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Harry Potter: Thinking like a Thief.

For a whole day, Harry had debated if he should just bunk off the detention Umbridge had given him. He knew if he went in there Umbridge would be able to use that Blood Quill of hers and he didn't want to be scarred by it, but he decided, in the end, to get it over and done with otherwise he would cause problems with McGonagall and he might even attract Dumbledore's attention, which was the last thing he wanted to do given how he wanted to keep his activities and his research into Voldemort's immortality a closely guarded secret.

He was just thankful that good old common sense had come back to him when he realised the scale of the can of worms that would be opened up should he not attend the detention.

Harry might not like the elderly wizard, not one little bit - he had spent the last four years trying to keep his head down before Voldemort's return which was much too soon for Harry's liking had disrupted and helped several of his plans in equal measure. The original plan was to keep his head down after he discovered just how much influence Dumbledore had over him and what he did, to investigate ways of getting out of Dumbledore's thumb given the Headmaster's obsessive need to control every single second of his life, to study magic in secret without anybody knowing and keeping his level down so he didn't attract too much notice, and to learn which spells could be used in thieving. Voldemort hadn't really factored in the equation; it was only after the bastard attacked him in his first year that Harry adapted the plan to learn as much as he could about Lord Voldemort and make the stupid fuck go to a grave and stay there.

But he had always worked in secret; he knew if he attracted Dumbledore's attention too much the old wizard would probe deeply and realise things were not as he suspected. That was another thing for him to worry about now, and he would need to go quiet and lie low for a short time, maybe 3 or 4 months.

In that time he could work with Dobby and the other house-elves he'd acquired from his burglary of Malfoy Manor and find places to store everything he'd stolen so far while looking out for anything he'd missed which Dumbledore would be able to track and discover what he was doing. In any case, the time spent in those months would allow him to find new targets while cutting off more funding and manpower for Voldemort's war effort. As he trudged towards the DADA classroom, taking his own sweet time since he knew what Umbridge was going to do, which was one of the reasons why he had thought long and hard about not going in the first place, Harry wondered just how far Voldemort had gotten in reorganising his armies. It could not have been easy for him considering how thorough the ICW was taking things; the Prophet wasn't reporting the ins and the outs of the investigation and Harry himself hadn't really been paying much attention beyond the occasional moment where he had sent either Dobby or Winky to the Order of the Phoenix's headquarters to see what was new and to the Ministry, but he knew the ICW had heard rumours of Voldemort's return.

Fudge had been questioned thoroughly about the allegations of Voldemort's return when they caught wind of it and why the Minister had refused to believe a word of it. Fudge, not realising how it appeared, had reacted like a whiny spoilt child when he was questioned. Not a wise move. The ICW had made it very clear to Fudge they took such threats more seriously until they were proven either true or false. And they had zero tolerance for leaders of magical communities who broke numerous laws just for their own gain. The last one who did that was a German minister who was executed when they foolishly allowed Grindelwald to do whatever he liked, the result had been the Second World War. The ICW were not willing to allow a second mess like that ever happen again, and Harry thought that was one of the smartest things they'd ever done.

They had also reminded Fudge of how both Grindelwald and Voldemort had both come close to revealing the magical world and bringing down the Statute of Secrecy with them. Fudge might think dismissing a rumour like that was a smart thing to do, the ICW disagreed with him. They took the threat of dark wizards more seriously especially since Grindelwald had done more damage than Voldemort had ever done, but he hoped he could be ready to end the war before it even started while hopefully making the magical world wake up, or he would just go away and let Voldemort do what he liked for a few years before he came back. Anything to make Magical Britain wake up and smell reality for a change.

Harry was sure he had discovered the secret of Lord Voldemort, the secret of the bastard's 'immortality.' Body snatching was a close contender when you took into account Voldemort's habits of possession, but it didn't have that ring of truth. Anyway, he would need to go back to the Room of Requirement and do more research to make sure he had the right one and find one of the horcruxes Voldemort had created. There was no doubt in his mind Voldemort hadn't created more; he had survived long enough to come back in that graveyard, hadn't he?

He had reached the DADA classroom corridor a few minutes late - the woman would likely punish him for it, but Harry didn't really care. He only hoped Umbridge had been told by Fudge not to push things too far, not with the ICW investigating too close to things Fudge found truly uncomfortable.

His handling of the whole mess with Sirius Black, unleashing the Dementors across the whole country under minimal observation while allowing them too close to wizards and witches who couldn't conjure a Patronus to drive them away.

The botch-up with Hagrid and sending him to Azkaban within bothering to properly launch an investigation during the whole mess with the Chamber of Secrets.

Not bothering to despatch investigators to Hogwarts when the Chamber was opened, and doing nothing to revive the muggle-born students the basilisk under the control of the possessed Ginny Weasley had unleashed, and leaving it all to Dumbledore to clean up.

Sending Dementors to Hogwarts under the notion of protecting one single student without thinking about the consequences since the children of many of the same people he liked being bribed by was at the school. Any number of them could have been kissed because the Dementors were unsupervised and allowed to do whatever they wanted, and few people could conjure a Patronus to drive them away.

Making so many poor judgement decisions in the running and the handling of the organisation of the last Quidditch World Cup which resulted in the repeated use of memory charms on a muggle family, and not doing anything about the breach of security when the Death Eaters went on a rampage.

But the final kicker and the cherry on the cake were the Dementors let loose on Little Whinging. Harry knew from his own research the ICW was not going to let that go; as the Minister was ultimately responsible for any and all serious breaches in the Statute of Secrecy, Fudge was responsible. Fudge's trust and faith in the Dementors was well known and now it had proven to be a massive mistake and if he dismissed the lives of muggles which were bad enough then the ICW would punish him in more creative ways than the Ministry could ever think of, but Harry wondered just how far the investigation was going to go until it reached its ultimate climax.

But then again, the only reason the ICW would care was because of the Statute. Not many wizards cared for muggles; it seemed to be written into wizards genetics to look down upon muggles and see them as beneath them. Even Harry felt the same way; he liked muggle foods and culture, but that was as far as he would be willing to go. He despised muggles for their savagery, their need to poke their noses into things that were not their business, but what he really hated the most was their tendency to lash out. One of the mistakes that wizards like Voldemort and Grindelwald made was they targeted muggle-borns. It never occurred to them that some muggle-borns were likely victims of muggle abuse.

Harry took a deep breath, wondering if Umbridge was going to use the Blood Quill tonight. He was willing to bet she would, but he was ready for it. He wasn't going to let her get away with it. Harry had been sitting on the knowledge of Umbridge's Blood Quill for a short time now, gathering evidence in preparation for when he sent it off. He had a way of getting the information out thanks to the House-elves, but he had wanted to gather more evidence of what the stupid cow was doing before he acted. He had done his own research and he had found 30 other students, not only muggle-borns but a few half-bloods being tortured by the quill. He was almost ready, by the end of the week, he would have a nice folio full of photos and evidence of Umbridge's activities. He had only been working on it for a week now, but already he was floored by not only how stupid Umbridge was although it had only happened within the past couple of months, showing that she clearly had some sense not to issue detentions right away with Dumbledore in charge, that had changed when she realised the old fool would do nothing should anyone complain, but also by Dumbledore's refusal to do anything.

That was going to change.

Tonight.

Buoyed by that thought, Harry walked to the Defence classroom office, opened the door and found the entire room empty. But he wasn't fooled; he had been in the magical world long enough by now to know nothing was entirely as it seemed. In any case, he wondered if Umbridge would realise he was there before he even knocked on the door. Standing in the doorway of the office while ignoring the knowledge he was being a little bit paranoid which meant he'd taken a bit of Moody the Imposter's personality, Harry took out his wand and flicked, muttering the revealing charm so he didn't give away his true power level until he was sure it was safe of any kind of monitoring or surveillance spell.

There was nothing in the room. Either Umbridge believed she was invulnerable or she hadn't considered using such magic. Harry didn't care which it was. When he was satisfied everything was safe, Harry repocketed his wand and marched up the steps to the office, and he knocked on the door.

"Come in, dear," Umbridge's overripe sugary voice called. Harry clenched his eyes shut for a moment when he heard the voice, feeling that same hatred he had felt for the woman that had bubbled over the last few months.

But her voice was extra sweet now. She knew damn well who was outside, and her voice was now so smug you could cut it with a knife.

Harry schooled his expression into one of neutrality before he opened the door. He was still left wondering, as he took in the obnoxious surroundings which somehow matched Lockhart's own incarnation of the office for tackiness if Lavender or Parvati would scream or laugh at what Umbridge had in the place. God, how he missed Lupin and Crouch's versions of the place.

"Ah, there you are, Mr Potter," Umbridge's voice became extra-sugary if that were possible, "I notice you're looking around my office. It's lovely, isn't it?"

Harry wondered if he should even say it or not, or if it would just land him in extra trouble. But he decided to be honest. "No, it's not. If I'd known this years' Defence teacher," he stressed the words a little bit to make it clear what he really thought of her skill as a teacher, "was this tacky when it came to taste, I'd never have bothered coming here."

Umbridge's smug expression melted as easily as boiling hot wax that had been next to a roaring fire. "Your…opinions on my taste are irrelevant, Potter, but I should have expected your rudeness. A boy such as yourself with your breeding would say that, after all your family was once as pure as the Malfoy's and then your father married your mother, so she must have passed on her muggle rudeness."

Harry was surprised Umbridge would be so open about her bigotry, and he had to block the urge to take out his wand and kill the bitch in front of him with a brutality Vlad the Impaler would have been proud of. He was used to this kind of observation about his mother; he had heard some students and even a few adults talking about how James Potter had dirtied up the Potter bloodline, but what they didn't know was that the Potters weren't as twisted about blood purity as many other families. He had actually studied his ancestry and he knew that the Potters hadn't really cared about who they married over the centuries, which kept their blood fresh and pure in different generations.

But that was nothing compared to learning Lily Evans was actually descended from Anne Bonney, the infamous pirate, and a muggle-born witch who had conned her way into magical society in magical Russia and her descendants eventually hailed from Russia, Sweden, Scandinavia, and Germany before some of them banded together with Grindelwald before the family was all but destroyed. Lily had been the last member, and she had been placed in the muggle orphanage system to ensure their family enemies never discovered her, and eventually, the Evanses had adopted her and Lily Evans was born. Lily had been left a vault and an automated letter from Gringotts which told her of her family's true past and legacy.

Anne Bonney had started off the family tradition of thievery, and Harry had discovered this during one of his trips to Diagon Alley. He had also learnt from his mother's diaries she had no problems committing thefts without anyone knowing any better. While he was uncertain about his mother's lineage, Harry had forced himself not to think about it in case it was picked up by others if his occlumency slipped, so he always had to think of Vernon, Petunia, and Dudley as his blood family.

To say it was hard thinking of his mother like she was a common muggle-born was an understatement, but Harry had trained himself to do that. For his sake, as well as his family legacy.

There were many people out there who would be very interested to know his mother's family had survived, and their blood was running through his own body.

If they discovered that, then they would likely kill him.

Comment on my family one more time, and I will hurt you so badly by the time you realise what I'm doing I'll be showing you what being pure-blooded is like.

"Well if you don't want my opinion, don't ask for it. What am I going to be doing for my detention?"

Umbridge's expression brightened again. She looked really pleased with herself and he knew she was going to bring in the Blood Quill. "Oh, you will be writing lines," she said with a cheery voice that made her sound like a little girl squealing at a Barbie-themed party. The voice went with the tacky decor. And it made him want to skin her alive.

Harry silently walked to the desk Umbridge was pointing to, and he spotted the quill and the sheets of blank parchment. "There's no ink bottle," he observed mockingly although he made it sound innocent.

"Oh, don't worry about that, my dear boy," Umbridge's eyes had narrowed into malicious slits while she tittered. "It's a special quill that doesn't need ink."

Urge to kill….rising. I'll teach you not to call me boy. In that second Harry decided to drop the charade, deciding he'd had enough of Umbridge, of Fudge, this school, of hiding his real self. He was also tired of this pretence.

"No, it wouldn't, because this is an illegal Blood Quill. Did you really think I didn't know what you were doing, Umbridge?" Harry flicked out his hand and allowed his wand to slip into his hand.

Umbridge was so stunned by the bluntness of Harry's statement and question that she froze.

"What, toad got your tongue?" It was a bad joke, but it was the only one he could find. But it got her out of her stupor.

Umbridge had trouble processing just how quickly everything was spiralling out of her control; she had assumed she could get the nasty little liar that was Harry Potter into her clutches for a long time, but he had always eluded her, but it had never once occurred to her he would know what she was doing and confront her about it so bluntly and quickly.

"Y-you, you know what that is? How can you, you're only a Half-blood, ignorant of our world-," Umbridge said, her brain so fogged by this information and the fact Potter had been prepared for her moves that it didn't occur to her to take out her own wand when she noticed it dimly.

"That's what so many people think. I had a lot of time in my first two years to discover what I needed to know about the magical world, I just hid my knowledge better, that's all," Harry replied, taking a slow step towards her to get a reaction; he wanted her to give him a reason to fight him so he could make her look like the bad guy, but he couldn't cement that if he attacked her first.

His action made her hastily step back. "Wait, there's no need to be hasty. I can destroy the Quill, we can come to an arrangement-!" She said, trying to focus on coming up with a deal that she could later betray later on, but she needed to get this currently young and angry wizard who clearly knew more than he should away from her.

"You have nothing I want," Harry countered, and he was right; if he wanted to he could have Dobby steal her Gringotts key, and they could loot the whole thing and make her destitute. He could also get the House elf to take him to her home, and do the same there before burning the place to the ground. "In any case, why would I want anything from the Ministry? Besides I can tell that if I were foolish enough to make a bargain, you would only betray me, making it clear you and the Ministry are untrustworthy."

While he had been speaking, Harry laced his words with magic to trigger the response he actually wanted from her. Umbridge's eyes narrowed hatefully and she took out her wand.

"You'll regret this, you nasty little half-blooded bastard-!" Umbridge broke off when Harry laughed scornfully in her face.

"Again with the blood bigotry, haven't you got anything more original than that? Blood traitor. Mudblood… I've heard it all before. Can't you come up with something better than that? What's wrong Umbridge, did your parents chide you for doing badly on tests because muggle-borns did better?" Harry smirked, guessing from his nascent knowledge of psychology that was one of the reasons why Umbridge, whom he had researched, had such hatred for muggle-borns.

Umbridge's face contorted angrily. "Shut up!" She shrieked and she fired a number of - in her estimation - high powered curses and spells.

When she was younger, Umbridge had never really got into too many fights which involved using magic; she had preferred words, blackmail, and petty insults so as a result, Umbridge had very little knowledge of duelling or magical fighting. All she had were the spells in her repertoire, but in her arrogance, Dolores Umbridge believed herself more powerful than most witches and wizards.

That was a big mistake. However, Umbridge was blind to her flaws. She liked to think of herself as a master duellist although conveniently she forgot she had never once participated in any of the international or national championships which ran yearly with new talent. She liked to think she was the equal of the best pure-blood duellist of the 20th century. She had assumed when she had gone on the offensive against Harry Potter she would have the boy shaking in agony.

But as they got further and further into the duel, that belief slowly died out from the spark that created it and changed into a dull red ember.

Harry Potter… in Umbridge's more rational mind she was having to revise her opinion of the boy's power; she had scoffed when she'd heard the rumours of him achieving a corporeal Patronus at the age of thirteen years old. That was impossible in her mind, she had needed to reach 35 before she could do that, but in her arrogance, it never occurred to her to think and acknowledge everyone was different and had different power levels. It also did not help her case when she refused to allow any of the students to practice any magic in her classes, so she didn't know how powerful they were.

She was forced to watch as her spells, spells she was so sure were powerful enough to break down and collapse his shields…be flicked out of existence with a simple wave of his wand. Umbridge slowly began to become frightened as her arrogance fled her and she realised she had made a mistake in attacking a more powerful - and it galled her just how young - wizard. But it took her a moment to realise her spell casting was all about power.

Potter, however, was more direct, subtle and controlled. He didn't rely on high powered curses and he wasn't throwing himself about the room like she was and what she expected him to do; the Brat Who Lived might have been having a mock duel with schoolchildren four years younger than himself given his display. Umbridge found herself panting; she knew she didn't have much longer left to go, but she was hoping she could wear him out before she went in for the kill. But it never happened; she realised too late that while she made the mistake of using high powered curses and spells in her chains, Potter wasn't. He was using household charms and advanced transfiguration spells to confuse her, and give her more trouble.

With a flick of his wand, a vase full of her lovely dried flowers transfigured into a vase full of snakes, the sound of their hissing made Umbridge scream with fright, allowing Potter to slip in a few curses of his own which Umbridge was barely able to hold off on and one of them hit her in her chest and took her breath away before she realised one of the spells had transfigured several of her kitten plates into mirrors, and she suddenly not only had Potter directly attacking her, but she had to keep away from the increasing number of snakes and even a crocodile that the wizard transfigured out of one of her chairs into, and she was having to shield herself from attacks from all sides.

Finally, the crocodile lunged at her from one direction, causing her to step back into a large ugly patterned snake that suddenly threw itself around her and squeezed her arm, causing her to drop her wand. Umbridge's skin crawled when she heard the sound of hissing coming from Potter's direction - she knew the boy was a parselmouth, but hearing it…

"W-what are you saying? I demand to know."

"Oh, I'm just telling the python to wrap itself around your arm and make you drop your wand!" Potter had the gall to grin - grin! - as he waved it off like she wasn't having a dangerous duel. "Don't worry, Umbitch, I won't hurt you."

Umbridge shivered again as she heard the cheerful voice of the teenage wizard drop into a more sinister tone. Suddenly she knew she was out of her league, she was facing someone more powerful with a greater spell repertoire than she had, and she was outclassed. She needed help. But just before she could even open her mouth to scream for help, Potter's wand flicked again and everything went black.

X

Once Umbridge was unconscious, Harry effortlessly transfigured the snakes and the crocodile back into their original forms and he regarded the witch lying on the ground silently. He knew he was asking for trouble, using parseltongue and goading Umbridge into attacking him but he hadn't been daring her once he did a brisk mental rewind of the whole fight, he hoped the ICW would see what she was casting at him with more seriousness than what he had done, but he knew it was asking for trouble.

"Dobby," he called.

The House elf appeared in the office with a bounce, but he took one look at the prone body on the ground and realised this wasn't the time to gush.

"Dobby, get the folio I was collecting on Umbridge's activities and get them to the ICW at the Ministry, tell them you are my personal elf and she attacked me first, and I will provide a memory of the whole incident," Harry told the elf, who popped away quickly.

Now all he had to do was wait.