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Harry Potter: Thinking like a Thief.

Harry got off the Hogwarts Express for the last time, keeping to the very back as he tried to merge with the crowd, a notice-me-not charm applied on himself as he walked out of the station towards the floo entrances - while flooing had never been his favourite mode of magical travel, it was good enough to get him to Diagon Alley. He had things he wanted to do like checking on his bank account before he went on holiday. Harry was glad he had put on the notice-me-not charm as much as he had removing the tracking spells on himself, his things, and even his clothes with Dobby's help, he could see a few members of the Order of the Phoenix ahead, more than necessary.

The House-elves had been noticing Dumbledore was acting more and more strangely. He was holed up in his office, accepting food and drink from other House Elves in Hogwart's employ, and he was making notes or jotting down plans, but he was putting them away in a specially charmed drawer.

While Dumbledore seemed to be the kind of man who would never underestimate another magical being, like a goblin or a House Elf, he was paranoid and he had made sure his office had secret caches which would be strong enough to hold out against foreign magic.

Dobby and some of the other elves had tried to get in and steal the notes, of course - his orders to them to keep an eye on Dumbledore had much more leeway than any other wizard, and under his bonding, the House-elves were allowed to evolve in ways they had never enjoyed before. But their efforts were in vain. While he wasn't telling anybody of his immediate plans which was hardly a surprise, Harry felt it best if he just left Britain without anyone knowing any differently about his activities so they could stop him. The first part was over, now he had to go for his NEWTs and then get some masteries, so then nobody could ever drag him back to Britain, or interfere with his life.

The sight of the Order members at Platform Nine and Three Quarters only served to drum into him the potential dangers of Dumbledore's plans. He didn't even know what the old man was doing, but he wanted no part of it; he knew that already.

With a sigh, Harry headed for the floo network and escaped the station before any of the Order even thought to look for him where he was. The trip through the fireplaces was just as irritating as they normally were.

X

In his office, Dumbledore listened in frustration as Moody told him that they had somehow missed Harry Potter at the station but he decided it made no difference. His plans were still on track.

X

Harry was pleased when he arrived at his home and he dropped his things off in the master bedroom although some of it was a basic shop he had made before he had come back home. Once he was done, he went to the kitchen and started dinner. Harry had made a deal with the House Elves; they could do the rest of the housework, but the cooking was his domain unless it was Christmas and if he had a family. Thinking of children made Harry wonder when he was going to find the woman he could love and would be loved back. As he cooked his dinner - Spaghetti Carbonara - Harry thought about the kind of girl he would like to meet, and marry.

He wanted to meet and marry a girl who was a lot like himself, a woman who had grown up with a hard life behind her but was prepared to live her life rather than give it all to revenge like Voldemort had, a woman who was a thief and was prepared to get down and dirty to get what she wanted, much like Harry himself.

But he knew that it was possible he would never meet, never mind marry a woman like that, but he could always hope.

As he ate his dinner, Harry reflected on his immediate plans. He was going to be very busy in the next two weeks; not only was he going to be studying for his final exams, the NEWTs, the most exhausting of the lot, he was also going to be preparing himself for a trip abroad, but in between the exams and the trip abroad, Harry was going to be committing a major theft. Just something to tide him over for the next year while he travelled the world and saw the sights after he gained his NEWTs.

Once he was finished cooking, Harry went to the dining room and he switched on the television to see what was on and then go from there. He chuckled when he came across a Babylon 5 episode on repeat. It was one of season one's episodes where Babylon 5's predecessor mysteriously reappeared. Harry had developed an interest in different science fiction series over time; Babylon 5, Doctor Who, Star Trek Deep Space Nine and Star Trek the Next Generation were his favourites, and they were phenomenally better than Star Wars, especially since Star Wars had so many elements Harry found weirdly familiar, not to mention he flinched every single time one of those corny story twists came up.

Babylon 5 was more down to Earth (pun not intended), and as he watched the episode unfold which dropped hints of something bigger happening although it was ruined because he knew the story was going to be finished two seasons from the episodes' point of view, Babylon 4 would be sent back into the past to fight a terrible interstellar war. But there were dozens of twists in the story and so many mysteries that Harry could see how this series succeeded so greatly. The writer of the series was smart enough to give the audience lots of great character development and showcasing events while linking many of them together into a cohesive pattern while leaving many mysteries that would be solved and resolved in coming seasons.

Season 1 dealt with the early days of plot building, giving the audience the mystery of Commander Sinclair's relationship with the Minbari and what happened during their war with Earth, the looming threat of Mr Morden and the intrigue with the other characters in the episodes; one of the best was the episode with that telepath who had made it clear Earth's telepathic organisation, a sinister group called Psi Corps had plans to take over the government or influence them through proxies, he liked it because it showed the subtle intrigue of the Babylon 5 verse.

It was little things like that set up the scene for other stories down the line. And they succeeded in ways nobody could have imagined, and also showed what Earth was becoming as a result of the war.

Harry had never been much of a collector in the past when he had lived at Number 4, but he was enjoying the chance of collecting VHS editions of Babylon 5 and Star Trek; he might indeed already have this episode in the collection, but it was still a treat to watch it on television while he made his plans.

When the episode was finished Harry was too.

Taking his bowl back into the kitchen, Harry cleaned it and got out an apple and some apple and blackcurrant ice cream he had the elves prepare before he had returned, and he took it into the study. On the desk was a small dark brown object the size and shape of a hockey puck. Harry picked it up and after manipulating the runes before he put the object back on the desk.

Nothing happened for a moment, and then a large misty haze surrounded Harry, who held the cold ceramic bowl of ice cream in his hands. The misty haze solidified into different shapes and forms until Harry felt like he was sitting within a vast 3-dimensional model of his target like he was a part of it.

Harry had been inspired by the Marauder's Map when he had designed maps like this in order to help him make his plans to commit his crimes. He simply scattered a number of runic clusters in the place where he planned to make his theft.

Deciphering the charms and enchantments the Marauders had used to make the map had been relatively easy, but the main issue with the original map was it was flimsy and easy to destroy. It was paper, for God's sake. In addition, there was the fact you needed miles and miles of paper to get something this detailed.

Inspired by the holograms he had seen in science-fiction, Harry had hit upon the idea of using a runic cluster of his own design to showcase everything recorded by smaller clusters and layered on top of one another into a cohesive 3-dimensional image. But the icing on the cake was the information of the security and the people who went in and out and their intentions were also included.

With this map, Harry had knowledge of not only the layout but the security systems in Hatton garden.

While Harry had planned on leaving Britain for a holiday last summer, he had done a lot of preparation time. He had had his sights fixed on Hatton Garden and he had taken Dobby with him to that part of London, and when they got there, they had both scattered a number of runic clusters around a block's worth before they had gone underground, and they had planted clusters in the shop itself. Theoretically, Harry knew he could have simply walked in and stolen everything, but he hadn't had the time and besides he liked his thefts to have a muggle twist, especially in the muggle world. The last thing he wanted was to make people like the British PM thinking a wizard had broken in somewhere. And so he had just let the opportunity slide through his fingers, but it wasn't entirely bad news since he had gotten inside the place and he had placed the clusters inside so then he would have a complete knowledge of the security precautions.

Harry sat in the study for over two hours, eating his rapidly melting ice cream (he'd have to experiment with other flavours as time passed; he had only just started, but it was a great way of passing the time, it just struck him as ironic that the Dursleys had actually given him something to be passionate about), not once taking his eyes off of the map and learning everything about it. He had simply set the whole thing up before he had left for America last summer and he had left the cluster at his home. This was the first time he had ever seen it, and he was pleased by just how well the map worked; the detail was staggering and so finely precise that he could pick up small minute scratches on the floor.

But what he was most interested in was the combination of the vault. Security was taken seriously indeed in Hatton Garden, with the vault locked and the combination of the door making it hard to break. An ordinary burglar would either try to cut through the walls of the vault with heavy-duty tools, following through with a complex but well thought out plan after personally visiting and studying the layout, or they would study the place and just try to find the combination through traditional methods and means.

Others might try to rob the people who could open the place and go as far as to maim or rape them, especially if they had children and wives to use as leverage.

But Harry was not an ordinary burglar and he wasn't that brutally mundane. He preferred keeping his burglaries small scale and well planned and he didn't like the idea of using brutal means (what he had done with the Death Eaters did not count; in the long term, they would have gotten exactly as they deserved) to get what he wanted or needed.

Calmly with his wand, Harry checked the last piece of information, getting the vault information extremely quickly. He wasn't bothered about the lock itself; a simple unlocking spell would easily break it, and the place would be open to him.

Finally, Harry sighed and he closed down the rune viewer, rubbing his eyes before he stood up and went back to the kitchen so he could wash his pudding bowl. He wanted to go to bed, thankful the House Elves had changed his bedclothes before he had even arrived, and in the morning he would do a shop before he revised for his NEWTs before he made preparations to leave the country.

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