Charlotte Potter: the Cat Burglar.

Like the Dursleys.

By TimeTraveller-1900.

The first thing you should know is that I have just defeated Lord Voldemort, and the injury I took from Susan Bones earlier in the year which destroyed my entire eye and left me half blind has been repaired.

Nice and short, huh?

The Founders' minds which inhabit Hogwarts and provide the school with the foundation of its abilities to protect and monitor the school provided me with a clone of my original eye, and implanted it into my socket and made it regrow. I now have my full vision restored, so I don't need my protective glasses which provided me with both the illusion of having full vision while providing my remaining eye with the protection it needed.

I used several pairs of glasses to protect my eyes following Bones' attack, and I have spent the last fortnight recuperating from my battle with Voldemort and from the operation conducted to restore my vision to its original sharpness.

At the same time, I have been forced to think.

Let me explain.

I knew my confrontation with Voldemort was being watched, but I had planned to end it all while making it look like I was dead. The whole time, but I wasn't performing for their amusement. I was fighting to the very bitter end. I wanted Voldemort to die, and he did. When the battle reached its climax, I made it look like I was committing suicide, but in truth I hid, using my animagus form's size to my advantage. I slipped away when the ICW team which had come to Britain to investigate the country arrived, but they were busy with the remains of Voldemort and his followers to care about me.

A few days later, Albus Dumbledore and many others were forced to suffer through a trial.

Due to his questionable decisions and some of which had turned out to be not only illegal and dangerous, but also made many people question his self-anointed post as Leader of the Light, Dumbledore was forced to tell the truth for the very first time in his life, and he hated every minute of it. I was there in the crowd, disguised so nobody would ever see or notice me. I played the part of an American journalist, and I pretended to make notes.

During the battle with Voldemort, something happened I hadn't expected - hell, it was also unexpected for the magical world on the whole - Voldemort told me something about my parents that stunned me.

He implied my parents were still alive, and that the people who were killed that Halloween night was not Lily and James Potter.

Now, of course, my mind jumped to a possibility I truly did not want to even consider; my parents had abandoned me to my fate. At the time I was too busy to think about that, it wasn't until I returned to my windmill home and thought about it in the bath so I could relax, I started with a plan.

I would remain under the radar, so to speak, and gather intelligence about Voldemort's speech about my parents. If it turned out they were alive, and I would know who to visit to get the information, I would track them down, and if I discovered they had abandoned me deliberately, on Dumbledore's orders, I would finish the job I could have finished off at the end of the Second Task; I had violently attacked Dumbledore, because many challenges in the Second Task had been personal, and the magical world discovered things about me I would prefer to be kept in the past.

But at the same time, I would confront my parents for real.

But I needn't have really gone to the goblins, although I did since I know the goblins don't care about mollycoddling people and prefer being sharp and to the point.

At the trial, Dumbledore was forced to take a truth potion - it seemed that so many other people were tired of his half-truths and how he kept secrets. He was forced to admit to everything he had done, and what he was hiding. He told them that Lily and James were lied to, they'd been attacked by fake Death Eaters while they were out with me, and they were knocked unconscious with stunning spells to the back, and they were told later I was dead.

They were told that Voldemort had won.

The news horrified and shattered my parents and they both emigrated to a different country in secret. They're living there right now. I was in the audience listening to the full scope of Dumbledore's machinations, resisting the urge to kill him and tear him apart while he was aware of who it was who was killing him.

When Dumbledore was asked why he had done it the answer he gave out was painfully true. He told everyone he had to think of the bigger picture, that if the loss of one child, one childhood, and two parents was worth the lives of a thousand people, I found I could see the point of the argument but what annoyed me the most was how he never even bothered to look for a better option, or even better - the magical world hadn't bothered to come up with an army which would have the means to fight Voldemort to a standstill. If there was something like that, and better leadership, I doubt Voldemort would have made the mistake of waging war in the first place.

The trial was long and intensive, and I put off having my new eye implanted for a while, but the intervals gave me a great deal of time to think and plan.

Dumbledore. McGonagall. So many others were forced to answer to the ICW for their actions, but what concerned me the most was what happened to my parents.

Fortunately, the ICW were too, and they demanded to know where the Potters were, what they were doing, and if Dumbledore had any means of contacting them to inform them of what had actually happened.

The Potters had moved to Australia. Dumbledore did have a way of contacting them, but when it was tried, according to Winky who was sent to keep watch to report back to me, it didn't work. But luckily, it gave me a lead.

I am preparing to leave Britain and to travel to Australia and find my parents. I have enough information to begin tracking them down, and I also have other ways of finding them if it turns out to be a dead end.

One way, or another, I will find my parents.

Even if it means leaving a mass grave in my wake.

x

But that is not what I want to get to grips with here.

In case my parents already know about Dumbledore's lies and they've worked out he was lying to them years back, and they know what I've gone through which is very possible, and they come here and miss me while I'm looking for them in Australia, I've planned to leave behind a few tapes recorded specially for them.

Mum, dad, if you're listening to these tapes, please know I had no choice.

The first thing you should know about me - no, actually the two things you should know is that I am a murderess and a thief. Yep. I killed the Dursleys in cold blood, but I don't regret it. If I hadn't killed them I would never have gotten out of Privet Drive in one piece. I would have likely been killed, or if I were still alive I would be so trapped in fear and terror for my life that leaving for Hogwarts would be a merciful release and I would see Dumbledore as a kind, benevolent man.

Fuck that.

When I was a kid, Vernon - I refuse to call that pig bastard Uncle - raped me. I normally would never admit that not even aloud. But after the magical world discovered it, thanks to the Second Task, I felt it no longer mattered. I am both ashamed of it and disgusted by it, but I don't let it consume my life. I don't even allow myself to think about it.

Unlike Lord Voldemort, who lived in a muggle orphanage although whether or not he went through beatings or exorcisms (yeah, I went through two of them thanks to the Dursleys), I don't let my upbringing if you could call it that drag me down. Unlike Voldemort, I look to the future, unlike Dumbledore I look further.

The best definition for further is the expansion of my fortune and my survival, whether or not Nightstar my cat is healthy or not, and if there's fun on the horizon.

But being raped and seeing the Dursleys kill an innocent cat, a kitten, made me snap. I knew it was only a matter of time before it was my turn. But my anger at the kitten's terrible cries as the Dursleys killed it made me snap. I murdered them and I made sure Vernon and Petunia watched as I magically held Dudley upside down and slashed his paunchy throat. I'd always said Dudley was a pig in a wig, well he squealed like one and he resembled a pig with blond hair as he was held upside down. I snapped your bitch of a sister's arms and spine. Her screams were glorious, but when she saw the knife in my hand as I approached her, she begged and pleaded for mercy, but I gave her none. I admit, my technique has improved but I look back and see the whole thing as clumsy.

Vernon tried to rush me, but I snapped his legs and his spine, and he spouted off his usual vitriol of how I was a freak and I should have been drowned at birth, but I cut his tongue and his mouth to bits before I thought his organs should pop, and they did. Blood and other fluids spurted out of his mouth.

It was done.

The Dursleys were dead.

But my story was only just beginning.

X

I knew I couldn't stay in Privet Drive, so I took what I could - money and bits of food and that was it; I knew the racket made by the Dursleys would have alerted the neighbours that something was wrong. I escaped through the back garden with nothing but the clothes on my back and the money I could cram into the pockets of my coat, and that was it.

I didn't have any food or water. I only had enough money to get out of Surrey by taking the train and heading off to London. Looking back, I was scared and I have no problems admitting it. I was scared I was going to be locked up for what I'd done, and I would never see the light of day again. I would have escaped being a prisoner of the Dursleys, to being a prisoner of the state.

But my fears the police had arrived and deduced where I was going to be proved to be wrong. I got into London easily. Thank Merlin and God the station had automatic ticket machines and they proved easy enough to use.

I boarded a train and got into London by midnight. Once I got there, my adrenaline wore off and I was left struggling to find a place where I could sleep before I could make a proper plan. In the end, I found a closed-off shop doorway and made myself at home, and I fell into a cold, uncomfortable sleep, but even as I fell asleep, worn down by the events of what I had done, I knew I would have to make the best of things. And then I fell asleep.

X

When I woke up I saw a man and a woman standing over me. The woman was smiling down at me. "Hello, sweetie," she cooed at me. "Where are your mummy and daddy?"

Kids at school are told to never speak or go near any strangers, never mind accepting anything someone gives you. Sadly the Dursleys never encouraged that lesson.

"Dead," I replied. "So are my other relatives."

The woman and the man smiled back at me, but now I look back I know their smiles were anything but sympathetic. The woman reached into her handbag and pulled out a bar of chocolate and a sandwich packet. The moment I saw them I began salivating, and his tummy rumbled. I hadn't eaten for hours - I usually stole food from the neighbours, thanks to my powers once I could get a minute to myself, but I hadn't had a chance for so long that I was really hungry.

I didn't care if I didn't like the filling, I took both off from the woman and I devoured them so fast I nearly choked several times.

"Wow, you're hungry. And you won't need to go hungry again if you come with us," the woman said. "We work for social services, you see, and our job is to help children like you in need."

I wasn't sure about that. How many times had I needed help from the Dursleys only to not get any? But at the same time, I knew I would go with them since I didn't know any better.

"Where will I go?" I asked them.

"Wherever you like," the man replied.

"Okay," I replied.

Once I had finished my breakfast, I stood up, wincing at the cramp in my body and I walked with them back to their car. I know, I was so hopeful that I would finally have a family, one who'd love and look after me, but one I could love as well. Finally, I might go to a school, where I could make friends and be a great student. I could wash off the 'freak' moniker from my past for good.

Everything would be great.

It wasn't until I got into the car, and sat next to the woman that I saw the needle when it was too late. I felt a prick of pain and suddenly everything went dark.

X

When I came to, I found myself in a bare room with nothing but an uncomfortable bed with a hard mattress and that was it. I found the woman standing over me with a sneer on her face.

"Oh, what a lovely daughter you'll be, once we've worked on you," she laughed cruelly.

"What do you want? What are you doing?"

"Well, answering your questions, we're looking to adopt a little girl and you fit the bill nicely. I mean look at you, small, black-haired, a doll-like face, and those beautiful green eyes," her eyes glinted when she stroked my face. I flinched back, but she slapped my face hard. I barely cried out. I had felt slaps and punches all my life from the Dursleys, and this one barely hurt. Vernon might have been fat, but he had the physical size and the muscle mass to make a punch or a slap hurt.

"So you're not from social services? I should have guessed; whatever's too good to be true usually is, but what do you want with me, just to turn me into your kid? Is that what you normally do with kids, you look for them out on the streets and then snatch them as you did me?"

The woman chuckled. "You're a clever girl, sweetie. You'll make an excellent playmate. You'll enjoy our games."

I latched onto that word, recalling Dudley's 'Charlotte Hunting' games vividly. "Games?"

"Oh, nothing to worry your pretty little head about it, sweetie. You'll learn to love them," the woman leered.

I glared at her. "Doubtful."

She glared back at me, but instead of slapping me again, she grinned at me. "Oh, yes you will….mm, what should we call you?"

"My name is Charlotte-."

"Ah, no it's not. Ah, your name will be….Alice. Well, why don't you come with me, Alice, and come and meet your new family?" Suddenly I felt a tugging around my throat, making me gasp and cry in shock. I realised these people had not only changed my clothes, put makeup trash on my face, and given me a feminine dress which made me look like one of those toy dolls I'd seen but never played with before since I had grown used to never playing with toys, but they had ruined the ensemble by putting a leash around my throat.

I choked as the woman pulled me to my feet. "Unless you want me to tug you like that, move quickly," she snapped before she turned and walked me out of my dungeon.

The house I was now a prisoner in was fairly well-appointed. The decor was a blazing white and nothing dark. There was none of that effeminate decor you found at Number 4, it looked more like a simpler decoration to me. Finally, we arrived in a room where there was the man who'd been with the woman (I didn't know their names, I didn't care), and there was an older woman who had the same cheekbones as the woman, so likely the mother and a boy who looked like the man.

One great big family, but I still didn't understand why they wanted me. I stood very still as the man approached me, licking his lips while he touched my hair (to my everlasting embarrassment, my hair was now plaited into pigtails; the hairstyle I despised more than most, hence the reason I favoured ponytails), tugging on it and making me wince before he caressed me. My breath hitched in my throat as I remembered how Vernon raped me several times in the last few months (I had discovered the word in a few of the library books at the public library in Little Whinging, and suddenly I had a horrible vision of what these things were going to do to me as I remembered the woman say they would be playing games with me).

"We've picked a good one, Olivia," the man complimented. "She'll make a good daughter."

The boy bounced up and down. "Can I play with her too, daddy?"

I grimaced, remembering Dudley only too well. I wondered if every other boy, behind closed doors, was like him. The idea made me want to puke.

"Wipe that expression off your face," the old woman snapped. "A slave should never grimace."

A slave?

Oh great!

I had escaped one life of slavery for another. But for now, my nightmare was only about to get worse.

X

I was at the Keyes's for over three weeks. But I was patient. I knew I could escape at any time, but I had decided to stay and use the time wisely.

While I was there, I learnt a lot about them. The man and the younger woman were Olivia and Nathan Keyes. They were actually brother and sister. Their mother was a weird woman who was abusive towards them in the way that she spoilt them and actively believed the siblings should have sex only with each other, but when Olivia had their son, Michael, there were complications with the birth; I never found out what or why I never cared. But each time Olivia and Nathan had sex, they never could conceive a child.

Finally, Olivia discovered the truth. And it had only taken years before Michael reached the age of 8 years old, and had been fully indoctrinated into the sick games of the family he had been born into. She was barren. She couldn't have another child, so she and Nathan began looking for a child to adopt into their big happy family. They didn't do it legally, they opted to kidnap a child the authorities would never even know existed.

Me.

Granted, I didn't have a clue if they had been looking for months, but the kids they had tried to approach had been wiser than I had been. I imagined they had been. I was always kicking myself for being so stupid.

While I was with the Keyes my life was a living hell.

My days were split into four parts. Working like a maid for them and being told to clean this and that up, being sexually tortured by Nathan while Michael watched, being forced to play with Michael who wanted me as his sister and he kept saying I was his sister, but he would always peck me on the lips or the cheeks. Yuck! But I always resisted, I always tried to push him back whenever he did that, but sometimes I never succeeded and more than once I got a slap for resisting him.

Strangely it wasn't the slaps or the rape I got that was worst, it was the brainwashing. The Keyes were trying to turn me into their perfect daughter; a girl who would take part eagerly in their sick games and scream in pleasure as Nathan fucked me, who would gladly obey any order the old bitch and the evil bitch called Olivia gave me. They kept calling me Alice, telling me how I would soon be like them, and they tried to push me into their games to make me willing.

But I always resisted.

While Nathan and Michael were a lot like Vernon and Dudley respectively, they were even less like them. The only thing Nathan actually did was rape me. He never slapped or beat me up. Olivia and her mother saw to that, but truthfully - and thankfully - while the blows did hurt they didn't have the kind of hatred-induced strength of the Dursleys.

No matter what they did, I would always fight back harder and even greater. On my first day, I was made to scrub the floors, but I poured water all over the floor. It made the old hag slip and nearly break her hip.

I smirked at her, "Sorry," I said so innocently, but with hidden malice.

After that, war was declared.

The old woman was incredibly harsh and sought revenge for that one act, and she would always slap me around to make me cook, but instead of cooperating, I would either throw the plates to the floor or use them as frisbees to hit them. After that, the old bitch began trying to beat me up with Olivia's helps but while their beatings did hurt, they didn't have the imagination of Vernon or Petunia.

In those three weeks, while I was being fondled, raped, beaten, kissed and told to play with brother dearest, I plotted and planned. I began practicing with my powers in my locked cell. I soon discovered that after using my powers to kill the Dursleys, I found it easier to practice. I would manipulate the heat in my room, or I would make it colder. I also began levitating objects like my bed or moving my pillow with the power of thought behind it.

I know what you're thinking. Why did I stay so long if I could do all of this? At the time I didn't have a wand or knowledge of magic beyond what I was practicing in private, but what I had done at the Dursleys to kill them was a rushed affair. I wanted to be prepared for anything, which was why I spent so long practicing. That was why I stayed so long, so I could plot, so I could plan, and so I could practice.

I learnt from the first time my powers were controlled by my emotions, so I had begun harnessing them with my emotions like rage, fear, annoyance, and my time in the Keyes's place was even more beneficial in that regard because I found I could also do things like unlock doors better than before, and I could also make myself invisible, or rather unnoticed, which helped me whenever I went out and stole food.

I also remembered something I had constantly told myself while I'd lived with the Dursleys, whenever I was humiliated by kids who'd pretended to be my friend, whenever Dudley and his cronies drove potential friends away while the neighbours took in their lies.

Don't trust anybody, the only person you can trust is yourself and only yourself.

X

Finally I was ready.

The night before, I had decided that I was ready. I would get my revenge and escape the Keyes once and for all, and I would make sure the family did not survive. But as I left the bedroom escorted by Nathan and Olivia, who pulled on my leash collar, and taken to the bathroom to don the makeup which made my face appear even more doll-like, before they took me to the kitchen where they would force me - again - to work on their breakfast.

But I was wrong.

I had just walked into the kitchen when something dark leapt into my peripheral vision, and I felt something pulled over my head. It was a transparent plastic bag. I screamed in surprise and struggled even as Nathan tightened it around my throat. The air inside the bag was starting to become hot, and stale quickly when the old harpy spoke.

"All you had to do, Alice, was enjoy being part of this family, just as Olivia promised you that you would," she said, sounding more like a teacher who was trying to talk sense into a disobedient child, instead of a girl she was helping to kill.

My anger began to grow, as I became increasingly aware of how the air in the bag was beginning to become hot, and I felt my limbs beginning to become heavy, but I focused my mind on my powers, desperately needing to become free. I almost jumped in fright when the plastic bag burst into flames, but I felt the heat of the flames on my skin.

The Keyes's jumped back in shock, and I waved my arms and sent Olivia and Nathan away from me, and sent them cannonballing into their relatives as I panted and took a few deep breaths while I held my kidnappers immobile. I lifted my gaze and smiled at them.

"Today is a good day to die," I said with a smirk at them before I tore the gas oven apart, and the acrid stench of gas filled the room. I decided to let one of them go, and I chose Nathan. Surprised that he could move, Nathan tried to run, to escape, to open a window, but I didn't let him get so far as I waved my hand and he screamed in agony as his knees visibly snapped at an unnatural angle, but I wasn't finished with him yet. Focusing on his genitals, I tore them off slowly, unaffected by the screams.

"STOP IT! STOP IT, PLEASE!" Olivia screamed while she tried to get away.

"I never begged you because I knew it was pointless," I said to her, turning to her emotionlessly, "I was raised by people like you in many ways. They abused and tormented me, mentally, physically, and psychologically. They tore everything from me, but now, they are all dead. And you will be joining them."

Nathan gave out one last choked scream as his genitals were ripped off, but with a wave of my hand his neck snapped loudly, and he collapsed, leaving his mother, his sister, and his son behind. I turned to Michael, who shivered in dread while he coughed and choked as the amount of gas in the room increased, making it hard for him to breathe.

I raised my hand, but I had one last thing to say to him. "I don't have any siblings," I said, before flicking my hand, Michael barely had any time to gasp or scream, as his own neck snapped.

Now Olivia and her bitch of a mother were the only ones left, so I decided to make their deaths even nastier. I focused on Olivia first.

"N-no," she whimpered, coughing at the amount of gas in the room.

"Thank you for proving to me I should always look out for number one, Olivia, mummy," I grinned mockingly as I showed the bitch what I truly felt about her. Summoning a black-handled meat cleaver to my hand, I rushed at her and embedded it into her throat, making her gasp and choke before she fell to the ground, blood spurting out of the wound.

I turned to the old bitch, and saw the fear on her face. I lifted her up telekinetically, and I pulled her to the still-leaking oven. Summoning a box of matches from a drawer to my hands, I prepared the last stage of my plan. Drawers flew open, and every knife, every throat, every pair of scissors came flying out and circled me like a flock of metallic birds.

The old bitch's eyes barely had a moment to widen, before she began to scream - only for the knives and forks and scissors to bury themselves into her flesh with enough force to cleave her rib cage open. Coughing at the amount of gas, I walked to the front door, but not before I opened the matchbox and lit a match.

There was a whoosh of flames, and the entire house exploded. The fire quickly reached the lower floor, setting alight everything flammable. Standing outside, I watched it all but on the street before I left.

X

The Keyes house was a townhouse in London. The fire brigade and the other emergency services came in quickly to investigate, but I was not there for them to find me. I was free again, and I went off on my own. The next day, I encountered some kids, who took me in and taught me how to become a pickpocket, and from there I became a burglar for real.

Like the Dursleys, the Keyes were a family I had come to despise, but without them, I would never have become the person I am now. But thanks to them, my paranoia about friendships and my aversion to them made sure I would never ever be truly comfortable with people around me. I hope if you ever hear this account, you both understand why I did what I did.

It was them or me.