Harry Potter: Thinking like a Thief.

When he had been younger, Harry had longed to visit other countries. He had spent so long being trapped inside a prison cell in the shape of a house and a cupboard under the stairs, so it was natural for him to form little fantasies created from the stories of numerous fiction books and travel books where he would visit places like India, Africa, America, Canada, Sweden, France, Japan, China, and Australia. When he had received his Hogwarts letter, it had not taken him long to realise he was exchanging one prison cell for a brand new one.

But it was not like that at first. Oh no, he had possessed high hopes Hogwarts would be the salvation he had hoped for so then he could finally get away from the Dursleys. And it was, at least at first. But over time he had realised Hogwarts was another prison. Not only was Dumbledore the jailer, but he was also the one responsible for locking him up and throwing away the key. The old wizard had excuses spewing out of his mouth, but they sounded hollow in Harry's ears. There were dozens of ways he could be kept safe which did not involve virtual house arrest with being let out into Little Whinging for good behaviour.

That was one of the reasons why he wanted to travel, so then he would never have to look at that godforsaken place again.

As he stood looking at the Hollywood sign on Mount Lee from the balcony of his hotel room, which seemed to be looking down on the city of Los Angeles, Harry thought about his next moves; he had been in America for the last three weeks, and he was coming to enjoy his time so much he truly did not want to return to Britain. He felt more alive here than he had ever been before, not only had he been learning a great deal in this country, picking up new hints of knowledge, but he had also gone into the MACUSA and he had learnt from some of their best minds.

Harry was uncertain if Wizarding Britain had the magical libraries and museums the American wizards had formed in order to preserve their history but also that of the history of other magical countries; he had never heard of any of them despite how proudly the British wizards paraded their history and their so-called pure bloodlines like it was a matter of pride like they expected to be given awards just for gracing the masses with their presence. Here, he was grateful nonetheless for the opportunities to visit museums and libraries. He had two reasons for going to them; the first was to simply see and learn something of magical history, something he was only able to do reading more interesting books from Flourish & Blotts instead of listening to Binns going on and on about goblin rebellions; the second was to see if there was anything preserved in the libraries which could help him in the long-term.

In between his time journeying around the country in both magical and muggle worlds, keeping his head down so whenever he did go out clubbing freely like an ordinary teenager, he did not allow anything magical to fall into the hands of people behind the Dorcus Twelvetrees mess and causing an even bigger mess than before thanks to his stupid Boy Who Lived title which would definitely cause more problems than it was worth, Harry learnt a great deal and he had compiled a large number of lists about spells.

Harry turned away and looked at the maps of the city, and a smile crossed his face.

"Dobby," he said quietly.

The house-elf popped into the hotel room, his large tennis ball-like eyes widening in joy, but Harry held up his hands. "You'd better be quiet, Dobby, this is a muggle hotel, and the last thing I want is to have the hotel staff coming in here to find out what's causing a noise. In any case, I don't want to get into trouble with the MACUSA."

Dobby nodded fervently. "Of course, Harry Potter, sir."

"What's going on in Britain?" It was a good idea to find out what was going on right now before he got down to business with the little elf. Harry had given orders to Dobby and Winky to stay in Britain and observe what was going on with Voldemort and the Ministry. They were not to go anywhere near the unstable Dark Lord - Harry would never want to be in that madman's presence, and there was no chance he would allow his elves to go anywhere near him either - but their jobs were to simply gather as much knowledge as possible, so when he returned he would have some idea of what was going on.

And after being cut off from Dobby and Winky for a couple of weeks, Harry was more than interested in getting some idea of what was happening in his home country, especially with the Americans now more than aware of Voldemort's return.

"He Who Must Not Be Named is still keeping quiet, Harry Potter sir," Dobby sighed, clearly not happy with reporting bad news, but it wasn't unexpected. But the little elf's expression darkened visibly. "The Ministry be still slandering your name, buts they have something in mind. Minister Fudgy be making plans for Hogwarts, but he is sending messages off."

Harry chuckled at Dobby's protectiveness. "I didn't expect anything to change, Dobby," he said quietly, "Fudge isn't renowned for his intelligence. Slandering people in the press is the best thing he could do. Besides, until...You Know Who comes back, openly, Fudge will never admit he's wrong," he added, being very careful to avoid saying Voldemort's name to put the elf at ease.

But at the same time he was wondering what Fudge and some of his cohorts were doing if Fudge was just passing messages around. Then again Dobby's time was stretched between observing the Ministry and if they were taking their fingers out to spy on others, so it would make sense if something was falling through the cracks. The news Fudge was doing that raised a red flag, because he had no idea what the point was.

He had wondered what Fudge had in mind. Slandering people in a newspaper, especially one as tacky as the Daily Prophet was petty, but he would have expected something different.

"What else is the Ministry doing?" Harry asked.

"Minister Fudged is planning on sending one of his lackeys into Hogwarts," Dobby replied.

That did not sound good. "Do you know who or why?"

Dobby shook his head, his large eyes fluttering with the motion. "No Master Harry Potter, sir," the little elf looked upset he hadn't completed that aspect of his mission, and so Harry quickly stopped him from trying to punish himself. One of Harry's standing orders was neither Dobby nor Winky were to punish themselves for any reason whatsoever, regardless of what happened. He did not like punishing people and since he saw house-elves as kindred spirits since he had lived the life of one of them thanks to Dumbledore dumping him on the Dursleys doorstep, while Sirius being the hotheaded idiot he was, had just lost it completely, and forgotten the responsibilities he had. All he asked for from his elves was if they made a mistake, they simply tried harder and that they paid for them.

Winky had come out of her time with the Crouch family relatively unscathed, Dobby was the opposite end of the scale. Sometimes Harry wondered just what the hell the Malfoys had done to him…

"Just keep trying, Dobby. But for tonight, I need your help."

Dobby looked at him attentively and more than with a little excitement. "Are Dobby and Harry Potter sir gonna robs people again?!"

Harry had to stop himself from laughing. Despite Dobby being a house-elf and obligated due to the bond between him and Harry to obey orders, he had rapidly become, for a lack of a better term, intoxicated by the thrill of being a thief. "Not entirely, at least not yet," Harry added quickly when he saw Dobby visibly deflate; honestly he hadn't expected either of his elves to become this enthusiastic about crime. "No, all I want is to look around a few of LA's neighbourhoods, and determine which are the best houses to break into."

Dobby brightened up so much Harry wondered if he would attract planets to be brightened by his visible enthusiasm. "Dobby can do."

Harry chuckled, and he nodded while he stood up, heading for the table and picked up a couple of the maps.

X

When Harry woke up the next morning, he groaned as he rubbed his tired eyes. Thanks to Dobby, Harry had begun exploring the neighbourhoods in Pacific Palisades and Malibu. Afterwards, Harry had had the House elf take him to a gun shop he had found early in his visit to the city. Once inside and once Dobby had made sure every security system the muggles used on the place to make his way around. He had stolen a gun and a few clips of ammunition, and he had made a mental note to try to find a similar weapon in Britain; there were gun clubs, it was possible he could find one and break inside and steal what he needed in order to wage a war on Voldemort.

Harry stepped into the shower, hoping the water would wake him up - the climate and brightness of the sun made the idea of returning to bed, although tempting, impractical - and as he felt the water wash off of him, he mused about his plans.

While movies like Death Wish had been inspirational, strong enough to give him pointers on how to truly fight Voldemort, it was a book detailing the U-Boat campaigns in both World Wars, copied by the Americans during the Pacific War although their victims were the Japanese in order to starve them into submission following the attack on Pearl Harbour which had been the turning point, instead of ships being destroyed carrying food to the British, Harry knew he was dealing with wizards.

But he knew one way of making Voldemort's campaign almost impossible to carry out. He knew thanks to Dobby and Winky's own separate accounts since the two house-elves had been on opposite sides of the war although neither had taken part and neither had they wanted to, Voldemort needed something constantly in order to wage his wars.

Money.

He needed money in order to bribe politicians through his followers into passing laws or buying others off. He needed money to buy businesses and invest in them, legitimate sources of income to fuel his war efforts. And then it had struck Harry, although truthfully the idea was not something he could avoid. What if he plundered all of Voldemort's funds? While he was sure Malfoy and the richer Death Eaters supported Voldemort, providing him with some money, Harry was positive the Dark Wizard had other sources of income in order to avoid becoming dependent on the Death Eaters.

He doubted he'd have much trouble. From what he had learnt from Dobby, the vaults at Gringotts were warded against wizard magic, not house-elf magic.

It made little sense and it was not logical for the Dark Lord to depend on one source. At the same time, he thought about scaring the British wizards who were sympathetic to Voldemort's cause into not joining was to track down and murder every single new recruit. As he considered it, Harry found it incredibly attractive. But the big problem was he hadn't murdered anyone before in his life - Quirrell didn't really count, that had only happened because he had been desperate to get the possessed teacher away from him, but he had never murdered anyone before in his life.

Perhaps he should do what Paul Kersey had done; while it was fictional, Harry knew full well that a mugger would be so assured their mark was completely terrified of them, of what could happen they would hand over whatever money they had on them. If they found someone who could fight back…

The idea was compelling, to say the least. He would have to try it out, he would need to walk the streets, and hopefully find an unwitting victim or two to kill, so by the time he returned to Britain, he would be mentally prepared for the inevitable. As he washed, Harry sighed as he thought a little bit about the scale of tasks he needed to do.

Not for a moment did he imagine Dumbledore doing anything even remotely useful at this point; his initial orders to Dobby and Winky had been easy, to find out what Dumbledore was doing about this new war. And their reports had been far from reassuring; all they seemed willing to do was sit in a manky old house which was so warped by dark magic it was amazing and a miracle the place was still standing, but what they did told him not to count on them saving the day. All they did was talk about the upcoming war. Not once did they talk about anything useful, like setting up an underground railroad for muggle-borns (really, muggle history was fascinating; it was a fountain of good ideas, and he should know since he was using the tactic favoured by the Germans in both world wars to starve their enemies into submission, a tactic adopted by America to prolong the war in the Pacific against Japan beyond the Japanese ability to fight) in order to get them to safety - in fact, nobody brought up muggle-borns or muggles at all.

The Order didn't bother to contact others in their professions and others who could help; the organisation only had a few Aurors and one curse breaker, and that was it, they didn't try to recruit healers, more Aurors, curse-breakers, healers, or unspeakables from the ministry; no useful contacts to get people out of the country, contact other magical races for supportive help, and he felt them trying to get the giants and the werewolves on hand was like putting too many eggs into one basket. Hardly reassuring.

All the Order was populated by were Dumbledore's old friends, and the useless cook in the form of Molly Weasley.

Okay, he could understand Fudge and the Ministry's stupid slanderous lies were throwing up problems, but he wished the Order of the Phoenix came up with better plans. Harry could well understand, even appreciate that in times of war you needed to formulate plans, but Dumbledore's methods were questionable. It seemed like the old wizard only liked the sound of his own voice. Whenever he asked Dobby or Winky to describe the scene, Harry wondered if there was a good reason why the Order had been losing the first time. Their methods were so useless, he had lost faith they could ever take the fighting seriously.

No, if he was going to fight the war, he was going to do it in his own way. He would not be affiliated with the Ministry of Magic - in fact, after this whole mess, he wanted nothing to do with that bunch of idiots who cared purely and primarily for pureblood interests only without giving much thought to anybody else, but most of all, he was not going to get involved with Dumbledore's Order.

The old man had set up an information embargo on him even though he hadn't once bothered to ask for details about what was going on, not when he had the useful Dobby and Winky in his employ, and they were better at spying than most gave house-elves credit for. In any case, he had been looking to form his own spy networks since he had learnt about them, and he had ideas on how to spy on Voldemort and his Death Eaters, but he would need time to think about the best way of doing it. He would finalise his decisions and plans by the time he got home, and only then would he put them into place.

As for Dumbledore... Why would he want to work with Dumbledore?

Anyway, back to Voldemort and the upcoming war… Between the lack of new recruits and his funds drying up, Harry was hopeful that Voldemort would find it harder and harder to prolong the war. Right now he already had Dobby and Winky in Britain, keeping track of everything. He had given the house-elves standing orders to keep an eye out for potential Death Eaters, where they went, where they recruited, and as much information about them as possible. He had no intention of asking them about their progress so far, he would wait until he returned to Britain before he even thought of doing that.

Harry decided to do it tonight.

X

With Dobby's help, Harry got out of the hotel room in Los Angeles, and he had gone to New York; while it might have been seen as prejudicial, he believed that New York, being a more violent city, would have more going for it.

And he was right.

While his house-elf was nearby, Harry walked down the streets of the city, keeping his hand close to the gun in his pocket - close enough to draw, but not close enough to shoot himself in the foot. Harry came to a t-junction (he wondered if it was called that in America, or not, but then he decided he truly did not give a damn), and he went on, but then he heard the sounds of heavy breathing and sounds like somebody was being punched and kicked, and he heard pants, muffled cries of pain...

Harry turned to look, and he almost grinned when he spotted three men punching and kicking somebody right underneath a streetlamp. Harry turned and walked towards them, using his occlumency to keep his emotions locked away in a strongbox. He whistled at the muggers, and they lifted their heads and they spotted him, seeing another victim in the making. With matching grins, they approached - Harry wondered if wild African animals being approached by hungry hyenas since this bunch looked reminiscent of hyenas - taking flick-knives out of their pockets, Harry licked his lips and visibly did his best to appear scared, letting them come closer and closer… and then he took the gun out of his pocket. He quickly aimed and fired the gun at the nearest mugger before aiming it at the second before the man had time to stop him.

Without taking a moment to reflect on how he was feeling when he fired off the two bullets, Harry looked out for the third mugger, who had run off away from the scene. Harry stepped forward and fired again after a moment carefully aiming the muzzle at the mugger's back.

The bullet tore through the man's clothes like a nail being driven home. The mugger staggered back under the pain, but he was still alive, writhing in agony under the force of the shot. Without giving the man any more time to try to recover, Harry pointed the gun at the mugger's head, and he squeezed the trigger.

The gun exploded.

The mugger fell to the ground, dead, still, a massive bloodied hole in his head.

Harry stepped back, finally letting his occlumency barriers down as he beheld the sight before him. He couldn't believe what he had just done. He'd just committed a triple murder at once when he had only planned on killing just one person. It was one thing planning to take this step and even to go this far just to execute one of his plans, and he'd had to slam down his occlumency barriers to ensure he did not get any cold feet and tell Dobby to take him back to the hotel in LA.

But to actually commit murder….

Harry looked around in shock, seeing the muggle the muggers had been beating starting to move. He was, thankfully, on his stomach, and he wasn't looking around, but it looked like he was moving in order to get a better position to stand up. Harry licked his lips, and he quickly hurried away from the scene, and he ran down the streets as fast as he could. He didn't stop until he was near an old truck.

"Dobby, take me back to the hotel," he hissed under his breath.

The house-elf obliged by popping him back to the hotel.

"Thanks, Dobby," Harry interrupted the little creature before he spoke, "go back to Britain and continue gathering information, and don't come to me unless I call you or if something important crops up."

The house-elf nodded, but not before he looked at him with concern before he popped away with a click of his fingers. Harry smiled at the concern he had seen on the little elf's features, but then it faded as he thought about what he had done. His guilt and nausea were dying down now he'd given time to the whole incident in question to come to terms with what he had done.

By now, jungle drums were beating in New York, but thanks to Dobby and the miracle of magic, nobody would suspect him when the hotel staff would confirm he was there in his hotel room the entire time. In any case, how would he be considered a suspect in the first place, when he was thousands of miles away from the crime scene?

That was one of the more practical reasons why Harry had even gone to New York in the first place, so then he would not be considered a suspect by the police. And yet he hadn't considered how he would feel in the aftermath. While the murder of the three muggers was now hanging over his head, somehow more…. important, more poignant than Quirrell's death had been or even the basilisk's, Harry could feel nothing but a supreme satisfaction fill him at having fulfilled one of his aims even if it made him sick that it had to be murder.

He did not like killing people, but unlike soft people like Dumbledore of Hermione, Harry could see where it was necessary to kill.

And he could and would do it again.

Author's note - I have always been fascinated with the submarine warfare of both World Wars, and how the Shinobi of Ancient Japan worked on their tactics to confuse and spy on the enemy. In later chapters, Harry will definitely put those plans into place. In the meantime, enjoy.