Disclaimer - I am so sorry for the long wait. I am bringing in newer stories to other fandoms, and I needed to concentrate on them. I am hoping this Christmas Special will be a delight. Enjoy, and let me know what you think.

Harry Potter: The Spider-Man Burglar.

Really not a Puppet of Albus Dumbledore.

"Hold it," Harry called out to the bus as he ran.

"Wait!" Sandra yelled from behind.

It might've been a combination of the pair of them calling/yelling at once, or if the bus driver had taken one good look at the traffic ahead of him, and realised that a quick wait might be what was needed, or if he decided that he hadn't met his quota of passengers at the stop, so he opened the doors either way to let Harry and Sandra on board.

Neither of them would know why the bus stopped, but the bus driver was clearly more patient than others. Harry grinned at Sandra, although it was edgy. Sandra was worried for her friend, and longtime pickpocketing partner; Harry had been increasingly edgy, impatient, and broody for the last few months, and she didn't know why.

"We're in, Sandra," Harry said in a whisper before he stepped on board the bus.

"Where to?" The bus conductor asked, noting their school uniforms with a frown. But he didn't say a word, guessing they were bunking off class but not really caring. You only lived once, after all.

"Just a few stops along, please," Sandra smiled at the conductor. "We wanted to avoid a really long, boring walk. It might do us good, but we need to get somewhere quick."

The bus conductor knew he shouldn't, but he nodded and he took the cash and gave the two pickpockets their tickets. "Thanks," Harry nodded.

"Thank you," Sandra copied her friend, and they both moved off into the bus, hiding their delight when they saw just how packed the place was. The bus was crammed with people, making it look like a sardine tin packed in with oily fish, and it was a great view of public transport. For a pair of thieves, this was a bonus for them. With so many people packed in tightly, it would be easy for them to go through the bus and pickpockets.

Harry shared a look with Sandra. The pair of them had worked together for a long time, ever since Harry had left Privet Drive after murdering the Dursleys, and Sandra and he had worked together many times in the past. Sandra had always been a pickpocket more than a burglar, but in many ways, Harry favoured this type of theft. Sometimes burglary, robbery, or a mix of the two became too boring.

In the end, the pair of them decided to remain downstairs, where they would find the wallets and purses, using the bodies of their victims to hide what they were doing.

Sandra spotted a tall man with a wallet in his back pocket. She walked past him, glancing around shifting her bag around while she deftly plucked it out of the pocket, and with practiced ease, she put it in her coat pocket. In the meantime Harry was standing close to a man who was holding a newspaper to his face, shielding his eyes so he didn't know the boy was there. Harry had been pickpocketing people long enough, as long as he had been committing burglaries and robberies, and he had seen businesspeople who were so out of it, so unaware of how the world worked, holding newspapers to their faces. They were dying to be robbed, they really were. A quick glance showed him that this guy was not the only one, but Sandra had noticed them quickly, and she moved in for the kill herself. But he had his own mark, and Harry checked him out closely, and he spotted the man's wallet in the inner jacket pocket. Harry looked forwards briefly, hoping that the bus would - fantastic! The bus had to stop to let a lorry move, and the driver had needed to brake a little sharply. That gave Harry the means to pull the wallet out and put it somewhere safe.

The businessman didn't notice anything. Really, some people really needed to learn some lessons if they wanted to stay safe.

Harry moved on, spotting a purse in a bag nearby. Its owner was looking rather broody, bored out of her skull. Harry moved forwards, taking advantage of yet another jolt before he came away, the purse in his hand. Between the pair of them, Harry and Sandra had both pulled about 5-6 purses and wallets between them.

Harry patted Sandra on the shoulder. "I think we should get off here," he told her before he touched her, to let her know she was there. She had been pulling out a wallet and he had seen what she was doing, and he didn't want to give her away.

Sandra nodded, knowing the longer they were both on the bus, the easier it would be for the passengers to realise what had just happened. They had only been on the bus for about 5 minutes and they'd done quite well for themselves. Harry pressed the bell, and the two of them nodded their thanks for a journey from the conductor.

"I wonder how long it will take for them to realise what's happened," Harry said to her as they got a fair distance away from the bus, as it pulled away from the curb.

"Who cares?"

"I don't."

Sandra sent him a look. "I hear there's gonna be a party tonight. Plenty of wallets and purses," she added when they passed a small crowd of people, adding the last bit as an incentive, but also because she didn't want them to overhear.

Harry mulled it over in his head. "Okay, sure. Is it just us?"

"No. I've heard Tom, Nick, Stephanie, Peter and Penny, Rock, Joaquin, and Charley will be there," Sandra said.

Harry chuckled at the thought of meeting some of his old friends. He hadn't seen some of them for a long time. It would be a great thing to see them again.

When Harry had left the Dursleys, he had been trying to survive using simple burglaries; London was a totally different place from Little Whinging, giving him a greater amount of cover, more far greater possibilities than Surrey had ever provided for him in the past. It was 5 months after he had gotten into London while he was trying to find his feet and hopefully find a way of getting into school under an assumed name that he met Sandra, Charley, Peter and the others. It was more accurate to say that they were the ones to meet him. They had spotted him attempting to pick someone's pocket, but they had seen his technique as bad, so they'd stepped in before his mark even knew what was happening, or that he was even there.

Since then they taught him how to steal. As luck would have it, or that good fortune smiled on him - he wasn't sure if such a thing existed, even if he was a wizard, but on that day it did - they told him they were living in a foster home. It was being run by a married couple of burglars who'd long since retired from their life, and they had turned the foster home they ran into a kind of thief school. What they did was they got the police, who didn't likely know who they were really, or they would never allow it, to give them some children who'd shown signs of stealing. Pickpocketing, shoplifting, things like that.

Social services gave them kids who came from broken homes and who'd been abandoned in hospitals, shops, public places and they taught those kids how to steal when they were old enough to understand the old adage known to thieves and pranksters; Don't Get Caught!

They had accepted Harry into their midst very quickly. They had shown Harry more about burglary and pickpocketing and depending on the age, they allowed thieves out of the home and go on their own. That was one of the reasons why Harry had his own place, thanks to Gringotts. Nobody else knew about it.

"Okay, I'll be there," Harry smiled at Sandra, knowing that not only would the night go a long way into making him forget about his concerns about going to Hogwarts, but it had the potential to be profitable.

X

As the weeks passed and the time until his eleventh birthday grew closer and closer, Harry became even tenser. He was spending much of his time between the foster home so he could hang around his friends, or he would be with friends from gangs around the city, or he would merely go around the city and have fun. The beauty about a city the size of London was there was always something to have fun about, and Harry knew it.

Harry looked at the birthday cake he had cooked for himself, nodding and clapping his hands gently as he took in the chocolate icing on the cake. He'd already asked the foster home for an early birthday party because he had no idea when the Hogwarts guide would arrive.

Part of his decision was because he hadn't received his Hogwarts letter, he really hadn't received a single letter telling him about the school. And that worried him. From what he'd been able to fathom and what the goblins had told him about the castle, the school would send the prospective student a letter on the eve of their eleventh birthday, and in the case of a muggle-born student (he…was not sure about the name the magical world held for non-magical people, it sounded a little bit insulting to him).

They were planning something.

He didn't know what it was, but he had told them that he wanted to be on his own for this upcoming birthday bash. In truth, he wanted to keep them safe.

Harry had no reason to like or even to trust Hogwarts, especially when it was led by a man and a woman who'd conspired to see him die, along with some of their mates. He wasn't going to expose his friends to them when he didn't have an easy way to defend them.

Shrugging his shoulders, Harry lit up the eleven birthday candles on the cake, smiling as he got closer to the eleventh. If he hadn't discovered the truth and the existence of magic, and if he hadn't gone to Gringotts and killed the Dursleys, then he would not be alive now. If he hadn't visited the goblins or questioned Mrs Figg about Dumbledore's game and how he planned on fighting and winning a war by sacrificing a kid rather than doing something constructive, then he would be on the road to dying now. But at the same time, he knew that his life would change forever. In a few minutes, his life would change forever.

It had changed the moment he had discovered the magical world, and when he had learnt how to scale walls by sticking to them with his magical hands, and when he'd bought books on magical arts, such as runes and he had been practicing them secretly without anyone knowing about them or when he was involved with his burglaries.

Whether that change was going to be good, or if it was going to be bad, he didn't know.

"Make a wish," Harry whispered to himself, holding onto the runic ring he had made for himself to protect himself from any mind-controlling spells or memory erasure charms.

He blew out the candles -

-THUMP!

Harry jumped out of his skin, yelping with shock as he heard someone or something thudding the front door. "Who's there?" He yelled.

THUMP!

THUMP!

THUMP!

Harry's eyes widened when he saw the damage to the door of his home. He had assumed the wizard or witch who was going to be sent to his home would be more subtle than this, especially after the way the Order of the Phoenix had been manipulating events from behind the scenes from what Figg had told him when he confronted her. But whoever was on the other side of the door sounded like a giant slamming themselves against the wood.

And it made him angry.

He had put in a lot of effort to make his home a nice, comfy, cosy place to live in, and now someone was trying to destroy it with the subtlety of a stampede of elephants and rhinoceroses on the African plains.

Harry rushed to the door and threw it open. And he stopped when he took in the massive figure that loomed up, up, up and UP. "Oh, my god!" He muttered, wondering how the hell this figure had appeared outside without him noticing it.

The giant didn't appear to have heard him. "Sorry 'bout that," he spoke in a warm voice that spoke of a kindly soul, but the accent reminded Harry of a northern accent.

The giant's reply reminded Harry of what the guy had nearly done. He took a look at the door and he groaned as he took in the amount of damage that had been done to it. "Did you have to bang the door so hard?" He asked.

"I wa' knockin-!"

"I hope you haven't damaged the door too badly. Do you know how long it took me to make this place comfortable? Now come on in, and try not to damage much else," Harry walked backwards to give the huge figure space to walk in, and he glanced at the door, wishing he had included a way of repairing the door should a living battering ram crashed into it.

The giant looked around the front room of Harry's townhouse with surprise. "Y'live here by yourself, Harry?"

"How do you know my name, and what's your name?" Harry asked with genuine suspicion; while he knew this guy was from the wizarding world, he didn't know him and he'd learnt to be careful.

"M'name's Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts, but of course, you'd know about Hogwarts?" Hagrid smiled at him. "I don't suppose you've got any tea, by any chance? It's been a long journey for me."

"Err, you've just half-demolished my door, told me about a place as if I knew about what it was, and then you ask for some tea?" Harry stared at Hagrid as if he was a gigantic idiot. "What's Hogwarts? How am I meant to know about that?"

Hagrid stared at him in shock. "But…surely the Dursleys told ya about yer parents, and where they learnt it all? Hang about, are they 'ere, the Dursleys, I mean?"

Oh lord, an idiot who thought the Dursleys were lovely people who would sit him down and tell him about his magical past. Well, the idiot was in for a shock. Harry had no intention of telling Hagrid about how he had discovered the secrets of the Dursleys, it would lead to too much of an outcry that would inevitably lead to his arrest and conviction for murder and multiple counts of theft, and compelling muggles to do things they wouldn't like to do.

"Why would the Dursleys tell me anything? In fact, what've they got to do with everything? They're not here, they died a few years ago. I had been out of the house, and somebody whom Vernon owed money to came in and killed them," Harry was pleased that he knew the story he had given was half true. He had gone back to Little Whinging last year, and thanks to his criminal connections it hadn't been hard for him to discover that Vernon Dursley had not exactly been the paragon of law and virtue.

He had been a criminal himself, and it was ironic the fat bastard had often called Harry himself a criminal when he would become one, but Vernon was one himself. Vernon was more of a fraudster than a thief, embezzling money from his own stupid drill company, but he was smart enough to keep much of it a secret. At the same time, he also laundered money from his criminal friends, but he never took anything for himself knowing they would kill him and his family. It was the only true virtue Vernon Dursley possessed.

"Wha?" Hagrid gaped at him in surprise. "But they were your family!"

Harry snorted. "No, they weren't. Family do not beat or abuse their own unless they're sick in the head."

Harry didn't expect the giant figure to believe a single word that he said just then.

"Nah!" Hagrid shook his head, denial radiating off of him in waves. "Nah, Professor Dumbledore assured us you would be well-cared for-."

"And how would he know, Hagrid?" Harry asked sharply. "I never saw any kind of wizard, and besides how do I know you aren't part of some sick joke? How do I even know magic exists or not?"

Hagrid blinked in surprise. Clearly, he had believed that Harry would simply take the news about being a wizard and just accept it without question. Well, he thought wrong. And he voiced his thoughts. "But, I thought the Dursleys would have told ya 'bout magic, Harry-."

"They didn't. How much do you and others like this Dumbledore know about the Dursleys, because I can tell you what you think you knew and what was actually the truth, are completely different things?" Harry asked sharply.

"Well, Professor Dumbledore said they was your family," Hagrid said, "they were your mother's family."

Harry already knew about that of course, but he wasn't going to let Hagrid know about that. "Were they? Well, it makes me wonder if my mother was the better one of the family because Petunia Dursley was a bitch."

"Harry! That's no way to talk 'bout your aunt!" Hagrid protested.

"Oh, she was, and stop defending them; it's clear to me you never knew anything about them," Harry Potter, looking very aggressive for an eleven-year-old boy, and Hagrid was transfixed by the almost unholy green glow from the boy's eyes. "The Dursleys were scum. They hated magic and hated anything that was even remotely abnormal, and they took their anger out on ME!"

As he took a deep breath Harry snorted in disgust when he saw the disbelief in Hagrid's eyes. The overlarge fuck was not listening to him, he didn't believe him, and he had the feeling that he was wasting his time with the British magical world. Suddenly he had the feeling that he had made a terrible mistake in telling Hagrid about his past, or a brief view of it at any rate. There was a strong likelihood Hagrid would try to take him somewhere different now the Dursleys were dead. Harry now felt killing the Dursleys had been the best decision he had made for himself, but it would likely lead to future problems.

"Alright, what's so special about me and my parents?" Harry asked, making a visible effort to calm himself down; talking about the Dursleys always annoyed him.

"Oh, er, right, well yer a wizard, Harry!" Hagrid said.

"I'm a what?" Harry gasped theatrically.

Hagrid fell for it, hook line and sinker. "A wizard, and a thumpin' good 'un, I'll wager!"

As Hagrid went on while Harry mined him for every single shred of knowledge about Hogwarts and everything special about the school, Harry kept his true emotions underneath a tight mask. Thanks to the goblins he had a rather basic knowledge of the mind arts which had helped him achieve a great deal when it came to wandless based magic, but it also helped him control his expression.

Oh, I will learn magic alright, but not with you fuckers who've tried to rule my life!

X

Professor Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, was sitting in his office going over the paperwork for the upcoming school year. Thanks to his occlumency proficiency, Dumbledore was able to use only a small amount of his mind to work on the paperwork problems - it was the usual no matter how many times he had done this in the past; students who were not going to attend Hogwarts, older students whose parents had decided the tuition fees were just too high and beyond their ability to pay, parents who felt Hogwarts tuition was just not up to scratch besides the school's propaganda being the greatest magical school in the world, concerns from mudblood parents and many more issues.

Dumbledore was able to focus on the problem in front of him with only a small half of his mind, but the biggest matter for him to really focus on was the matter of Harry Potter and Sirius Black.

The brutal murders of the Dursleys had sent shockwaves through the Order of the Phoenix who had known and supported his plans for the boy, knowing that he needed to die at Voldemort's hands. But the sudden pandemic of purebloods and occasional half-bloods who had been marked by Voldemort who'd lost their powers, and the revelation of Peter Pettigrew who'd been Percy Weasley's pet 'rat' had resulted in a massive outcry, since it revealed Sirius Black was innocent.

Sirius had discovered his godson had disappeared from the Dursleys, resulting in a massive headache for Dumbledore, but the idiot had fled before any of the Order could actually deal with him. Where Sirius was, Dumbledore didn't know but he needed to discover the fools' whereabouts and fast before he could do any damage. He had no idea what had happened to the Death Eaters, but he was convinced it was a plan of Voldemort's to keep his pathetic hold on life, for a little longer.

But why would he drain their magic in the first place?

Why would he drain all of their magic at all? Tom Riddle's motives and actions were sometimes confusing and hard to figure out at the best of times, but Dumbledore could see the usually independent dark wizard sacrificing his servants to keep himself going, but what would be the long term result?

Dumbledore cleared his mind. All this thought about Voldemort and his mindset was enough to twist his thoughts around and around until he didn't know what had started it off in the first place. He turned his mind to thinking about his weapon.

Harry Potter.

The so-called Boy who Lived. To this day Dumbledore snorted at the moniker the brat who had proven to be incredibly elusive after he had escaped from Privet Drive. A more successful escape. That only came about when the Dursleys had died. Dumbledore had ensured Harry had been tied into the Dursleys through a series of tracking charms into a loop connected between him and his aunt, but it wasn't until they were murdered that the tracking charms were collapsed, allowing him to escape. Dumbledore had his suspicions about that murder; it had worked out too well for Harry. Well, he would ensure the boy was properly questioned.

While Dumbledore was reflecting on his plans - the Philosopher's Stone traps were in the final stages of being prepared, and he hoped the traps went well. It had been a fight and a half getting the teachers to cooperate with him, with only Minerva who understood his long-term plans being the only one to properly support and go along with his plans - he was shaken from his thoughts and concentration to the tasks at hand by the overly loud banging from outside.

Quickly Dumbledore checked the mirror outside his office and he grumbled in irritation when he saw the brainless half-giant freak Hagrid outside his office. Really the fool needed to learn to be less aggressive.

Flicking his wand Dumbledore unlocked the door to his office, thankful for the school's protection scheme on the door which stopped Hagrid from knocking his door down, and he put on his grandfatherly facade. It fooled Hagrid instantly, but the moment he saw the half-giant, he knew something was wrong.

"Hagrid, what is it?"

"I dunno how he'd done it, Professor Dumbledore, sir!" Hagrid babbled. "Bu' Arry, e's gone!"

"Gone? Gone where?" Dumbledore demanded, leaping to his feet so fast that the chair he was sitting on fell over.

"We were in Gringott's sir when one of the goblins told me 'Arry won't be coming out, that he's made alternative plans!"

"How did that happen?" Why couldn't this filthy half breed come to the point?

"Well, we were in Gringotts, but 'Arry was furious when I revealed his vault key, despite me telling him you had kept it for safekeeping. Well, the goblins took him away and shooed me outta the bank!"

Dumbledore had to fight to control his rage, not only at the goblins and at Harry, but most of all he was furious with Hagrid for letting this spiral out of control. He should have sent Minerva, she alone would have been more tactful. "Hagrid," he sighed while he tried - valiantly - to keep his temper under control while he tried to get the full facts, "when you revealed to Harry you had the key to the vault, did you tell him you even had it or did you reveal it to him without preparing him for the news?"

Hagrid looked….lost. Dumbledore sighed.

At that moment, an owl appeared with a letter bearing the seal of Gringotts. The owl dropped the letter and flew out, clearly, it had been told not to bother hanging around. Dumbledore didn't care; he hated dealing with those little shits.

He opened the letter with a sense of foreboding - this was no coincidence, he believed, after the news he had. The words that greeted his eyes made them widen in horror. When he neared the end of the letter, the elderly and very arrogant old wizard had to go back over the letter again to make sure he hadn't suddenly dropped into a parallel world. That was the only explanation-

No, what he'd read was correct. Harry Potter had been withdrawn from Hogwarts, and to make matters worse he had full control over his vaults and he would be attending a different school.

His weapon!

NOOOO!

Hagrid ran out of the office, terrified when Dumbledore whipped out his wand and he started destroying his office.

X

Ilvermorny was a nice school, and while the American magical school wasn't really easy to get to without magic it didn't pose much of a problem for Harry, especially since his godfather had helped him get away from Britain for his magical education.

Harry had found out about Sirius Black a while ago, around the time he had killed the Dursleys and they had kept in touch but Harry had wanted his godfather to get healed from his time in Azkaban. He had told Sirius about everything that he had discovered and what he had done, and while Sirius was horrified that his godson had become a thief (Harry conveniently left out the part about his part in the Dursley's deaths), he was even more horrified by how his only other friend had conspired to snatch Harry's life and future before he even knew it was there.

Sirius was more than happy to take control and he had given permission to let Harry attend Ilvermorny, freed from Dumbledore's influences, but Harry and he had spent a year in secret trying to find a way to get rid of Dumbledore and reveal his crimes to the world. The answer was a spell from the Black family library. In a few years time, the spell would kick in and everyone would know what Dumbledore was really like.

Harry cleared his mind when the professor escorted him and his soon-to-be year mates arrived. It was time to be sorted, and he wondered which of the Ilvermorny houses he would be sorted into. He had chosen this particular school because he had wanted to be taught magic from a different perspective, and the rankings of the school were far superior to Hogwarts but while there were other schools, he didn't want to suddenly get his mind awash with new languages so soon despite knowing with magic it was possible.

He wondered if he would be in Thunderbird. Better than one of the Hogwarts houses.