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A word of caution to the faint of heart or spirit: this story contains 91 percent of all warnings ever issued for Harry Potter fanfictions. It would take an entire chapter just to write them all down. I'm so lazy, I'm just going to say you should never read this, regardless of who you are. This is not appropriate for human eyes. It should be thrown into a an endless chasm and erased from all historical records.

If know all that and still want to risk it, don't blame me. I didn't make you keep reading, you psychopath.

But first, a moment of silence for my fellow HP fanfiction author TuesdayNovember, who gave her life beta-reading this chapter.

Now, go forth and ruin your futures, my children.

Harry Potter and the Life-Changing Head Injury

just another dead reptile

Chapter One: Scrambled Eggs

Harry Potter was a very angst-ridden teenager; more so, in fact, than your average teenager. This could have been a result of any one of a number of factors: his parents had been murdered by a deranged Dark wizard before he could walk or talk, he had spent his childhood with relatives who made no secret of the fact that they absolutely despised him, the same Dark wizard that had killed his parents had tried to kill him countless times over the past few years, his godfather had been killed in a most anticlimactic manner just a few months ago, and apparently there was a prophecy which decreed that Harry was supposed to kill the twice-aforementioned Dark wizard or be killed by him.

Spending his entire summer locked up in his small bedroom at Number Four Privet Drive in Surrey with no one to talk to but his owl didn't help much, either. She was a good owl, but didn't make for very interesting conversation. Harry wasn't allowed to go outside, though no one would tell him why. He thought it might have something to do with the fact that various Death Eaters kept appearing on the street at random hours of the night, cursing, and disappearing seconds later. Harry had begun sitting by his window and keeping a log of the times they came, out of sheer boredom. He knew they couldn't actually get into the house even though they knew where he was, thanks to the blood wards.

Ah, yes, the blood wards. Harry's mother, Lily Potter, had died to protect him, which apparently had the effect of making whatever place his relatives lived impervious to Death Eater attacks, or some rot like that. It didn't really matter that his relatives, the Dursleys, were Muggles and absolutely hated him. It also didn't seem to matter that the Dursleys regularly tried to kill him by various methods. Harry wasn't actually sure how the wards worked, but judging by what kept happening over the years, they worked anyway. Barely.

It was, therefore, rather unnecessary (in Harry's opinion) that Albus Dumbledore had stationed guards around the house to... it's kind of self-explanatory. These guards were all members of the Order of the Phoenix, and were not allowed to speak to Harry, though Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody's voice could be heard regularly during his shifts grunting out, "Constant Vigilance!" as he disembowelled whatever unfortunate animal/pet/small child that had snuck up on him.

Uncle Vernon could also be heard quite often, yelling, "BOY!" which was generally followed by some order/insult/verbal tirade. Dudley would occasionally add his own... well, they couldn't really be called thoughts, as there was no thinking involved... as well. In addition, Vernon's sister Marge Dursley was staying at Number Four for the week. This was rather astounding, since the last visit from Marge had ended with the woman floating off into the distance, inflated to several times her normal size. Of course, she couldn't remember any of this, having been Obliviated after the fact by the Ministry, but Harry would have thought that the Dursleys would want to avoid another incident like it. After all, the neighbours might talk.

Aunt Marge, as always, was a bitch. She hadn't brought Ripper along this time, since Ripper - unlike his owner - had not been Obliviated after Harry blew Marge up, and was consequently afraid to come back. Still, Aunt Marge seemed to have summoned up enough viciousness to compensate for his absence anyway. Harry had not known prior to her arrival that one could receive a black eye from being hit with a fuzzy pink slipper, but he supposed that after learning that he was a wizard at eleven years old, fighting a supposedly dead Dark Lord several times before he even hit puberty, and being told that he was the subject of a prophecy which declared that he had to kill said Dark Lord or else, he shouldn't be that surprised that a fuzzy pink slipper could produce a black eye. Such was the life of Harry Potter.

The most recent "BOY!" from Vernon had been accompanied by a demand for him to cook dinner. Harry was to prepare a large feast, of which he would have none and Dudley would have almost all. The rest would go to Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia (who really didn't count, as she was thinner than a straw), and Aunt Marge, the latter of whom was on a diet that involved drinking massive amounts of alcohol. As the food disappeared, so did the alcohol, and with it went the very small amount of self-restraint that Marge possessed when sober.

"Still going to St. Brutus's, are you, boy?" she slurred, nearly spilling her wine.

Harry grunted. He wasn't in the mood for this right now.

"I'm surprised they haven't kicked you out by now, with an attitude like that."

Another grunt.

"Vernon, are you sure they're beating him enough at that place? He seems to have gotten worse." Marge was quite drunk right now, as she had already ingested two and a half bottles of wine. Even with her body mass, there was only so much a person could have before getting plastered.

"Oh, yes," said Uncle Vernon, glaring at Harry. "Aren't they, boy?"

"I can still barely sit," Harry said dully, not even bothering to look at the table.

Marge inhaled the last of her wine and helped herself to another glass. "Honestly, Vernon, why do you keep the boy? Do be honest, your huge heart is nothing to be ashamed of."

Harry snorted.

"Well," said Uncle Vernon, "He was supposed to go live with his godfather or something, until the idiot went and got himself killed."

Now, an angst-ridden teenager like Harry Potter will not take something like this very well. Therefore, it was quite a miracle that both Uncle Vernon and Aunt Marge remained on the ground, at least for the time being. Instead, all the flies around the rubbish bins outside mysteriously dropped dead.

"Doesn't surprise me," Marge slurred. "Birds of a feather flock together, as they say. How did it happen?"

Dudley's old tortoise, which had been living under the greenhouse for several years now, silently exploded.

Dudley himself, having stopped gorging himself for a few seconds, answered this question. "He tripped on some curtains, or something. I heard him talking about it in his sleep."

Hedwig would have been next, except that Marge took it a step further: "Your sister's friends are all insane, Petunia. The sooner they're all dead, the better, I say," she declared pompously. "Why, it was probably all his fault, the idiot. Tripping over curtains indeed -"

"SHUT UP!" Harry yelled in an angst-ridden voice, as he was an angst-ridden teenager, after all. "Sirius was a thousand times better than you! Just shut up!"

For the second time in three years, Aunt Marge began to inflate. Dudley and Aunt Petunia both fell out of their chairs, Dudley nearly causing an earthquake when he landed, but Uncle Vernon's face simply turned a pasty white colour.

"NOT AGAIN, BOY!" he roared. "YOU PUT HER RIGHT OR I'LL BEAT YOU WITHIN AN INCH OF YOUR LIFE!"

But Marge continued to inflate, and Harry continued to rant.

"She had no right to talk about Sirius that way! I'm sick of her and I'm sick of you! I hate all of you!"

"FIX HER!" Vernon wailed. When Harry showed no sign of complying, he rushed forward and shook the boy. "FIX HER RIGHT NOW! YOU ARE IN TROUBLE, BOY!"

"SHUT UP!" yelled Harry, as he really did not care at this point what happened.

Uncle Vernon, on the other hand, did care what happened. However, instead of having the good sense to calm down and ask Harry politely to fix Aunt Marge, he took the route of violence, grabbing a partially washed frying pan out of the sink and swinging it at Harry's head as hard as he could. Harry turned just in time to receive the full force of the blow right in the forehead. Right in the scar.

Interestingly, for all of the painstaking research performed by Albus Dumbledore on how to destroy the Horcrux embedded in Harry Potter's scar, not once did he ever think of simply hitting the boy very hard in the head with a metal object. Thus, Vernon Dursley was able to do something that Albus Dumbledore could not, besides sit in an office all day and think about drills.

And from that moment forward, Harry James Potter was one hundred percent horcrux-free.

Because he had been hit very hard in the head, Harry passed out briefly. When he awoke, his head was spinning. Marge had stopped inflating, and Vernon was too busy impersonating a traffic light to hit him again. Harry stood up. He was in rather a lot of pain, but he also felt much better than he had felt before. In fact, he felt so much better that he decided to grin. Yes, life was suddenly quite nice.

"BOY!" Uncle Vernon had finally found his voice. His face was stuck at a rather interesting shade of puce.

"Yes?" Harry asked cheerfully.

Vernon was now pulling clumps out of his moustache. "BOY, FIX MARGE! FIX HER! LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE TO MY FAMILY!"

Harry turned and surveyed the room. Marge still looked like she'd had an affair with an air pump, Dudley was rolling around trying to get up, and Petunia was hiding behind Dudley's massive bulk.

"FIX HER!" Uncle Vernon repeated hysterically.

Shrugging, Harry smiled again. "Okay," he said, and snapped his fingers. Marge started growing again.

Uncle Vernon made a rather horrible noise and charged at Harry, who pointed his finger at the man and said, "Imperio." Vernon stopped in mid-step, awaiting orders.

"Ummm..." Harry mused, ignoring Marge's muffled squawks. "Let's see... I want you to... hmm... eat your own moustache."

Immediately, Uncle Vernon raised his hands and resumed his nervous habit of pulling hair of his moustache, except that he was stuffing it in his mouth after he pulled it out. Dudley and Petunia looked on in horrified fascination, and Marge made more weird noises.

Harry wondered if Dumbledore knew what was going on. The man certainly had a lot of eyes on the place, and yet no one had come inside. Had he still been an angsty teenager and not an insane deviant with a head injury, Harry mused, he might have thought of Dumbledore as a 'manipulative old coot.' However, with things as they were, he decided he preferred to think of the man as a 'nosey, age-gifted fuckhead.' It was much more creative.

The puppet-master pulled a chair away from the table and sat on it, backwards, considering his options as he watched the show in front of him. What was he to do, now that he had achieved self-awareness and a probable frontal lobe injury through a random assault? Should he use his new-found independence to defeat Voldemort and the Death Eaters? Get revenge on everybody who'd shunned him last year? Throw Bellatrix Lestrange through the veil to avenge his godfather? Wreak havoc on the entire Wizarding world? Make everybody he didn't like run and hide, not knowing if they were going to be hit with an Avada Kedavra or a lemon cream pie?

Yes, Harry decided, he was going to do that. All of that. In no particular order. But he wasn't going to do it because of a prophecy, or revenge, or anger, or teenage angst, or a desire to become the next Dark Lord. No, Harry was going to do all of it because it sounded like it would be fun. He just wanted to enjoy himself. The Boy-Who-Lived wracked his brain, but he couldn't really find a better reason to do anything. Why should there be a better reason?

Harry's musings were interrupted by Aunt Petunia, who had stood at some point.

"What do you think you're doing?" she shrieked. It hurt Harry's ears. "I will not have this freakishness in my house! I'm going to write Dumbledore and tell him -"

"Shut up, please," said Harry. He didn't want Dumbledore coming inside and lecturing him sternly about using Unforgivables on his relatives. But Petunia didn't stop screeching, so Harry put the Imperius curse on her as well. Petunia's eyes glazed over. "Go outside and tell the witch or wizard lurking out there that Dudley just exploded," Harry ordered.

Obediently, Petunia marched out of the room, and Harry heard the front door open.

"I didn't just explode!" Dudley said stupidly. He'd managed to get himself upright, at least, and was looking at Harry in confusion.

Harry smiled and pointed his finger at his cousin. "Intestinus Erumpo!"

Dudley didn't actually explode, per se, but his stomach split open and his innards flew out into his lap. Dudley screamed and began trying to gather himself up again, but only managed to tangle his intestines among each other. Harry looked at Uncle Vernon. "When you're done eating your moustache, I want you to eat Marge's moustache," he said. Marge stopped growing for the moment as Vernon trundled over to her.

With a bang, the door flew open and Mundungus Fletcher came into the house, wand drawn, followed by Aunt Petunia. He stopped dead when he saw the mess in the dining room: Uncle Vernon eating the facial hair off of his own bloated sister, Dudley wailing and attempting to pile his insides back into his body, and Harry sitting in the corner with a smile on his face.

"Hello, Dung," said Harry. "I suppose you're wondering what's going on."

Mundungus had turned white as a sheet. "Yeah," was all he managed to croak out.

"That one -" Harry pointed at Marge - "was accidental magic. I'm not sure if there's a name for the spell, but it's really funny. Those two -" and here he pointed at Uncle Vernon and then over Mundungus's shoulder at Aunt Petunia - "are Imperiused." Now he pointed at Dudley. "That one got hit with an Entrail Expelling Curse. And to answer your other question, it was all me."

"Y-y-you!" Mundungus spluttered. "But - you?" He made to do something that involved using his wand, but the wand exploded instead.

"Sorry, but there are Muggles watching," Harry explained apologetically, gesturing vaguely in the Dursleys' direction. "As a citizen of Wizarding Britain, it is my duty to enforce the Statute of Secrecy." He paused, frowning slightly. "That would have been a lot funnier if I'd said it to a Ministry official."

Mundungus reached clumsily into his robes and whipped out a second wand. Five or six others fell out of the pocket he'd gotten it from and clattered to the floor noisily.

"Stupef -" Harry began, but Mundungus turned on his heel and disappeared before he could finish the incantation. "Damn it." It seemed the smelly man's criminal activities had afforded him a means of escape this time.

On the other hand, Mundungus had also afforded Harry six more wands, to the green-eyed boy's delight. Harry had a feeling that not a single one was registered with the Ministry. Of the six, he found one that seemed to like him more than the others, and returned to the dining room to try it out.

Dudley had stopped screaming and was moaning pitifully. He would not last much longer. Marge was now moustache-less, as was Vernon. Harry flicked his new wand and she started growing again. Then he pointed it at Petunia and said, "Avada Kedavra."

His aunt dropped to the floor, stone dead.

He giggled. This was amazingly fun. He should have thought of it years ago. Then again, he hadn't been hit in the head with a frying pan years ago. "Avada Kedavra." Dudley's moaning ceased.

Aunt Marge was now floating, bumping against the ceiling. Harry manoeuvred Vernon into the chair beneath her, put him in a Full Body Bind, and lifted the Imperius Curse.

"And now," he said happily, "the highlight of the show!" He flicked his wand at Aunt Marge, and she exploded.

Vernon got a face-full of her guts.

Harry slashed his wand sideways, and all of Uncle Vernon's insides burst with a series of wet pops. The fat man fell over, dead as the rest of the Dursleys, which was quite dead indeed.

Upstairs, Harry opened his trunk and began piling his things into it. Hedwig hooted questioningly at him, but he ignored her for the moment, as he was attempting to organize his thoughts coherently. It was rather hard because of his recent head trauma.

Having just killed four people, Harry was fairly certain that he would not be welcome in certain places anymore. Those places included the Ministry of Magic, Hogwarts, and generally anywhere that wasn't called Azkaban. Harry did not really like Dementors very much, so he felt it would be a good idea to avoid getting caught. It was rather unusual that Dumbledore hadn't sent anyone yet, but Harry wasn't complaining. Mundungus probably hadn't worked up the balls to tell him yet, or maybe he'd just gotten drunk as soon as he escaped and passed out in some alley.

Then there was the problem of his friends. Harry rather liked having friends, even after being hit very hard in the head. Unfortunately, Ron and Hermione would probably not take too well to Harry's recently discovered penchant for murdering people he didn't like. This made him quite sad, in a way. Ginny, though, would be more understanding, since she had nearly killed several people in her first year of Hogwarts (even though it wasn't really her fault). Also, she was in love with Harry, so it would be easier to get her to do things.

Harry let Hedwig out of her cage and scrawled a note to the aforementioned Weasley explaining that he had just killed the last remaining members of his family using illegal Dark magic, and requesting that she take care of his owl until he found a place to stay that wasn't at risk for Auror raids. "Take this to Ginny, girl," he said. Hedwig hooted and took off just as Harry tossed her cage into his trunk and slammed it shut with his foot.

On a whim, Harry slunk into Dudley's room, wand drawn. Dudley's room was much bigger than Harry's, and a lot messier. The floor was less like a floor and more like an ocean made up of Dudley's belongings. They appeared to be in chronological order, too, as Harry could see everything from discarded DVD cases on the top to brightly coloured storybooks peeking out of the bottom. He kicked a broken television that was half-buried under a bag of rotting potato chips. What a mess.

"Reducto!"

Dudley's computer desk exploded.

"Confrigo!"

The bed, as well as a large chunk of the wall behind it, was essentially vaporized.

Suddenly, Harry thought of a very interesting curse that the impostor posing as Alastor Moody had told his class about in fourth year. He pointed his wand in the general vicinity of the greatest concentration of Dudley's things and said, "Fiendfyre!"

Flames exploded from Harry's wand, taking the forms of various dark creatures as they came: werewolves, chimeras, dragons, and many more that Harry didn't even recognize. He thought he saw something that could have been a Dementor or a Lethifold – he wasn't sure which, as both looked basically like cloaks. In any case, the magical fire consumed everything it came in contact with, devouring Dudley's belongings hungrily. Harry directed the flames to burn through the wall and into his aunt and uncle's room as well. Perhaps he would burn the whole house down. But then how would anyone find the bodies?

Harry vacated the burning room and went out onto the landing, where he had left his trunk. Whistling cheerfully, he dragged his trunk down the stairs and out the front door.

He had absolutely no idea where he was going to go, nor did he really care.

Shortly after Harry left, the entire Order of the Phoenix Apparated in front of Number Four, Privet Drive. What they found was an enormous bonfire, since the flames in Dudley's room had gone wild when Harry stopped bothering to control them. Everybody scrambled to get the fire under control before it spread to the neighbouring houses. Everybody, that is, except for one person.

Albus Dumbledore, still dressed in his nightgown, stared at the blazing inferno in silence for a long time. Then he heaved a great and weary sigh.

"Shit," he said.

Congratulations: you made it to the end of the first chapter.

The 'Intestinus Erumpo' incantation for the Entrail-Expelling Curse is from Lightning On The Wave's 'Wind That Shakes The Seas And Stars.'

I'm going to post the next chapter next week.

Reviews mean you care about my poor beta-reader's noble sacrifice. Otherwise, you're just a heartless fiend. You're not a heartless fiend... are you?