I don't own Harry Potter.

The Burglar of Tokyo.

Harry was relieved the librarian of the school was as open-minded about his presence in his domain like the one in Little Whinging had been although some of them weren't too happy, although he didn't know why since he never went out of his way to cause problems, but there was little they could do about it. After nodding at the librarian, Harry made his way over to the literature section of the library, and he selected a book which appeared to be rather thin compared to some of the other works available.

After taking the book from its position on the shelves, Harry walked over to a chair and he sat down and he opened it before he started to read although he went slowly as he needed to read the characters and translate them mentally. This was one of the ways Harry had of learning how to speak Japanese or any foreign language; all you needed was a bit of experience with the language, and then develop it by either reading their literature, or their history. It made little difference which.

At first, it had been hard, no question but now his knowledge of Japanese was much better, he found he only had to struggle only a little bit to understand the sentences while Dudley was still struggling simply because he just didn't wish to learn anything.

Harry frowned slightly as he thought of the Dursleys. They were unpleasant enough in Britain, but here…Well, they were getting progressively worse and worse. Aunt Petunia was still sniping and snarling about the house, the street, the country, everything and everyone. She was more annoyed because she couldn't find anyone English like herself to speak to, and her babying of Dudley had gotten worse. Now his idiot cousin was struggling with school and he was even destroying his own homework. But the thing was he never really saw much of how the Japanese felt about them, but he had seen the looks of disdain from them.

Harry didn't really care although his aunt and uncle were stupid enough to make him do Dudley's homework much like they had done in the past when they'd been in Little Whinging, although unlike with the past since Dudley had been at a slightly higher level than Harry had been, now he and Dudley were both at the same level and truthfully he hoped to keep it that way; if the Dursleys found out he was outpacing their precious son, or heaven forbid having fun learning something new, his life would become miserable.

The most laughable thing was if his aunt and uncle actually used their brains for a change instead of just passing the time making excuses for Dudley, then he would be pushed every day to learn how to write, read, and speak Japanese instead of sitting on a sofa.

Harry shook his head; despite his promise not to care one little bit about Dudley, he was just bemused that his cousin was here, in a foreign country and he'd had so many opportunities to make something new of himself, gain perspectives of a new culture. What did he do instead, he just sat around and let his mother coddle him. When Harry had thought of that, another thought occurred to him concerning his cousins' increasingly empty future. Whenever Harry ever saw his cousin nowadays, he would try to picture Dudley twenty years from now; it was cruel, but whenever he pictured adult Dudley, he always pictured him as a younger, less hairy Vernon although it was impossible to picture since Harry had little idea of how his cousin wanted to appear as when he was older, although both were still identically chubby and hideous.

No, chubby wasn't the word.

Fat.

Only in this vision, Harry saw Dudley as a fat man just watching television while his mother, who was older than she was now, not caring one little bit about her son's waste of a life simply because she was too shortsighted and thick to look beyond her own prejudices and the fact she had done nothing to push Dudley through life. If she had then he might be making something of himself, but no. Petunia, for reasons passing beyond intelligence, didn't seem to realise she was hurting Dudley. Harry had started to see it in Little Whinging, but here in a foreign country, he was not being encouraged. Dudley was a joke in the school, and while Harry had gotten some flak himself although he didn't know why, it wasn't so bad. In any case, Harry had lived with hatred and dislike all his life, he could handle it here.

Dudley, on the other hand, wasn't going to last if he didn't pick himself out of the mess he was in. Harry had started noticing more and more of the school looking at his cousin with disgust as Dudley loudly flouted Japanese tradition. Harry didn't know what was going to happen, but he wasn't going to do anything. He didn't care if Dudley refused to make the effort. It would even be worse as he got older - Harry didn't know how long Dudley would live for, nor did he truly care, since Dudley simply didn't have the mindset needed to live on his own nor did he know how to live independently by himself. Dudley didn't know how to clean. Dudley didn't know how to cook, all he knew was how to laze around, eat, and watch television. He was just content to sit back, letting life pass him by. He was content letting his parents do everything for him without a care in the world.

It was so bad Harry could picture Dudley as an older man - if he lived that long - sitting around as he did now, not looking back on his life with disgust that he'd let himself be so spoilt and coddled by his parents that it was too late for him to embrace life. With that in mind, Harry wondered to himself if he would actually look back on his life and realised he'd wasted it, but he wasn't holding his breath.

And truthfully Harry didn't care either way, but he wondered if in the future when he was older, maybe not wiser, Dudley would look back on his life and wished he'd grown up differently.

Harry pushed those thoughts aside; Dudley wasn't going to change, his parents had ruined him in ways which were too extensive to get into, and besides even if Dudley did open the rose-tinted glasses his parents had slipped over his eyes as a baby, it would be too late for him to do anything about it.

The Japanese may have had a laissez-faire attitude when it came to bullying; they saw it as something to endure, but even the Japanese took issue with some of Dudley's antics since he disrupted the class on top of everything else. It didn't help matters the Dursleys were so openly racist that even the Japanese attitude could take so much.

But now….

Dudley wasn't at the school. Ordinarily, that wasn't a problem, it was something that he would normally be happy about since without his unpleasant cousin around he could relax. But he wasn't. Harry was worried. Something was off with the Dursleys. They had been speaking together, all three of them, and they had done it without him in the room where he could overhear them. Even worse Dudley would always turn his fat face to him, grinning at him maliciously, that same malicious smirk which spelt trouble.

Dudley always smirked that way whenever he knew Harry was in trouble with Vernon. But nothing had happened and that worried him even more; Dudley had been grinning that way for ten days now, and nothing had happened. He hadn't been beaten, he hadn't been starved. Indeed, aside from the usual mental and verbal abuse he had endured for years, Harry had been virtually left alone. Some kids might be happy, but Harry wasn't; he knew the Dursleys and he was worried about this new behaviour. Something was going on, and Harry wondered what they were planning, and as the days passed and their weird behaviour went on, he became more and more worried.

And now Dudley was not in school, and Harry was even more worried. What did it all mean?!

In the end, Harry decided not to think much more about the situation and just wait until he went back to the house. Hopefully, the answers were there, but for the time being, he would try to treat the day as normal as he could.

Once all of his attention was back on the book, Harry continued reading and let his mind carry on with the translations. He was just getting into his stride when the bell rang. Harry groaned and he stood up and he placed the book back.

"*You know you can check the books out of here, don't you?*"

Harry swung around quickly, and he relaxed quickly when he saw one of the librarians standing there. Some of them were funny with him for reasons he couldn't work out, but some of them were tolerable of his presence. Truthfully Harry didn't really care; he was fascinated with learning. "*I know, but my…family, they aren't fond of living here in Japan.*"

He didn't know what would come of this, but he didn't see the point of hiding it. The Dursleys had quickly gained a reputation in this part of Tokyo and in school, and it wasn't a good one either. The Dursleys might think the Japanese hadn't noticed their racist attitudes, but they were too stupid to see that the Japanese had, spitting on Japanese culture and traditions as if it was their right. Dudley had also caused problems in the school with his attitude and his 'mummy-told-me-I-don't-need-to-learn-so-I-won't-bother' manner.

"*If I take this book with me, and they find it, then they could destroy it. I don't want that to happen,*" Harry said honestly.

"*I…see,*" the librarian replied, clearly not happy.

Harry licked his lips as it suddenly occurred to him the librarian would probably raise this point with the Dursleys, and he didn't want that to happen.

"*Listen, is it possible for us if this is kept…confidential? I don't want my aunt or uncle to hear about this.*"

The librarian stiffened and he levelled a stern look down at the small boy, taking a moment to observe him properly. He had already noticed, along with some of the other teachers, that Harry Potter was nothing like his cousin. In fact, Dudley Dursley was the opposite; where Harry wanted to learn and he was often in the library instead of looking for actual friends, he was in here, reading a variety of books in order to learn more about Japan rather than outright speaking to someone about their home country. The librarian had little idea what the young boy had in mind yet, but he could tell already the boy liked being on his own.

But no-one could deny the fact the boy was thriving and excelling at school now he had picked up the basics of the Japanese language in both written and verbal form, but Dudley was the opposite since he seemed completely determined not to learn anything, and he was disrupting all of his classes; it was so bad now, every teacher dreaded having him in their classes. From what the librarian had learnt, Mr and Mrs Dursley had been asked time and time again by the teachers curb their son's behaviour, and to encourage him to learn. Instead of listening, the Dursleys from what he'd learnt had instead reacted angrily, and Mrs Dursley was already disliked by several teachers for her racist attitude. As far as the librarian was aware nothing could be done, although he didn't know why.

But there was just something about what Harry was describing that worried him no end; it was well known the Dursleys didn't seem to like Japan and Mrs Dursley was as racist as they came, which made him question the British mentality, but to go so far by deliberately ruining their son's education simply because she didn't like Japan and steadfastly encouraged her son not to try even though it made no sense since Dudley needed to learn.

Mr Dursley's role was uncertain, although the librarian had heard he had come to Japan in order to open up a new drilling business; but he was uncertain, and if he were honest he didn't really care. If the foreigners wanted to come to Japan in order to set up a new business, make the city greater, then the librarian was all for it.

And then there was Harry himself. When you took the time to compare the two boys the Dursleys had enrolled into the school, you couldn't find two totally different children; Dudley Dursley was fat, boisterous, aggressive, he disrupted lessons, loudly sneering and insulting the teachers unlucky enough to have him in their classes. He was also a bully, and his favourite victim was his cousin, although he loved bullying other children as well, only some of them saw him as a joke since he was useless at understanding the Japanese language which made his insults, which were said in slurred, mangled Japanese it was laughable.

In contrast, Harry was small. Almost too small to be healthy; while the Japanese were not a massively tall people, even Harry's height was worrying. Another thing the teachers had spotted very quickly was how Harry reacted whenever someone shouted either at him or near him by cringing. He was small, and he was frail at the same time, but now hearing all of this, the librarian wondered if Harry was being abused.

He hoped not, but something was really wrong in the Dursley household.

XXX

As he walked back to the house after a day of school - he still wasn't certain about what the Dursleys were doing - Harry wondered what he was going to find. Some new torture. Some new method of psychological hell. Harry sighed mentally, and he wondered if he was becoming too paranoid. The trouble was, living with the Dursleys did that to you.

But as he approached the house, he took a moment to study it.

Vernon's Japanese car (which his uncle deemed rubbish) was not there, but that wasn't an issue since Vernon was likely at work. That was the logical conclusion and made sense, so why did he feel worried? Was it just because of the looks, the weird behaviour? Oh, who was he kidding, of course, he was worried, and he knew the answer to why was in the house.

Harry sighed and he walked to the front door and knocked, reaching into his pocket to the spare key he'd had secretly cut thanks to handing over some of Dudley's toys. Petunia and Vernon had taken to lock him outside if he didn't arrive back at wherever they were living, but he had gotten spare keys made - granted, he'd only been able to get it done here in Japan since the Dursleys were so poor at speaking Japanese and the people around here could not really understand their lies - just in case.

He was surprised when no-one came to the door. That's odd, usually Aunt Petunia opens the door even if she wishes she can't, and it's not that far from the kitchen or the living room, he thought to himself and he risked a peep through the letterbox.

Nothing.

Harry knocked on the door again and quickly looked through the letterbox once more, and he went silent as he listened. There was just no sound coming from the inside. He pulled his ear away from the letterbox slot, and he thought about what he should do. That feeling of worry he'd been feeling for days was getting worse. But now it was quickly transforming into fear and Harry was starting to get a very bad idea of what was going on although a part of him was curious if Petunia had just taken Dudley out for the day.

Harry went around the back of the house. He stopped at both Dudley and his aunt and uncle's bedrooms. He paused and looked through Dudley's window. His cousin was a pig and his room looked like a sty more than anything else. The room looked exactly as he imagined it would; the bed looked unmade, the pillows were thrown everywhere, the sheets looking wrinkled and messy. But as he looked into the bedroom Harry noticed something else. Dudley's wardrobe was empty save for a few things which, on closer inspection, were thrown around the room. But the clincher was the fact many of the stupid toys Dudley had collected ever since they'd arrived in Tokyo were gone. Some of them were still there, Harry instantly saw many of those toys were just broken relics of something that had once been a toy, but the majority of them were gone.

Dudley would never do that unless he wanted them.

Harry quickly rushed towards the bedroom his aunt and uncle had claimed and as he looked he saw that the bed was as unkempt as Dudley's. That made no sense, and Harry was left worried even more. There was no way his house-proud aunt would just leave a bed like that, ever. Harry's eyes trailed around the room and he saw the wardrobe doors were flown open revealing that it was as empty as Dudley's. He also noted all of Petunia and Vernon's possessions were gone as well.

The living room was just as bare as in all the furniture that had been there already when they'd gotten the place - still wasn't sure if they had just let the property or they'd rented it - was still there, but everything else was gone. And then he noticed something wrong about one of the other glass window panels. Harry stepped back and his eyes widened when he saw a message painted there in red paint.

"GOODBYE FREAK!"

Had the Dursleys…..left? Harry couldn't believe it; he had longed to escape the Dursleys for a very long time, he had prepared for it when he had begun stockpiling cash to make his own way in life without the Dursleys in his life. He had prepared for that, but he hadn't imagined the Dursleys doing something like that.

Rushing back to the front door, Harry slid in the spare key (he didn't really the key of course, thanks to the trick he'd developed which allowed him to open doors just by thinking about it after spending a week developing it: it was freakish, but it worked) and went into the house. As he walked through the house, Harry saw more evidence the Dursleys had left. But he knew where to find the most damning evidence. He walked into the kitchen, which was still messy from breakfast with the pile of unwashed dishes and cutlery, but he ignored that and he went over to a particular drawer and opened it.

As he looked inside, he knew the Dursleys had truly left. The passports were gone. Including his own.