I am so sorry it's taken me so long to update. Anyway, with Christmas so close, I'm hoping to provide more updates.

Please let me know what you think.

Harley Potter - The Black Cat.

No-one would have expected a pickpocket to have enough cash to have pizza.

But this group did.

Harley smiled as she dived in on the pizza Vanessa had bought her from Pizza Hut, the skin on the inside of her mouth almost burnt when it touched the hot dough covered in hot tomato sauce covered with melted cheese, pepperoni, onion, and pepper.

"Hey, watch it, Harl," Vanessa warned, but she smirked when she saw how her adoptive sister was enjoying the meal, and she turned to the others. Her baby sister Colleen was eating a small but still large enough pizza to satisfy her, covered with plain cheese and pepperoni, while Liam was just eating a vegetable covered pizza with no meat on it. Vanessa herself was eating a chicken pizza with added vegetables, sipping from the bottle of water she'd bought for herself along with others for her siblings.

"I can't help it, 'essa," Harley said between bites, grinning at her. "I love pizza. You know that."

Vanessa snorted but she grinned back. "Still don't eat with your mouthful."

Harley rolled her eyes good-naturedly at the motherly worry Vanessa spoke with. She caught Liam catching his big sister's eye, and she thought she saw Liam's eyes move in the direction of Colleen and Harley.

"That reminds me," Vanessa paused when she had to swallow and she drank some water to wash down the food, "I've got something to speak to you about after dinner, but for the time being enjoy yourselves. We have pudding don't forget."

Harley exchanged an excited look with Colleen. It was rare to eat anything for pudding that wasn't a piece of fruit, or pieces since they always went out of their way to make sure there were more apples, mangos, grapes, or pears. But tonight was a rare treat, one that Vanessa had been saving up for for a long time. Ice cream. They usually had to be careful with money since they usually spent the money on fresh clothes, food and water or anything else to drink, and Vanessa also bought books for them all to read so then they wouldn't be completely illiterate.

Harley was grateful for that, and because she didn't have to hide her smarts as she had with the Dursleys, she was able to read to her hearts content and she was already a quarter of the way through the works of Shakespeare whereas Colleen was reading the Worst Witch stories with her big sister's help, and Liam was reading Treasure Island.

After they had finished eating their pizzas, they left for the living room. It wasn't really a living room, at least when compared to the one Harley had known at Privet Drive. This was just a more comfortable room with a number of couches which looked like they had seen better times in happier places and they smelt musty, overused. Vanessa placed the ice cream on a nearby table to let it thaw out a little bit while Liam picked out the plastic bowls they were going to eat the pudding out of, and dropped a spoon in each one.

"Okay, Vanessa, what is this big announcement?" Harley asked, deciding just to get it over and done with.

Vanessa leaned forward, her eyes drawing in her audience. "We're going to stop picking pockets."

"What?" Colleen asked, looking at her in confusion.

"Why, what's brought this on?" Harley asked although she was a little annoyed she hadn't realised this was going on.

Vanessa rubbed her hands. "We have been picking pockets left, right and centre for a long time now, Harley. The public and the police have both noticed. Surely you've noticed the number of police patrols near the beaches?"

Harley frowned as she cast her mind back to the last time she had picked someone's pocket near the beach, and she recalled the number of police patrols pacing up and down the esplanade. "Yeah," she replied.

"But what are we going to do? I mean, we've been like picking pockets forever and ever?" Little Colleen asked.

"Burglary," Liam answered. "We're going to become burglars."

Harley blinked her surprise. In truth she hadn't really expected this little twist, although looking back she supposed she should have done, since she had noticed and told Vanessa and Liam about the increased police patrols, but both had been cagey about it all, and Harley had thought the pair of them would think of something, maybe lie low for a bit, or move to somewhere else, so she hadn't expected this.

Vanessa reached into her pocket. "I spoke to one of our fences," she was saying as she made a face while she attempted to look for something in her pockets before her face brightened, "and….he got us these," she said with a pause for dramatic effect while she laid whatever it was in her pockets which she then placed on the table in front of them.

Harley leaned forward, a crinkle in her forehead as she stared in confusion at what was on the table. "Keys?" she asked in surprise.

"Not just any type of key," Liam picked one up for a moment and then put down again.

Harley looked again, and she noticed he was right. These keys were different, there was something odd about their teeth, but otherwise, they didn't look too dissimilar from other keys.

Colleen asked the question on her mind, although the little girl didn't use the exact wording. "What's so fab about these keys, V'essa?" she asked with her own nickname for her big sister.

"These are bump keys. You place them inside the keyholes, slip them out a bit, and then bash the key with a hammer and the door is open," Vanessa replied.

Colleen jumped up. "Oh, magic!"

Vanessa chuckled, although she didn't know what the effect that word had on Harley was, who remembered all the times it had been mentioned in the Dursley's home, and it resulted in nothing but pain. After only just managing to suppress the urge to shudder at the word, Harley leaned forwards and picked one of the keys up, studying the different teeth.

"Is this why you have been going out for a while?" she asked the older girl curiously.

Vanessa had been heading out into Brighton more and more frequently leaving Colleen and Harley with Liam, and she wouldn't get back for several hours. Harley and Colleen had both made a few wild guesses about what Vanessa was up to, but now it looked like their guesses were wrong. Colleen had suggested Vanessa had met a boy or something like that. Harley had wondered if Vanessa had found someone willing to give her a job despite her lack of qualifications.

Vanessa nodded. "Yeah," she replied.

"How did you get them?"

"I went to one of our fences like I told you. He needed some time to get them, and I needed to pay him. The good thing is we have three sets of bump keys, and he taught me how to use them. At the same time, I got my hands on a crowbar, and a set of keys in case we come to a lock which doesn't use the same design."

Harley thought that sounded reasonable. "When do we start?" she asked, although she had guessed the answer.

"Tomorrow morning. I've found a decent door for us to practice on. We're going to practice for the best part of the week, and as long as we stretch our budget, we should be fine until we begin committing a few burglaries."

"Have you already found a place for us to start with?" Liam asked.

"Yeah. I didn't just go to see our fence. I went out of Brighton on buses to see what's out there, and where we can break into. I've found a few houses in Rottingdean and Saltdean."

Harley frowned. Rottingdean and Saltdean were only a few miles out of Brighton and easy to get to if you used either a bus or a car, but if they relied on public transport then there would be problems. "If we go there we won't be able to get too much without being noticed, and that's going to be tough. We're going to have to be selective with what we steal."

"I know," Vanessa replied. "And we're going to have to do it on the weekends since most kids our ages are either in school or in nursery school," she added toking at her younger sister before she turned her attention back to Liam and Harley. "Or we just travel to the neighbourhoods very early in the morning and wait until they leave for work or for school. Are you guys okay with this?"

Harley nodded.

"We have had a few near misses, and it is getting harder and harder for us to get close to anyone," Liam pointed out, "of course we're okay with it."

Vanessa chuckled.

"V'essa, ice cream!" Colleen cheered.

Vanessa laughed. "Alright, I'll dish it out. Be patient."

XXX

The next few days of practicing went so well Vanessa quickly changed her mind about how long it would be before they started committing burglaries. At first, they made a few elementary mistakes, like scratching the lock, but they quickly worked their way around that, and they each put in a few hours each of practice in order to get everything right. Liam and Vanessa were the only ones to really need to handle the crowbar because of their age, but Harley had still insisted she learn how to use it as well, although there was nothing to it.

While they were practicing Liam was once again left in charge of his younger sisters and was told to continue their lessons with breaking and entering using the bump keys while they continued to keep up with their old lessons, like how to be quick and how to be choosy with their pickings. Vanessa and Liam both knew Harley had had a point about being very careful about what they could take, and while Vanessa and Liam were both older, and stronger than either Colleen or Harley, they knew they didn't have the means of carting a large TV across Saltdean and into Brighton without the use of a car or a bus.

Harley had a good idea where Vanessa had gone, and why. But she said nothing and instead comforted and encouraged little Colleen. The little girl was excited about the burglary, she thought it was the start of some incredible adventure although she had yet to truly understand what it could mean. Colleen, despite knowing how risky pickpocketing was, saw it as just one great big game whereas Harley didn't, but the slightly older girl never pointed it out to the small child. In any case, when she was older she might want to continue being a thief.

Harley herself was uncertain about what her own future held, but as long as she was with this group of siblings and they saw her as an adoptive sister, she would follow them until the end of time itself.

The first burglary took place only four days after Vanessa had made the announcement in the change in how they stole. She started by waking them up very early in the morning.

Harley whined from being shaken awake by her big sister. "Vanessa," she yawned, taking one look outside and shivered, groaning when she saw how dark it was outside. "It's too early…"

Vanessa looked exhausted herself but she continued to shake Harley while Liam roused a sleepy Colleen, who was even more unhappy about being woken up. "Come on, Harley. We need to get going. We've got a really busy morning."

"I hate busy mornings," Colleen moaned melodramatically, but soon she and Harley were both up and they were treated to a rather basic breakfast before they wrapped themselves up warmly and they trudged towards the bus.

Harley stepped onto the bus and let Vanessa handle the bus driver, and she looked at the older woman sitting in the driver's seat, who appeared to be even more tired than they were. She felt some pity for the bus driver, who didn't seem to be really awake and aware yet to notice the people she was issuing tickets to were kids. She didn't seem to be interested in asking why they didn't seem to be in school uniforms either, but Harley knew once they finished with the burglary they could find themselves faced with someone who would ask those questions.

She pushed that out of her mind when the bus started. They went upstairs like they normally did since Vanessa loved pointing things out to Colleen, who loved being taller than everyone else when she was sitting upstairs. Harley sat just behind the older and younger girls, watching them intently. Although they called her their adoptive sister and she had found a true friend in each of them, Harley had always felt like a bit of an outsider, and truthfully she doubted if it would ever really change. She had always been an outsider. At Little Whinging she had been an outsider because Petunia had spread all of those filthy lies about her, aided by her husband and son. At school Dudley had gone out of his way to make sure no-one befriended her, encouraged by his parents, who claimed freaks did not have friends and she was mentally and physically abused.

They got off of the bus in Saltdean, although they got off at the stop near the Tye. Harley had never really been on Telscombe Tye, it was just essentially a large field although the farmer didn't grow anything here. People just used it to walk, exercise their dogs, or jog. The gang of kids walked over the Tye a short way before they came to an opening.

"Vanessa, why are we going down here?" Liam asked, voicing the question on all of their minds.

"You'll see."

Harley rolled her eyes at the melodrama, and she fought down her annoyance Vanessa was about to surprise them. She hated surprises ever since one day Vernon had told her she had a birthday treat, getting her all worked up…only to be belted while Petunia and Dudley watched. She had learnt the easy way since then not to expect too much from surprises.

Okay, she knew it was going tomb a good one; Vanessa wasn't an animal like Vernon, but she really hoped this was going to be a good surprise.

They walked down a crude flight of steps slowly and found themselves in a street. Vanessa led them to a house and pointed. "That's what we're going to burgle today," she whispered in case anyone was awake; it might be dark but that didn't mean someone was out here.

"This?" Liam's voice was impressed. Harley knew how he felt.

The top of the house level with the street was just the garage, but Vanessa pointed out something, a flight of stairs leading down. There was just enough light for them to see a large house surrounded by trees. It was perfect; no-one to look in on what was going on, and the house was sufficiently large enough for them to get in and burgle.

"Wow!" Harley whistled impressed.

"When are we going in?" Colleen asked, but her voice was loud enough to carry down the hill. Harley and Liam either winced or looked around themselves, worried in case the child's voice would wake someone up.

"Shhh!" Vanessa hissed.

"Sorry," Colleen whispered sheepishly.

"We'll get in there as soon as they've gone," Vanessa checked her watch. "We have at least two hours. We're going to have to go down these steps, looking on them undercover, and wait."

"Two hours?" Harley repeated wearily.

"I know, it's not perfect. But I wanted us to get here quickly so then we could get here without being seen."

"It's going to be hard getting out of here without being seen," Liam pointed out, "there's only one stairway and if anyone comes down we're going to have a hard time explaining ourselves."

"True," Vanessa admitted softly, "but we're going to have to risk it. And besides, I think this is the perfect place for us to start since we will have a perfect cover and a way of getting out of Saltdean."

"I thought we were going to be going to other houses?" Harley commented.

"We are, but I'm just thinking about what could go wrong. And I don't see any reason why we can't burgle houses along this street," Vanessa said.

Is she making all of this up as we go along? It seems that way given how she seems to be coming up with one plan only to contradict it the next second, Harley thought to herself, but she shrugged her shoulders.

"Okay, 'essa. It's time to stop talking and get on with it," Liam said.

The stairs leading down were steep, and Colleen needed extra help climbing down them though she managed it with her big sister and big brother to help her. Harley also helped, but she could see the worry on the other's faces, especially Vanessa. The older girl had clearly not expected this, and Harley hoped it didn't cause problems for them all in the future. When they finally managed to get to the bottom of the stairs, Harley took note of the house. It was dark thanks to the early morning, but she guessed the walls of the house were coloured a bright colour for her to get these details.

They waited for an hour and a half thanks to Vanessa's watch, and they saw for themselves the lights come on. They waited for the couple to prepare breakfast and go through their morning routine before they went off to work.

Colleen stood up, brushing herself off, whimpering at the cramp in her foot which she'd gotten for the last hour. "Come on," she said in her bubbly voice, "they've gone."

The quartet nodded and they got to work. Getting into the house was easy thanks to the bump keys. Colleen squealed as they gathered the couple's things which they would later sell, but her big sister shushed her.

Vanessa made sure the burglary only took twenty minutes and they packed CDs, money, jewellery, anything which looked like they were worth much to be worth stealing into bags the elder siblings had brought with them.

Once they had left the house, Vanessa led them down the street. Harley shivered a little as her eyes flickered over to the row of houses; if there was one thing she loved the most about Brighton, it was how the houses and flats looked different from the cookie-cutter houses she was familiar with in Surrey, but while the houses here had an individuality to them which Harley found refreshing from the boring norm of Little Whinging, she couldn't help but feel she was being watched.

"This is another one," Vanessa pointed at a little house further down with no car out in the road. Harley studied the property, seeing a yellow-walled house, a bungalow in front of her.

"Let's get on with it," Liam said, and they went inside the house. Burgling this house was just as easy as the other house. But because of the smaller size, they had an easier time of it. Vanessa made sure this house was burgled very quickly before they left.

Harley expected Vanessa to lead them around Saltdean, and she did. She led them to about five other houses in different places that she had clearly taken a lot of effort just to explore. But as they went along, and their bags became slightly heavier, Harley wondered just how many more places they could break into before Vanessa called it a day.

Finally, after house number 6, Vanessa decided they'd made a good enough haul. Harley was relieved when they approached a bus stop and they headed back into Brighton, although she felt conscious of the fact they were carting stolen goods on the bus all the way to Brighton again and she wondered how long it would take before someone cottoned on to what they were doing.

One thing that worried Harley the most was they were dragging their stolen gear all the way back to their place. Another thing that worried her the most was she was sure a few people had noticed them, and she wondered how long it would be before they were noticed. She brought this worry up with Vanessa and Liam, but they seemed nonchalant about it, much to the girl's frustration.

XXX

Harley barely noticed the tall man who looked like he could do with a few square meals and a change of clothes as she walked back to the abandoned shop they had been using as a place to live. She slipped through the crowd with practiced ease, although she took note of where everyone was as they pressed close against her.

She managed to get ahead of the crowd, using her knowledge of the side streets to slice off some of her journey back to the shop.

It had been two weeks since the burglaries in Saltdean and already the newspapers had described the break-ins, however, her worries about there being witnesses spotting four kids of differing ages carrying bags around from each site had proven to be wrong, much to her relief.

But she had also noticed the clear relief on Liam and Vanessa's faces, and she had worked out they had been worried themselves, much to her annoyance given their earlier attitudes.

The group had committed a few other burglaries in the past week, of course; and as they had gone along, each of the gang had gained experience with burglary. They had learnt very quickly to be very quick with the burglaries they committed. They had also worked out the best places to burgle were those where no-one could look in, so if they burgled a house with a front garden which was open, then others on the street could see what they were doing, and call the police. It had nearly happened twice before the group had worked out what they were doing wrong, so Vanessa and the others were on the lookout for houses surrounded by trees, or just dense foliage like the first house they had burgled in Saltdean.

One thing that frustrated the older members of the gang was that the fence Vanessa had arranged, was very picky about what he took from the proceeds and as a result it was just getting harder and harder to give him stuff. The fence was constantly telling Vanessa and Liam who were the only ones to take the stuff to him to bring more, or find stuff for him to sell. It was obvious the guy was ripping them off, although they didn't know why since they took so much to him.

But he was just never satisfied. It made little sense to Harley, especially since he had been so amiable, although she had only Vanessa's word for that, to getting them the bump keys, except that he was greedy. He wanted more from them, and they certainly had a lot of evidence to support that theory given how he was making them go out constantly to steal more and more stuff, only he was barely satisfied with any of it, even though there was more than enough stuff for him to take.

Well, now their little home was getting so full of stuff Harley had no doubt they would have

Harley thought he was just greedy. Liam thought he was just a dickhead. Colleen just thought he was just a meanie. But Harley had a feeling, and she wasn't sure if she was the only one who thought this, but it seemed to her like the fence was determined to make them all work for him. Well, it seemed to be working, but the only problem was why he was making them steal so much and yet not doing anything with any of it?

The stuff…

Harley was worried. None of the group was ignorant of the fact their abandoned shop was not invisible to anyone. People passed it every day, and it wouldn't be a problem for some other kids or even teenagers to break into the place on a dare, and they would likely find their hideout, and everything the gang had stolen for the last few weeks.

In the past, it wasn't much of a problem since homeless kids were used to living in abandoned houses and shops; in their case, their pickpocketing made it simple just to avoid making the place look like an indoor tip.

But now….They had stolen so many things from different houses, they'd had to separate a good half of the house just for their living space while giving the other half over to their stuff.

Harley wondered just how long Vanessa was going to let this fence dictate them like this. The older girl was patient, but she had her limits like everybody else. In any case, she was positive Vanessa and Liam were already trying to find another fence, one who was hopefully much better and fairer than the one they had to put up with. Harley had no idea if that was happening, but she had a feeling it was. Vanessa and Liam didn't like their current living arrangements anymore than Harley or Colleen did themselves, but the older kids hadn't said anything to either of them yet about what was happening about the matter.

Harley shook her head. She would press the matter when dinner came. She had no idea what Vanessa and Liam had in mind tonight, but hopefully they would be so busy eating and making sure their little sister got more than enough to eat herself they would be in the mood to talk.

She was just turning down the street when the sight that caught her eyes made them widen in horror.

There were two police cars and an ambulance in front of the abandoned shop she and the rest of the gang had been using to live in and store everything they had burgled over the last few weeks.

"NO!" Harley's heart leapt in her chest when she saw and heard Colleen's panicked cry.

The little girl was struggling in the hands of a paramedic who was taking the child over to the ambulance.

"Leave my sister alone!" Harley heard Vanessa shout, but whether it did any good…Harley could not tell. She watched from her vantage point as the older girl was being dragged out although she was struggling due to her panic for what was happening to her little sister.

"Colleen!"

"Vanessa!" Harley's heart was breaking as she watched as the younger girl was holding out her hand for her big sister but they were both bundled into the ambulance, but Harley couldn't tell what was happening inside the ambulance. Not from this distance. Liam came out next. He was held by two paramedics, and he was struggling every step of the way.

Harley wanted to rush towards them, to help them, but she didn't dare move. She knew she couldn't head over there and help as much as it pained her.

Her heart sank even more as she watched the police come out with the proceeds from their earlier burglaries. Harley bit her lip and watched as the kids were placed in the ambulance, but Liam tried to get out, or at least to push Colleen away so she could get away, but they were stopped and pushed back in and the doors were closed.

The ambulance drove away, and Harley watched in horror as the only family she'd had, the only people who'd ever accepted her….just left.