creature?"

"I have bested you." Harry said. "What more can you do?"

Voldemort raised Ginny's wand, but before he could utter a curse Harry simply grabbed his neck. He had intended only to choke him, or her, but Voldemort let out an unearthly scream of pain.

"It buuuuuruns!"

Ginny's eyes glared down at him. "Release me, or this girl dies!"

"If you don't leave her body, you die too!" Harry snapped.

In the end Voldemort could do nothing but retreat back into the diary. The Diary was promptly turned to Dumbledore with a brief explanation as to what it was, and as a result he was able to get a several year head start on destroying the remainder of Voldemort's Horcruxes. Harry Potter himself, however, considered his greatest accomplishment that year in driving Gilderoy Lockhart out of Hogwarts. That guy, Harry swore, was the real threat all along.

A/N

I received a review asking about whether or not this story will encompass all seven years of Hogwarts. The truth is, I'm not sure what I want to do. I'm kind of making it up as I go along. I suppose the general theme will be Harry being a delinquent, with no real regard for continuity or character development. I suppose it will simply be a series of one-shots about Harry Potter from River City beating people up.

Please let me know what works in this story, and what doesn't.