XXX

Story: [The Mad Scientist of Azkaban]

Summary: Pumpkins killing each other, extravagant masquerades in the honor of a merciless queen, abominations towards creation, and Dr Harry Potter. There's a lot of screaming coming from the Island of Azkaban tonight. Crack

Warning: This is going to be bloody, this is going to contain horrific things being done to people. And it's designed to make you laugh about it. If you don't like that kind of stuff, run like the wind.

Genre: Horror, Humor, Crack

XXX

Harry had lived a very interesting life. In fact, his life was probably one of the most picture-perfect examples of why 'may you live an interesting life' was classified as an ancient Chinese curse.

Keeping this in mind, Harry really shouldn't have been as surprised as he was when he accidentally tripped down a newly installed staircase over by the Ministry on a regular day five years after Voldemort had managed to get himself killed by venomous squirrels – a species that had definitely not been created by Harry on accident and whose violent rampage through the ecosystem he was in no sense guilty of – and not only gotten himself bruised from tumbling down the steps, but also somehow avoided the many precautions and safety-nets and found himself meeting the Veil of Death in a far too intimately close way.

Basically, he'd been minding his own business, fallen down the stairs, accidentally avoided the many safety precautions he'd suggested to be put into place after Sirius' death so many years previously, and fallen through the Veil of Death.

It was ironic, it was stupid, it was enough to make Harry seriously consider going Dark and stealing everyone's left shoes, before sweeping off dramatically into the night with his robes billowing after him like an unusually colorful bat.

Let it not be said that Severus Snape didn't teach his students anything. Though, fashion and Potion-making were more a case of forcing them to learn it themselves or face the consequences of risking to become just like him.

The very thought sent a shiver of disgust down Harry's spine.

Still, falling through the Veil of Death didn't lead to heaven or hell, not even the King's Cross station that he used to visit whenever he visited the Realm Beyond. Not that Hermione ever believed him when he tried to explain these visits in a haunted voice eerily reminiscent of Trelawney.

Hermione had always had a tendency to throw hexes at him when he did. Ron thought he'd been hilarious though, so that was okay.

Harry oftentimes wondered how his two friends could ever have ended up together, and had rather sneakily tested them both for Love Potions and other mind-altering substances, before finally giving in and declaring that perhaps there was some truth to the saying that love was blind. He'd still gotten to crack jokes at them both at their wedding about how maybe he wasn't the only one needing glasses, and that Hermione had clearly ruined herself by marrying a ginger.

He was still amazed at how half the audience had hexed him by sheer reflex. But, considering the fact that at least a quarter of them had been insane enough to marry gingers themselves, perhaps the instinctive defense had simply become engrained.

He'd managed to block, dodge, and counter everything they sent at him, but it was the thought that counted.

Well, he had been doing so until Luna hexed him in the back for being overly dramatic. And possibly for insulting her girlfriend's 'ginger-ness', but he couldn't actually prove that. Luna was scarily good at being sneakily vengeful.

Then again, she'd learned from the best. Harry admitted to himself, as he recalled how Draco had found himself in an unbreakable marriage contract with a very domineering Millicent Bulstrode.

Let it not be said that Harry didn't believe in cruel and unusual punishments.

Anyway, the other side of the Veil of Death looked in actuality rather a lot like the side he'd originally been on, with the exception of not having the Evil Staircase of Doom.

Quickly putting a bit of distance between himself and the Veil, Harry tried not to recall having his molecules reversed and watching the world twist into purple and squeaks.

Oddly enough, it was this horrible experience of trying not to throw up, that convinced Harry that the Veil of Death – whatever it might've been originally – had transported him magically to another world.

Magical travel was always hell on the stomach.

XXX

Harry had a newfound respect for Unspeakables.

A normal wizard or witch would react to someone showing up out of nowhere by either screaming or fainting, possibly both. The Unspeakable that first saw him, drew their wand and asked him his name.

Harry, in an almost instinctive way – people drawing their wands on him were usually the type to hex first and ask questions later, likely through torture – knocked them out with a sigh and a vague twitch of his finger.

'A wizard without their wand is useless, Harry Potter without his wand is a force of nature.' Old Hogwarts saying.

Crawling to his feet in a not-quite-distinguished way, Harry walked over to the masked Unspeakable who'd just managed to impress him. Because he could respect someone with nerves of steel and good instincts, even if they were playing against someone that were completely out of their league.

Disarming the wizard – because the unconscious person was definitely male – Harry woke him up, delving directly into his mind the moment he opened his eyes.

Thus, he learned that it was December of 1991, and that Snape was still teaching Potions. He also learned that a certain Lily Potter had been considered for a position as an Unspeakable a few years previously, but had turned it down in order to spend time with her family.

Harry thought that this was a very interesting thing, but couldn't find any more information on the Potters. Which, was a form of information all by itself.

Turns out, Neville Longbottom was the Boy-Who-Lived, and Peter Pettigrew had been killed in action, dying bravely holding his own against several Death Eaters.

Harry made a mental note to check out that story, just to see if there was any way that the rat had managed to survive, like he'd done when he'd framed Sirius for murder.

Then, finally deciding that nothing else seemed all that different from what he knew, Harry began erasing his steps. It was perhaps not the nicest of options, but Harry had no interest in being withheld in quarantine until everyone who knew about his arrival were absolutely convinced he couldn't tell them anything that they might be interested in. Hell, he was Harry Potter, he would never run out of things to interest people with. They'd probably start dissecting him or something.

Annoying wannabe-scientists.

So, armed with some information about this new world, and making sure not to leave any traces of himself or his actions in the memories of the Unspeakable, Harry began to do the... rather unfairly effective mind-bending magic to convince the wizard that Harry was actually a very ugly bird that'd tripped out of the Veil and then promptly dissolved into thin air.

It was actually a fairly common occurrence for things coming out of the Veil to dissolve into thin air. Harry had read a few reports on it, and the generally accepted theory was that whatever they were, they couldn't exist in the world they arrived in, and that this inability simply un-made them once they appeared.

Satisfied that he'd thoroughly convinced the Unspeakable that he'd been an uninteresting false alarm, Harry Confounded him mildly and Disillusioned himself, leaving the man's wand in the pocket where he'd pulled it from, before slipping away towards the exit.

There were many ways to exit the Ministry. A few ways to do so without attracting unwanted attention. And one way of doing so without being detected at all.

Harry hummed an odd tune he'd picked up from Luna, as he began playing around with the elevator's control board.

Some people learned how to make spells, others how to duel. Harry had learned how to break into the Ministry without getting caught.

He blamed it on the legacy of a misspent youth.

XXX

Harry was, despite his many claims to the opposite, a very selfless young man.

Basically, despite how much he tried to hide it, he had a tendency to 'do the right thing'. This might've been due to the time he spent with the Dursleys, and whatever hard-to-spell complexes he might've developed during his stay. Or it could've always been in his nature, much like some people are genetically inclined towards socking others in the face, whilst others are genetically inclined to be infected with certain illnesses.

Regardless of how he'd ended up becoming who he was, Harry was unfortunately rather used to do doing the noble thing.

So, it really shouldn't have come as a surprise to him that he'd already worked out a plan for locating Voldemort's horcruxes and destroying them, before he'd even managed to get out of the Ministry. Also understandably, since he was Harry Potter, all his plans sucked.

Frowning at the realization that he might need someone else's input, Harry ignored it. He'd survived jumping straight into the fray more times than he could count, and if worst came to worse, Harry was very adept at handling venomous squirrels.

He might be 'completely innocent' of their creation, and 'not in any way responsible' for the havoc they caused to the ecosystem, or that they liked the taste of fractured souls and acromantulas. But that didn't mean that he wouldn't exploit their existence. Even if he had to 'not create' them all over again.

He might be noble, but he was the son of a Marauder, and more than a bit unhinged after years of insane pressure as the Boy-Who-Lived after being spat upon by all who approached him for as far back as he could remember. This all meant that he could do all sorts of crazy thing and blame it on poor parenting.

Or Dumbledore. Blaming Dumbledore was always good for a laugh. Especially when he got really drunk and blamed the other Dumbledore for everything Albus had cooked up over the years.

That bartender was quite likely the single most patient man in the history of the Wizarding World, for not having hexed him silly by now.

Unfortunately, he would have to make sure that the venomous squirrels didn't risk hurting anyone undeserving of being hurt this time around, and since he'd forgotten to do that back in his own world – where they bit everyone that annoyed them, or interfered with their hunt for either acromantulas or soul pieces – he would need to figure out a new formula to include that in their creation as well.

Damn. That would keep him up for days.

Sighing lightly to himself, Harry shrugged it off. It wasn't as if he disliked 'not creating' horrible abominations of nature and then releasing them on people who annoyed him.

In hindsight, the Daily Prophet had completely missed the ball on that one. Harry Potter wasn't a 'future Dark Lord' or anything like that. He was just a budding Mad Scientist with an instinctive urge to do the right thing and a distinct glee-based desire to release his creations on those who stood against him.

He was anything if not paradoxical.

XXX

So, first things first. Find a bar, get roaring drunk, punch someone in the face, resist arrest, get to Hogwarts, injure Dumbledore, get artistic about it, get to Aberforth's bar, regale him with tales of Albus's recently acquired pain to score free drinks with the bartender, get intoxicated enough to decide that leaving for the Three Broomsticks in order to flirt with Rosmerta won't end with a foot to the crotch, find some ice and pray for the potential future generations of Potters, break into the Malfoy Manor, and then burn down their kitchen.

It was his best plan yet.

Unfortunately, like all of Harry's plans, it got derailed before it was barely off the ground.

He didn't have any cash.

He'd failed his masterpiece of a plan because of such a useless technicality!

Obviously, his only course of action was to break into Gringotts and clear out the Lestrange vault, since there might be something funny to light on fire whilst he was there, anyway.

It should perhaps be noted that Harry hadn't dealt with the pressure of his fame by remaining... sane. In fact, he was probably loonier than Loony, even if that was mostly on the technicality of how some of Luna's creatures actually existed – if you knew where to look, and how to do so – and that she had Seer blood in her, causing her supposedly 'Loony' behavior to be relatively sane, all things considered.

Harry shook his head at the memory of Luna explaining to him how he needed to date Ginny so that she would understand that she didn't actually like him. He'd been so naive back then, pretending to be 'normal' in an effort to be 'just Harry', it'd been so utterly, mindbogglingly stupid. Harry wasn't 'normal', he was Harry.

This didn't have anything to do with being magically powerful, or the Boy-Who-Lived, or having a 'saving people thing', but quite a lot to do with the severe mental and emotional scarring that he'd suffered by going from 'growing up Dursley' to 'being the Boy-Who-Lived' to being accosted by the media for telling the truth, and finally to realizing that everything he ever did would be put on display and that he would never be allowed to become anonymous.

Harry Potter had been bent over and over, in opposite directions, until finally he'd snapped under the strain and kicked Fudge in the balls during a press-conference.

Understandably, the pictures that managed to capture the Minister's face during the incident were a collector's item. Harry had hunted down every last version, then convinced Hermione to put them into a photo album. They weren't the last images of his insane exploits, and if Harry played his cards right, he'd figured that some of them would be insane enough that the Weasley family might turn out rich by printing copies.

Of course, there was no way in hell that he'd actually tell his friends that, they'd probably realize it for themselves sooner or later. They were clever people. Probably. You could never know with Hermione, she could act remarkably silly from time to time.

Still, right now Harry was the one in need of cash, which was rather ironic. But he could probably manage to get a job or something. It wasn't as if he'd never actually worked a day in his life – chores at the Dursleys not included.

Except that it was.

Sanity was kind of really important to bring with you to work-interviews. Luna didn't count, she was a journalist for the Quibbler, they and their readers were all insane to at least some degree.

Rotfang Conspiracy, pah. Everyone knew that the gum-disease was just a side-effect of the mind-controlling gas that lingered inside of the Ministry building ever since that incident with the ear-fairies who kept distracting the workers from their paper-work by confusing them.

Seriously, all of their facts were completely baseless.

Except for that one time with the-, and then the-, causing the-, and making a hundred-.

Yeah, that one time, they might've been onto something, but that was clearly the exception to the rule.

So, this all meant that he obviously needed to break into the Lestrange vault and steal everything that wasn't nailed down. And maybe this time, to change it up a bit, he should ride out on a goblin, instead of a dragon.

But where would he get the saddle?

XXX

After careful consideration, Harry appeared at Gringotts without a saddle, determined that he should be able to conjure one when it was time to make his daring escape.

Then he entered the bank and stopped dead in his tracks. The message Abort! Abort! Flashing through his mind's eye. Because that was definitely Lucius Malfoy, and Harry really wanted to burn down that man's kitchen.

Stopping himself before he jumped the man with a cry of 'Lucy', Harry tried to remember if he had any proper blackmail on the blond from before 1991.

He had Dark artifacts hidden underneath some boards in his saloon, he still had the Dark Mark, he hadn't yet been pranked by Harry into wearing a pink tutu, and his son was eleven years old and didn't owe him any debts that he could use to make the prat's life hell.

Dammit, he would need to fix that. He needed blackmail, favors, and the ability to ruin the lives of people he didn't like. Otherwise, he would be forced to act civil to people. The horror.

Grumbling something unflattering about annoying people with pretty hair, Harry found himself a line to stand in.

By the time it was his turn, he'd gotten bored enough that he'd taken up knitting, and from the way people were sneering at him, he looked ridiculous. Fortunately, Harry was rather okay with that, as he knew that the goblins would appreciate his fantastic gift.

"Hello, you greedy little shite." Harry greeted the goblin teller cheerfully. "Your teeth are looking mighty sharp, you wouldn't happened to have seen any rich people to con out of their money today? No? Bugger." He huffed. "Oh well, at least I can still rob the Lestranges, kill a soul-piece, and cause untold galleons worth of damage." He grinned charmingly at the goblin that looked just about ready to pull a weapon on him.

The goblins had always been a bit touchy about the unlawful removal of their gold.

Then again, they'd learned to deal with Harry's special brand of acquired madness over the years, even going so far as to give him the goblin-nickname 'Ripfang' after the incident with the basilisk had become common knowledge – though Hermione was absolutely convinced that they were talking about something else for some reason. Speaking of which...

"Oh, and if I were to declare that a certain Myrtle of Hogwarts needed to be avenged, I think I should be able to find you guys some very interesting venom. If they still have that amusing little law of beast-slaying?"

The goblin looked just about ready to call the guards to show him the way out.

The thought made Harry smile. It was so cute to see the little bastards thinking they or their nation ever stood a chance against him, wand or no wand. There was a reason that Harry had never been fined for breaking into Gringotts and stealing one of their dragons, and it sure as hell wasn't due to any gratitude they felt for him getting rid of Voldemort.

Whipping out the noose he'd just knitted, Harry snagged the goblin around the neck, and pulled him over the desk, close enough the he could stare him into the eye.

"Now, how many bodies do you feel like piling up between here and the Lestrange vault?" He asked the teller with a casual smile that belied the horrifyingly serious glint in his eyes.

"None?" The goblin choked out, eyes wide with surprise.

"Good answer." Harry patted it on its head. "Now let's go rob some other people blind. Who knows, I might even give you a tip."

XXX

Clearing out the Lestrange vault wasn't nearly as difficult as it would've been had they not stored a few bottomless bags in it.

Heh, wizards. Always looking for ways to out-stupid themselves.

Hufflepuff's Cup also proved pleasantly easy to destroy, as Harry had spent a bit too much time playing around with Fiendfyre than most of his friends had been comfortable with over the years. The cup burned really well, actually.

Giggling in a slightly mad way to himself at the sight, Harry pressed a few galleons into the goblin's hand, before humming softly to himself.

He'd forgotten how short the little bastards really were. In fact, they were so short that it'd be really hard to get a workable saddle on them. Damn, he'd really been looking forward to that part of his plan.

Then again, maybe he could magically hijack one of the carts into running on open ground?

That was sure to piss them off. Right?

XXX

Hermione had never been able to truly accept that goblins wanted to be hated. And Ron didn't have the magical power, or the combat-skill necessary to actually threaten them without a wand – because whilst the goblins wanted to be hated, they were still fairly strict in enforcing that no wand was to be drawn within Gringotts.

Harry had never had any of those problems. He'd discovered that the goblins only wanted to serve those who were willing to kill them, purely by accident. They really shouldn't have tried to commandeer his vaults for stealing from the Lestranges, and had quickly learned that an angry Harry was a Harry that didn't let enemies leave in one piece.

Bill would sometimes joke that he'd never thought that the tiny little bodies contained that much blood, Fleur would usually chip in by commenting on how difficult it had been for the height-challenged goblins to get all the blood out of the ceiling.

Hermione had however learned to deal with their – for a human – rather bizarre inclinations, usually managing to keep the supernatural misery-creatures in line with nothing but a glare and a fake twitching of her fingers – as if they were looking for something to strangle. When asked about it, she'd said that she only had to imagine Harry doing something stupid, and then direct her ire at the goblins.

Sometimes, Harry wondered why nobody had explained the goblins to him, or anyone else of his generation. But then he'd remember that humans were humans, even if they were wizards, and nobody could really grow up knowing that something wanted to be hated. It went against the nature of humans, who in general wanted to be loved and respected, and so it was understandable that it wasn't something you could teach your children, much in the same way Harry hadn't been able to really teach his friends.

Giving the goblins a glare they could handle; pinning them to the wall and threatening to pull out their sharp, sparkly little teeth with a set of pliers... not so much.

He'd made a very sparkly necklace once, but Mrs Weasley had burned it when she found out.

Harry 'Ripfang' Potter always got the best service.

XXX

Coming out of Gringotts – vaguely disappointed at his inability to mess with the carts – Harry was rather surprised to run into another familiar face in Diagon Alley.

This one looked a lot like his mirror.

"James Potter, I presume?" He asked the man who'd been shocked mute at his appearance. "You've got very white teeth, is there a spell for that? I've always wondered, but nobody would tell me." Most likely because he'd find some way to get it labeled as Dark, or at the very least 'questionable' by the Ministry after the first five hours of using it in public.

Apparently, James Potter wasn't used to crazy people that looked just like him, and spent a bit more time gaping at him like a fish.

His wife however, was much quicker on the uptake. "Who are you?"

Harry mimed a pain in his chest. "Ah, you wound me, madam. That a lady as beautiful as yourself would not know my name." His lips curled into a smirk. "I'm Harry Potter."

"No you're not. I'm Harry Potter." A peeved voice piped up from behind the two parents.

Harry glanced down at the elven year old version of himself. "Kid, I've been Harry Potter for twenty-five years. I'm obviously more Harry Potter than you are, so I think I'll just call you 'Clyde'." He nodded to himself, ignoring the outraged spluttering from his younger self.

"Umm... who are you, really?" James finally asked, eyes wary, and hand not far from his wand.

"Hm? Oh, I'm just a Mad Scientist with a penchant for 'not creating' venomous squirrels who ruin the ecosystem." He waved the question away as unimportant. "Far more interesting is if your son will be going to school this year. You see, I noticed something during my own personal schooling. I like to call it the 'let's kill Harry Potter'-effect." He smiled absently as he remembered how much Hermione had opposed that name.

All of the three local-universe-Potters, glanced warily in between themselves.

Seeing that they didn't know what his theory consisted of, Harry happily explained it to them. "It basically states that any teacher that is new to his schooling, runs an immensely high chance of landing themselves in kill-or-be-killed situations with a student called 'Harry Potter'. Now, according to my theory, this usually results in those people dying, but that might just be because the only one I've found bearing the 'Harry Potter'-name in a school-situation is rather vengeful, and kind of a dick."

Lily was staring at him in horror, and James was now aiming a wand at him.

"I don't know who you think you are-..." He started off, eyes narrowed.

"Oh please. If I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead." Harry rolled his eyes at the man. "Honestly, everyone knows that any mad scientist worth their blood magic won't try to draw a wand at someone. That's for normal people, or Dark Lords, goodness knows those guys always believe themselves to be 'above the rules'. Pah, idiots. No, if I wanted to kill you, there're tons of different ways to do so without obviously labeling myself as the instigator. However, by law, I'm not actually allowed to talk about it, since they're scared that someone might get inspired."

"You-!" James waved his wand threateningly, making bystanders give them a wide berth.

"But," Harry continued as if he hadn't noticed the man's interruption. "as I've obviously confronted you, that means that not only must I leave you alive, I technically owe you some kind of 'special clue' since I'm a Final Boss type character... but then I shared my theory on those with the 'Harry Potter'-name, so that ought to make us even..." He tilted his head, before turning to his younger self. "What say you, Clyde? Have you met any poodles lately? I asked the goblins if they knew a place to buy them, but they kept insisting that they honestly didn't know..." He frowned in a distinctly peeved way.

"Why would you want a poodle?" 'Clyde' asked with a disbelieving expression.

"Well, I once promised a friend of mine that I wouldn't experiment on animals anymore, but she's technically not able to call me on it anymore. So, I figured I could make an evil monster-poodle of some sort. I've never really liked dogs, too many memories of good ol' Ripper, I think." Harry paused as he remembered just how he'd gotten his vengeance on the dog that had not only bit him on repeated occasions, but also forced him to sleep in a tree once or twice. "'Rippy' sounded like such a similar name, I figured they'd get along so well... oh well, I guess that's what they mean when they say that dogs and alligators make bad dinner-mates." He shook his head in mock sadness.

He used to revisit the memory in a Pensive whenever he needed a good laugh.

"You killed a dog?" Clyde stared up at him in betrayed horror – probably relating to his godfather.

"No, but the alligator sure did." Harry smiled at the memory. "It was all part of my elaborate scheme to ruin the lives of my relatives. Gits that they were."

"So you killed their dog?" Lily looked disgusted.

"Of course not. I framed my uncle for tax-evasion, theft, and pedophilia; my aunt for the supposed murder of my mother; and my cousin for eating me like a cannibal." He smiled at the memory. "I think that was one of my better ideas, actually. The fat hag and her dog were really just icing on the cake, and I honestly didn't do anything to her beyond releasing an alligator into her kennel." He paused, looking vaguely guilty. "Okay, a very big alligator that had been nicknamed 'Rippy' after attacking several humans." He shrugged. "I can admit to being picky about my alligator-recruitment. But I didn't think she'd get herself arrested for 'kidnapping a violent animal from its natural habitat'." He sighed contently.

"Who are you, really?" James asked again, eyes confused and wary.

"I'm Harry Potter." He smiled back at the man who was his alternate self's father. "The Mad twenty-five year old who managed to create an entirely new species by the age of sixteen." He paused, looking around. "Not that I created them, of course. That would've been irresponsible. And completely insane. And possibly liable for spending time in Azkaban for ruining the ecosystem. So, obviously, that never happened."

None of the three Potters present appeared to believe him, but that was alright, since as long as he continued to plead his innocence, nobody would actually arrest him.

Partly because one of the side-effects of the squirrels ruining the ecosystem had been that an extremely dangerous non-local magical beast that classified human flesh as a delicacy was given 'natural' enemies, and partly that nobody would ever be able to create a horcrux ever again, without the little blighters slaughtering them.

The final part of the equation was because Harry was... well, Harry, and attempting to arrest him would more than likely end with Azkaban exploding, the Dementors getting dressed up as mimes, the Ministry being flooded with animated plastic ducks, and Hogwarts growing dreadlocks.

It wouldn't be the first time he'd made an inorganic building grow a hairdo, and it probably wouldn't be the last.

So, Harry was immune to being arrested for as long as he didn't kill people indiscriminately – the clause of self-defense meaning that he did have some leeway – and didn't admit that he'd created the nasty little buggers who did kill people. It was a very comfortable arrangement all around.

Not quite as good as what Neville had gotten though. Since the guy was hired as a Hogwarts Professor, the only requirement the Ministry had put on his experiments with Herbology was that none of them were to eat or seriously maim one of his students.

Neville enjoyed mocking him over it sometimes, but he'd stopped after Harry had begun tampering with herbivores. Apparently, he knew not to provoke the Mad Scientist with access to his own Mad creations' greatest weakness. Genetically enhanced bunnies.

They still launched a few small-scale attacks on each other's labs though, for tradition's sake.

Susan thought the attacks were great fun, but Hannah was rather peeved about their friendly assassination attempts after they'd accidentally woken her up in the middle of the night once.

Harry sometimes thought it was a bit unfair that Neville had managed to secure two Mad Scientist Assistants, whilst Harry had never been able to recruit even one, but he supposed that it wasn't that bad.

Inferi were really good at hitting power-switches, and if you designed them juuuust right, you could make them cackle insanely in a very flattering way. Perfect assistants, really. Though, understandably, there was less sex in his lab as a result. A shame, but it was a sacrifice he was willing to make.

"What is wrong with you?" Lily finally asked, staring at him with something akin to horror.

Harry blinked. "Wait, what were we talking about? I got distracted thinking about punching Neville on the nose for having more sex-friendly lab-assistants than me."

"You admitted to creating monsters, before saying that you never made them, and that nobody could prove anything since it might get you sent to Azkaban." Clyde helpfully filled in.

Harry knew there was a reason he liked the shit-faced little turd. "Oh, right! I remember now. That never happened by the way." He paused, looking thoughtful. "But you might want to not provoke any squirrels you see in the future, you never know when a Mad Scientists might come along and start messing around with squirrel-DNA using magic."

James was gaping like a fish, the wand in his hands hanging rather limply from his fingers at the sheer oddness of the man in front of him. Lily's eyes were wide, and she looked moments away from calling for the aurors. And Clyde stared at him with slow, unblinking eyes.

"You're crazier than Padfoot." The boy breathed in awe.

Harry frowned, turning a glare at the boy. "Padfoot? Is he a Mad Scientist capable of turning the world's ecosystem on its head? Did he ever get banned from Azkaban for asking to dissect one of the Dementors?" Harry sneered down at Clyde's wide-eyed form. "No? Then I'm insulted that you would compare my hard-earned Madness with such an utterly boring individual."

Clyde swallowed deeply, apparently rightly uncomfortable about comparing Sirius Black and his small-time pranking of vague Evilness for a Good cause, to be in any way related to Harry's Supreme and Uncontested claim on the Mad Creation of Accidental Goodness for an Evil cause.

"I'm sorry, sir." The boy apologized, making his parents' jaws drop open in sheer disbelief. "But I'd never met anyone crazier than Padfoot before. I'm surprised that such a person could exist, but I understand that there are many things I don't know yet." He finished in a calm and reasonable voice.

Harry had always guessed that it'd been the pressure as the Boy-Who-Lived and the many other things that had gone to hell in his life, that had finally caused him to snap and start Experimenting, but perhaps there was something to say for simply being Born With It.

"Ah, what a sad existence indeed, when youngsters grow up unaware of the Evil ways of a true Mad Scientist." He shook his head sadly. "I suppose I should endeavor to show the masses the proper ways. Of course, that would mean that I'll first have to wipe out all that Dark Lord-nonsense. Annoying experiment-crashers should just strap themselves to a dissection table and let me use them in highly lethal experiments to figure out how to turn muggles magical." He muttered darkly.

"You want to give muggles magic?" James inquired, apparently missing his rant about annoying Dark Lords.

Harry blinked, looking at the man with a strange expression. "What? Why in the world would I want to do that?"

"But you just said you wanted to figure out how to-!" Lily broke in.

"Of course I do! How else am I supposed to mock the muggles about how they'll never find my formula, force them to drag themselves through endless adventures in teams of about five people, all across the countryside; appearing before them in order to nearly defeat them and then give them valuable clues on where they should be searching, allowing them the chance to grow in strength and character and determination whilst fighting against my magical horde of monsters." Harry sighed happily with a wistful expression. "I've always wanted to be a Supervillain-type Mad Scientist."

"You want to use your formula on how to give muggles magic and unite the world, in order to make groups of adventurers chase you down across the globe, so that they can kill all of your creations and then you?" Clyde had a confused expression.

"What? No! I don't want them to kill me! Obviously, I'll activate my hideout's self-destruct mechanism, and then flee to a different hideout, from which I can plot to make an even greater discovery to hang in front of the common adventurers, whilst still enjoying having an ecosystem that is by now genetically inclined to obey my every order." Harry explained to his alternate and younger self. "No group of adventurers would be able to wipe out all of my creations, so the monsters would continue to breed, as well as destroying all of the pesky natural wildlife, until nearly every non-human creature belongs to one of my experimental species."

"Why?" Clyde asked, sounding genuinely curious, much to his parents' dawning horror.

"Because the best way to let a group of adventurers battle your monsters, is to have your monsters already available on the location for future encounters with them, it keeps the shipping costs from getting too high." Harry admitted to the child.

Clyde looked thoughtful. "I guess that makes sense. But why are you so interested in adventurers coming after you? Wouldn't they be interrupting your experiments too?" The boy asked innocently.

"Oh, to be young again." Harry mused with a fond smile. "You see, young Clyde, adventurers are quite simply put the greatest fun a Mad Scientist can have. It beats even the regularly scheduled assassination attempts between Mad Scientists, because those fights really just becomes so disgustingly easy once you figure out the trick and the weaknesses of your opponent's creations. Adventurers on the other hand... they have a tendency to always surpass the odds. And if there's one thing that any Mad Scientist worth a damn will tell you, it's that anyone capable of making sensible facts, logical reasoning, and common sense, curl up and cry like a little baby, is someone worth attempting to dissect."

Clyde frowned. "But what if you don't like to dissect people?"

Harry hummed thoughtfully as he tried to remember what Neville's approach to it had been. "Well, if you're a Mad Herbologist-type Scientist, then I suppose it would be to attempt to turn them into fertilizer. But I'm not an expert on that particular branch of Evil Madness, so I'm not sure." He admitted finally.

"So, you only work with animals?" The boy blinked curiously.

"Mostly." Harry nodded. "I did try to branch out to bugs, but my inferi didn't have good enough motor control to help me dissect such small things."

"You made inferi?" James gasped in horror.

"Kind of. It's a personal recipe." Harry shrugged with an careless expression. "They're the only lab assistants who don't spend all of their time drooling over my stuff. It's really really hard to find properly Evil help these days." He sighed. "They just keep trying to take off my clothes, or take off their clothes, or invite their siblings who also take off their clothes." He shook his head in frustration. "How am I supposed to do Science when there're clothes all over the damn floor?!" He demanded angrily.

"What did you make the inferi out of?" Clyde asked with a tilted head, obviously not understanding why his father was now staring at the insane man with a mixture of disbelieving horror and envious awe. Clyde thought that it made perfect sense that clothes on the floor would make science really difficult to do, and that people stripping all over the place would get frustrating when you wanted them to hand you things.

"Meat, the cheapest bones available, tinfoil, glass, toenail-clippings, and a few potions. I wasn't allowed to rob graveyards after that one time that I tried to bring Crookshanks back to life, you see." He made a face. "I honestly did not expect him to be that good at continuing his line. If I did, I would've made sure that he was neutered before I sent his patched-up body onto the roof of the tower in the middle of a thunderstorm." He shook his head at the memory of the kittens that the undead cat had managed to spawn.

Merlin only knew where they'd gotten that strange, crumpled-looking horn of theirs from.

"You don't use dead bodies?" James choked out.

"Why would I do that? Do you have any idea how hard it is to wipe the mind clean? I'd have to spend nearly three hours just slowly tearing their mind into mush, before I could start to program it to follow my orders blindly, and then they start to rot, and they keep dropping dead pieces of themselves all over the place. It's really annoying to have to reattach their fingers, hands and arms several times a day. Much easier to just make an inferi from scratch and then wrap them in the proper tinfoil... They do get kind of hard to look at whenever there's any flashing lights nearby though." He mused to himself. "Might want to paint them somehow, but that would risk contaminating the tinfoil's protection against the Ministry's mind control-signals." He hummed thoughtfully.

"The Ministry has mind control-signals?" Clyde asked him curiously, looking a little bit paranoid. Good, the kid could learn to be an Evil Mad Scientist yet.

"Yes. They've been working on them for years." Harry nodded. "Of course, they mostly only use it to make people unusually susceptible to peer-pressure. They figure that since they already have perfect control over the Daily Prophet, and nobody actually learns anything about the world or how to ask questions or think critically whilst at Hogwarts, nobody will ever call them on anything they make the Daily Prophet say."

James opened his mouth to dispute the statement of the insane man that was corrupting his son, but Lily interrupted him.

"That makes an awful amount of sense, actually." She admitted with a vaguely concerned expression, ignoring the betrayed glance that her husband sent her way.

Harry threw a smile at Clyde's mother, he'd always known she was the where he'd gotten his smarts from. It was either her, or a general case of being-dropped-too-many-times-on-the-head-as-a-child, which really would've been blamed on the mother regardless, so it had to be from her that he got his smarts. And considering James' disbelieving eyes, he'd been lucky not to inherit his obviously hopeless naivety.

A sudden idea came to mind, and his fingers twitched for a scalpel. He really wanted to dissect Fudge's brain. It would disprove once and for all the Quibbler's continued belief in the 'goblin pie'-matter, because that sort of diet would certainly leave marks for someone as Insanely Amazing at their job as himself to find.

But he couldn't exactly walk up to the Ministry and demand that they hand over Fudge so that he could cut open the man's head in order to dig around inside of it. Hermione was always going on about how that sort of behavior wasn't acceptable in society.

Ignoring his multitude of plans for changing the norms of their society until such an argument would become unfounded, Harry wondered how he was going to manage to kidnap Fudge, dig around inside of his brain, and then publish his findings without getting arrested. It was an intriguing puzzle.

He should probably think about it inside of a laboratory, surrounded by various gizmos, and his special-lab-glasses, and his special-lab-coat – which was different from his regular lab coat that he wore whenever he went out in public.

"Unfortunately, it seems I'm a bit short on time." He mused mournfully. "I suppose I shall have to bid you farewell, Potter family." He got ready to sweep away dramatically, when he suddenly paused, remembering something. "Oh, and Clyde, take note. Never tamper with other people's pets. They get really touchy about that for some reason." Harry frowned in recollection of Neville's reaction to finding out that Trevor had disappeared for three months only to conquer most of Denmark.

Well, it was possible that his ire had been more because he'd only been informed of Trevor's newly achieved kingship after the toad had managed to get lost again – since Neville had been named as his next-of-kin – meaning that everyone expected the Herbologist to find their king for them.

In an attempt to placate Neville, and make him retract his rather vicious species of toxic and highly carnivorous grass from his lawn, Harry had used some of the blood he'd extracted during his experimentation on the toad in order to build a Trevor-locator.

Trevor had been found in the middle of the Amazons, where he'd somehow managed to secure a harem of voluptuous women as his brides.

Why a toad would need voluptuous women as his brides, Harry didn't know, and he was really glad that he'd never accidentally found out about how they'd managed their wedding nights. Be they singular or plural.

Harry blinked. "Why does everyone get to have more sex than me?" He demanded with an annoyed pout. "I mean, he's a toad! What's wrong with me?" He paused, thinking that statement through for a moment. "Other than the inferi, the paranoia, the gleeful provoking of anything that can even remotely be classified as alive, and the horrible desecration of one of the most adorably fluffy creatures in creation." He amended exasperatedly in a way that spoke of long practice.

"You're generally not a nice person?" Clyde guessed from where he was still standing behind him, as Harry had gotten kind of distracted from sweeping away dramatically.

Harry considered this for a moment, before frowning. "But how did this guy get laid then?" He hooked a thumb at Clyde's father. "From what I hear, he was a jerk when he was a kid."

"Maybe he got better?" Clyde scrunched up his face in thought.

"Maybe I lowered my standards." Lily shrugged, smirking slightly at James' indignant spluttering.

Harry considered this revelation for a long moment, before shrugging. "At least he's not a ginger." He voiced his casual philosophy on the matter. "Everyone knows that they don't have souls." He nodded knowledgeably.

Lily blinked, then pointed to her own cascading red locks, a vaguely hostile expression appearing on her face. "What did you say?"

"Oh, everyone knows that." Harry waved it off, ignoring the dangerous tone. "I swear, that bibliophile really disappointed me. I mean, best-male-non-Mad-Scientist-friend or not, Ron really was way below where her standards ought to have been. And if it was just the hair color she was after, she could have at least gone for a regular redhead. Anything but a ginger." He shivered briefly. "Then again, maybe she mistook him for Crookshanks and decided that ugly soullessness was a small price to pay for the ability to spawn babies with her cat." He hummed thoughtfully. "That actually makes it a little bit better. Crookshanks might've been ugly as sin, but he was a cat amongst cats." He declared as he stared dazedly into the distance. "And he must've been fantastic in the sack if he ended up with that many crumpled-horned monstrosities, even after he became Franken-cat."

Lily seemed to have forgotten her rage at his insults of ginger-ness, possibly due to her being a redhead and everyone knows that it's only gingers that have no souls, but Clyde were starting to look a bit weird.

"Why would she want to marry a cat?" He finally asked, looking confused.

Harry turned towards his younger self and intoned solemnly. "I remember a toad with a harem of voluptuous Amazon women, and the only thing amazing about Trevor is his horrible sense of direction. Well, that and having an overprotective sociopath of a Mad Scientist for an owner." He shrugged. "At least Crookshanks had style. Ugly as sin or not, I've born witness to that cat scaring away my experiments even before I brought him back from the dead." He grinned evilly. "And after those..." He chuckled darkly at the memory. "That nundu didn't even see it coming."

Lily finally interrupted him. "So, marrying a ginger is grounds for disappointment, but you'd understand perfectly if she just wanted to sleep with her cat? Isn't that... I don't know, illegal?"

Harry made a dismissive gesture. "Pah, laws are for normal people, and she was sadistic enough in her brilliance that she had a standing invitation to the labs of pretty much any Mad Scientist worth a damn." Which, understandably, had only been Harry and Neville, as their competition had a tendency to die horribly from evil squirrels, or be assassinated by an amazing secret-agent toad with an endlessly-changing buxom sidekick. "She really could've been great." He sighed mournfully.

"Didn't you have someplace to be?" James finally piped in, sounding a lot like he just wanted the torture of his obviously fragile psyche to be over with. Wuss.

Harry turned to the man. "I did have something I was planning on doing, yes." He agreed. "You wouldn't happen to know if there are still Dementors in Azkaban, would you? Or if there are any laws against Mad Scientists being not allowed on the island?" He asked hopefully.

"Nobody wants to go to Azkaban." Lily stated bluntly. "I don't think there are even any laws regulating who's allowed to be there or not. Just that if you're a criminal, or a guard, you're not allowed to leave until you've done your time."

Harry felt a demented grin spread across his face. "Fantastic." He breathed ominously, before sweeping away into the crowd, his lab coat billowing out behind him dramatically.

XXX

He was halfway past Diagon Alley when he saw someone through a window.

Someone from before he'd snapped, from before he'd given into the pressure and started playing god with his fellow mortals.

And, perhaps more terrifyingly awe-inspiring than that sight, was that that same someone met his eyes, and knew him.

It wasn't possible, it was insane, it was completely ridiculous.

Harry slammed open the door to the shop.

"Hedwig! I knew you were amazing!" He laughed gleefully as the white owl swept down to land on his shoulder. "How did you get here?"

"Umm, sir? You can't-!" Some person behind the counter complained, as Harry began to make his way back through the door, having only just appeared to fetch Hedwig. Harry threw a handful of galleons at the employee's face, and continued on his way.

The person didn't complain, and so Harry cheerfully spent some time catching up to Hedwig as they made their way towards Knockturn Alley and whatever illegal substances that might still be found in that place – they'd cleaned it up a lot after the Ministry had realized that keeping it like it was had been encouraging their two resident Mad Scientists in their experiments.

Hedwig handled the information that her wizard was a 'Mad Scientist with a penchant for making homicidal rodents' rather well. Though she did smack him over the head with a wing, just to make certain that he wouldn't try to give her prey the ability to fight back. No matter how useless such ability might be, given Hedwig's inherent superiority.

Then again, Harry might've bribed her. Just a little bit.

"Hedwig? How would you like to have laser beams attached to your head?"

Hedwig barked royally.

Harry blinked, then cleared his voice and bowed. "Of course Your Majesty, how foolish of me. Would You honor me, Your Royal Highness, with attaching laser beams onto Your head, so that You may smite Your Subjects with fiery vengeance, with naught but Your Royal Displeasure?"

Hedwig considered this for a moment, before barking again, ruffling her feathers.

Harry's lips twitched in admiration of her ruthlessness. "Of course Your Majesty, how painful would You like Your subjects' kill-switch to be?"

Hedwig's answering bark sounded remarkably akin to an evil chuckle.

XXX

Cornelius Fudge stared suspiciously at the small muffin that for some reason occupied his desk.

He hadn't ordered any muffins, and he was fairly sure that everyone who wanted to get into his good graces knew by now that they should do so with coinage rather than pastries.

Slowly reaching forward to get a better view of the note that accompanied it, he briefly considered calling an auror to do it for him before dismissing the idea. It would be a bit too harmful to his reputation if he were to be considered as being as paranoid as that crazy 'Mad Eye'.

"Dear Minister chocolate-thing," he started reading, his brow creasing into a frown at the mocking of his name. "This muffin is definitely not made of goblins. Honest. Have a bite and see for yourself."

Suddenly horribly wary, Fudge recalled hearing about some insane thing that the Quibbler had been insisting on lately. Something about goblins that were turned into pies. He'd been very very grateful that no voters worthy of note actually read that rag.

But still, if someone had read it, and decided to mock him somehow? Or was it a set-up? What was going on? Why would someone leave a muffin like this on his desk? When did the world suddenly stop making sense?

"Why is the world filled with nut-jobs?" He asked himself morosely as he stared at the possibly-poisoned pastry that was so innocently placed on his desk.

"Glad you asked!" Came the sudden, and delighted-sounding, voice three inches to the left of his ear.

Fudge nearly hit his head on the ceiling, he jumped so high.

"Personally, I think it's because the nuts are actually a lot better in the sack than sane people. But maybe that's just because I've walked in on Crookshanks one too many times." The voice commented absently. "But," he stressed the word, holding up a finger. "We're not here to discuss me, we're here to discuss work opportunities!"

The man paused, suddenly looking thoughtful, and completely ignoring how Fudge was on the other side of the room, trying to dig his way through the wall with his fingernails with one hand whilst the other one clutched at his heart in a desperate attempt to keep it from launching itself out through his chest.

Finally, the man continued, looking vaguely sheepish. "Well, considering that they'd be work opportunities for me, I guess we're still discussing me." He admitted. "But at least I'm a great subject to discuss! Why, just last week I was the main topic of Neville's 'who drinks all of my bloody coffee'-discussion!" He sighed happily at what was apparently a fond memory. "Not that he knew that, of course. Was completely convinced it was Trevor. Heh, as if I'd let anyone touch Neville's coffee beans once they'd been harvested. The toad was the perfect scapegoat."

Clearly, the ranting lunatic did indeed enjoy talking about himself. And Fudge felt his heart slow down marginally as they began to move towards familiar territory, because self-obsession was a fairly normal attitude for his visitors to have.

"But this isn't about coffee. Even if I won't actually be able to drink it again, since I accidentally erased myself from existence by tripping down some stairs." He shrugged. "So, I'm just here to tell you that I'll be taking over Azkaban. Don't worry. Nobody will escape, I'm much more efficient than those idiot Dementors. Why I've heard that they've already let one of their subjects slip to a certain Crouch-person. Look for an invisibility cloak." He stage-whispered to the wide-eyed Minister of Magic. "Still, there's not a lot you can do to stop me, what with not having any proper aurors, or any Dark Lords, or even a proper Guild of Madmen. So, I'll be taking over Azkaban, and... well, you might want to make absolutely sure that everyone that gets sent there deserves to not come back, because... well, like I said, I'm much better at keeping my squishy little toys around than those ragged old washcloths will ever be."

"You want to take over Azkaban?" Fudge squeaked, back into unfamiliar territory.

"I've always wanted to see if Dementors have hearts." The man explained with a childish excitement. "And this way I won't have to commandeer any large tracts of land and ruin the world's weather-patterns in order to create a Headquarters with a properly ominous background." He paused, suddenly frowning. "Though I suppose I'd still have to break into the Malfoy Manor and burn down their kitchen for shits and giggles." He relented. "I doubt they'll have any good kitchens to burn down in Azkaban."

Mouth opening and closing like a fish on dry land, Fudge tried to figure out what he was supposed to do.

"Oh, and don't worry Minister, you can easily claim that I threatened all of Britain into forcing you to give it up. After all, I've got one advantage that you all sorely lack." His grin turned predatorily gleeful as he'd begun to slip into an obviously fake German accent. "Zeppelins!"

Then he was just gone. Disappeared. The mad laughter that was still echoing across the walls being the only sign that he'd ever been there at all.

Fudge hurriedly decided that his reputation wasn't so important that he could ignore paranoia when someone was so obviously out to get him, and so hurriedly threw some Floo powder into the fireplace.

"Amelia!" He cried desperately.

XXX

Harry stared at the boat that was supposed to ferry him to the Wizarding Prison of Britain.

It looked pathetically unimposing.

Shaking his head in disappointed disgust, Harry concluded that he'd be forced to fix that before he arrived on the island. There was no way that he wasn't going to make a grand entrance at the location of what would become his laboratory.

If he did, people might think that he was just some kind of non-important person like a politician or something. Or – Crookshanks forbid – an accountant.

Shivering for reasons completely unrelated to the chilly mists surrounding him, Harry considered how he was going to upgrade the boat into a more proper transportation.

"Duct-tape?" He finally guessed, turning to Her Majesty, Hedwig the Merciless, for confirmation.

Hedwig fluffed herself up a little bit, giving a haughty hoot.

"Right. Of course, Your Majesty." Harry nodded along. "We'll have to raid a few graveyards to get that many finger- and toenails."

Hedwig tilted her head, before barking skeptically.

"No, I can't really think of anywhere where they'd keep non-dirtied fingernails for us to acquire, Your Majesty." Harry frowned thoughtfully. "Though I suppose I could find a way to create all of those nails magically."

Hedwig batted him over the head with a wing.

"I know, I know. It's just not the same if someone doesn't either suffer the removal whilst alive, or has their final resting place violated when acquiring them." Harry sighed. "But it's going to take a lot of nails..."

Hedwig hooted with sympathetic annoyance.

"How about we make it out of bones, nails, rotting flesh, and a still-living sea-creature?" Harry finally suggested a different approach.

Hedwig considered this for a moment, before barking once more, sounding curious.

"Well, the goblins have all those dragons... and then we can just slice off all the limbs so that all it can do is wail incompetently in agony, then we attach some unpleasant dark-creature to drag it around the ocean, install a deck and rudder into its still-living flesh, maybe give it a mast with one of those uselessly shredded sails, and then we can continuously cut off the prisoners' limbs and regrow them in order to feed the thing. Just so that it can acquire a taste for all those who would dare try to escape."

Hedwig stared at him for a long moment, before suddenly beginning to bark softly in a way that could've made people swear that she was laughing in a fashion that would've made a Dark Lord green with envy.

Harry smiled happily at her. "Thank you, Your Majesty, I do try."

XXX

"Get back here and take it like a proper abomination towards life!" Harry yelled after the Dementor.

The Dementor understandably, didn't choose to stop, rather managing to speed up despite the chains wrapped around its limbs.

"Dammit! You're not getting away this time!" Harry declared. "Philosopher Squadron! Catch it!"

The Dementor made a screeching sound that somehow managed to convey its utter horror as a squadron of heavily armed – literally, their arms were looking pretty heavy after all that gene-tweaking – squirrels barreled into it as it turned around a corner.

Laughing delightedly, and cheerfully ignoring how the inmates within the nearby cells were moaning in terror at the sighting of squirrels, Harry readied himself for lassoing the Dark creature.

It wasn't like their auras affected him any after he'd built that Patronus-generator into his skull. Damn useful that thing was.

So, with reckless abandon, when it tried to escape through a side-passage, he jumped onto its shoulders, yelling happily about being a rodeo clown and how proud his parental figures would've been had they seen him now.

It should perhaps be noted, that Sirius Black would've been immensely proud indeed to see the insanity and chaos that his godson spread in his wake. Unfortunately, Sirius was more something of a perverted-uncle-figure. Harry's parental figure was Crookshanks.

Greatest damn cat that had ever lived, or un-lived as the case was.

"Quickly! Chamber Squadron, administer the sedative!" He ordered from on top of the desperately bucking Dementor's shoulders.

By the time the sedative began to take effect, the Dementor could be heard making a pretty good approximation of crying in despair, before slipping into peaceful, and most importantly non-struggling, unconsciousness.

"Geez, you forget to administer sedatives before cutting them open one time, and they all just start running away the moment you reach for the scalpel." He shook his head in exasperated annoyance. "You'd think that they'd learn."

A third squadron of squirrels rounded the corner.

"Ah, good, you're here. Bring it back to the lab, Prisoner Squadron." He gestured for them to move the Dementor. "I've got to go see if any of the others managed to break free in the confusion." He huffed. "We really need to update our security protocol. Or at least find some sturdier chains to shackle them with."

There was a squeak as one of the members of Philosopher Squadron asked a question.

"A Patronus-binding?" Harry scratched his stubble – all mad scientists have either stubble, beards, or mustaches, and Harry had never been good with large amounts of hair – in thought. "That has potential." He finally admitted.

The squirrel squeaked again, looking happy to be acknowledged for its ideas.

"But where would I find that much organic matter on such short notice?"

A member of the newly arrived Goblet Squadron squeaked in response.

Harry blinked, then followed the squirrel's gaze towards the prisoners whimpering pathetically in their cells.

"You know... I probably owe you guys a raise." Harry said thoughtfully.

There was a loud cheer from all squirrels present.

Harry smiled fondly at them, before turning back to his victim-... uhh, volunteers, his smile taking on a dangerously unhinged edge. "Now... let's get this show on the road."

There was much screaming from the isle of Azkaban on that night.

XXX

"Of course I was serious about the zeppelins." Harry remarked to the owl with a slightly offended expression. "I wouldn't lie about zeppelins. I have standards."

Hedwig gave a potentially apologetic bark in response, before tilting her head curiously at the gigantic shapes emerging from the mist in front of her.

"I know, but zeppelins are actually really easy to make. Once you learn to store the blueprints in the genetic memory of anything with semi-opposable thumbs." Harry admitted. "Besides, it's not all that hard to find the material, especially after I managed to twist the original blueprints to be built around Lethifolds instead."

Hedwig turned back to him, barking in amusement.

"No, I wasn't allowed on Azkaban, but there are tons of Lethifolds just floating around uselessly in Africa. They're fairly easy to catch too, if you know the trick." Harry shrugged. "Adapting the general Lethifold-powered array to the specifics necessary of a Dementor-powered one was child's play." He made a sweeping gesture. "And so I present to You, Your Majesty's Royal Air-Force."

Hedwig made an inquisitive bark.

"Yes, the zeppelins have laser beams." Harry nodded. "How else was I supposed to threaten to blow up the moon?"

Hedwig ruffled her feathers in smug amusement, staring up at the army that had just been placed at her feather-tips.

Her Majesty, Hedwig the Merciless, once more barked in a way much akin to an evil chuckle, before making a slightly disgusted noise, and with a sigh reluctantly waved her most loyal subject onwards with an imperial wing. Whereupon Harry dutifully began to laugh the true Mad Laughter of a Mad Scientist that was planning to take over the World.

He wasn't about to mention that his Queen didn't have the physical vocal chords necessary to properly pull off that kind of laughter, at least not out loud, no matter how resignedly aware of this fact that she was. He might be Mad, but he most certainly wasn't suicidal.

XXX

Harry clucked his tongue as he watched the wizards gathering around the shoreline.

"Ruddy normal people, I conquered the island fair and square through use of blackmail and fear, what's there to complain about?" He asked his chief advisor, a chipmunk named Alvin.

Alvin squeaked and shrugged, shaking his head in confusion.

"Yeah well, I won't stand for it!" Harry growled. "Ready the defense mechanisms! Raise the flag of war!" He roared to the surrounding minions, before turning to the Phoenix Squadron, eyes aglow with Madness, and hissed dangerously. "And man the zeppelins!"

The aurors on the other shore who'd just transfigured a boat out of something or other, were quickly showered in splinters as the Wave System alerted the wood-eating piranhas of an invasion attempt.

Of course, the aurors didn't know that, and simply began searching for wards. Once they'd confirmed that there weren't any, they tried it again, and was once more showered in splinters as the high speed wood-eating piranhas feasted on their planned vessel.

They tried it a fourth and a fifth time as well, with the same results, before they finally decided to try a different approach.

Two of them tried to Apparate directly onto Azkaban, despite probably knowing that it should've been impossible even during normal circumstances.

Needless to say, Harry had made sure to update the wards covering the island.

So, instead of bouncing back and maybe landing in the ocean and being eaten by something monstrous that may or may not have escaped from his lab, they hit the wards and stuck to them, like flies on glue. And that's when they realized that the wards were rotating, and they were moving slowly but surely towards the inevitability of the water's surface.

By the time the wards would've dragged them back up on the other side of the island, they would've already drowned, if they hadn't managed to get crushed into an unrecognizable mess against the foundation of the island itself.

Sadly, they both managed to trigger portkeys and thereby escaped such a fate.

Not that Harry hadn't accounted for the usage of portkeys, which lead to the two would-be invaders landing in the Azkaban Triangle that he'd arranged, a place where magic didn't really function the way it ought to, and the only place where Her Majesty's pet Kraken didn't dissolve because of the contradicting laws of physics.

The fact that he'd made sure to install a few sound-carrying wards around it, just really helped to catch their last gurgling screams of fear and agony and merciless death.

Quite artful really, if he said so himself. But unfortunately, he couldn't quite see if those on the shoreline paled dramatically at the sound. He'd have to remedy that for future invasions.

There was another attempt to transfigure a boat, with the same result as the first five.

Harry shook his head mournfully at the sight. "You'd think that they don't know how to make a boat out of something other than wood." Though, of course, a boat made from a different material would only really serve to drowning them all once the boat made it out into the bay and was dragged down into the depths by The Suffering Dementor, which was a very loyal vessel, even if only because its crippled inferi-like brain couldn't actually comprehend how not to be loyal, despite its eternal torment.

Personally, he thought that it was a bit of a shame that none of the wizards had tried anything floatable that wasn't made of wood, but perhaps it would be less horrible for them to return in disgrace from whence they came than to have their flesh and souls slowly devoured by the lumbering abomination towards creation.

Maybe he could put up a sign with a hint or two in order to clue them in on how to counteract the piranhas?

It was worth looking into, he decided thoughtfully, as the group of wizards finally Apparated away once more.

XXX

"Luna! What have you done to your hair?" He stared at the small blonde who was staring right back at him with gigantic blue eyes.

"I brushed it this morning." She explained.

Harry mimicked being on the receiving end of a heart-attack, just for the sake of dramatics. "But how will you manage a properly Mad look if you brush your hair?"

"I was planning on going for the Insane Mad look, actually." Luna commented absently.

Opening his mouth to retort, Harry quickly shut it again. "Right... Insane would mean that all Sane definitions would be instantly reversed, unless that was to be expected, at which point it would be reversed into the square-root of an igloo. So, brushing your hair would be suitably Insane for someone going for a Mad look." He conceded the point.

"Oh my, do you know this man, pumpkin?" Xenophilius eyed his daughter curiously as he finally realized that they were having a conversation right next to him.

"Of course not. I've never met him before after all, so already knowing him would be silly, daddy. And I'm not a fruit." She paused, suddenly considering something. "Well, not that kind of fruit anyway."

"You're probably a bit young for the other kind of fruit yet." Harry added helpfully.

Luna tilted her head. "Does age even count if I'm Insane?"

"Only if the target is your age or younger." Harry shrugged. "Unless they're Insane too."

"Does it count as Insanity if I drive them Insane with constant sex?" Luna asked hopefully.

"Doubt it. The laws get wonky enough around that kind of thing that you might be able to get away with it... but they'll probably have to plead temporary Insanity, which would cause a lot more paperwork."

"Oh, poo." Luna pouted.

"Oh dear, I do believe I might be catching a Wrackspurts infestation." Xenophilius commented with slight worry as he watched the back-and-forth between the strange man and his daughter.

"Wrackspurts don't exist." Harry stated flatly.

"The ear-fairies needed some sort of name, Mr Crazy Person." Luna frowned up at him.

Harry scoffed. "You can't prove that that's their name, so it doesn't count."

Luna did the sensible thing and kicked him in the shin.

In hindsight, he really should've designed some shin-guards before going out to explore Diagon Alley. Though, then again, there was a distinct possibility that Luna might've decided to kick him a bit more... 'central' than one of his legs had she found those to have been protected. And even if he wasn't really planning on using his 'second brain' anytime soon, that didn't mean he wanted it bludgeoned to death.

XXX

Harry might be inclined to do 'the right thing' when faced with a choice, but that didn't mean that he was a nice person.

Yes, he'd help save the world if he believed that it was in danger. Yes, he'd save an innocent from harm if he could help it. But at the same time, if someone attempted to invade his home, then why shouldn't he kill them all in horrible and inventive ways for the sake of his own amusement?

He was, after all, slightly paranoid over the thought of losing his loved ones to people trying to kill him – it was a bit of an orphan thing – and didn't think that anyone who'd actually attack him deserved to be given a second chance at doing so. Worst case scenario, they'd figure out a way to get their second chance at attacking him all on their own, without any input from his side.

Thus, Harry's defenses on Azkaban ranged from lethal, to very lethal, to nightmarishly lethal. All in three separate direction of security.

The rotating sticky-ward, was a 'lethal' one, but only in a slow and extremely defensive way. The Suffering Dementor was a 'very lethal' defense in that you'd have to be nearly miraculously lucky in order to survive an encounter with it, and you'd probably die very quickly. And the Kraken within the magical distortion field was a 'nightmarishly lethal' defense, in that no matter how long it took you to actually die, your death was assured from the moment you landed yourself within it.

Basically, some defenses would kill you peacefully, others would kill you quickly, and the others would risk driving you insane through fear and agony before it showed mercy and simply killed you.

Hedwig was very much entertained by the latter category, as she believed that a lethal defense wasn't very efficient if it didn't also demoralize the survivors into making absolutely sure that they never encountered it themselves.

Harry didn't really care either way, simply believing that as long as they were different from the regular response of defenses in the magical world – such as the rather bland retaliating wards or easily-released inferi – then they were all worth the effort of constructing.

Though, admittedly, the wood-eating piranhas weren't so much an intended defense, as they were a side-effect of trying to recreate his loyal squirrel-soldiers in an aquatic environment.

In hindsight, basing his goal for their regular feeding patterns when genetically modifying them on Hollywood movies might not have been the most sensible of options. Of course, it certainly looked good, but he'd been forced to modify them into an endless sense of panicking starvation before they'd reached that infamous kind of feeding frenzy. And once he'd done so, he hadn't been able to get them to survive on anything easily-digested if he wanted the ecosystem of anywhere to survive their release into the wild.

So he'd made them hunger for wood, and then twisted that around a little bit until he'd stumbled upon the current arrangement where the piranhas were fully capable of devouring a minor wooden boat, but would've only been able to chew through the hull of a ship.

He could technically create enough piranhas that they'd be able to devour an entire navy, but that would either mean dedicating all his resources to their creation, or allowing them to breed in the wild until they ran amok.

And whilst it would be fun to finally achieve his dream and create an entire ecosystem filled with only his own creations, Hedwig really didn't want the potential competition.

So, he bowed to the whims of his Queen, and so far all of his creations had been carefully modified to be unable to spawn.

XXX

"There! Much better!" Harry crowed as Dobby whimpered pitifully.

It'd been astonishingly easy to break into the Malfoy Manor. It'd been slightly more difficult to locate Dobby and the kitchen. And it'd been a bit of a challenge to convince Dobby into wearing a heavily padded helmet for when he began smacking his head into a wall as punishment.

But there was no way that Harry would accept that one of his oddest friends and most loyal minions would remain in the abusive household, without at least first messing up his role in it.

So, with Dobby properly protected from his punishments – the helmet was charmed to be virtually indestructible and impossible to remove, but also extremely comfortable for the wearer – and the Malfoy Manor properly infiltrated, Harry began his most important mission since arriving in this dimension.

Burning down Malfoy's kitchen.

The mission was secretly nicknamed: 'learning how to cook on a stove of Fiendfyre'.

Obviously, it was going to be an amazingly wonderful day.

XXX

Harry wrinkled his nose as he stared out at the burnt down ruins of what was only a few hours ago the Malfoy Manor.

"Note to self, next time, use more salt." Shaking his head in disgust, he tossed the plate of unrecognizable goo over his shoulder, ignoring the sound of porcelain breaking as it hit the ground, turning instead to the horribly distraught House Elf. "So, Dobby... Want a job?"

Dobby made a noise of absolute horror as he stared up at the madman who'd just burned down his – no matter how much he disliked them – masters' home. "Dobby doesn't want to be anywhere near crazy-person!" He exclaimed.

Pouting slightly at the dismissal of an alternate universe's version of an old kind-of friend of his, Harry finally shrugged and gave him a book, that he'd prepared for this eventuality beforehand. "Fine, fine. Give this to Lucius, would you? Tell him that it's a gift from Queen Hedwig of Azkaban. Oh, and try to stick around until he finishes reading it if you want to be freed. I hear Dumbledore is pretty willing to hire help these days."

Dobby looked torn between not believing the crazy person who'd burnt down Malfoy Manor with Fiendfyre in an effort to cook dinner, and hoping that this would be his chance to slip out of his abusive masters' grip. He grudgingly took the book.

Harry beamed happily at him.

XXX

Dumbledore frowned at the Daily Prophet, in particular at the article regarding Azkaban, and Fudge's statement of "They've got zeppelins!"

Harry snickered helplessly as the rest of the Gryffindor table argued over what kind of Dark Lord takes over a prison, and how they were supposed to arrest him when he'd already taken over their prison.

"Harry!" Hermione hissed from beside him. "This is no laughing matter!"

"But he's got zeppelins!" Harry grinned madly at her. "How awesome is that?"

"And he's clearly a Dark Lord!" Hermione argued.

Harry blinked. "No he isn't. I'm pretty sure I met him in Diagon Alley. He was pretty cool." He paused, ignoring his friend's horrified face. "Totally insane, sure. But he's a Mad Scientist, not a Dark Lord. Though he did say something about watching out for squirrels before they kill us all, or something." He shrugged.

Hermione gaped at him. "You met him?"

"Yeah, we saw him outside of Gringotts, looked just like my dad, so we started talking." He looked thoughtful for a moment. "Dad is terrified of him, which is sensible enough I guess, 'cause he's crazy and all that."

Hermione stared incredulously at him for a long silent moment.

"Like I said, Mad Scientist." Harry commented with a shrug.

Overcoming her disbelief at her friend's casualness about it, Hermione returned to the original subject of Harry denying the man's classification as a Dark Lord. "But he's commandeered the prison." Hermione hissed at him.

"Which nobody wants to have anything to do with." Harry pointed out reasonably. "Heck, the only reason it's still a prison is because of a treaty with the Dementors that would have serious consequences if it was broken."

"So he's trying to break the treaty?" Hermione nervously bit her lip.

Harry shook his head. "No, then he would've sent away the prisoners, since that's sort of what the treaty includes anyway. Personally, I think he's trapped them all in the prison to be his experiments."

"He's experimenting on Dementors? Aren't they supposed to be evil?" Hermione frowned, uncertain.

Harry took a deep breath. "They're un-living things that feed off of people's misery. They're generally considered too awful to share space with, but whether or not they're technically evil... that's a matter of debate. Not that it matters really, since not even the most idealistic would actually go through with a rescuing operation to save something that wants to eat your soul."

"And this guy is experimenting on them?" Hermione seemed to have finally calmed down.

Harry nodded. "He was kind of rambling so I don't remember everything, but he didn't sound like he was planning on doing anything horrible."

There was a pause as Hermione digested this, before Harry cheered as he saw his owl swoop down towards them.

"Yes! The Quibbler!" Harry happily surrendered his bacon to the owl, and settled in to read the magazine that the man who'd called him 'Clyde' had so stubbornly insisted was completely insane, whilst at the same time proving them right with his arguments. His mother had been amused enough by the action that she'd signed up for a subscription of it.

And considering how 'Duna Lovegool' had filled the front page with a picture of the charred remains of Malfoy Manor, and the front line of "Cooking Experiment Gone Awry, the Queen Apologizes", he'd hit the jackpot for the day's entertainment.

XXX

"To shave, or not to shave, that is the question." Harry mumbled to himself as he stared into the mirror.

Alvin chirped at him.

"No, I've never really figured out which is better." Harry admitted. "I mean, if I shave, I have to do it all the time, and I don't get to have that crazy-hair-vibe being compounded on by my chin." He scratched at the stubble. "Because yeah, my hair is naturally inclined to being crazy-looking, but having a beard that's just as chaotic would be pretty damn cool."

Alvin seemed to consider this side for a moment, before gesturing for him to present a reason why he ought to shave in the first place.

Harry obliged. "Of course, beards get in the way. A lot. Even when they're not the length where you can trip over it, it gets caught in zippers, and it has to cleaned after every meal unless you want to start smelling like a compost heap, and that's not even mentioning that you have to let it grow past the itching-stage, which is an annoyance all on its own."

Alvin pondered this argument rather obviously, making sure that he used a thinking-pose for such an arduous task. Then he chirped questioningly.

Harry blinked, tilting his head curiously as he stared into the mirror. "I don't know. I never had the chance to ask her, back before the past that became the future." He shrugged, throwing a cheerful grin to his chief advisor. "But it definitely sounds like something I should ask her."

And so it was, that he went to get fashion-tips from Hedwig, rather than ask someone who knew about what was attractive to a human.

Let it never be said that growing up like he did, taught him the differences between human and non-human. He'd never really figured out why people were upset that he'd been locked in his room the summer before Second Year, it wasn't like he'd had it any worse than Fluffy the Cerberus must've had it, stuck in that corridor as he'd been.

In their Sixth Year, during which Harry's Madness had finally become apparent to the masses, Hermione had been forced to stop him from trying to eat another student after he'd read about how some species eat smaller members of their own species. He wasn't entirely sure why she'd bothered though, the guy had definitely looked small enough to chow down, and he'd finally found that wine that that Hannibal-person explained ought to be served along with his many recipes.

He'd been so excited about the opportunity to try all of those out, too.

Oh well, maybe another day.

Harry blinked, suddenly remembering that Hermione wasn't here to stop him.

A slightly disturbing smile spreading across his lips, Harry became a bit distracted from his search for his queen by wondering where he'd put that cookbook.

XXX

Harry grinned as he the giant organ played its first note.

Made in no small part from the bones of inmates and Dementors, the thing was bigger than the Dursleys' home at Privet Drive, and had more pipes than the entirety of Hogwarts.

He'd run into a slight snag once he realized that despite having the foreboding location, and the proper instrument, he couldn't actually play it, meaning that the music appropriate for the situation had remained out of his reach.

It'd taken him three days of searching to find an inmate who actually knew how to play the piano – which seemed similar enough that it could be used as a starting point – after that it'd taken him nearly two hours of intense brain-digging to excavate that knowledge and implant it in a willing chipmunk.

Unfortunately, the volunteer had a bit of an unexpected side-effect from the sudden increase in brain-power.

It'd taken him another hour to get the liquified chipmunk-brains out of his hair.

Once he was through with that, he realized that the chipmunk who'd volunteered was actually still clinging to life through some manner of twisted miracle, and that the knowledge had somehow gotten imprinted into its nervous system.

After that, it was only a matter of building a bone-puppet around the half-inferi chipmunk so that it could reach all of the keys. And though this took a bit of effort as he'd been forced to develop a method that not only allowed the inmates to regrow their skeletons quickly enough that this was a possibility, but also wouldn't allow the joints of the skeleton to simply fall apart as bones were generally wont to do, it still only took him a day.

The end result was actually a bonus from his original plan, since it meant that not only was the music perfectly executed, but the visual of a writhing mass of bones being the one playing it really helped to set the mood.

They were finally ready for Halloween and a proper plague of Trick-or-Treaters.

Alvin squeaked curiously.

Harry paused in his reminiscing as he considered that, before paling rapidly. "You're right! We forgot the candy!" He wailed, before rushing off.

There was a reason that Alvin was his chief advisor, and it wasn't only because the adorable little bugger had managed to arrange for the gruesome deaths of all of his rival advisors. Deaths that had by pure happenstance all greatly amused Queen Hedwig.

Of course, considering that there were warrants for Harry's arrest, and that last time he'd visited Diagon Alley he'd been attacked by a vulture-hat and its aging pet-witch, he concluded that perhaps he ought to avoid attempting to actually buy the needed candy from a store.

But it wasn't like he couldn't figure out a way to cook up something tasty for the devious little monster-lookalikes.

Obviously, he couldn't give them something like fruit or vegetables, and giving out poison and glass was generally considered to be in bad taste, and since they'd be carrying bags to put their delicious snacks in he couldn't give them anything delicate like a cake.

Crackers were a possibility, so were various forms of hard candy, and chocolate.

Remembering that he knew a recipe for chocolate-dough that was actually quite tasty in its pure form, he started to grin gleefully as he realized just how he ought to give it to the little children.

First, he was going to need a skull. Secondly, he was going to need a spoon. Thirdly, something for them to wrap what they scooped out of the creepy bowl in. And fourthly, he should seriously consider whether or not the skull should still have skin, be pure bone, or scream in agony as it was emptied.

It was really all in the little details.

XXX

If he was being honest with himself, he knew that there was a very slim chance of any Trick-or-Treaters showing up at Azkaban, considering its reputation of being pretty much literally Hell-on-Earth, but he felt that he'd needed to be sufficiently prepared for the occasion.

He'd even sent out letters to the Ministry promising that he wouldn't allow the wards and guardian beasts to horribly maim or kill anyone who tried to set foot on the island for the holiday.

And of course, this meant that Fudge had leaped at the chance to make everyone stop treating him like the fool who lost them their infamous prison to a Dark Lord, hurriedly ordering nearly the entire auror force to march on the island.

Dumbledore had obviously caught onto the Minister's schemes, and decided that it would be best for all of them to actually have someone who'd manage to survive an encounter with an actual Dark Lord, as that would hopefully reduce casualties.

The group of law-enforcers were understandably a bit unsettled by some of the signs that Harry had been placing around the area.

"Warning: Wood-eating piranha." "Warning: Do not feed the Kraken." "Warning: Minefield." "Warning: Do not touch the water." "Warning: Do not threaten the trees." "Warning: Flammable gas." "Warning: Heat-seeking sharks." And finally. "Wipe your shoes, don't track in mud into the ship's festering wounds."

All in all, nobody was entirely comfortable with this particular assignment.

Not that that stopped them from warily entering the mournfully wailing 'ship' that had been provided for their visit, that smelled an awful lot like blood and guts and rotting organs, and allowing it to slowly take them to Azkaban's shores.

Where they finally began to hear the music.

For those who knew of it, it was easy to recognize the pipe organ for what it was, but it was still somewhat off-putting to hear it being played so darkly through the evening mists of the ancient prison.

The ominous chill in the air and the smell of rotting flesh and fresh blood certainly didn't help matters. Nor did the disturbingly enthusiastic Halloween decorations that were scattered across the entire area.

Carved pumpkins whose faces shifted from moment to moment, burning candles that whispered unheard words, dark shapes shifting nearly unseen underneath the surface of the water, the wide variety of skeletons that had been propped up to show the way to the entrance, and the screams of agony and howls of animals-best-left-unknown.

By the time the ship finally stopped moving at the prison's dock, several of the aurors were considering alternate job opportunities, and even those who weren't were shifting uncomfortably.

"Ah, greetings." A voice welcomed them.

Nearly fifty wands were suddenly aimed at the figure that had so suddenly appeared out of the shadows.

"Are you here for the snacks, or the masquerade, or in order to challenge the rule of the Queen?" The figure continued, seemingly unbothered by the many wands surrounding them.

"We were hoping to talk with this... Queen." Dumbledore answered, taking on the role of negotiator as the one most used to politics of those gathered.

The figure twisted oddly, as if it was a puppet whose strings had suddenly been jerked, as it turned to face Dumbledore in particular. "Diplomacy then. Very well, please don a disguise and follow me, the masquerade is already in procession." It recited in a tone of voice so lacking in inflection as to make corpses sound lively, before beginning to walk through the door.

A little bit unsure of the lack of violence presented to them so far, the aurors followed the unsettling figure, finding themselves passing by a table filled with various 'disguises'.

Ranging from the more elaborate masks of the day of the nobles own masquerades, to the silly muggle contraptions of glasses with eyebrows and a nose with a mustache, above the table was the simple sign stating that a disguise for the masquerade was mandatory and that the table was supposed to provide everyone with such.

Once everyone – after having checked to make sure that the masks in question weren't trapped somehow – were properly disguised, the figure continued to lead them through the haunting corridors of the prison, the foreboding music growing louder with their every step.

Finally, the figure paused in front of a pair of giant ornate doors – that Dumbledore could honestly admit to never having seen before when he'd visited the island on previous occasions – turning briefly to make certain of their presence, before pushing the doors open.

The hall that was revealed to them was filled with many others. Some were clearly humanoid, and most of these were strapped to their chairs with solid-looking chains, whilst many of the creatures within it looked to be no larger than squirrels and chattered happily as they danced along the floor and on top of tables to the organ music.

The pipe organ in itself was a horrifying construction of bones, played on by a form whose skeleton was too grotesque to ever resemble a human, despite the delicate fingers playing the keys that so hinted at its origin.

It was a feast, but it was more a morbid nightmare than it was any true occasion for joy and celebration.

Several of the aurors nearly lost their lunch when they realized that someone had made a chandelier out of teeth, both human and non-human.

And there, on top of a throne, wearing a delicately carved mask of ivory and gold, sat a white owl, its gaze sweeping with regal apathy over those gathered.

A humanoid shape moved through the crowd to stand in front of the throne, sweeping a deep bow to the owl as if asking for permission – which it granted with a low bark – before turning to the new arrivals.

"Greetings!" He declared, a smile visible underneath the half-mask that he wore. "And welcome to the Halloween Masquerade of Her Majesty, Hedwig the Merciless."

And that was Dumbledore's first clue that there was something... wrong about what they'd suspected.

Because this spokesperson who seemed of such importance, had bowed to an owl, who was also wearing a mask. And Fudge had said that the one visiting him to declare Azkaban his own ground, had most certainly been a male.

Was it actually possible that this madman was following the orders of an owl?

It sounded too absurd to imagine, but then the idea of a Dark Lord stealing Azkaban from the Ministry's grasp and not actually moving to attack the rest of the Wizarding World – once he'd proven that they could not reach him through his wards and guardian beasts, in order to retaliate – was equally absurd.

"May I ask for an audience with Her Majesty?" Dumbledore asked, hoping that he wouldn't be introduced to an owl, because he wasn't entirely certain that he'd be able to convince something non-human to follow the laws of their society.

The man paused, turning back towards the owl seated on the throne, who answered with an apathetic-sounding bark.

"Her Majesty Hedwig the Merciless, is willing to allow this." He told the ancient wizard, before gesturing for him to follow them.

The owl riding on his shoulder, and one of the small shapes joining him at his feet, the man walked through another door, and Dumbledore reluctantly left the rest of the aurors behind to 'enjoy' the masquerade whilst he spoke with the leader of this debacle.

XXX

Kingsley Shacklebolt had seen many things during his time as an auror. He'd seen the aftermath of Dark rituals, wanton torture and destruction, and the horrible humans – because they were human, even if the thought of sharing their species made him sick to his stomach – who'd done those same deeds.

He remembered one particular wizard who'd believed muggle skin to be the height of fashion, and had made it into various pieces of clothes.

So yeah, he'd seen a lot of highly disturbing things during his time as an auror.

As for the island of Azkaban under the rule of Queen Hedwig the Merciless?

Well, that was in a league of its own.

The pipe organ was made out of bones, and considering the skulls incorporated into the design, they certainly weren't from any animal. The chandelier consisted from numerous sets of teeth, of varying sizes and species, but with a few of them being unsettlingly humanoid. The lighting for the room came from candles that whispered of horrors just outside of the edge of his hearing. And glowing pumpkins moved and shifted, their twisted expressions never remaining the same, but only whenever nobody was watching them.

Ignoring the way their guide had moved as if on puppet strings, ignoring what appeared to be squirrels dressed in what looked an awful lot like a mixture of a lab coat and an adventurer outfit, ignoring the monstrosity that played the organ with such gleeful intensity, and ignoring the way that some of the humanoid members of the masquerade would randomly drop limbs which were either sewn back on or carried away from the room by the squirrels... ignoring all of that, Kingsley was still left with a question that he desperately wanted to remain unanswered.

What the hell had happened to the Dementors?

Shaking his head, and trying to ignore how another recruit lost his lunch all over the floor – thankfully, there hadn't been any complaints about that yet – Kingsley found himself hoping that Dumbledore would finish with his talk with 'Queen Hedwig' and let them all be on their way. Preferably to never return.

The pumpkins creeped him out.

His subconscious shivers were interrupted by the sudden arrival of Dumbledore, marching back to them, his face a furious red.

Kingsley found himself intrigued, he'd never actually seen the old Headmaster so upset about something.

"Headmaster Dumbledore?" He asked the man.

"An owl!" The bearded man hissed in outrage. "The man is insane! He's taking orders from an owl!"

Kingsley suddenly recalled the snowy white owl that had been seated on the throne when they arrived. "The white one?"

"Yes! And she's apparently part of the reason why he hasn't actually done anything worse than conquer Azkaban! He's made up plans for taking over the world, for the hell of it!"

Kingsley frowned in concern. "Were they good plans?"

Dumbledore blinked at him. "They involved releasing his experiments into the wild and watching them hunt the entire ecosystem into extinction before taking its place, then there was something about zeppelins and inventing a formula to give magic to muggles so that he could taunt us all with a cure that he'd never offer us!"

Kingsley considered this for a moment, before nodding thoughtfully. "We're lucky the owl is keeping him in check then."

"It's a bloody owl!" Dumbledore exclaimed in frustration.

"He might be insane, but that plan of his would probably work so I'm on the owl's side on this one, and nobody really liked Azkaban anyway." Kingsley admitted with a shrug.

Dumbledore glared at him. Actually glared at him. The leader of the Light, famous for his eccentric sense of humor and bizarre dress-code as well as his merrily twinkling eyes, was actually visually glaring at someone.

Then the moment was over, and Dumbledore was stalking out of the door with the determined fury of a man on a mission.

Kingsley sent a brief prayer to whatever deity might listen, that it wasn't a plan to assassinate the only thing keeping their civilization intact. He kind of liked having civilization, even if it was corrupt. It was better than living in a cave.

On the plus side of things, he doubted that anyone even resembling sane would take an assassination-contract on an owl even remotely seriously.

XXX

Harry stared at the article from the Prophet.

"See, Harry. He's obviously a Dark Lord of some sort!" Hermione declared, her victorious triumph dulled somewhat by the nausea of the contents of the article in question.

She was the daughter of two dentists, and knew full well the horrors of what tooth-removal truly meant for the victim. That someone would create a chandelier out of teeth... well, they'd have to be sadistic on a level she'd never even imagined before.

"No, he isn't." Harry denied her argument absently, still staring curiously at the article.

"Wha-?! But he's torturing people!" Hermione sputtered.

Harry turned towards his friend, a little confused. "So? He's Evil, of course he's going to torture people. That doesn't mean that he's a Dark Lord."

Hermione gaped in disbelief at him for a moment, before she found her voice again. "Then what would he have to do to be a Dark Lord?"

"Collect political capital, continue to be Evil, and set off on a quest to do something." He frowned. "Dark Lord's are kind of like mob-bosses, convincing people to join them, bribing people, blackmailing people... It's a long list, but in the end they amass all that stuff so that they can take over the world through war and politics, and – in a few rare cases – economy."

"But... he wanted to take over the world, didn't he?" Hermione tried to argue.

"Yeah, by letting his mad creations loose on the ecosystem, which would basically mean that he'd be fighting a war against animals, rather than wizards or magical creatures. According to his approach, taking over the world is more of a side-effect of playing god, than it is a conscious choice." Harry pointed out.

"So... he's allowed to do all these horrible things-...?" Hermione started.

"No, of course not. He's Evil. I'm not arguing against that, just that he's not a Dark Lord." Harry interrupted her. "However, the fact remains that since he's not a Dark Lord, and he's secluded himself so obviously, there's really not much of a point to search him out and accidentally provoke him into actually deciding to do something, is there?"

Hermione paused, beginning to consider the madman from this new perspective. "Don't start a fight you can't finish."

Harry nodded. "Pretty much. I'd say that if anyone's got any sense, they'll wait to gather information and train up their forces before moving against him. Since, from what we've been told, the place is too heavily fortified for them to stand a chance against if they were to attack now anyway."

He then sighed, before opening the Quibbler as Hermione began to wander off.

"I just wish I could figure out how he started to combine biology and magic in the first place..."

Hermione paused, slowly turning to stare at her friend with wide eyes, as she felt an ominous shiver drag itself across her spine at the boy's muttered words.

Best friend or not, there were moments when-... when she wasn't entirely sure whether he was sane or not. Hopefully though, he'd get laid before he ever snapped completely. She'd heard that people generally mellowed out a bit once they got laid.

Now, if only she could find out what 'getting laid' actually meant...

XXX

Harry hummed thoughtfully as he stared out over the waters surrounding the island.

The casualties that they'd taken on behalf of cleaning up the Halloween decorations had been seen to. Limbs had been sewn back on, corpses had been reanimated, the whispering candles made out of the liquidized and frozen bones of the Dementors had been set aside, the chandelier of teeth had been carefully deconstructed, and the sentient pumpkins had been captured and dragged into the makeshift arena.

It was surprisingly entertaining to watch pumpkins slaughter their fellows for the amusement of the cheering crowd.

The fact that pumpkin juice could be extracted from their shredded selves was of course a bonus. It was just something about knowing that agony and violence had participated in the making of the drink, that just made it taste all the more exquisite.

Still, it would be hard to outdo this particular event, and considering how Christmas was coming up, that was probably going to leave him with such a headache.

He'd always rather enjoyed Christmas celebrations, after all.

XXX

Harry blinked. "What do you mean, 'how could I've been a Mad Scientist before coming here'?"

Alvin squeaked.

Harry opened his mouth to dismiss the chipmunk's concerns about his promise to never again play around with living or dead creatures, but then closed it again. "You mean, because all of my research is based around creatures, I shouldn't have been able to do any research without breaking my promise to Hermione?"

Alvin nodded.

"Well... there's actually a bit of a funny story around that." Harry admitted, deciding not to mention that Lethifolds were interestingly enough not part of his concession to Hermione as they were technically neither alive nor dead. "But mostly I got around it with various species of flesh golems." He shrugged.

Which actually made him wonder a little bit.

Those golems had been right useful at times, and it might help to have a bit of variation amongst his minions. Especially if he could compare their various test results side-by-side.

Smiling, he opened his mouth again. "Speaking of which, we're going to need to go shopping for some ingredients later, I'll write up the shopping list."

They'd been running a bit low on duct-tape anyway.

XXX

In a recently Harry-deprived world, Hermione sighed.

"I guess we should've seen this coming." She admitted, as she stared at the newspaper that had just declared that Crookshanks – the Handsomely Undead Cat – was their new lord and master. And that the Daily Prophet for one was happily welcoming their new overlord.

Ron looked up from where he was absently solving crosswords. "That Harry was the only thing keeping something even worse from conquering the world? Please, like that's actually news to anyone." He threw a cheerful grin at his wife. "But, on the brighter side of things, Crookshanks is probably going to be too busy getting laid to actually cause much damage."

Hermione felt her lips twitch upwards at that. "True, but still-..." She seemed about to continue when a second owl flew in through the window.

Raising a curious eyebrow at it, Hermione deftly accepted its message. Or, in this case, a second newspaper.

Hermione stared at the headline for a long moment, before the paper began to crinkle underneath her white knuckles, and she spoke in an eerily calm voice. "Ronald, pack our bags, we're going to have a talk with Harry about leaving us behind to deal with his messes."

Ron, having heard that tone of voice previously, nodded hurriedly, and glanced over her shoulder at the headline that had caused this sudden shift in moods.

'New Overlord Arranges Book-Burning Festival'

Ron fled for their packs as if the hounds of hell were on his heels.

XXX

Harry was just about to set to work on his new snow-machine – powered by the extinguished dreams of small children, because 'why not' – when the doorbell rang.

This was rather peculiar, because he hadn't actually lowered the wards around Azkaban enough to let people even set foot on the island, let alone actually make it to his doorbell – it was the best way of keeping away door-to-door salesmen.

Slightly intrigued, and a little bit wary of this oddity, Harry still cheerfully opened the door.

And paled.

"Harry James Potter, what have I told you about experimenting on living subjects?" Was the perfectly calm question that he was asked.

Harry briefly considered lying, then entertained the thought of fleeing for his life. In the end however, realizing the futility of either of those options, he simply shrugged. "In my defense, I never thought you'd find me."

There was much screaming from the Island of Azkaban that night.

Because there was a reason that nobody was stupid enough to willingly cross Hermione Weasley.

Thankfully, Ron was forgiving enough that he managed to talk down his wife to only slight maiming. And horrific agony, obviously, but removing that from the equation would just mean that his friend didn't actually learn from his mistake.

Ron shook his head sadly. For all his intelligence, Harry could be remarkably daft at times.

XXX

Albus Dumbledore stared disbelievingly at the woman standing in front of him. The woman who was still keeping the ear of the Mad Scientist of Azkaban in a very painful-looking grip.

"And, what do we say to the people that we've irrevocably scarred mentally by creating abominations?" She asked the young man in a calm voice.

"I'm sorry?" The young man squeaked.

The woman nodded. "Good, now say it with more feeling." She hissed at the young man.

Albus actually found himself taking a startled step backwards at the venom in the young woman's tone. She was rather frightening.

A redhead that looked quite a bit like a Weasley – though he'd never seen the young man before – stared adoringly at the woman, who looked just about ready to start tossing around Unforgivables, in a way that made Albus suddenly realize that there were rings on both the unknown people's fingers, as if they were married.

Truly, Albus reflected in that moment, love is a great and powerful thing, but also quite horrifyingly blind.

Then he returned to trying to figure out how to react to the way that the Mad Scientist, who'd so cheerfully caused so much nightmarish destruction, now resembled nothing more than a small child that had gotten into trouble with its parents.

In fact, he looked an awful lot like James Potter, now that he thought about it. And hadn't the young woman called him 'Harry'? Like young Harry Potter?

Albus's face suddenly began to drain of color, as he realized that there was a distinct possibility that the young Harry and this madman were somehow related, and that such a thing could mean that young Harry would grow up to be just like him. It was a thought that made him reconsider retirement. Preferably in some far-off land that wouldn't be particularly affected if Britain suddenly went up in a cloud of fire.

Finally he had to ask. "I'm sorry, miss. But what is your relationship to this man?"

She blinked at him for a moment, seemingly startled out of her scolding of the Mad Scientist by the question. "He's my childhood friend."

The Weasley-lookalike snickered in the background. "And she wants him to come back so that he can stop Crookshanks from burning her precious books."

The woman's answer to this declaration was to shoot the redhead a withering glare, that seemed to mostly simply slide right past him. Which was actually kind of impressive.

"Crookshanks is burning books?" The Mad Scientist also turned to the redhead. "As in... what kind of books?"

He got a sharp elbow in the ribs from the woman for that question. "It doesn't matter which books! It's the point of the matter!"

"And Delores Umbridge is a human being." The Mad Scientist pointed out.

The woman's face turned peculiarly blank. "There's no actual proof of that. I have it on good authority that her birth-certificate classifies her parents as 'amphibian'."

The redhead fell over laughing, somehow managing to wheeze out through his amusement something about 'librarians with grudges' being 'brilliant but scary'.

The madman simply stared at her for a long moment, before smiling a fond smile. "And that's why we all love you, Hermione."

XXX

A/n: I started writing this... quite a while ago. In fact, the only reason this wasn't 'discontinued' is because it would undoubtedly mean that I would have to raise the Rating to 'M' on my collection, which sounded like a hassle. In the end, I couldn't finish it, so I figured out a way to interrupt it whilst staying in-character, thus Hermione's entrance.

I don't remember what inspired me to write this, and I don't particularly care. This was meant to be gory, horrifying, funny, nightmarish, and insane. Not sure how well I pulled it off, but it was kind of fun to try, so there.

Below is a collection of omakes that I couldn't fit into the story, but that were too amusing to simply ignore.

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XXX Collection of omakes XXX

XXX Omake 1 XXX

"My eyes! They burn!" Harry exclaimed at the sight of Dumbledore getting a very thorough wedgie.

He wasn't being metaphorical about his exclamation either, as the sudden flames leaking through his fingers could attest to.

Finally, he managed to gouge his burning eyes out of his head and end the agony, upon which he turned back towards the immobile Dumbledore to stare at him with his empty eye-sockets. "You're just lucky I happened to have a spare pair." He declared with a pointed frown towards the old man, before taking out a small box.

The box contained a pair of green eyes that would've probably look very charming, if they hadn't been... well, eyeballs.

Eyeballs which were easily introduced to the gaping eye-sockets left behind from Harry's run-in with sights-better-not-seen.

Shaking his head as the magic-genetic design of the eyes caused the optic nerves to begin to connect themselves to the synapses within their sockets, Harry finally turned towards the crowd, smiling pleasantly. "Now, where were we?"

XXX Omake 2 XXX

"How could you do this to people!?" Hermione demanded as she stared in horror at the bodies that lay scattered around the area.

"Do what?" Harry scratched his head. "It's not like they're dead or anything."

"P-Please... kill me..." Came the cracking whisper from one of the bodies.

Harry immediately pointed towards the source of the voice. "See! They can even form coherent sentences!" He declared defensively.

XXX Omake 3 XXX

Harry blinked as he saw McGonagall's animagus form sitting down nearby.

This was going to be fun.

Meandering his way to her, Harry made certain that she wasn't paying attention to him before shouting. "Kick the kitty!"

Which he then proceeded with doing.

The pained shriek from the cat as it was violently launched into the air was music to his ears.

He'd always hated Transfiguration.

XXX Omake 4 XXX

"Your arm just fell off!" She exclaimed in horror.

Harry blinked, turning to look at the space where his shoulder ended in a stump. "Indeed it did." He turned back to her. "What of it?"

"We have to get you to a healer!" She fretted.

"What? Why would we need to do that? I'm pretty sure I've got glue in my pocket somewhere." He reasoned.

"Glue?" She broke out of her fretting to stare at him in confusion. "What would it matter if you've got glue? Your arm has fallen off!"

Harry raised an eyebrow at the girl. "And glue is great for reattaching things." He shook his head. "Didn't they teach you anything in school?"

XXX Omake 5 XXX

"Your name is Harry Potter? But he's Harry Potter!" She pointed towards her classmate.

"No. That's Clyde." Harry rejected her argument. "I claimed seniority, because otherwise, this name-stuff would get confusing."

XXX Omake 6 XXX

"Oh, hello sir." Clyde greeted the Evil maniac politely.

"Oh, drop the 'sir', I'm clearly more of a 'doctor'. I certainly didn't study as much as I did in order to get grades that were so shitty that I'd end up being a 'sir'." Harry scoffed at the young boy, before making a strange face. "Though... come to think of it, I'm pretty sure I got the shittiest grades ever recorded..." He shrugged. "It was probably the chipmunk-cannon's fault."

"Is that a cannon that shoots chipmunks, or one that shoots at chipmunks, or a cannon made of chipmunks?" Clyde wondered innocently.

Harry tilted his head in deep thought. "You know, I don't actually remember. All I do remember is the name, that there was a seagull somehow involved in it all, and that it took the house elves a week to burn away the smell. Oh, and that there was a lot of blood and guts splattered everywhere." He nodded wisely to himself, before making a slightly disgusted face. "It got in my hair."

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