I don't own Harry Potter.

Please let me know what you think.

X

Harry Potter: Thinking like a Thief.

As he sat at his dining room table, head in his hands, ears and brain ringing from the latest reports the House Elves spying on Dumbledore had given him, Harry just could not understand what had made the old wizard flip out to this degree. So far the House-Elves had been telling him that Dumbledore had taken to heading to a disused classroom and practicing his skills using his clone disguise. He supposed that made sense given how the clone was physically younger than Dumbledore truly was and was capable of using the full extent of his physicality to cast magic.

So far, one of the best bits of news he had received had been Fawkes the Phoenix seemed to have deserted Dumbledore. The phoenix had flown away one day and he hadn't come back. True, that didn't necessarily mean the phoenix wouldn't come back, but he had been missing for some time, and Harry remembered originally hearing about the disappearance of the phoenix, but he hadn't paid attention to it. Where the phoenix was now, Harry didn't know and he didn't really care.

Fawkes, like Dumbledore, was just something or someone who existed while he didn't really have much time for. The reason for that was when he had taken Care of Magical Creatures as an elective, and he had read a couple of books on the various magical creatures out there, among them were phoenixes. From what he had read in the books, Fawkes as a phoenix would have known about the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets and if the bird had been truly free, he would have gladly slaughtered the beast before the creature even slithered out of the Chamber to petrify Mrs Norris.

Instead, he didn't.

For a full year, Fawkes had remained on that perch, doing nothing. From what he was able to find out, Fawkes's familiar bond had likely been used against him so he wouldn't have acted. The fact the old wizard had not done anything while innocent children nearly teenagers were being harmed for no reason except that Voldemort and Lucius Malfoy were lashing out angered him, and so he didn't really feel any remorse for what he was planning to do. Dumbledore's death was long since overdue. But it pleased him the Phoenix was gone. And he knew only that a phoenix could sever the bond if it felt that the bonded was losing their way, and leaving from there.

Knowing that, Harry would have assumed Fawkes would have left before, but clearly their ideologies just no longer meshed together and the phoenix had left. Harry wondered if it had something to do with whatever Dumbledore was planning. But what he just could not work out was why Dumbledore was planning something like this. What did he hope to achieve? Was it to bring down Harry's own reputation? He wasn't bothered by that. He didn't care about his reputation. Sure, he knew when he had children, and he planned on it, they would soon have to discover his past and what the magical world believed him to be, a hero.

But Harry didn't understand why Dumbledore was creating a clone of him and using that to attack people. Was he trying to re-ignite his own flagging skills and reputation? It certainly seemed that was the case, and truly Harry was just disgusted by the man's selfishness. He wanted to murder and attack innocents who didn't deserve it, and for what? For him to come swaggering in like an all-conquering hero? But what was the point?

Harry had turned it over and over in his head, and he had come to the conclusion the old wizard was doing this to make him out to be a Dark Lord, and the more damage the old man did, the more convinced everyone became, and the more they would come after him until one day he became the Dark Lord they believed him to be. The sheer shameless audacity of Albus Dumbledore who cared more for blood bigotry and his own quest for personal recognition sickened him, and what made it worse was how shamelessly he was going about it.

Harry pushed those thoughts aside as he tried to work out how he was going to kill Dumbledore.

Scenario One - He confronted Dumbledore in his office with the truth. The result would be Dumbledore would either call him delusional, or they would draw wands. Harry, in his time using the Room of Requirement, had found a great many rare volumes on magic, lost to the ages, to help him shorten the gap he perceived separated him from powerful wizards like Dumbledore and Voldemort. Harry had learnt a lot from those books, against an average wizard, he could defeat them and quickly. But against a wizard like Albus Dumbledore? Maybe if he worked for the next 60-80 years, maybe then. But Harry wanted to be young, wild, carefree. He wanted to enjoy his time while committing small thefts, having sex, and perhaps find a beautiful and intelligent wife who could love someone as damaged as he was. He didn't want to do what Voldemort had and lose himself to working long and hard to defeat a powerful wizard.

But if he followed that scenario, what would be the end result? Either they'd fight to a draw, or one of them would be injured. Either way, there was a chance Dumbledore could use it to his advantage and Harry would become a fugitive. Hardly encouraging and highly unacceptable. No, he would need something else.

Scenario Two - Poison. Harry could find a particularly potent and fast-acting poison, and he could then use it on Dumbledore. That sounded more plausible than the first option, and since it meant no traces of his own magic would be found, it was even more appealing. There were three downsides; what if Fawkes came back either through feeling something residual and reacted to it, and cried into Dumbledore's mouth to negate the poison rendering the whole attempt a failure? But even if Fawkes did not appear, there was still Dumbledore; the man had trained with an alchemist and they were highly trained potion masters. It was likely Dumbledore had some counter poisons around or inside of him. Hell, he might even have a bezoar in his body, ready to negate poisons. The third downside was he didn't know if Dumbledore didn't have some means known to him and him alone to detect an assassin.

So he had two ideas, but whether they worked or not, he doubted it now.

But that left the last scenario.

He didn't use magic, and he didn't use poison.

So what did he use?

Harry sighed and he rubbed his eyes. He was getting tired and he wanted nothing more than to go to bed. But he found it impossible when he went to bed, crawling under the covers because he was trying extremely hard to concentrate on ways he could kill Dumbledore. The problem, he quickly realised, was he didn't know what kind of spells Dumbledore had around him or if he believed nobody could or would have the balls to break into his office or bedroom in the middle of the night and kill him. He didn't know if Dumbledore was a heavy sleeper, a light sleeper, or if he had some kind of way of detecting somebody's presence.

Speed was the key. He needed to get in, do the job, get out.

There was only one weapon he knew that would work.

A gun.

The good thing was he had one. He had just never imagined he would need to use it on Dumbledore, though, but it wasn't a problem for him since he had killed before, but the idea of killing Albus Dumbledore was a frightening one. He would need to make use of the House-elves, preferably one de-sensitized to killing and murder, one who would not bat so much as an eyelid to him blowing Dumbledore's head to bits. Harry sighed as he turned on his back, sighing deeply. This was nice, he reflected as he let his body sink into the mattress. But he couldn't stop thinking about what he needed to do about Dumbledore, he still had problems working out how this was happening, why Dumbledore was flipping. Was Dumbledore so bored and determined to still be the greatest wizard in the world, that he was prepared to do whatever it took?

Harry had to admit when he was younger getting rid of Dumbledore had been compelling considering the depths the man had fallen, just to get him to stop, before he ruined the life of somebody whom he'd underestimated. Dumbledore had made that mistake with Tom Riddle, the result was Lord Voldemort. Dumbledore had continued to play his games, and Harry knew a host of things could have gone wrong. For instance, the Dursleys could have killed him before he even knew how to walk, how to talk, how to do anything. All because of their tunnel-vision quest to be normal. He could have become an Obscurial because the Dursleys hatred for him had turned inward, whether Dumbledore would have ignored the reasons behind the why he did not want to even guess.

Harry sighed and shook his head, hating the very thought of what could have been. It would not do any good now, so it was irrelevant to him at this point. Harry groaned when he realised he was not going to get much sleep.

X

Sleep was not on the agenda for the Order of the Phoenix as their erstwhile leader was fighting with the rest of the organisation. Dumbledore had learnt over the years that one of the best tools for persuading people to see the world from his point of view was to bully them when it was extremely late, but this was not a new technique. It was used by cults and against prisoners of war in the muggle world as a form of brainwashing. Sleep deprivation, endless harangues, it all worked in the long term.

Dumbledore rarely used this technique on his group, but this was one of the exceptional moments where he willingly did. The Order of the Phoenix had been divided. Many of the group and this number increased daily did not understand why the Order wasn't being disbanded. Voldemort was gone, so were the Death Eaters, and Fudge's time in the Ministry was over. There was no point in the Order still existing, but they would if they were aware of another Dark Lord on the rise to take Voldemort's place, and there was no sign of that.

None of the Order understood why Dumbledore was even doing this, but as they felt their heads ache like mad with the endless rant the Order members found it impossible to even try to nod off. Even devout followers like Molly Weasley were feeling the strain, and according to the clock and their own personal watches, it was long past midnight. Dumbledore wasn't feeling the strain like the Order were, he had been going on like this for hours now, repeating himself over and over again, and each time someone tried to speak back, to make him stop, Dumbledore would just lecture them all again.

A few members of the Order had tried to use their wands to get out of the kitchen at Grimmauld Place, but the elderly and wily old wizard had ensured they couldn't do that. Thanks to his superior knowledge of magic, honed by decades of practice, self-study and tuition from other wizards over the years, Dumbledore quickly immobilised the Order and stuck them in their chairs, and he bound them to their seats. Even worse he had summoned their wands, so they could not counter the spells he had cast on them.

There were no windows in the stuffy and disgustingly dusty dark kitchen, but there was a clock and the silenced members of the Order were forced to watch as the hour hand of the clock slid with slow sadism towards the 5 and then to the 6 before Dumbledore stopped at 8.

As he looked over his followers, which included the arrogant know it all, Hermione Granger, Dumbledore smirked to himself as he left the kitchen, positive at last he had made the Order members see the sense in keeping their organisation going.

X

Harry stared at Winky the next morning in disbelief, knowing how the Order of the Phoenix members felt after the night he'd had although he wasn't particularly concerned about them given how they had joined the old fool, so them having to endure an endless, sleepless night listening to Dumbledore. The only one he was concerned about was Winky; the poor House-elf had been sent to the Order HQ to keep watch, but the good thing was she could leave at any time since he had the sense to add in the order if Dumbledore or anyone went on a rant, thanks to his knowledge into the personalities and mindsets of some members of the organisation.

And Winky had.

She had told him Dumbledore planned on keeping the Order of the Phoenix running for a lot longer. Harry supposed the plan made sense given how Dumbledore planned to make him out to be a Dark Lord on the same page as Voldemort himself, which meant the Order would be needed although how Dumbledore planned for that part of his new scheme to work, Harry did not know and he was too tired to care.

But what he did know was the Order of the Phoenix would be used by Dumbledore to deal with the next Dark Lord; Harry himself, used as a disguise by Dumbledore, or someone close to Dumbledore, and desperate enough to use said disguise.

The whole thing was sick. But it made sense Dumbledore would want such a group as a ready-made, albeit small scale army. But what he didn't know was what Dumbledore hoped to do; it was one thing to launch attacks, but what did Dumbledore want to do later?

Winky didn't know. Granted she had needed to endure the same tedious lectures from Dumbledore, but what she had told him worried him when she got to the bit about how Dumbledore had immobilised everyone in the meeting room and kept them prisoner, unable to move, unable to speak. A part of him actually felt the Order members deserved it since to him they were willing accomplices to the Headmaster's insane plans. But what really made him pleased was how Hermione and Ron were both forced to endure the same hell. Harry did not doubt the pair of them were in the Order now, but it was going to be a very short membership.

"Thanks, Winky," Harry whispered given he was too tired to raise his voice too loudly. "You'd better go and get some rest."

Harry knew the House-elves didn't really need to rest as humans did; their innate magic gave them their food and water equivalent and gave them the rest they needed, but he felt the poor elf deserved to have a bit of a breather after the night she'd had.

Winky nodded and popped away, not saying a word about her order. She had grown used to the strange orders given to her by her new master. When she was gone Harry groaned and rubbed his eyes. He was going to have to deal with Dumbledore tonight, providing he wasn't going to have another Order meeting. He didn't want to subject any of the House Elves to anything so painful like that again if he could help it.

He had decided to simply have Dobby take him to the bedroom in Dumbledore's rooms in the castle while some of the other elves would take whatever Dumbledore had helped himself to the Potter family over the years, either because of James's naive idolisation of the old wizard or what Dumbledore had helped himself to over the years, and he wanted the disguise as well. Earlier he had considered simply leaving it behind because he had been too tired to think as proof of what Dumbledore planned to do, but when he woke up a bit more his common sense returned.

If the DMLE discovered the rune cluster Dumbledore had created to disguise himself as Harry, some of them would likely wonder if the Boy Who Lived had murdered the old wizard, and they would do everything in their power to find him and discover the truth. Eventually, they would succeed and Harry knew it. His occlumency was good and capable enough at keeping experts like Snape and Dumbledore from prying too heavily into his mind, but he knew eventually some of his defences would collapse.

With that in mind, Harry had decided to make sure the DMLE did not go into his mind, and so he had made preparations to take everything from Dumbledore's office even related to the project the old wizard had come up with.

As he ate his Weetabix drizzled with honey thoughtfully, Harry glanced idly at the calendar. Three days from now he would be attending his first NEWT exam. He didn't want to deal with something like this. He wanted to finish some of the studying he was doing; the Room of Requirement had given him access to books, and advanced copies of the subjects he was studying for his NEWTs. And he had used his occlumency enhanced mind to help him take the information in, practicing every chance he could get before the knowledge was right there in his mind.

Harry did not want to go to the exams with just that knowledge. He wanted to go through the notes he had taken and make sure he was fully prepared before he sat them. He didn't have the time needed to deal with an old wizard who planned on using his appearance to commit murders. Harry sighed and went back to his breakfast. When he was finished and after he'd washed up, he went to the living room and he soon got started with his revision.

X

The room was in pitch darkness. That wasn't a problem for Harry nor the House-elves, thanks to their innate magic, the Elves were able to see in the dark while Harry needed to rely on a nifty spell he had discovered during his self-study. Harry looked at the three House-elves whom he was taking him/or he was taking - it didn't matter which but for some reason Harry wondered why he was even bothering thinking about that since it didn't make any difference - to Dumbledore's office.

"Remember; we want to be in and out. The moment you two," he pointed at two of the House-elves, "pop into Dumbledore's office, collect everything that Dumbledore was working on relating to the disguise cluster, and anything else which would incriminate me, and anything relating to the Potter family. And you," Harry turned to the third elf, "just get me into Dumbledore's office."

The House-elves nodded, not saying anything in their usual enthusiastic manner. Either they knew how dark things were, or they knew his mood well enough to know he really did not want to do this. He didn't want to be a murderer, but it seemed to be all he had been doing for the last year at Hogwarts.

"Let's get this over with," Harry said after he took a deep breath.

The House-elves looked at each other and clicked their fingers. It took Harry a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, even with the night vision spell he had cast over them, though it was mostly due to the momentary disorientation from the magical transport. But when he arrived, he saw the House-elves quickly follow their orders, and click their fingers to make sure any of the alarm spells Dumbledore had over the room were nullified. Once they were done, Harry raised his hand holding his gun and took careful aim. He fired three times, making Dumbledore choke before the old man fell still.

Harry let out a slow breath of regret. It didn't really surprise him that much although the regret he felt for Dumbledore was extremely limited. The old man had done Harry a great deal of harm over the years and had the old wizard just left him alone or stopped thinking about his own selfish bids for power and glory which was purely for his own selfish gain, this would not have happened. But that didn't mean Harry enjoyed killing people - the people whom he had killed over the year had been the worst kind of people, and under their psychopath of a leader, they would have murdered hundreds.

He had done what he needed to do to stop Dumbledore from crossing a line he couldn't uncross. Harry turned to the Elf who nodded, signifying that his fellows had finished. Harry nodded back, silently giving the Elf permission to take him away. Harry was glad to see the back of the bedroom of Albus Dumbledore.

X

Until the next time...

Please support me on pat-reon, visit pat-reonDOTcom/timetraveller2022