AN: I always thought that Harry could have been great if he just did some thinking and didn't always rush into things blindly. This is the story of a Harry who learned that it's not paranoia if they're actually out to get you. Of course, there is no way of knowing who those they are, so just assume everyone is against you. Except Luna, of course, because I like her and couldn't bear to write a story where she's an antagonist.

Just so you know, the next chapter might take a while as I really should read the actual book again and take some notes. It's a short book, though, so hopefully not too long. Also, Sparknotes, because that's apparently even a thing for Harry Potter.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, obviously.

You don't have to wait for someone to treat you bad repeatedly. All it takes is once, and if they get away with it that once, if they know they can treat you like that, then it sets the pattern for the future - Jane Green.

Harry Potter continued his midnight stroll under his father's invisibility cloak. He was tired. And annoyed. A little bit angry, but not enough that he couldn't hide it. Why you ask? Well, there was one person at fault for all his problems, and that was none other than the Heir of Slytherin. The self-proclaimed Lord Voldemort, who had killed his parents and hurt him all of his first year at Hogwarts, had somehow managed to spread his influence into the school to ruin Harry's second year as well.

To be fair, it wasn't all Voldemort's fault. He hadn't told everyone that Harry was the Heir, and was probably either raging at the stupidity of the sheeple or laughing his arse off at Harry's suffering. Harry could even understand why Voldemort was doing this, Harry was a symbol of his failure, one that had to be destroyed. What Harry could not understand, is why neither Dumbledore nor any of the teachers were doing anything to help him!

They had to know that Harry wasn't the Heir of Slytherin, that he hadn't hurt Mrs. Norris, no matter how much he might have wanted too, and he definitely didn't attack Justin! Hell, Dumbledore must have taught Voldemort in school he was so old, and if Harry's math was right, some of his teachers were likely to have been Voldemort's classmates. And Snape, the greasy bastard, was even a death eater according the rumors Harry had heard, spy for Dumbledore or not. How come none of them were doing anything! Couldn't they see how the rest of school was treating him?!

The 'loyal' badgers would follow him in little packs and send tripping jinxes at him when he wasn't looking, and then run away. And yet, when he complained to Sprout, she got angry at him for lying about her precious Puffs. The Ravenclaws were only a little better, deciding to just watch and whisper behind his back. It wasn't as directly harmful as what the Hufflepuffs did, but it was still annoying and hurtful. But the worst were the members of his own house.

Apart from Fred and George, who continued to treat him as they did last year and would sometimes prank those who hassled him too much, the Gryffindors seemed to have decided they can't have anything to do with an 'evil, dark wizard' apart from fights. The way Ron looked at him after he spoke parseltongue was enough to know how that prat felt, and even Hermione had started to distance herself from Harry. Neville would still smile and wave at him, but the boy was too shy to go against the majority of the house. The only reason he was still on the Quidditch team was that Wood cared more about winning the cup than he did anything else. So much for 'your house is your family.' Then again, they weren't acting too different to the Dursleys, so maybe McGonagall was onto something after all.

Surprisingly, the only house that didn't think he should be immediately removed from the school was Slytherin. Malfoy and his bookends were just the same as always, but for the most part, Slytherin house was staying out of his way. When one caught his eye, most of the older years would nod at him in acknowledgement, while the younger years tended to look at him with slight trepidation. Several girls even smiled at him!

As he made his way down the empty corridors, wand maintaining a Lumos charm ahead of him, Harry thought about finding a hidden room in which he could spend the next few nights while waiting for this whole Heir business to blow over. His dorm had stopped being a place he could go to sleep in comfortably. He just couldn't predict what his ex-best mate would do, and didn't trust Dean, Seamus, or Neville to stop him.

Harry actually got the idea of using an abandoned classroom from the Twins. After all, they couldn't possibly do all their prank planning in their dorm, and they definitely didn't do it in the common room, so they had to be using somewhere else, somewhere that other people don't go to. That, to Harry, sounded like a paradise. After all, for his entire life, other people had only caused him pain.

The Dursleys were even his relatives, yet they still used and abused him as if he were their own personal slave. And those rumors they spread about him made it so no one ever helped him, or even wanted to be associated with him. His stupid cousin bullying anyone who tried to befriend him just cemented Harry's isolation. Even Ms. Figgs, the old lady who would take him when the Dursleys would leave, did not care about him. If she did, why wouldn't she tell anyone about the obvious signs of abuse she kept seeing. Harry could tell that she knew more than she let on, it was all in her body language and the way she would send him guilty looks when she thought he wouldn't notice.

And here at Hogwarts was not much better! All of the professors whom he thought he had developed a good student-teacher relationship with dropped him like hot trash the second that the major opinion turned against him. That his so-called friends had done the same was even more painful to Harry. And of course, there was always Snape being a bloody arse and picking on him whenever they were in the same room for shite reasons like 'breathing to loudly' and 'smothering the room with your ego to the point I can't breathe because you're just like your dad.' And Dumbledore... Dumbledore. He would only twinkle his damn eyes at Harry and spout some nonsense that sounded deep at first but meant nothing after close examination.

Okay, so I lied, Harry Potter was really angry, and the only way he could hide it was with his father's invisibility cloak. But once he finds a room he likes, well, then things will start to change. After all, if Fred and George can plan and then pull of such extravagant pranks, surely he could do a little auxiliary reading, right? There was so much to magic, and they only covered a miniscule fraction in classes. He had been told that they get to pick electives for third year and up, but how was he supposed to know what to pick if he knew nothing about any of the options?

Besides, he needing to get some supplemental reading for his current courses as well. Herbology was all practical, and Sprout never really told them why each plant had to be handled a certain way, just expected them to follow instructions and know the uses. Snape was similar in that he never taught the effects of ingredients of the reasons for steering in a certain direction for x number of times. He learnt less in Potions than he did in Defence Against the Dark Arts which was really saying something as first year the teacher stuttered so hard you couldn't understand him (not to mention he had Voldemort sticking out of the back of his head, yuck!) and this year, the ponce Lockhart was so obviously a fraud that Harry didn't understand why he was even hired. Astronomy was pointless, as far as Harry could tell, as he had never even seen the sea and so had no need to sail a ship by the stars. And he wasn't even going to think about History of Magic.

No matter what he had against them at the moment, Harry had to admit that McGonagall and Flitwick at least taught their subjects well. He wasn't going to say they're good teachers, as they so clearly aren't, but he did learn from them. That didn't mean he was satisfied, though, far from it. Why could you you not conjure food, but multiply or enlarge it if you already have some? And if you can't conjure food, why can you conjure water? And that's just the first of Gamp's Laws. The rest add even more questions! Charms-wise, he just wanted to learn new spells, the Head of Ravenclaw did explain everything pretty well. Probably comes with the House.

Harry was imagining all the things he would do when he had mastery over magic when he was pulled from his thoughts by what sounded like muffled sobbing. Quickly he checked to make sure he was hidden under the cloak and looked around... but there was nobody there. He heard another sob and walked towards where he thought the sound was coming from. It led him to a heavy wooden door that looked like one of Filch's cleaning cupboards. Figuring it was probably the Caretaker crying over being a Squib or maybe his cat, Harry turned to leave, not wanting to disturb the sour, old man.

But another sob stopped him in his tracks and turned him around. Would he really be any better than all the people he had been complaining about in his mind if he just left Filch there in his despair? Steeling his resolve and mentally preparing for a detention, Harry walked back to the door and pulled the handle.

It was locked.

That was strange, there was no key hole. It couldn't have been locked by ordinary means. It had to be magic. But that meant that Filch was stuck in there! No wonder he was crying! Harry pulled out his wand, gave it a flourish and intoned... uh, what was that spell Hermione used in first year. Oh, right!

Alohomora!

CLICK.

Harry once more pulled down the handle and slowly opened the door. But what was waiting on the other side wasn't the Caretaker as he had been expecting...

Luna Lovegood continued her late night sob under her shroud of darkness. She was tired. And hurting. Very much upset, so much that she couldn't hide it. Why you ask? Well, there was one thing at fault for all her problems, and that was none other than the Nargles. Those thieving fairies had spent the entire year so far tormenting her by taking her things and tricking the knocker on common room door to think that she always answers wrongly (A barber`s job is to shave every man in town who doesn't shave himself. Does the barber shave himself or not? The barber is a woman, clearly, but not according to the knocker). The Nargles had even somehow managed to release Wrackspurts into the common room to infect almost all of the Ravenclaws.

It was entirely the Nargles fault, and now her own Housemates had turned against her due to the Wrackspurts. She had tried to help them, but the influence of the Wrackspurts had spread so far that Luna simply didn't have the tools, even if they had let her. Instead they just called her Loony Lovegood and hurt her feelings. She suspected that some of them even helped the Nargles hide her stuff. Of course, nothing that they had done in September and October compared to the new tradition that they started on Samhain. On the day to celebrate Witchcraft, they locked her in a cupboard. The sunset of Saturday to sunset of Sunday.

Ever since, Luna found her weekends spent in a cleaning cupboard, waiting for her Housemates to remember to free her. They forgot one time, and she missed Monday's lessons, but it was okay, they hadn't been that important. She assumed this because no one bothered to tell her what she missed. It was painful, yes, the hunger and thirst, and the suffocating darkness scared her so that she slept fitfully and only for a few hours in total. But they got her out in the end, and she was thankful for that.

One of the older boys wanted her to do something to show how thankful she was, but another smacking the back of his head and they left before she could find out what she was supposed to do. She figured it was curing the boy of Wrackspurts, and she did try, but the one who smacked him never left the two of them alone. He must have been deep under the influence of the Wrackspurts if he was making sure that she wouldn't cure anyone.

Something just crawled over her arm. A spider maybe? About a centimeter, feels like eight legs, sort of circular... Yep, probably a spider judging by the pulsing red circle on her that just appeared on her arm. It quickly scurried away, but the damage had been done. As the pain spread through her body, Luna couldn't help but wonder why she had been bitten. Cupboard spiders were usually very timid, and didn't bite often. Something must have been agitating it.

While Luna did not begrudge the spider, that did not lessen the pain any, It felt like fire was spreading through her body and Luna could only bite her lower lip and clutch her arm protectively to her chest. At least one good thing came of it, as the pain helped distract her from the endless darkness. Luna didn't mind the darkness, it was what was hiding in it that she feared. When she was young, she had always kept one candle burning beside her bed, because otherwise she was sure she'd awaken with a great beast hanging over her, ready to devour her. She had not gotten over that habit.

The light annoyed her dorm mates, and at first they teased her about, calling her a child. When that did not make her put it away, they must have gone to the older students, because she was soon spending as much time as possible in some out of the way cupboard. The lack of food and water didn't bother her as much as it might other people, she was used to not eating a lot ever since her mother died. It was the darkness that really got to her.

The first time was the worst, for not only was she not expecting it, but it was also during Samhain, when the barrier between this world and the Otherworld was at it's weakest. Anything could come through if it wanted, and Luna was not so naive as to think that all fairies and spirits are good. She had read the research papers of her distant relative Howard, and while the wizarding world at the time was less than pleased about his decision to share his findings with the muggles, her family all agreed that they had a right to now.

The pain was getting worse, and Luna was starting to feel ill. Maybe if she passed out, she could get some sleep. Hopefully she won't sick up, because she still had a day at least before anyone would come for her and it was uncomfortable enough already. Luna leaned back against the wall and was just about to submit to the darkness when the door handle shook.

She quieted down and looked towards the door, face frozen in fear. Why were they here already? It hadn't even been one night! Were they going to take her somewhere worse?! The idea that someone was there to let her out never even entered her mind.

CLICK.

Luna was entering a full blown panic, the spider bite, the darkness, and the threat of something worse were all fueling her distress, but as the door opened, one the other side was the curiously sympathetic face of...