Harry Potter: Thinking like a Thief.

As he walked up the stairs to the Gryffindor common room and trying hard to stop himself sneering in disdain at the first years who were sending him scared looks although a few of them had sent him a few curious looks, Harry merely wanted to read his book and check-in with Dobby and Winky about what was happening in the magical world after the pamphlets had been dropped on them. It had only been a few hours, but Harry knew a lot could happen in a few minutes; in any case, with how reactionary the magical world was, he didn't doubt for a moment the idiot wizards in Britain were going mad with the surprise of pamphlets which had appeared out of nowhere, but what he was truly hoping for was a number of people were now looking at the Death Eaters, and seeing they were not the innocent people they pretended to be. And while he was at it he wanted to get some clues as to the past of the new DADA teacher.

Harry tried not to judge people based on their appearances, or even the sounds of their voice - in the muggle world when he was growing up, although now he was positive about the reason now he had a good theory, he had trusted muggle teachers and authority figures to help him get away from the Dursleys, only for them to suddenly either forget or believe the whole thing was a misunderstanding, so he had gained a healthy dislike and distrust of authority figures which sadly hadn't changed one little bit during his time in the magical world - but Professor Dolores Umbridge had rubbed him the wrong way. And Harry didn't know how or even why.

There was just something about the woman with her hideous appearance which made her look like a toad, her mousy hair and her disgusting pink clothes, as well as her weird girly simpering voice that grated on his nerves which made him despise her. The moment he had heard her give that speech, Harry had to hand it to her, she knew how to insult the students by talking about them as if they were in a nursery not a magical boarding school, he had gained insight into what she was doing here.

Umbridge was a Fudge stooge, he knew that thanks to vague memories of reading about her in the Prophet, and she was here to spy on the castle. Really, while Umbridge's speech was carefully scripted to make her sound very much like a mature, lovely, wonderful person, it hadn't been difficult for him to read between the lines and realise what she was doing here. And he could tell it was all a facade. She really needed lessons if she wanted to carry off the belief everyone would see her as nice. Yeah, right, and Harry's mother was a clone of Petunia… on second thought, perhaps it was a good thing that never happened.

But he had noted while he had been waiting for her to finish her speech the woman had been looking up and down the Gryffindor house table for somebody, and Harry had not been truly surprised when he saw her eyes narrow on him and he had known this year was not going to be good for him. That was the last thing he needed considering this was the year the OWLs were going to be hosted for his year.

Well, considering how everyone believed he was a lunatic for announcing Voldemort's return for all to hear, Harry couldn't say he was too surprised somebody was here from the Ministry to shut him up.

He would keep watch on her, and he would try to keep his cool. Fudge had likely ordered her to provoke him every chance she got, so he would have to be careful.

He had just reached his bed, and he was in the process of grabbing his dressing gown and nightclothes out of his trunk when a blur in his peripheral vision dropped onto his bed, unwanted and unbidden.

A blur with a flash of red.

Weasley red.

"Where were you over the holidays?" Ron demanded.

Harry sighed. "I thought I'd already told you this," he replied.

And they had. Once the Order members were gone it hadn't been long before the younger Weasley siblings and Hermione tracked him down and they all demanded the same thing. It had surprised him they had tracked him down so quickly and he suspected one of the Order told his so-called friends where he was.

But what he didn't understand was why his so-called friends were asking the same questions over and over. The only thing that made sense was they did not believe a word of what he'd said, and they were trying to get the truth out of him. Well, he would just tell them a half-truth. He would tell them he had gone to America to spend a large portion of his holiday, and he had come back and spent the rest in London sightseeing.

Why they had such a problem believing it, Harry found himself not caring.

"I went to America. I also spent time in the MACUSA for a bit while keeping my head down when I went back out into the non-magical world," Harry hoped that was the end of it.

Fortunately, someone stopped Weasley from going on. "My mam didn't want me to come back to Hogwarts, because of you," Seamus Finnigan nodded at Harry, his voice aggressive and antagonistic.

But Harry also detected something else, uncertainty.

Harry sighed. He had seen more than a few people pointing and sneering at him while more than a few others had laughed as they either quoted from the Daily Prophet, or they sent smug looks his way. Harry guessed many of them were prospective Death Eaters, and they were delighted the reason for their soon to be master's downfall was publicly been disgraced. Harry wasn't bothered. He had long since stopped himself caring about what people thought about him. Many of them, particularly the Gryffindors and the Hufflepuffs were sending him untrusting looks.

But he didn't mind.

Sooner or later, the truth would come out. It always would, and either Voldemort himself would reveal his return to the magical world or the pamphlets would cause the right amount of chaos before he implemented the other stage of his plan the magical world would have no choice but to reveal themselves.

"Hey, Potter, didn't you hear me?!" Seamus snapped, and Harry realised he had been silent a bit too long.

"I heard you. Your voice was loud enough to wake up the mummies in China, Egypt and Peru. What do you want me to do about it?" Harry asked in an uncaring manner.

It wasn't his intention to cause problems between himself and Seamus, he had more than enough grief already, but unfortunately, Seamus looked geared up for a fight.

"Don't talk about my mother like that, Potter!" The Irish wizard snapped.

"Like what?" Harry demanded, starting to lose his patience, at the same time he prepared himself for a fight, physical and magical should Seamus attack him. He would always claim it was self-defence. Don't push me, you playboy wannabe!

"The Prophet kept saying you murdered Diggory, and you lied by saying You-Know-Who is back-!"

Harry laughed. It wasn't really funny, and he knew he probably shouldn't be laughing his head off, but he couldn't help himself. "I murdered Cedric Diggory and brought his body back to Hogwarts? And I made up a story like that? Why? Why would I lie about something like that?" Harry's voice became acidic. "Wouldn't I be the prime suspect if that's the case? And why hasn't anyone done anything?"

One of the issues he had with the whole matter was how Dumbledore had made sure he didn't speak to the DMLE. One conversation with competent investigators, complete with memories in a Pensieve and a binding oath would have made it clear to them he was innocent. But Dumbledore, determined to keep things under wraps, had made certain that did not happen.

If the old wizard was determined to cast the accusing finger at him, he had succeeded all too well. Dumbledore's actions sometimes did not make an ounce of sense to Harry; sweeping things under the rug like the Chamber of Secrets incident, deliberately drawing attention to the Philosopher's Stone… it was as if Dumbledore was deliberately planning certain courses of action while burying others, but he also had a habit of not thinking about some of the consequences.

Seamus looked dumbfounded, but he wasn't the only one. Dean looked stunned as well while Ron looked between the three of them awkwardly with his usual clueless facade.

"My gran and I believe Harry," the usually shy and timid wizard spoke up. "My grandmother is not one of those people who believed You-Know-Who just died. He was hunting for immortality and was rumoured to have dabbled in many dark rituals. A wizard like that is not likely to die suddenly as he had all those years ago. Besides, my gran was furious when she saw the petty insults in the Prophet against Harry and we cancelled our subscription to the newspaper. She called it a disgrace."

Harry looked at the wizard with a smile. "Thanks, Neville," he said.

He was surprised Neville was being this supportive and he was even more taken by surprise by how the other boy wizard's grandmother was also being supportive.

Neville spared him a smile in turn. Harry had always gotten along with Neville better than he had many of the other wizards in the whole school. The other young wizard was not as pretentious or as foolish as his contemporaries.

But Neville surprised him even more. "I'd have thought seeing the pamphlets appearing like that, and seeing what was in them would make you see things differently."

Harry subtly cast a notice-me-not charm combined with a charm that blocked off people's minds from thinking about him over himself so he could sit back and listen to his fellow dorm mates discuss the pamphlets without them asking for his opinion on the matter and let him think for a few minutes about his future at Hogwarts. After the brief fight with Seamus, he wasn't really interested in speaking to the others.

"Do you really think those pamphlets were telling the truth?" Dean asked uncertainly.

"They likely are," Neville commented. "Listen up, Gran and I recognised some of the faces of the marked people the pamphlets accused of being Death Eaters; I've even met a few of them in balls hosted by the Ministry, and some of the wealthier magical families. When you meet someone casually, you can tell a lot about them. The way they spoke about muggles, muggle-borns…you would think they were Death Eaters in spirit."

When he heard that Harry guessed that made sense, but what made him happier was how it seemed that some in the magical world knew these people and knew what they were like if Neville was anyone to go by.

"You can't really believe You-Know-Who is back, surely?" Seamus scoffed.

"Have you ever heard the rumours concerning You-Know-Who?" Neville countered with the kind of pointed glare which prevented even the first thought of a fight or a debate. "There are confirmed rumours he subjected himself to dozens of rituals, and it's well known from captured Death Eaters he was determined to find a way to become immortal."

"That doesn't mean he couldn't have failed."

"Maybe not," Neville was really rearing back for a fight now, and Harry decided to cancel the spells around himself so he could take part in the debate. "Nobody knows what happened that night, perhaps he somehow escaped and he's only just decided to come back."

"But he can't be back-!"

"What are you so frightened of, Seamus? Did any of your family die during the war?" Harry demanded.

Seamus turned to face him. "Why haven't you said anything-?"

"That's all you have to say? Never mind. But you asking that proves you've got a one-track mind. But forget about the Death Eaters for a moment. What about the allegations against Fudge taking and accepting bribes from Malfoy? What do you think the repercussions are going to be there? Fudge is already in trouble considering Dementors kissed a number of muggles over the summer," Harry said. "Anyone looking at those photographs will definitely realise our beloved Minister," Harry sneered the words to make it known his own views on Fudge adequately, "is corrupt. Hopefully, the pamphlets will do a lot of good."

Personally, Harry didn't care if the pamphlets made anyone think about the damage being done to the wizarding world. But what he did care about was making a large profit from the upcoming robberies he was going to commit against the Death Eater families while he caused enough chaos to fight them at the same time while he used the pamphlets to spread their dirty secrets around the whole magical world for all to see.

His plan was easy enough to work out. He had finalised the last details on the train after discarding some of his previous ideas or adapting them to work around his recent scheme. For a short time now, Harry had been toying with what seemed right, and he had realised that if he worked on the pamphlets full time then he would never be truly able to plunder the Death Eater homes, so he had decided to focus much of his attention on them. He had been trying to come up with a major long term planner some time, one that he could stick to for a long time.

With Dobby and Winky's help, Harry planned on robbing the Death Eaters. They were funding Voldemort with a large percentage for his operations. Once he had their material wealth, he would publish their worst secrets for the magical world to enjoy.

Harry was also hoping to cause enough damage to Voldemort's infrastructure to lull the Dark Lord into making a number of critical mistakes.

That was the objective. Drive Voldemort into making a critical mistake where he would never be able to back down, one way of doing that was to launch a series of nasty attacks, even bigger and more powerful against the Death Eaters like the one in Knockturn Alley. Of course, the thief was no fool. To expect his entire scheme hinged on Voldemort making a mistake was a grievous mistake. But he definitely wanted to cause a huge amount of damage to Voldemort's entire organisation.

The pamphlets were just a start. He needed to plunder the Death Eater's homes and vaults, and thanks to the house-elves he had, he had the means of doing that, but at the same time, he was hoping to cause a lot of damage to their reputations and their image along the way. Lucius Malfoy owned a large collection of dark side artefacts - Harry didn't know where if it was still in Malfoy's home, but he hoped it was since its existence alone would cause problems for the Malfoy family, and the more problems he caused the Death Eaters by thieving from them and exposing their dirty secrets in the pamphlets, the better for him.

But the point was if one magical family had a secret cache locked in their manor, so did others. At the same time, he wanted to cause a lot of damage for Fudge and his administration; the good news was Fudge had largely done a lot of that damage for himself, with his stupid actions following the Dementor attack. It must have occurred to the idiot not to try to cover it up? Fudge must have known the risks. People hated Dementors, and with good reason; the rumours of what they were were bad enough, but when you mixed with them and felt their aura, it was enough to make anyone disgusted with them.

But nobody ever said Fudge had a brain in his skull. Right now he was paranoid, and with his tendency to jump into things and pin the blame on others, that was a dangerous mix. A part of Harry wanted to point out to Fudge that if you were going to cover something up, cover something up that was manageable, not something that was going to be leaked out because so many people loathed Dementors.

Harry shrugged his shoulders dismissively. It made little difference for him. All he needed to concern himself with now was working out the right time to act on his plans.

X

Dumbledore was relieved when the teachers left the office after being in a meeting to discuss last-minute business concerning the new year. The meetings always tended to last a long way into the night, and more than once the elderly headmaster was convinced that due to his old age time was deliberately playing a cruel joke on him by making it seemingly go so slowly during the meetings.

Once the staff were gone, except for Minerva and Snape which indicated Dumbledore was going to have another conversation tonight. "What is it?" He asked the two.

Minerva drew out a large sheet of parchment from her robes and placed it on the desk. Dumbledore didn't bother touching it because he knew what it was. "The pamphlets." He had been surprised by their appearance, like everyone else. He had likely been one of the thousands of people in the magical world who were studying the magic imbued into the parchment. They were virtually indestructible, but there were signs whoever had created them had put a time limit onto the enchantments, but if it happened he didn't know.

But that didn't concern Dumbledore. He was partly surprised and even concerned by the content of the message contained within, but the way he saw it there was a chance the pamphlets and whoever was responsible for them were on their side. Only time would tell, but he wanted to know where their writer was going with them. He had no doubt Fudge was taking the opposite view, but what the Minister would do, he didn't know.

Fudge was currently paying the price for his mistakes with covering up the Dementor attack in Little Whinging. Someone, as Tonks and Sirius had predicted, had talked, but that was only natural since the Dementors were so hated by everyone, but he hadn't told them how the ICW had been clamouring for their destruction for decades due to their dangers if they were accidentally released on unsuspecting muggles. Fudge had not thought through his mistake; if he had just admitted security at Azkaban had been slackened, then perhaps he would keep his job. But Dumbledore knew the chances the idiot getting away with that were remote. Fudge was now in serious trouble and Dumbledore was not going to help even if Fudge begged him. Sure, while it would have put the moron into his debt, Dumbledore didn't want to since Fudge would still be in denial about Voldemort's return.

Still, the pamphlets were interesting, and it made him wonder about the intelligence network of the writer; whoever it was had supplied detailed photographs of Fudge accepting money from Malfoy, among other things. For a start they had uncovered Fudge's taking of bribes; as a master legilimens it was child's play for him to see into Fudge's woefully unprotected little mind, and he had seen memories of the bribes. But he would need proof to get Fudge thrown out, but it seemed somebody else had taken the step. At the same time, he had been delighted when those details about the unknown Death Eaters was leaked out.

If it happened again, there was the possibility of Voldemort's return being made public. The dark side might have gotten a lead in preparation time, but Dumbledore was hopeful they could make up the difference and he was hopeful whoever was behind the pamphlets would help them in future. Or at least he hoped they were. He had to admit there was a chance the ones responsible were also behind the fire in Knockturn Alley, but while he hated death even Dumbledore was aware of when someone was irredeemable and since the place was a brothel selling innocent children, he felt no pity.

But he knew one thing, whoever had created them were likely not finished. It wasn't a case of guessing or even experience, it was simple common sense and Dumbledore was curious about what else was coming.

"What are we going to do, Albus?" Minerva asked while Snape looked on impassively. Dumbledore knew the potions master was going to be speaking sooner or later, so he didn't see the point in demanding Snape speak up about his opinions.

"About the pamphlets? Nothing."

"Nothing?! But, Albus-," Minerva protested. She was confused. Why couldn't Albus see the danger of these pamphlets? They could damage or even unravel magical society.

"I'm not happy with their appearance, Minerva, but what is the problem?" Dumbledore asked. He could see the way his deputy and long time friend was worried and even concerned by the pamphlet.

"What's the problem? Albus, these things could unravel our society!" Minerva snapped.

"How? If you're worried about the Death Eaters being revealed, Fudge's actions behind the scenes being aired to the public, don't be. Ministers come and go, and while it's likely whoever will take over from Fudge will have a monumental mess to clean up on top of fighting a war."

"That's what I'm trying to say!" Minerva interrupted, flushing when she realised what she had done, but she carried on. "Albus, we can't have any political infighting at this point. Who would be doing this?"

"Minerva, we're going to be having this political infighting regardless of whether or not somebody reveals Fudge's dealings in such a manner, and the pamphlets don't really make a shred of difference. The moment Voldemort returns and reappears openly, Fudge is likely going to be kicked out of the Ministry anyway, and whoever takes power will likely be forced to clean up the mess he's made," Dumbledore was getting tired of this conversation and he wondered what Snape was going to say. He wanted to desperately figure out a way of getting them out of his office so he could get to bed. He was keeping himself awake through sheer willpower, and the longer he remained seated, the longer he was going to fall asleep at his desk. It was not a good idea.

Minerva looked a little bit shaken this little bit of information hadn't been considered by herself yet, but he saw the realisation on her face as he realised he was making logical sense. Dumbledore was relieved. The problem with Minerva McGonagall was although she was a good friend, she needed to be pushed down a path of logic.

"You think whoever is behind these pamphlets is on our side, Headmaster?" Snape demanded in his silky voice.

"That is my hope, but for now all we can do is wait. They're going to be releasing a new edition, I can feel it," Dumbledore replied.

"How can you be sure?" Minerva returned for a new round.

Dumbledore sighed. "That's easy because the two events in Knockturn Alley and the pamphlets are connected. Don't tell me you haven't guessed it yet," he added when he saw their looks of confusion. "The fire took place several days before the pamphlets appeared, and they shared information Fudge has been trying to suppress. How could they have known about the details if they weren't involved?"

Both Minerva and Snape wore looks of realisation as they realised he was right.

Finally, Dumbledore had decided he'd had more than enough of his time being wasted. "Now, if you don't mind, I would like to get some sleep. We have a busy day tomorrow, and we need to be rested. Good night." Dumbledore, without giving either teacher the opportunity to protect, stood up and he walked out of the office, clearly dismissing them while he headed back to his living quarters.

Until the next time...