Merry Christmas.

As usual, please leave good reviews.

Assassin.

Sitting in a small cafe, Harry waited for the moment where he could strike. He had spent a long time getting ready for this. Ever since he had murdered the Dursleys, Harry had discovered that he actually enjoyed killing people. He wasn't psychotic or anything like that. There was just something satisfying about seeing someone just not move and not breathe.

The Dursleys had been his first murders. There had been others. Sometimes they had been out of pure desperation, others were just done because it was to save himself, or people as vulnerable as himself. The problem with the police was they were okay throwing people behind bars, but they were absolutely fucking stupid and naive to think their methods were far-reaching enough to do any true good. How many times did rapists walk only to fall back into their old habits? How many paedophiles either slip through the net or were 'rehabilitated' only to do the same thing, and another child paid the price?

Some people like Dumbledore might claim what he had done was cruel, evil, amoral, but Harry didn't care what they thought of him; it wasn't as if they were saints themselves, he was just more honest about himself than they were who hid behind authoritative masks or badges of society.

What did they know? Or more importantly, who the fuck did they think they were to judge him, especially Albus Dumbledore?

Harry sneered as he thought of the old wizard. He knew the meddlesome old fucker would try again sometime in the future, but he had enlisted goblin aid once again so he could stay hidden, and he had also purchased a blood blocker to prevent anyone from finding him. He wasn't sure if it would work in the long term, or if Dumbledore would find it, but it would buy him some time.

The only problem was he didn't know if he could trust the goblins. They were misanthropic, greedy, selfish and only interested in themselves, though he kept his thoughts to himself. He was as misanthropic as they were, and since he had sometimes betrayed the trust of a few people over the years since he'd worked out things like trust, honesty and honour were pathetic little concepts, he wasn't bothered what someone thought but he needed the goblins. It was a simple case of having someone to do the dirty work than anything.

He had the feeling they had only helped him with the Horcruxes because they considered them evil and unnatural abominations, and that Lord Voldemort's actions were simply bad for business. He didn't know and frankly didn't care, but since they weren't really bothered where he lived he didn't care what they did. The information they could give Dumbledore if the old wizard bothered to ask them anything, was limited.

Still, he had better things to do with his time than worry about something like that, he had a job to do here, he had just seen his mark. A thin man in a neat business suit, polished shoes, neat hair and a shaven face whose very being screamed businessman to those around him.

They would be right, he was a businessman.

He also had enemies because some of his business deals were shady and crooked. Harry knew the type - there were two kinds of businessmen; those who were legit and those who were crooked, criminals who dressed in suits and masked their activities. This guy was sort of in between. Harry had looked him up and knew that he had started out as legitimately as he could, but he had problems with money, though he had started out okay at first, but he had become greedy and had stumbled across a drug factory one of his mates had started or something like that.

His friend had only manufactured the drugs, but he lacked the business and administrative knowledge of how to sell them, and from there this guy had begun drug dealing and later got into other nasty little rackets. But he had never been caught because he had enough sense to not keep proof on him, and even if the police suspected him of any wrongdoings he would wriggle his way out of it.

Harry knew this man had enemies - all politicians and businessmen had them, and sometimes they would go the extra mile to get rid of them without getting their hands dirty. Quite a few wanted this man dead. Harry didn't know who his employer was, frankly, he didn't care. All he wanted was the cash he would be getting his hands on for the assassination.

He had been given the job a few days ago since he had left Hogwarts for the summer and had spent some of that time researching this guy, following him under various metamorphic disguises, casting tracking charms on him to work out his daily routine and to find a weakness. He had even broken into the marks' flat and wondered if he should just lie there in wait and then kill him.

But the mark visited dozens of places. Many people liked to believe they were different from others, and to a point that was true. Everyone followed the same habits every day, every year, ate and drank specific foods and drinks, went to the same places. Harry found out his mark spent a lot of time at a local gym, visited half a dozen restaurants, purchased his lunches and breakfasts from expensive places before heading off to work and then returning home.

He ruled out the gym, and then the public places the mark visited often. He didn't want anyone to see the assassination, and he was still not entirely sure how he could kill someone in a public place. After wasting his time for a few days, Harry worked out he simply couldn't - he had spent so long working in the shadows, trying to remain unseen, it had become a trap that he simply couldn't get out of.

Using his custom wand to open the door to the businessman's flat, Harry managed to get inside, delighted he no longer needed to rely on some of those stupid lock picking methods that he'd learnt over the years though some of them involved using a brick to a window. The flat was spartan, and despite the white painted walls, the place was quite dark.

The place was quite large but there was so little in it, in short, it was a place where someone wanted to look good and show off wealth and power, but it lacked substance. In a way, it reminded him of Privet drive though not very much - the Dursleys had been a superficial bunch, but at least their home showed someone lived there. The reason it reminded him of Privet drive was how frigid and neat the place was. Harry almost expected to see a cupboard with a lock attached to it.

Harry had been to the flat quite a few times before, so he knew the layout and knew the best places to hide or simply wait - the flat was large enough for him to go somewhere and the businessman wouldn't really notice his presence. Flicking his wand, Harry checked the tracking charm he had cast on the businessman. He was getting closer to the flat, good. Now he had the problem of deciding how to kill the businessman when it occurred to him. It took the businessman ten minutes to arrive at the flat after Harry had checked the tracking spell, and as soon as the mark had closed and locked the door, Harry had stunned him and bound him tightly before he dragged him into the living room.

After briefly examining the man to make sure the stunning spell had taken effect, Harry left the businessman and walked around the flat, careful not to touch anything as his mind whirled, trying to think of a decent way to deal with the businessman. He had a rough idea in his mind, but he didn't know what to do yet.

Sighing in frustration, Harry walked back to the businessman and woke him up. He was still at first, but then he slowly began to regain consciousness. Harry watched him quietly as he began to wake up. The young wizard was expecting a few things from the businessman. Confusion. Realisation. Shock. Horror. Acceptance.

"Oh, what happened?" He muttered. "What hit me?"

That was the confusion.

"Hold on, why am I tied up? I can't move!"

There was the realisation.

The businessman struggled a little bit to try to get free of his bonds, but it didn't work, and when he was tired he looked up and saw Harry. "Who are you, how did you get into my flat? What do you want?"

And there was the shock.

Harry walked over to the businessman, looking down at him coldly and bent down to address him properly. "In order of asking, I'm your executioner. How did I get in your flat? I'm not going to say a word even if you won't live long enough for it to make any difference. What do I want? I want a large profit."

The businessman tried to wriggle away from him, fear written all over his face, and there was the horror.

"Wait, I-I can pay you! I've got loads of cash-" the businessman whimpered.

Pathetic.

Why was it he always seemed to meet such stupid weaklings?

Harry walked over to him and getting but firmly used his feet to kick the businessman back to the centre of the room so he could keep him in one place and let the poor bastard know that it wasn't going to do any good trying to escape.

"Tell me," Harry's voice cracked like a whip.

The businessman whimpered again. "L-l-let me go, and I'll tell you!"

"Fuck that, tell me now. If I let you, you just run to the front door, or rush to your phone," Harry growled angrily.

The businessman made a sound like a squeak. "O-okay-" he started telling Harry the details of his bank cards (he needed to do it twice because Harry asked him to repeat it for the sake of him writing it into his notebook) but when he was finished, he looked up at Harry confidently. "T-there, I've told you. Are you going to tell me who told you to kill me?"

Harry shrugged and told him.

The businessman rolled his eyes and gave a sarcastic chuckle. "Of course it would be him," he muttered to himself. "I always thought he would do something to get rid of me, but hiring someone to kill me is not what I'd expect."

"Perhaps you should begin looking more closely at how shit the world actually is," Harry told him before mentally shaking his head, why was he even bothering with this? He took a step towards the businessman, and he winced away.

"Wait, I thought you were going to let me go?"

Harry didn't bother correcting him, and moved forward without a word and grabbed the screaming businessman's head and twisted it with all his strength. Standing up Harry let the dead body drop to the ground, and he stepped back a little bit, and pulled a camera out of his jacket and snapped a few pictures to prove to his 'employer' he had succeeded.

On his way out, Harry grabbed the bank cards and just walked out, leaving the door open so the body would be easier to find. He didn't know if the businessman's scream had already attracted attention, but he didn't care. There were quite a few flats that neighboured him, so one of them would probably find the door open and it would on from there.

Harry pictured the scene that the police would find - no signs of forced entry, no fingerprints or anything left on the body besides some rope, and a businessman with a broken neck, but they would find the bank cards missing at some point. That didn't matter - but the time they worked out what had happened, he would have some of the money in his possession along with the cash that his employer would give him upon receiving the photos of his enemy lying on the ground, bound in ropes, with his head at an unnatural angle.

And if his employer was stupid enough to try to betray him, Harry would pop round to his home, which he had found after he had cast a surreptitious tracking spell on him and followed him back to where he lived and make sure the idiot understood the depth of his mistake.

As soon as he left the flat, Harry changed his appearance and headed towards a cash point that was within easy distance to the flat and checked the balance on the card before he withdrew a hundred pounds. He slotted in another card and carried out the same trick before leaving, making sure the hood covering his head was still pulled tight. He didn't care if the muggle police saw his features with this disguise, he would probably never use it again anytime soon, and even if he did it would be long after the police gave up with this crime.

As he went around the city, withdrawing differently sized amounts of cash from different cashpoints, Harry kept a hand on the handle of his wand whenever he saw any muggle police officers, but he wasn't doing anything to attract their attention. He just looked like an ordinary person drawing cash like everybody else did any day of the week.

There were four cards in total, and while it did frustrate him that it took so long to drain them, the quicker he did so the better it would be.

The businessman's rival leaned forwards eagerly. "Did you really kill him?"

Harry flinched under the appearance he had chosen to serve for this job. He and the rival businessman were sitting in a pub, but while the idiot's voice was low and there were few people around to hear what they were speaking about that didn't mean someone couldn't overhear them by accident, or the moron raised his voice a bit.

"Keep it down," he hissed, pausing to hand him one of the photographs. The rival businessman took the photo and his face paled in shock, and his mouth opened and gurgle that sounded like a dog pissing while panting escaped.

"W-what did you do?"

Harry sighed, this guy was supposed to be smart but if he couldn't tell from the photograph what he had done to this guy's rival then he wasn't very bright. "It's in the photo. Have you got my payment?"

The rival businessman's face was still pale, inwardly making Harry shake his head at this guy's lack of spine, making the young disguised as a twenty-year-old but was actually 12-year old wizard nudge him with the toe of his shoe. The businessman's head shot up and he looked at him in surprise. "Have you got my payment?" Harry repeated, glaring at him impatiently.

The businessman stuttered a little bit, and he gestured under the table to a satchel. Harry looked down at it but he didn't touch it. He just continued to look at the businessman, knowing that he wouldn't have any qualms about doing anything dirty after he'd just had his rival killed. "If you're thinking of betraying me, I will be back, and you can see from those photos that I will kill you," Harry said.

The businessman looked at the photos and nodded feverishly, but Harry didn't trust him. He half expected undercover police officers to be sitting around the pub hoping to catch him, but the businessman shouldn't have gone that far - he had, after all, hired Harry to kill, and even the police at their most desperate would never resort to murder to get someone like that.

Warning given, Harry left the pub, taking the bag with him. When he took the bag into a local public lavatory, he flicked his wand over it from the safety and privacy of a cubicle. Muggles had electronics, but they were no match for the magic of a wand. When he was sure it was safe, he checked the bag carefully, opening it slowly.

What he saw made him almost lose his concentration over his disguise. The bag was full of torn pieces of paper to simulate the rustle of money. The little shit. Harry needed a few minutes to regain some of his composure, but he was still angry with the con. He'd expected the rival businessman to pull something, but he had hoped the odious little fuck had had the common sense to not even try it.

Sipping his wine in the safety of his home, the rival businessman was giggling over his victory - not only had he gotten rid of one of his biggest rivals who was causing a lot of problems with his own business, but he now had the opposition out of the way, so he could easily take over that silly bastards' businesses though he would need to do it carefully because the police would soon come calling.

He was sure of it somehow. If only that stupid assassin had not broken his rival's neck, made it look either like he had died due to an illness in spite of his perfect health, or driven a car at him, but no. He had to be killed in his own flat.

Oh well, he would weather the storm - he might have been rivals with the businessman, but he doubted the police would become truly suspicious of him. And besides it wasn't as if the silly bastard hadn't had rivals other than himself, there were going to be other suspects.

He was also giggling over getting one over that assassin, but while his threat had been delivered seriously, the businessman doubted it would make much difference. How could the assassin catch up with him?

"Savouring your victory, or just having a last drink?"

The businessman shot out of his chair, and to his surprise he saw a young boy with messy black hair and green eyes, but the most horrifying thing about the boy was the scars that were set into his skin, one of the scars was a faded lightning bolt in his forehead, and the second was around one of his eyes that made it stand out against his pale skin. There was a hardness around the eyes, and the boy's lips were set into a kind of permanent gash.

"W-who are you?"

The boy smirked and closed his eyes. The businessman gasped in shock as the boy suddenly transformed into the bruiser who'd killed his rival.

"Do you know what I found when I opened that bag? Pieces of paper. Just that, no money. Nothing. You didn't plan on paying me anything, did you?"

The businessman dropped his glass and it shattered on the floor. The assassin looked at the pieces of shattered glass and sighed. He held up a wallet that the businessman recognised as his. "I don't think you have the money in this house. I've been searching for an hour. What are the pin numbers of your cards?"

"Is that all you wanted, I can get more cash -?" The businessman began, but the assassin interrupted him. "And then you can lie to me again? I don't think so. You've got quite a few cards in the wallet, so tell me their pin numbers."

The businessman folded his arms. "I don't think so."

The assassin sighed. "Oh for god's sake. I promised I would kill you if you betrayed me, did you think I was joking?"

The assassins' form changed to resemble that of his now deceased rival. "Not that it matters."

The form changed again, this time to resemble the rival himself. The businessman stepped back in fear, realising that the assassin was mocking him for being so foolish.

"Now, tell me the numbers," the assassin said, taking a black stick out of his pocket.

The businessman looked at the stick weirdly for a moment, but then he found himself bound….

Harry looked down at the dead body of the businessman, seeing the frozen look of horror on the muggles' face. He had spent the last half an hour torturing the man with some of the more milder curses he had found in some of the spell books he had bought from Diagon Alley to make the man open his mouth and speak, but he had quickly gotten the details he had wanted.

The numbers for the cards were in his notebook, and when he left the room with the dead body after removing the curses from the muggles' body, he searched through the house to find bits and pieces to flog.

As he searched through the house, Harry couldn't help but feel that he would need to do some work with his assassination style - while getting the bank cards and their details were pathetically easy, he didn't really like the idea of just taking their money in that manner. He didn't really care how he got paid, but he didn't think it would be a good way of getting potential employers. Who the hell would employ him if he killed them, and stole their credit cards?

Harry sighed and continued to go through the house, but when he was finished he took a photograph of the businessman's' dead corpse and left the house. He had the perfect warning to give to his future employers to make them pay him properly unless they wanted to die.

I hope this chapter puts aside your thoughts Harry won't be an assassin?