Disclaimer - I don't own anything.

As this is the last chapter, I think you should know I might write something smaller to show what Harry does after this.

Feedback would be nice.

setokayba2n- While Harry frequently uses magic, he doesn't use it more times than he should. He knows that if he uses it too much or in front of muggles, then he will be in trouble.

Lee's secret helper.

Harry left the hospital frustrated and bitterly disappointed in Lee, wondering what in the name of God had gone through his mind when he'd decided having Nettles' memory vials would be have a good idea, and not handing them over when the same guy sent around some muscle to get it back. He could understand Lee's desire to retain some of the same old power he'd held for years since he'd left Hogwarts and discovered he was better off in the muggle world, but what he couldn't understand was why he had become so seemingly stubborn.

He should have handed those vials back to Nettle's guys when they'd asked for them, instead the fool had got himself beaten up for his troubles. It still surprised him Lee had been taken down that easily, but it had been a long time since Lee had needed to defend himself, so either he'd become too cocky for his own good or he hadn't really been good at fighting to begin with, but that was his problem.

But he couldn't believe that Lee didn't seem to have any kind of self preservation whatsoever. The man had been around for decades, and yet he had been taken down so effortlessly.

Harry stood outside the hospital for a few minutes as he considered what to do next, and while he was tempted to go after Nettle even though it went against everything he had been doing for years since he'd left Hogwarts and dealt with Voldemort at the same time, he had to admit he would work better with a plan.

After lifting a hand to rub his eyes out of frustration, he was slightly surprised to find his hand wrapped around a plastic bag and he remembered he'd been shopping before Liz had phoned to tell him about Lee. He didn't have much choice, he would go home and put the shopping away and use the time to come up with a plan to deal with Nettle and protect himself, and Lee, from any further attacks. Yes, that was a better idea.

Walking away from the hospital on the way to the Underground station, Harry stepped around other pedestrians who crowded the streets and would've made it hard for him to get through if not for the compulsion charms he placed on them. Ordinarily he wouldn't use such spells on muggles in the street, but today he was in a hurry and besides after what had happened to Lee, he knew he would need to get home quickly, and besides it wasn't as if he used magic everyday, so the rule still held.

Harry knew he had to shoulder at least some of the blame for this whole mess, but he hadn't expected Nettle to have invented his own tracking charm. He'd considered inventing his own spells himself when he'd attended Hogwarts, but he hadn't taken the course thanks to Dumbledore's interference. Not for the first time Harry cursed the old wizard for constantly meddling in his life without taking the time to consider that having a background in something like arithmancy and Ancient Runes might been more beneficial than something as crap as Divination.

While he waited for the train, Harry considered his options. He didn't dare confront Nettle on his own patch even though it sounded attractive. It was bad enough Hermione Granger had met him outside Hogwarts, but if what Lee had said about Nettle was true, then Harry didn't want the knowledge that Harry Potter sometimes worked with Lee to get out.

No, he thought to himself, Nettle doesn't strike me as the type of man who would spread that kind of knowledge around unless he saw some way to benefit from it. When the train pulled into the station, Harry waited for the passengers to leave the carriage and tried unsuccessfully to find a decent seat, he wondered what he could do to stop Nettle from going after Lee again, though at this point he wished Nettle's men had killed the idiot so he wouldn't be in this mess.

Harry breathed a sigh of relief as he unlocked the door of his flat and walked inside, but before he closed the door everything happened so quickly. He had just put the shopping down on the floor, and was just about to close the front door when he realised someone was standing in the doorway, and the next moment he was on the ground with that someone's hands wrapped around his throat. Harry could feel the other man's knees weighing down on his chest, making it slightly difficult to breathe, but Harry couldn't help but struggle slightly.

"Where are the vials?" Harry heard the intruder shout, the loudness made him wince.

Harry guessed he should have expected something like this, but he'd been comfortable with the knowledge that Nettle and his men hadn't known anything about him, so how did this guy find him so quickly? He'd only been out shopping when Liz had phoned him. He'd find out in a minute, once he could breathe properly again.

"Get off me!"

"Where are the vials?" The intruder repeated himself. "My boss is getting impatient," he added.

Harry stopped struggling for a second when he realised that while the other man had his hands wrapped around his throat and he was being weighed down by the man on his chest, the other man wasn't squeezing his throat too tightly at all. It was clear the other man wanted him to speak clearly without suffocating, but Harry knew that either he found out about the vials or not, he could change his mind.

Usually Harry didn't dare use magic, but he had no choice. Slipping his wand out, he blasted the man off him. Harry quickly got up, pushing any discomfort aside, and pointed his wand at the other man, who looked like he was still stunned by the attack.

"How the hell did you do - you're a wizard?" The other man began to ask before he looked up and found himself looking down the length of Harry's wand.

Harry wasn't really surprised by the other man's knowledge of magic. Silently, Harry disarmed the man, sending his own wand flying away to the other side of the room. Another flick and the door closed properly. The other man looked slightly nervous of being disarmed so quickly and effortlessly by his clearly more powerful opponent. "Yeah, I'm a wizard," Harry whispered. "And so are you. Muggleborn, right?"

The other man glared at him before he nodded grudgingly. "Yeah."

"And you work for Nettle. How did you find me so quickly?"

The other man needed a moment to understand the question, but when he did he answered it with the same air of someone who didn't want to answer but had no real. "I was under a glamour charm at the hospital. Nettle had me posted there to keep an eye on Lee, but apart from his wife you were the only visitor to see him, and you were there for a while."

Harry didn't like the sound of that, if this guy went missing then Nettle would certainly tear down Lee's organisation trying to find answers, but if he just wiped the guys' memory then his secret should be safe for the time being. But he didn't like the ease this guy had just stalked him, but there was little he could do.

Lifting his wand, Harry methodically bound the man.

"W-what are you gonna do to me?" the man asked fearfully, realising that his opponent was more powerful and more dangerous than he was.

Harry ignored him and cast the legilimen's spell, thankful for one rare occasion that the mind arts weren't taught at Hogwarts like they should've been, and he tore through the man's mind. He didn't pay any attention to the man's memories growing up, nor was he particularly bothered by the memories of him going to Hogwarts though he spared a moment to look at them before continuing with his mental assault until he found the memories he was looking for. He found out this man was one of Nettle's old friends from Hogwarts, and judging from the easy way the blackmailer had brought him into the fold, it was clear the man had thoughtlessly joined Nettle's organisation.

But what interested him the most were the names of Nettle's organisation and where he was likely to find them. Harry looked deeper into the mind of the muggleborn attacker, being as gentle as he could as he went through the man's brain.

Why did things like this have to spiral out of control? Harry grumbled quietly to himself as he headed towards one of the hangouts of Nettle's gang. Disguised as an old man, though thankfully he still had the strength and speed he used as a young man, Harry hoped this night would be much more peaceful; ever since he had dealt with Voldemort and had gotten used to keeping his head down firmly, he had always tried to prevent himself from getting into messes that could lead to discovery. He had a clear idea of what he had to do, but he couldn't help but feel his plan was going to go badly wrong. He just couldn't believe things had spiralled out of control to this degree already - first Lee had been beaten to a pulp, then he'd been attacked himself, but there was little he could do about that. All he could do was to deal with Nettle quickly before things became worse.

But what he was about to do, it could mean discovery from the Ministry of Magic, if he was forced to rely on plan A for this to work out the way he wanted it to, but truthfully he wanted plan B to work the most since it didn't involve much magic to be used at all, and should be relatively safe.

Harry closed his eyes as he approached the tiny pub on a street corner that the gang frequented - he didn't know if they were already inside, but even if they weren't at least he could say he tried. The guy who'd attacked him earlier in his own home knew they came here quite a lot, so it was a good place to start.

Harry walked purposefully towards the door - he may as well get this over with - and paused when he heard the sounds of laughing and loud music. The pub sounded full, and he opened the door.

It was certainly busy, but he pushed through the throng of people holding glasses of booze while keeping his eye open for the gang members, but it was hard to see anyone in this crowd.

When he arrived at the counter, it took a moment for the barmaid to notice him. "Yes, luv," she grinned at him through lips painted a fluorescent pink, "what can I get you?"

"Glass of rum, please," Harry said, passing over a fiver.

"Coming right up."

Harry knocked some of the alcohol back, wincing at the burn before he got his change back. Turning his back on the counter, Harry studied the faces around him even as he drew his coat higher around his throat to give the impression he was an old man trying to retain whatever little warmth he had, and waited until he saw someone he recognised. But in the meantime, he looked around the pub for a moment before he returned.

It took him a while, but he didn't fancy pushing through an entire crowd again, and besides he didn't want anyone to notice him just walking around holding a glass of rum when there were seats available. Besides, from where he was standing by the counter, he could see who was coming and going, but staying in one place had downsides. It took a moment for Harry to pick out someone from the memories of the gang member who'd attacked him in his flat. Harry picked up his glass of rum and walked slowly over to him.

The gang member was sitting with a few of his friends. Harry hoped this would be as easy as it was beginning to look, but there were so many ways this could go wrong. Picking up a newspaper, Harry pretended to flick through it while he pulled out his wand from the sleeve of his coat, and he silently cast a compulsion charm at one of the gang when he was sure no one was going to walk in the way of the spell. He mentally directed one of the gang to head to the toilet in a few minutes. Harry had found the gents when he went off to have a look earlier.

For two minutes Harry waited for the gang member to arrive, and he mentally prepared himself for the encounter ahead. From what he'd gathered so far, nearly all of Nettle's gang were muggleborns themselves, though he had muggles working for him - he had to be, because while there was a myth of muggleborns being rejected by people like the Ministry and other places in the magical world, it wasn't true. Many muggleborns simply found it uncomfortable in the wizarding world, but Harry didn't know and frankly didn't care what Nettle's gang had been through.

When the gang member walked in, Harry instantly stopped him with a spell and ignoring the wide eyed look of surprise on his face, he began to gently put suggestions into the gang member's mind, trying to ignore the feeling he was using tactics Dumbledore would have used, but there was a difference between them both. Where he was only doing this the once, he couldn't help but feel that at some point, he'd be using this technique again and again. Harry sighed and concentrated on his task.

Jack Nettle arrived slowly before midnight outside a flat, his wand clasped firmly in his hand. He still found it hard to believe what he had heard from one of his underlings. Apparently the thief who'd taken the vials knew where they were being kept, and didn't care about Lee one way or another about what the consequences would be if they were given back.

Nettle fingered his wand, his mind racing as he tried to work out why someone who'd been employed by Lee was betraying him; it was possible the thief had seen the results of the beating, which even to Nettle was extreme even if it was necessary to make the old moron realise he wanted those vials back now.

But it was also possible the thief was leading him into a trap, though he couldn't see or understand how. Another thing that concerned him was the setting where the thief had confronted that member of his gang. A gents toilet was not the type of place you'd expect to meet a thief, but because it was so late when he had received the message, he hadn't really bothered to probe the man's mind to see what had happened in the gents.

What bothered him the most was how quickly it had taken for this to happen. Jack had hoped that Lee would come to his senses, and he had been preparing to visit the man in the hospital after giving him time to stew, though at first he had decided to do it as soon as visitors were allowed to see him. That way he could have gone in in the aftermath, ripped Lee's mind to pieces, and found out where the cocky sod had hidden the vials. But unfortunately he'd been held back by his business issues, and he'd decided to wait until morning, though he'd ordered some of his men to the hospital where Lee was being treated to keep an eye on him, and if they saw anyone leave who'd visited him they were to follow them in case they knew where the vials were.

He needed to get them back.

His business empire depended on their safe return.

The only problem he had now was dealing with this thief and also trying to find out who he was, how he was able to get through the security on his office so easily. Oh, he had worked out that the thief was another wizard, but the problem was he didn't know anything about this one who'd broken through his security without breaking a sweat. Besides, if he met the thief, he could either offer him a job or he'd have to kill him, but Nettle hoped it didn't come to that. While he was curious and more than a little concerned about any witch or wizard being skilled enough to get through his security, and was prepared to offer them a job, Nettle had no experience about having to deal with this.

Finally, he reached the number of the flat, and he was surprised to see the door was open. Nettle's worries about this whole thing grew, but he gently rapped his fingers on the door while he tried to peer through the gap without making it obvious.

"Come in."

Nettle swallowed and walked inside, trying to come up with a conversation at the last minute, a pitch he could put towards the thief; if he was a freelancer, then it meant he was free to work whenever, but if he was loyal to Lee…

The thief was there already, still fully dressed. The room was quite dark with only two lamps switched on. Nettle's eyes flickered over everything in the room quickly, expecting a trap while more than aware of the thief, who didn't even move an inch. Nettle studied the thief, who was lounging comfortably on the sofa.

"I think you know who I am," Nettle said, wishing he could think of something better to say, but he couldn't think of any decent way to open up.

"Jack Nettle; I know who you are," the thief replied, staring back with a polite but cool stare. It may have been late, but Nettle was still alert enough to be concerned about the stare he was getting, and he wondered if this man was even aware of his thoughts of seeing if he could get him into his gang.

"I also know why you're here," the thief said, and Jack felt his heart stop when the thief's green eyes flicked downwards to the wand clasped in his hand, now beginning to suspect it was a mistake to expose his wand to someone who was clearly another wizard. The thief didn't seem bothered though, he just took out his own wand and flicked it at the door.

For a moment, Nettle was frozen, his eyes, trying to find some way out of this situation, before he realised he wasn't going to get out of it easily.

"You have no intention of giving those vials back to me, do you?" Nettle asked, guessing what the answer would be.

"No. Your men attacked someone I have known for a long time; granted, Lee overreached himself this time, and he could very easily have been killed by your men, but I'm not going to let you go after him again," the thief said.

All of Jack Nettle's instincts were screaming at him to either run or fight, but he was curious despite himself even as he readied himself for a fight. "What did you hope to achieve by bringing me here?"

"A bit of respite," the thief replied, "for Lee and his wife. Don't blame the gang member who passed on the message to you, he will have forgotten everything I've done, including the address to my flat."

Nettle took an involuntary step back, but he quickly regained his composure enough to raise his wand, only to find himself locked in a duel with his opponent. It had been a long time since Nettle had found himself in a duel, something he had learnt during his time at Hogwarts, but he quickly realised this wizard was completely different from any other he'd dealt with. Nettle used high powered curses designed to overwhelm his opponents, but while they normally worked he had learnt how tiring it was.

But this wizard was flicking his wand in an almost bored way, as if the manner of the duel was beneath him, and that made Nettle angry, but there was little he could do about it. Also, while Nettle was resorting to a show of force, the wizard in front of him rarely used high powered curses, instead he used curses that Nettle dimly remembered as being nasty before using bigger, and more dangerous spells while casting defensive spells that blocked the worst of Nettle's curses.

To make things worse, Nettle found himself having to block some of his own curses that were sent back to him. He'd heard of this duelling technique before, but he had never seen it in practice before. Another thing that annoyed Nettle was the wizard's use of spells and charms that were used every day - for instance, the wizard used a lighting spell to shine in his face and blind him for a second before a bludgeoning curse found its way towards his leg.

Nettle became exhausted very quickly, noting with a lot of envy that the wizard didn't seem exhausted. He'd paced himself, Nettle knew that, but he wished the other was just as tired. But it looked like he was only getting started.

"Who are you?" Nettle panted as he tried to regain some of his strength so he could fight back again. "How were you able to do all this, break into my office, manipulate the mind of one of my gang, and deal with me so easily?"

"My name is Harry Potter," the wizard replied.

Nettle's eyes widened. Harry Potter? He had heard of the wizard of course, but he had never expected to hear of the legendary muggleborn, who had vanished from the magical world years ago. What was he doing here, and was he really a thief? No wonder he hadn't landed a spell on the man, after all the guy was incredibly powerful.

"And you stole my vials? Why? Surely Lee couldn't have offered you anything-"

"I owed the man a few favours," Potter shrugged his shoulders. "I don't agree with Lee's greed and his lack of common sense. In my mind, he should have left you to your own devices, or negotiated a deal so then he could carry on with his businesses without your involvement."

Nettle didn't have time to cry out when he saw the white-green flash of light, and the terrible rushing sound that roared through his ears until his world went dark…

Harry looked down at the body with frustration. He didn't regret killing Nettle because it would've only been only a matter of time before the man learnt about him, and dealt with both him and Lee.

One thing was for sure, he would have to deal with the body quickly so then no suspicion fell on him. Before Harry had gone to that pub, he had done some research that had only been strengthened when he had looked into the mind of the man whose memory he'd modified and manipulated (he hated the necessity of that still), and he knew Nettle had enemies of his own, muggle enemies who would love to get their hands on him.

He just wished he hadn't used the killing curse here. While his flat was isolated, one of many, the Ministry could still pick up the signature of the spell and come here in force. And it meant a one way trip to prison.

Summoning the sharp knife he'd left out and hidden in the darkness so Nettle couldn't have seen it when he'd arrived, Harry bent down and swallowed down the bile that threatened to rise through his throat at what he was about to do…..

A few weeks later, in the early hours of a cold and frosty morning, Harry stood with Lee, both dressed in black as they stood in a graveyard looking down at a freshly dug plot with a black tombstone with JACK NETTLE and the man's date of birth and date of death lettered in gold. Well, Lee had to lean against him for support as his body was still recovering from the beating he'd received from Nettle's mob, but he was strong enough for this.

"Are you sure they can't trace this back to us?" Lee asked Harry.

Harry didn't look at him. "Pretty sure," he said, "I portkeyed Nettle back to the outside of his club. It might make a few suspicious about how easily he was taken by surprise, but they should just assume someone got the drop on him."

Harry didn't dare mention how he'd killed Nettle. After using the killing curse, the summoning spell and the Portkey creation, spell in the span of a few minutes, he had left his flat and spent a few nights in another flat he owned while keeping watch on his primary flat in case the Ministry turned up. But he had no intention of telling Lee that. He would later if Lee didn't learn his lesson on this occasion. Emotional blackmail material was incredibly easy to create, after all.

"It might make a few suspicious. They should just assume someone got the drop on him?" Lee repeated, putting a bit of emphasis on certain words. "You're expecting too much, Harry. They might think we had something to do with it. You did steal those vials from Nettle-"

"On your orders," Harry pointed out, "but you were hardly the only other person he was antagonising, Lee. Besides, if they had thought we had killed their boss, don't you think we'd have heard something by now? I have been keeping a watch, Lee."

Lee had to concede to the logic, and Harry considered everything that had happened over the last few weeks. When he had slit Nettle's throat, he had sent the body back the man's club, knowing it would be found either by the police or one of Nettle's mob, it didn't matter which because one or both would find out eventually. Harry had known it was fairly risky doing that, of course, since he had dealt with two of the gang, but he'd wiped their memories as well so they couldn't retain the memory of meeting him. But fortunately, Nettle's gang was thrown out of sync without their boss, and because Nettle had kept everything going on to himself and only giving his underlings the most scarce information, Harry had no idea whether they'd adapt and get a different leader who would push the gang into taking a more traditional role, or they would fold and scatter to form their own gangs or join already existing mobs. He didn't know which way the wind would turn, but he didn't think that Nettle's death would be fixed on Lee, because unknown to Lee, he had tracked down and erased the memory of the vials being taken from the safe from their minds.

The only reason he hadn't bothered telling Lee was because he wanted the older man to be worried, it might make him more cautious in the future.

FINIS - Thanks for reading.