I don't own Harry Potter, I do own the stories I've published. I am sorry it's taken so long to update this particular story but I am hoping to update it more frequently.
Enjoy. Please let me know what you think.
Harry Potter: the Spider-Man Burglar.
As he stood in his mother's flat while he sipped some of his tea, Harry had the time to reflect on the last seven months he had been living in the city while he had kept his head down. He was pleased he had his priorities straightened out after the murder of the Dursleys, and he was enjoying his time now he was freed from the monotony of life on Privet Drive. Sure, the school had its ups and downs, but now everyone knew he could defend himself without needing the teachers although they didn't realise he would rather cut off a finger with a rusty chainsaw that go anywhere near a teacher everyone was leaving him alone besides the small group he'd more or less befriended.
While he still considered himself a loner and he doubted very much if that would stop, Harry had been amazed by how much he liked friendship even if it wasn't the type of close-knit friendships he had seen and heard of over the years. Despite everything Dudley and the gang inflicted on him, Harry did like human interaction as long as he was allowed to still have his own personal space. He didn't go around their homes, and they never came around here as well; you'd need to be blind to see only one person was living here, and to make doubly sure he had erected some rather basic wards so then nobody could come into the flat. They would question it later, but that was not his problem, really.
At the same time, things were definitely looking up. He was getting better at ninjutsu and he had recently entered a muay Thai class; to say it was heavy, intensive work was an understatement, and more than once Harry had wondered if he would be able to get back home and sleep off the pain of the work. While ninjutsu was good, it didn't really feel like he was doing anything; he wanted a martial art skill where he was capable of fighting back, so if he ever got into a fight he would have the strength and the knowledge of how to fight back. He never wanted to be hopeless in front of someone like Dudley ever again.
He might be a wizard, but as the times the gang had managed to catch up with him before he had learnt how to use his magic on a basic level had proven, he could not rely on his powers all the time. He needed to be prepared for anything. In any case, what if something happened to his magic along the way and he didn't have it anymore? Harry needed to learn how to survive and how to live, but more importantly, he needed to learn how to fight back in case anybody attacked him.
He still had a few years to go before he entered Hogwarts and by the time he did enter the castle, he wanted to be proficient in martial arts enough to hold his own. Harry wasn't stupid, he was realistic enough to know it would take time for him to become a true expert in muay thai and ninjutsu, but even a novice could be a formidable fighter. Harry wasn't a gifted muay thai fighter although he had no doubt if Dudley joined a boxing club, he would become a champion, although how much of it would be talent or experience, he neither knew nor cared. Still, despite not being talented, Harry was still driven to succeed and that was all that mattered although he hoped to steer as far from any event.
He didn't know how many of Vernon's friends or even Dudley's friends followed Muay Thai although he had never heard of them expressing such interest that was mostly because he had done his best to avoid them as much as possible, but the fewer people who knew him from Privet Drive and Little Whinging, the better. He had been wary about going to the school in case that bitch of a teacher who'd been told lies about him by Petunia herself was there, but luckily she wasn't; it had still been an even chance, though.
So far he had been lucky he knew nobody in the city. Sure, he didn't know how many times a year Marge came to London, but she was unlikely to spot him here, and besides, he always took great care whenever he went out. In the meantime Harry felt he had done well for himself in setting up shop here; he had a new school, a new flat, he was learning new skills and had found new interests in art and photography in order to broaden his mind so it didn't go as doughy as Dudley's, he was learning the martial arts so he could strengthen and toughen himself up while he prepared himself for the inevitable Hogwarts letter, and he was learning more about the limitations of his spider-crawling abilities now he'd found a place which offered more scope for practice than Little Whinging.
Harry sipped from his tea thoughtfully; because he'd had more than enough money for the last seven months and thanks to his Gringott's account and his mother's savings in the non-magical world, he hadn't needed to commit any burglaries. He'd been more focused on exploring his new home, taking small trips into the city so he could familiarise himself with the geography of London, at the same time enjoying the sights being in a whole new place which had been denied him by long years of hell by the Dursleys. He had visited the Science Museum, the Natural History Museum, the London Underground (he was thinking of trying to break the record of visiting every station in the shortest possible time that he had heard of), the market of Covent Garden and he was thinking of visiting a theatre at some point, see what happened….
As a result, burglary had been on the back of his mind, but right now all he wanted was to get back in the game and keep his skills sharp as he did. And he had a nice couple of targets, and as he looked out of the window of his flat he could see the block of flats only a mile away. Using high-powered German binoculars he could tell the flats had balconies as well as good windows. It wouldn't take much for him to use his magic to scale the walls and open the windows. In any case, he had already visited the place before.
A few nights ago he had scaled the walls of the block to study it. The people in the flats weren't likely to be rich, but that didn't make any difference for Harry. He was going to take small amounts of cash out of the place, besides after he'd scaled the walls the last time he knew precisely which windows in the various flats to avoid.
Harry took another sip of his tea, going over the plan for tonight. He didn't have any martial arts classes for this evening or anything else, but that was okay since he didn't feel he would need an alibi. He would use his magic to head there undetected late after a brief nap so when he actually carried out the burglaries he would be half rested and not on the point of falling asleep, and once he was at the block of flats he would simply scale the walls. Again, Harry would use his magic to unlock the windows and he would climb inside the flats while making sure the families were asleep and nothing was in the way. Sure, Harry could have simply stayed stuck to the wall outside and used his magic to summon some of the money into his hand and then moving on, but he didn't want to.
While he had practiced his spider-crawling power, Harry did not want to divert half of his attention away from the wall and the other half to the job. Sure, it would mean he'd get the burglaries done in a short possible time if he just stayed outside and let the magic do the work for him, but he actually enjoyed going through other people's properties. He really loved seeing the different things people had in their homes, and he loved the power he had just going into their homes and touching them.
Harry finished his tea and checked the clock he'd put up when he'd first arrived. It was half three. He had bags of time, and he was already nervous.
X
As he scaled the wall of the block, Harry was breathing slowly through the balaclava he was wearing while he slowly went up the wall. Outside each window he had left behind a sticker which he stuck to the side of the frames so then the homeowners wouldn't see them and nobody on the other side would see them either.
Red was for this place has dogs. Avoid at all costs.
Yellow was for this place has cats and dogs. Don't go in.
Green was for the places where this flat doesn't have any kind of animal. You can come in.
He had run out of so many stickers it was not funny, but the number of people without pets more than made up for them. As he came across another window frame, he stopped and reached into his pocket for his small torch. Green.
Sighing with relief, Harry got to work. He ran his hand down the window and used his magic to manipulate the lock to open it, at the same time he sent some of his magic into the flat to make everyone sleep a little more deeply. Once he was done, Harry had no problems opening the window and going inside, using his torch to look around.
The flat was fairly well decorated although it was a tip with the number of magazines littering the coffee table until he didn't know where the real surface of the table was. There was a strong musk of perfume and nail varnish, and as he looked over the magazines with his torch he saw many of them were beauty and gossip magazines.
Harry ignored them and he walked around the flat until he found the bedrooms. There were two and they were both occupied. In one of the bedrooms was a teenage girl with long brunette hair. She looked pretty although he couldn't see all of her face. He stood in the middle of her bedroom and summoned whatever cash was in there. It flew into the small bag he was carrying. Once he had it, Harry walked out and checked the main bedroom and found two people there, a man and a woman who both shared traits with their daughter. As before he summoned the money in the room, along with whatever jewellery was in there, although he left anything that was sentimental. As the drawers opened and rolls of money came towards him after a few moments of shuffling before they came out, Harry chuckled to himself. It never failed to amaze him how many times he had seen this, but some people had some bizarre places to hide money.
Once he was finished, Harry left the flat and moved on to the next one. And then the next. And then the next.
X
Harry was grateful he had chosen to commit the burglary on Saturday night. Not only was it not a school night but he'd had nothing on for that evening, and although he had worked late he still managed to get out of the flat and jog around the neighbourhood in order to keep up appearances despite how tired he was. There was no way he could have functioned properly had he done this before Monday.
Still, Harry had no intention of doing anything other than sleep off the long night - he would need to choose and plan his burglaries carefully for the next time instead of going through a whole block of flats. His nap might have helped him stay alert, but the use of so much of his magic had tired him out, hence the reason why he refused to burgle so many places at once.
He'd just finished off with a nice hot shower and he was just preparing a nice breakfast of bacon, eggs, and sausages when he tuned in to the local news.
"….so, you actually saw this burglar?" The DJ asked, but Harry didn't pay them any attention even if he had heard this DJ many times before as one of the local ones.
"Yes, that's right," another man said. "I was looking out at the sky when I caught sight of a flash of light inside a flat. And then I saw this burglar come out, and he stuck to the wall."
Harry stopped and turned to the radio in shock. What? He thought to himself.
"What, like Spider-Man?"
"That's right. I saw him scale the walls, and I've taken pictures. I'm an astronomer and an artist, and while the light pollution of the city makes stargazing hard sometimes, it does create incredible effects. But I wasn't expecting to see a burglar go through a whole block of flats."
"A whole block!? You mean this guy went through every single flat?"
"Yes, well no. He seemed to be avoiding some of the flats. I watched him as he went about his business, taking photographs. He would avoid some of the flats like there was something or someone in them he wanted to avoid, and then he was somehow able to open the windows. I dunno how. But I was shocked by how agile he was, scaling the walls."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, he didn't seem to have any kind of gear on him which would suggest he was using suction cups or anything like that. I dunno. Maybe he'd found a different kind of suction cup…"
"Why didn't you phone the police?" This time a woman's voice came on the air.
"At the time I was too shocked to do anything like that," the man who'd seen him went on, although there was a nervous undertone to his voice which told Harry this man had been too scared to do anything, never mind being shocked. "All I could do was watch and take pictures. By the time I got home, I immediately began developing them, and I took them round to the police, just as the reports of burglaries came in."
Nice way to cover yourself, dickhead, Harry thought to himself while he turned the radio off, deciding he couldn't bear to hear any more from it. In any case, his mind was racing as he tried to think about what he was going to do. This was a disaster. He had been seen. He had been seen committing burglaries. He had been seen scaling walls. He had been seen opening the windows without any kind of tool. He had been seen moving from one flat to the next. Photographs had been taken of him committing the burglaries.
This was a disaster.
Harry rubbed his face, just as he smelt burning. He yelped in horror when the frying pan almost caught fire, but he managed to take the pan off of the hob and he examined his food. The only thing to have suffered was the egg, but that was okay while the sausages and the bacon were okay. He prepared to cook another couple of eggs, opening one of the kitchen windows to vent the place and get rid of the stench of burning, and after a few minutes, he was tucking into his almost burnt fry up, drinking simple juice. The combination did wonders to calm him down and think rationally again.
As he cut some sausage and forked it into his mouth for him to chew, Harry had the chance to think about what was happening. He knew right now the police were investigating the break-ins, and they would be going over the flats carefully to figure out how he'd managed to unlock the windows. That was the worrying thing, but in the long-term, they wouldn't be able to pin it down to him. Why would they suspect him? If they did, he'd wheel out…himself, his older disguise and the police would never be able to break the alibi. And besides, he never went to that neighbourhood, so why would they question him?
What he was worried about was if this had happened once it could very well happen again. This was a prime reason why he should really never burgle more than one person. Harry finished off his breakfast, and he leaned back to think, but his mind was numbed by residual panic and worry about the future. Harry rubbed his face, and he stood up. He was too shattered to do anything but go back to bed. Picking up his plate, Harry put it in the sink, and he began cleaning the kitchen. Once he was finished, Harry went back to bed. He didn't want to do anything just yet while he mentally thought back about everything he had done on that night.
As far as he was aware he hadn't left any physical evidence behind, and from what he had learnt so far about burglaries, the police rarely gave the victims much attention besides a number for the insurance policies and half-hearted assurance they would find their missing goods. It wasn't going to happen, of course.
But before he went back to bed, Harry made a mental note to keep his head down and just relax as best as he could while he tried to keep everything normal. He didn't think for a moment the police would find anything pointing specifically at him although he had learnt one thing.
Just burgle one person at a time.