Okay, so...I WAS going to post the second chapter of Loving the Aliens. But this idea grabbed me, and I managed to get this single chapter out. It's a story I've been meaning to do for some time. For those of you familiar with my Hellsing/RWBY crossover attempt RWBY SINS (the chapters of which are available in the Compost Heap), it may surprise you to know that started out as a Potterverse crossover. I wanted to do a Harry/Neo fic. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the right angle for it.

But then, inspiration struck me, as it does at odd moments. I was looking to try and answer Anubis of the Highway Thieves' 'Of Jumping Dimensions and Drunken Marriages' challenge, which is basically Blood Brandy's Vegas challenge taken up a notch. I realised I could do it with a Harry/Neo story...but I needed to nut out the details. Like why would Harry shack up with Neo, what would they have in common, etc? I decided to do a backstory not dissimilar to, well, a hybrid of Just a Touch of Kleptomania, along with elements of my Black Lagoon crossover Quoth the Raven..., and go from there. I'm also using traits from my other Black Lagoon crossover Disquiet for a certain character. Not to mention that the marriage is not actually initiated by Harry, this time...

Just a fair bit of warning, Harry's backstory prior to coming to Remnant is pretty bloody dark. It needed to be to get him to the point where he'd be willingly Neo's partner in crime...and romance. Don't get me wrong, Harry will still be heroic, and he will have Neo (and Roman?) work with the good guys rather than Cinder and Salem (a bit like RumbleintheDumbles' Bad for Business)...but he's chaotic good-chaotic neutral for the most part. He's too jaded by what has happened.

OUR HEARTS ARE STOLEN GOODS

CHAPTER 1:

ICE CREAM HEADACHE

Roman Torchwick was not the most pleasant of people. He was a liar, a thief and, while he didn't make it a habit (partly because it brought down unnecessary heat from the cops or Hunters, and partly because he loved wearing white coats, and knew how hard blood was to wash out), he was willing to kill if necessary. Lie, cheat, steal, survive, that was his motto. He didn't have friends, only allies. His family were dead, thanks to the Grimm, and the only other members were even more unpleasant than he was now. His prospects as a Huntsman were torpedoed when he beat a particularly obnoxious bully into a pulp. Apparently that idiot still needed a straw to eat.

However, he had one real light in his life. The only person he trusted completely and utterly. Hell, if he was actually capable of feeling love rather than lust, it would be towards this person. Nothing like romantic love: she was too young, about sixteen (and it was hard to tell her age with her rather short stature). Instead, she was his little sister (even without blood ties) and enforcer. Adorable, sweet, obedient, and homicidal. Her Semblance was a thing of beauty, an overpowered thing, true, but he wasn't complaining. His enemies did, though. Quite vociferously. He remembered a White Fang member yelling something about 'hax' before she opened up his throat.

However, she was missing, and Roman was trying to find her. She wasn't answering her Scroll. Now, he knew she could take care of herself, but he had a protective streak. And besides, he needed to know where his employees were at all times.

So he walked into the last place she was in, to his knowledge. She'd said she was off to Junior's club for a drink. Roman had demurred, as he had no desire to go to the club and endure the heavy bass of the doof-doof trance music Junior frequently played.

Roman was one of the few people who could come in to see Junior this early in the morning. Junior, aka Hei Xiong, was one of Vale's few crime bosses, one who kept under the radar by slipping money into the hands of the right people, and not getting involved in anything too flashy. He generally hired out his underlings as muscle for jobs, fencing, and sold information to the highest bidder. He actually owed Roman his position, or at least Roman's cute little enforcer, given what happened to Junior's uncle, a rather venial crime boss known only as the Boss.

Junior was going over what seemed to be the books at the bar, peering at his Scroll, before he looked up, and saw Roman swaggering in. "Roman. I'd ask what you want, but I think it's pretty obvious."

"Oh? Have you somehow developed psychic powers as your Semblance, Junior? Then tell me, what am I thinking right now?"

"That you think my men are inept and that my psychic powers would be hampered by a lack of brainpower."

Roman blinked. That was…uncannily accurate. Then again, they had been associates for long enough that Junior had a good idea of how Roman thought. "You should do a stage show, Junior. You could humiliate people by divulging their secrets. Still, at the risk of putting a pall on the morning, I need to know…"

"…Where your ice cream-eating minion is," Junior said with a roll of his eyes. "The short answer is, she's out the back, in one of my rooms. Probably nursing one hell of a hangover with all the drinks she was knocking back. Best not to disturb her for now."

Roman peered at Junior, and nodded. The burly man was telling the truth, and a part of him relaxed a little. Junior seemed to indicate that, hangover aside, she wasn't in any trouble. Still, it wasn't like her to drink herself into a stupor. "So what actually happened last night?"

Junior scoffed. "She brought in a stray, some scrawny kid in rags, about sixteen. She said…well, typed into her Scroll that he had recently gotten out of prison, and could do with a meal and some drinks. I'm a bit curious about that, she ain't big on charity cases, but she handed over the Lien. The two got to talking…well, he did all the talking, she used her Scroll. I've never really seen her knock back the drinks like that. I didn't hear much, they used a private table, but Melanie and Militia overheard the boy a few times talking about something called 'Gringotts' and some guy called 'Serious Black'. I've never heard of someone like that. Marcus Black, yeah, but 'Serious'? Anyway, at the end of it, they seemed to be very well-acquainted with each other. I offered them a room, and she accepted. The guy had some weird Semblance, like he was able to pull something out of thin air. Gave it to me as a thank you."

Roman watched as Junior pulled out of his pocket a rather magnificent emerald and placed it on the bar. He touched it briefly (but didn't linger: he knew better than to steal from the man he sold his ill-gotten gains to), before remarking, "I assume it's genuine."

"Checked it myself. It's pretty good quality too. It'd fetch quite a lot of Lien. Despite his looks, it seems that your girl may have found a goose that lays the golden eggs. Which begs the question, if he's got something that valuable on him, why does he look like something a Nevermore chewed up and spat out?"

Why indeed? And why did Roman's little sister and enforcer see fit to fraternise with this boy? A fellow thief? Hmm, well, depending on what he found when he went to see what happened, he might not kill him. He might even prove useful…

For a moment, when the pain pierced his waking mind, the nausea churned his stomach, and the light seemed too damn bright for his liking when he opened his eyes, he thought he was still in that dungeon in the depths of Gringotts. Then, he realised that he was on a rather soft bed, and there was no way in hell the Goblins would let him sleep on anything soft or luxurious. That and, he realised with a thrill of horror, he had a bedmate. A rather warm and soft bedmate, who was snoring gently.

Now, as much as he would like to enjoy this experience, his life for the past year or so had been pretty shitty. Not even alcohol and a hangover could erase that. Admittedly, it was partly his fault. He had gotten sloppy, careless, and he had paid for that with his freedom.

Harry had had a talent for stealing things, from a young age. It had been partly necessity, given what the Dursleys did to him. Even before he learned he was a wizard, he learned that he had the ability to open up a private little space that he would later call his Bag of Holding. And that was before he learned of another ability he had. Under duress, he could halt time. Later, he could do it at will. True, he could only halt time for limited periods, and the concentration needed limited its use in combat, but it proved rather more useful for his thieving endeavours.

And then, Hogwarts, and for a time, Harry thought that everything would be all right, everything would turn out fine. His fame was irritating, true, but it was kind of exhilarating to know he was a celebrity there…until he realised that he was famous for surviving when his parents did not. His first year had gone from good to bad, especially when he got the detention for helping Hagrid with that damned dragon, and he got more points taken off him than Malfoy. And after McGonagall refused to listen to him and his friends about the Philosopher's Stone…well, Harry decided then and there that he'd had enough.

He claimed that the Stone had been destroyed during the battle with Quirrelmort, when in reality, it was stored in his Bag of Holding. Something that could give eternal life AND gold? Yeah, he wasn't going to let that one go by.

Over the next few years, he began stealing from the Malfoys and other unpleasant Pureblood families. He'd donated some of his ill-gotten gains discreetly to the Weasleys, as well as their neighbours, the Lovegoods. He'd even managed to, albeit with difficulty, break into the lower security vaults of Gringotts, and even that had pissed off the Goblins.

Unfortunately, he did not know it at first, but he got careless during his fourth year. Mad-Eye Moody, or rather, his impostor Barty Crouch Junior, spotted him doing this, and while Barty told him to keep it quiet (which he did), Barty apparently let things slip to Ludo Bagman. The reason was simple: Barty wanted to have Harry suffer, as well as be in a position to be ready to be killed by his lord and master.

Bagman, after everything went south after the Tri-Wizard Tournament, had been cornered by the Goblins, and Bagman, desperate to get his debt with the Goblins annulled, reported Harry as the thief they had been looking for. Harry was exposed, and the Goblins promptly dragged him to a dungeon under Gringotts before he could escape, magic-suppressing cuffs on him. And given how many Purebloods Harry had stolen from over the years, most of Magical Britain turned on him in an instant.

They tried torturing him to find out where the money and valuables were. He didn't give them the information. Then, a disaster. Sirius was caught trying to rescue Harry, and was given the Kiss. Bill Weasley was allowed in to see him, but only for a short time, as the Goblins intended to fire him. Apparently Ginny had been murdered in Diagon Alley along with Molly, and Arthur was intending to take the Weasleys to Romania. Hermione was too, heading to Australia. They had tried to get Dumbledore to release Harry, but Dumbledore just said that it was impossible, and in any case, this was the consequences of Harry's kleptomania. Bill sent the apologies of his friends, and Harry accepted that, resignedly.

Then, Dumbledore himself came to visit Harry. He stated, bluntly, that Harry would not be freed any time soon, that he was so disappointed in Harry for turning down a dark path. Harry had retorted that the Dursleys had mistreated him, and from there, it devolved into an argument that left Harry shaken. He had caught a glimpse of what lay beneath Dumbledore's mask, none of it good. He knew then and there that Dumbledore actually wanted him to die.

A year had passed, and eventually, the Goblins demanded that Harry be taken to the Veil and cast through it, and the Ministry agreed too readily. Unfortunately, at the same time, Voldemort decided to make an appearance, trying to get something from the Department of Mysteries. During the ensuing clusterfuck, Harry ended up falling through the Veil.

He expected to die. After all, the Goblins gloated that it was a form of execution. Apparently some old families chucked their Squibs through the Veil after greasing the palms of the Unspeakables. And yet, he ended up waking up in an alley in this place…not even on Earth anymore.

The shattered moon hanging in the sky was a big clue, after all.

He came across her surrounded by a trio of thugs in the nearby street, one of whom, to his confusion, seemed to have wolf-like ears. He had intervened, using an Expelliarmus to disarm them. He later realised she was far from armless or harmless…as she promptly kicked their arses. But when she looked at him, well, they stared at each other. He did so because she had brown and pink hair, the pink part having white streaks, and her eyes were mismatched, brown and pink. She stared…because despite this being another world, she had recognised him.

He tried to talk to her, only to have her relay to him that she couldn't talk herself. She typed into some sort of mobile phone-like thing, which she called a Scroll, to introduce herself. Both by the name she went by here, and the name she had been known on Earth: Hydra Delphini Lestrange.

She took pity on him, and took him to some loud nightclub, and got the bartender to start sending them drinks. They were both technically too young to start drinking, but apparently she knew the owner and was given a pass, while Harry…well, he hadn't started drinking yet, but that night felt like he should start.

They got to talking…well, he did most of the talking. She had been like him, a little kleptomaniac within the Black household (after her parents were sent to Azkaban, she was reluctantly brought into the Black household), even going so far as to stealing the Black family rings used for marriage. Despite being a Squib, or a supposed one, she had talents as a Metamorphmagus. As the drinks kept flowing and their tongues and inhibitions loosened, they bared their hearts to each other. They were both thieves, both had been shat upon by Magical Britain, and both were now here.

That part of the evening was blurry enough, but what happened next was pretty much gone. He remembered them snogging pretty heavily, a snatch of what sounded like a wedding march…and, well, nothing. Nothing but a drunken haze.

He looked down at his bed companion. To his relief, she was still partly dressed, if only in her underwear. So too was he. Had he slept with her in anything more than the most literal sense, though? And then, he saw his hand…and her own. Both hands had, on the ring finger, the Black family's wedding ring.

As he began to quietly panic, his bedmate stirred, and looked up at him, blinking blearily, her mismatched eyes staring at him. On seeing him, her eyes widened briefly, the irises becoming white, and she flipped off the bed, picked up her parasol, and aimed it at him, a blade sliding out. However, her aggression went away when she truly seemed to recognise him, and she sagged, the blade retracting, only for her to suddenly make a gagging noise. She rushed through a door presumably leading to a toilet, and he heard muted sounds of vomiting.

Harry followed her, and then, he heard, sliding into his mind, Ugh, and the aftertaste! I don't remember eating carrots!

It was a girl's voice. In fact, if he didn't know she was mute, Harry would have thought that it came from her. He took a brief peek, and noted, indeed, there looked to be semi-digested carrot floating amongst the vomit in the bowl. "Hey, are you all right?" he asked.

Ask me when I'm not half-dead from a hangover. Oh, wait, asking questions of a mute girl is pretty stupid, came the voice.

"…Well, sorry for showing concern," Harry said unthinkingly.

The girl blinked, then got shakily to her feet, and peered at Harry, brown and pink eyes meeting emerald. Eventually, he heard the voice again. Okay, so, if you can hear me, then Dumbledore is a castrated, senile old goat with delusions of adequacy.

Harry laughed hoarsely, despite himself. "He is, isn't he? I mean, don't you want to shave his beard and force feed it to him?"

Actually, I personally think fire would be better, and…huh. So you can hear my thoughts when I think loudly enough, the girl said. She looked down at the ring. Neat. Must be a mental connection. Must've happened when…oh. Oh dear. I think we got married. No priest, no reception, just a pair of drunken idiots and their rings.

Harry stared at her, before deciding to distract himself from what was probably going to be an aggravating issue. "We didn't…you know…?"

She raised a wry eyebrow. Shag? No, I don't think so. Thing is about Metamorphmagi, we're pretty aware of what happens to our bodies. Anyway, from what little I remember, I don't think we got any further than kissing and a little caressing. Dunno what came over me. I guess it was too much drink, and learning that the Boy Who Lived had a shitty life too. Plus, thieves like us have got to stick together, right?

"…I guess," Harry said. He was stranded in another world, away from Magical Britain…away from the expectations made of the Boy Who Lived, and of the consequences of his thieving. And here she was, a fellow outcast from Magical Britain. "Okay, let's start over, now that we're sober." He held out his hand. "Hi, I'm Harry Potter."

She took it, and grinned. Hi, I'm Hydra Delphini Lestrange…though these days, I go by Neopolitan. But please…call me Neo…

CHAPTER 1 ANNOTATIONS:

Well, Harry's ended up in Remnant, and has now been wed to Neo…only it was Neo who initiated the wedding, not Harry. And with the Black marriage rings (Walburga and Orion presumably never using them). Oh dear.

Those who have read my previous works will doubtless see some elements of my backstory for Harry cribbed from Just a Touch of Kleptomania, only without Hermione or Luna being his partners in crime, and without Harry being ridiculously OP. Still OP enough to manage to rob low security vaults at Gringotts. He basically has a somewhat longer-lived version of Dio Brando's Stand, The World, from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure…and yes, that's his Semblance. He inadvertently unlocked it, even off Remnant.

No numbered annotations this time.