FOREWORD: Well, it's up. The replacement story for 'The Metamorph,' and my final Harry Potter story. I just find this fandom hard to deal with sometimes, but I had wanted to write a story where Harry was a criminal, maybe not the level of James Moriarty from the Sherlock Holmes stories, but a criminal that got by.
I failed with the Metamorph. This one is going to be simpler. I don't normally bother with rewrites - they eat up too much time, and I've got other stories in the works. A lot more. I would like to get on with them.
I'm sorry this is late - I was moving house, and my older draft was deleted by accident. But I hope you enjoy it.
As usual, I don't own Harry Potter, but trust me - if I did, then it would be different.
The Thief.
He had always been good at this, even as a child, though there had been moments where he had thought that the objects he had picked up in other people's homes would try to shudder and shake as they tried to escape him, like a hamster wriggling to get out of too tight a grip.
That was the trouble with The Things; they always seemed to want to escape from him, but then he would always win. When he had stolen some of the money from his uncle and aunt's before he had escaped them when he'd merely been a child was a noteworthy example; he had spent the majority of his life in that house of hell being shrieked and bellowed at while getting a vivid purple toned face shoved into his personal space while two large, meaty hands either tried to strangle him, or punch him until he was barely conscious. He was sure that there were a few concussions, but he couldn't really remember - the Dursleys had never given a thought to his injuries, they had just heaped more on.
But he didn't regret stealing from his uncle and aunt though he had wanted to take a few Things from Dudley's bedroom to sell but he had been pressed for time and he had needed to get out of the house, even now that the Dursley family were either dead or in a state worse than death after that mess with the tournament. If he hadn't stolen from them after getting that desire to escape firm inside his mind, then he may not have survived to make it to his teen years, even if his teenage years had made him think he had exchanged one set of monsters for some new ones though he had lost his fear of the Death Eaters and Lord Voldemort after Luna's death…
He had once thought the Dursleys were scary, but Voldemort was much, much worse.
Harry shoved that to the side, not needing to remember the bad memories which had been haunting him for the last few years since he had left the magical world, mentally telling himself he needed all of his wits about him, though the ache that had come from Luna's death and what the girl must have experienced still haunted him. He was standing on a Tube station platform, breathing in the heady musk common to the London Underground, a mixture of ozone created by the spark of the third rail, and the combined sweat of the commuters, watching the various commuters on the platform.
It didn't take him that long to find the right mark. Some pickpockets weren't very picky, but he was. He preferred tourists and rich people to steal from; rich people for obvious reasons, but tourists carried lots of cash, though sometimes it wasn't always a guarantee since many tourists were cheapskates within their home countries, so why would they change their attitudes simply because they were hundreds of miles away?
The question was how many Things could he get in the next few hours, or will he be taking wallets?
00000000000000000000000000000
In front of him was a man who was dressed in a neat suit, probably worth over a few grand - probably a banker though they were a long way from the financial district. Harry's eyes swept over the man's body, noting the custom shoes which were well made and so shiny that they didn't have a hint of wear and tear in them.
The mark was probably somewhere between his late forties, early fifties, somewhere along those lines, with neatly parted dark hair and a clean shaven face.
His wealth was clear to see for anyone around him. Oh, Harry hoped he had Things in his home. He had on his wrist an expensive wristwatch, but that didn't make much difference for Harry who didn't often bother stealing wristwatches, though he may make an exception in this case. But what was clear was the clear uncertainty on the man's perspiring face, and how he was looking up and down the platform at everyone around him with a dazed expression on his face and was clutching his travel card uncertainly with fingers as thick as sausages. Watching him made Harry think he was out of his depth.
Sticking his hands in his jacket pockets, Harry clutched the handle of his wand and he silently augmented the spells he had cast over himself to ensure no-one would be paying him much attention before he glanced up at the train destination board. The next train would be arriving in a few moments and all he needed to do was wait. That was the great thing about the Tube, he thought, all the trains were fast.
Most of the time, he added mentally, thinking of all the delays and mishaps that were prone to happen around here. He never took his hands off the man's face, he seemed jumpy despite his nervousness and uncertainty. Every time someone walked close to him, he would recoil slightly.
When the train rushed into the station, it's bright white, red and blue livery shining in the stark lighting of the platform lights, the man jumped as the train's rails screeched as the brakes were applied. The Tube was clearly not his usual method of travel, but Harry found himself apathetic to the guy's feelings. The mark was further startled when the doors opened as though he were completely unaware of what to do next, but he caught on quickly and boarded the train. Harry got on himself, folding a newspaper he had in his hands and switched it over to his other hand to create a shield before walking over to the mark who was standing in the same doorway of the train he had stepped through.
Harry walked over to him, using the notice-me-not charms to ensure no-one paid him any attention. Using the newspaper, Harry gently lowered it to create a shield to prevent the rest of the passengers from seeing what he was doing, before he deftly slipped his fingers into the man's jacket pocket.
The tips of Harry's fingers pinched the corner of the wallet, the slick leather reassuring him and prompted him to go on.
The man suddenly turned in his direction, eyes wide and staring and mouth slack. He was clearly nervous. Harry paused instantly; the muggle couldn't have seen him through the spells he'd placed over him, but he quickly took advantage of the situation and he peered into the muggle's mind and saw where he lived, the precise address and the security in his home.
God, this guy's wife had dozens of Things, not to mention his daughter.
He'd be perfect.
The mark turned away and the legilimency probe was broken.
Breathing in gently Harry held onto the wallet, and then gently pulled it out, that familiar heart pounding sensation sweeping through his body as he pulled the wallet out of the man's pocket before he gently pushed the wallet into his own jacket and refolded the newspaper and shoved it into the same pocket while he took deep breaths to try to return his body temperature to what it had been previously, and he waited for the train to arrive at its next stop while letting his eyes scan the surroundings around him.
Harry's fingers still had that lingering tension which had come from stealing the wallet which was someone else's personal property and entering someone else's personal space. Harry backed away from the mark, who was looking around the train as though he were an astronaut on some alien world and completely out of his depth, so leaving the mark was not difficult.
When the train pulled into the next station, Harry got off it and found that it was a hub station where there were other lines meeting each other. Harry chose one of the lines at random and proceeded down an escalator. He had no fixed destination in mind - there were days when he wasn't in college or doing jobs for 'them' that he would spend his time travelling backwards and forwards on the Tube and picking pockets.
The trains were perfect - they were always so cramped and full of people with wallets and purses, carrying loads of shopping or luggage, that he knew he could get away with it.
He knew the Tube intimately after spending some of his childhood picking the pockets of dozens of marks and learning the ropes from Terry, and he soon saw another mark. This time it was a woman in her twenties who looked well off, perhaps not as well off as the previous mark, but she looked like someone who had loads of cash if the collection of massive shopping bags wrapped around her wrists like enormous bracelets was any clue.
Harry studied her. Form the way she was checking her mobile phone and her general demeanour that screamed she was used to getting her own way, she was a successful businesswoman. The woman was looking quizzically over her mobile, her slender fingers idly moving over the screen while she lifted her head at regular intervals waiting for the train to arrive in the station. When the train pulled into the platform Harry got on after her. She didn't notice she had a stalker behind her who positioned himself right behind her in the cramped carriage. One of the beauties of the human brain and body was when they sensed big and small stimuli with their nerves, their brains instantly dismissing the smaller stimuli and concentrating on the larger.
On the section of the line they were travelling along, they were about to cross a junction and the trains on the Underground always shook themselves to pieces as a result. No-one was paying any attention - there were a few office workers, teenagers trying to chat up girls (Harry was reminded of Seamus Finnigan and his attempts to chat up girls, but he could see that here these guy's efforts were mediocre), three middle-aged women gossiping amongst themselves about something inane.
Harry was the only one who was not simply travelling, and he turned the back of his hand towards the woman in front of him and took hold of her purse in her handbag, relying on the wall of passengers and the woman's own preoccupation to snag it out of the handbag.
As the train swayed Harry gently let himself rock into her, making the woman turn herself around to look back at him in reflex but Harry shrugged as though it were not his fault the train was rocky, and he used that brief moment to poke around in her mind to find out where she lived and what she had, but he used the motion to pull the purse out of the handbag and deftly put it into his pocket. Ah, he loved handbags; they were so close to their owners but they were too far away from their owner for them to be aware of what he was doing. His fingers had brushed against familiar objects he'd drawn the purse out of the handbag. It was the woman's Oyster card wallet, but he left that alone. At the next station, he got off the train and hunched his shoulders like someone suffering from a particularly nasty cold.
As Harry joined the stream of weary people as they got off their trains and left the station, he stood outside the station and stood in a corner looking at all of them with a professional eye. on their own one person was bound to have a few bob in their wallets, but all of this lot combined were bound to have a few grand.
Harry spotted someone a short distance away that was smoking a cigarette. He had slicked back hair, a body that looked like he was trying hard to be a movie star and worked out, and while some of his clothes - jacket, jeans, and shirt were battered and frayed, his trainers were good quality. Harry ignored him and went into a McDonalds. The stench of coffee, sugar, happy meals hit him in the nose instantly, and Harry ignored them and headed for the toilets though he planned to buy an Apple pie after he was finished.
Entering a cubicle he locked it, and he sat on one of the seats and flicked his wand at the door with a minor ward to prevent anyone from looking too closely at the what he might be doing. Slipping on a pair of rubber gloves he kept in his smart coat - Harry didn't care about his clothes; one of the downsides of living with the Dursley family where the family of neanderthals made it their life mission to make sure that he never appreciated life, but when he had entered the magical world he had dressed in simple but stylish clothes; the magical world believed him to be a spoilt brat so why hide it? - he took out the wallets he had collected, and the purses.
In the last purse, he found a membership card to a male strip club, but he ignored that and pulled out a wad of notes and when he counted them up he found up to 200 pounds which he put in his own wallet. He found an American Express card, a few other bank cards, but he left them inside the purse since they would be too much hassle to sell. Besides by leaving them in the purse for the police to find when he posted the purse and the other wallets in half a dozen of the post boxes in the city the police would get them from Royal Mail and return them to their owners.
The rich mark's wallet was far more promising. Like the woman, he had a number of cards in his wallet and a driver's license, a gym membership card and a receipt for a fancy restaurant. There was also a picture of his family which Harry momentarily glanced at before putting it back into the wallet. The guy's wallet had at least a thousand pounds inside, and he took it all out and he pushed the money into his own wallet before he went through the other wallets.
One of the wallets came from someone with a seedier mindset than the banker. This guy had packets of LSD pills inside one of the pockets, a few club cards. Well, the guy could explain to the Old Bill about those when they caught up with him so it wasn't Harry's problem and a few membership cards for a few brothels and strip clubs. There were only a few hundred pounds inside the wallet, and he took them.
When Harry was finished he put all of the wallets inside a plastic bag he had in his pocket, and then he left the toilets and headed out of the McDonalds before he remembered he wanted an Apple pie.
I hope you enjoyed the first chapter.