Charlotte Potter: The Cat Burglar.

Charlotte grinned at her professor as she reversed the transformation and she returned to her human form. "Better?" she asked.

Jose Chameleone, a tall and thin man who was five years Charlottes' senior grinned back showing a collection of straight white teeth that shone in the spectacular smile. "Much better," he replied with a strong Ugandan accent. "You have certainly mastered the animagus transformation, and your drive to succeed has certainly been impressive. When did you decide to become an animagus?"

"Ever since my first year at Hogwarts," Charlotte replied promptly. "When I saw my transfiguration teacher at Hogwarts leap off of her desk, transforming from a cat into a human. I wanted to become an animagus as well, because becoming one is the sign of a witch or wizard who wants to better themselves, right?"

The professor nodded back with a smile again, but his smile faded a little. "I just need to know something, and I admit I have been curious ever since you hired me through Gringotts to help you master the transformation. Why didn't you ask Professor McGonagall for help? I know of her, she is a well regarded Transfiguration mistress, and an animagus as well. She should have helped if you wanted to become one."

Charlotte wasn't offended by the question. Indeed she had been expecting it for a while. "I was thinking of asking for her help, but the problem is I don't trust her," she said, deciding to simply tell the Ugandan wizard the truth. "In my first year, she refused to listen to me and my friends when I told her something important. The result, we were nearly killed. In my second year, I was accused of setting a monster on the school simply because I can speak parseltongue. Not only didn't she do anything, but you could see in her eyes she actually believed the rumours without even trying to find the answers for herself."

Suddenly understanding the issue, Chameleone groaned. "I will never understand why you Europeans have so many prejudices towards magical talents. Yes, parseltongue has had a bad reputation in some parts of the world, but in parts of Africa and India, it is highly revered. There are many poisonous snakes in various jungles and areas in Africa, South America, Asia and Australia. Having a parselmouth around is a great benefit."

Charlotte nodded, once more grateful she had used her Gringotts contacts to help her with finding this man and hiring him out to help her take the steps into becoming an animagus. Ever since she had seen Professor McGonagall's transformation during that first transfiguration lesson back in her first year, she had been dying to become an animagus, and she had done a huge amount of work and research into developing her transfiguration skills so she would have the expertise into making it possible.

But it wasn't long before she discovered one of the reasons why few witches or wizards even tried to become animagi was because of the long, arduous struggle involved with becoming an animagus. Another was there were so many things you had to get right the first time, otherwise, you would need to do it all over again.

Charlotte had been in limbo. She had no idea what to do but it wasn't long before she realised she would need help into becoming an animagus even if it went against her nature to beg or even to want help, but the idea of becoming an animagus….

It was compelling.

She had no idea what her form would be, but even if it couldn't help her with her burglaries - she had read the stories of cat animagi breaking into places, which gave rise to the stories and the term 'cat burglar' which had only inspired her more - then she would have no choice.

The death and the sale of the Basilisk corpse had certainly opened doors for Gringotts. Not only had she flooded the market - both the legal and the illegal - with basilisk parts and skin, especially skin when she had discovered that shed basilisk skin never lost its strength, and the longer it was left off of the snake, the more resilient it became - but the profits had certainly improved her standing with the goblins, and thanks to the profits it had opened doors.

Like finding a teacher who could help her become an animagus.

Thanks to the goblins, Charlotte had learnt of a Ugandan transfiguration professor who hailed from Uagadou School of Magic, who was renowned worldwide for their skills with transfiguration - Charlotte had laughed herself sick when she had heard their school team had made so many older and more experienced witches and wizards nervous because they were able to transform into animals such as Cheetahs, Baboons, and Elephants so effortlessly. Hiring someone with the knowledge hadn't been difficult, but when he had arrived Charlotte had had a problem.

She was going to go to the Weasley family for a short time, so she wouldn't be able to do the work without someone wondering what she was doing. On top of that, she had planned for the Crown Jewel heist for a while, sending Dobby, who was the only House elf out of him and Winky, who had experience with her private life as a criminal, to map out the Tower of London so she could form a plan.

The arrangements to stay with the Weasley family came in late in the year, but before that she had planned to meet with Chameleone once she had gained an understanding of the transfiguration principles for the third year, but the limited time she would have was a problem for her.

The dilemma was solved, thankfully, when she discovered the Time Turner Hermione Granger was using, and after finding a spell which was powerful enough to copy the Turner, she had time travel.

Once she had the Turner, her plans finally came together although she had wondered what she could do. She wasn't particularly interested in Quidditch despite her cover, but it was important for her image if she presented the facade she was. With the Time-Turner, she would only need to travel back in time a few hours and get to London to steal the jewels.

When she had been with the Weasleys, Charlotte had actually been using the Time-Turner she had made after using a spell she had discovered in the Hogwarts library which was powerful enough to copy magical objects to go back in time a few hours to assist her with the London burglary, but with the animagus transformation, she would have to travel back even further if she wanted to keep her schedule.

Professor Chameleone had come into Britain about a month before the Quidditch World Cup, and she had met him personally before she had visited the Weasleys. She had spent three hours with him to find out what the transformation entailed, and he had confirmed it would take a month to properly become an animagus, though she wasn't surprised given she had discovered that fact when she had been studying the animagus transformation years before.

Using the Time-Turner, she had gone back in time after discovering from her own researches which involved a trial and error system at Hogwarts that more than ten turns would send her back a month or so (God, she'd had so much fun when she had travelled back in time two months during her third year, especially when she had gone on a crime spree in Paris before returning to the present, and living out the two months taking an unauthorised holiday to Paris had been a joy), it had been easy for Charlotte to go back in time to properly work with Professor Chameleone - she had surprised him given the Quidditch World Cup, but that was nothing she couldn't handle, and so three versions of her existing in three different time zones had been running around. Charlotte had made certain to prepare another Potter property for the work and other arrangements to deal with the professor's stay, and she had made sure her House-elves attended to her other younger selves. Not her her.

When she had studied under the Professor, Charlotte had found the added benefit of having occlumency experience since having an ordered mind meant she could control the transformation into her form.

"I never knew speaking to snakes was so revered in other parts of the world," she said, coming out of her thoughts.

"It is," Chameleone confirmed. "Now, one more time."

Charlotte nodded and closed her eyes while she turned her mind inward to focusing on her animagus form. She felt herself transform into her cat form. She was relieved she had discovered her animagus form was a cat, but given that her personality of aloofness, her desire to be independent, to be unseen, that she loved the night, was geared for a feline form, it wasn't a surprise. Truthfully, Charlotte didn't really care what kind of cat she became, but she was relieved that her cat form was a black shorthair cat.

To the Ugandan transfiguration professor who had taught her to become an animagus in the first place was used to the animals being more exotic - at least in her mind - so she had expected him to find her becoming an ordinary house cat a little bit boring and mundane. In truth, Chameleone was actually quite excited by the form she had. Charlotte had the impression he had become so bored out of his mind with the African animals, he thought house cats were more exotic, even though they lived in Africa as well as in Britain.

Charlotte padded around the room. It was so strange moving on four limbs instead of the usual two, and at this particular height. She looked at the chair that was near the counter. She walked over to it gracefully before she crouched down and leapt into the chair. When she found herself in the seat Charlotte looked down at the ground with awe. She had become an athlete thanks to her life on the streets, but she had never leapt up like that before. Even the times she had managed to leap onto a fence and scale it seemed like she had been doing it clumsily compared to the grace of a cat.

Professor Chameleone started to clap his hands when she leapt onto the countertop and walked up and down, looking out over the rest of the room from where she was. One thing she hadn't expected was being able to look out over the room from her position and from her new size, and see and hear things that as a human was virtually impossible for her to hear.

She transformed back, grinning.

"What now?" she asked.

"Now, we get you registered. You do not want to go out with an unregistered animagus," the Ugandan wizard replied seriously.

Charlotte nodded although she had to use all of her occlumency not to show how she really felt about that. She didn't want anyone knowing anything about her animagus form, especially if it got back to Dumbledore. "Do we have to get it registered with the British Ministry? I don't really trust them not to cause any problems."

The Ugandan wizard raised an eyebrow, but he replied anyway, "All magical governments share responsibilities. We can go wherever you want, but please tell me why you don't want your form registered in Britain?"

Charlotte sighed as she tried to think of a good enough excuse. "You may have heard the British Ministry lost a prisoner from Azkaban, yes?"

"Everyone did," Chameleone folded his arms. "But what has that to do with anything?"

"It was my godfather who escaped," Charlotte said grimly, feeling only slightly regretful about using Sirius in this manner, though if it helped her then she would. "The Ministry believed he, being a high-ranking Death Eater, would come after me. What do they do? They didn't tell me about the danger, they instead opted to treat me like a little kid without a clue about the world, and they posted a group of Dementors at Hogwarts. They claim it was for my own protection, but I nearly died when I fell from a broomstick during a match."

"What?" Chameleone stared at her with horror.

Charlotte nodded, feeling the same resentment she had felt when the Ministry in an act of incredible stupidity refused to remove them, although they had changed their minds very quickly, what she resented the most was the fact they saw her as a clueless child. She had been thirteen at the time, and she had lost her parents. Okay, so she didn't really care much about that, but surely it would have made sense if they had at least informed her of the danger, instead of her stumbling into Black's hands by accident.

Then again, Fudge didn't have any common sense, and neither did many of the people in the Ministry. "I made sure the Magical world understood the stupidity by sending out a letter into the media. What struck in my craw the most was they didn't even tell me anything. I only found out about what Black did by chance."

"So that's why you don't trust them?" Chameleone nodded in understanding while he sent her a look she recognised as sympathetic for having to go through that.

"Yeah," Charlotte replied, knowing if she told him about the rest of her plans it might blow up in her face.

"I see. Well, I can escort you to a couple of other ministries, get you registered there. If anything happens, then you can show the licence and the DMLE here won't do anything."

Charlotte nodded her thanks.

XXX

A few days later, Charlotte was testing the limits of her new animagus form in a muggle neighbourhood. Propelled by the mind of the witch, the cat leapt onto fences, knowing full well if she tried to walk on them in her human form it would collapse taking her with it while the fence itself would need to be put back up or back together, depending on how well it was made. Even if she were the greatest acrobat with the type of physique necessary, she knew it would be virtually impossible to balance herself on the top of the fence without it toppling over.

In her cat form, however, Charlotte was able to run up and down without her weight sending it over.

Unfortunately, she had to contend with the muggles.

"Oi, get off my fence!" an irate woman yelled at Charlotte while she walked on top of the fence.

Charlotte turned her head and eyed the muggle woman for a moment before she looked away.

"Get off of my fence!" the muggle screamed but Charlotte ignored her. Suddenly she yowled in shock and anger as she suddenly felt a jet of icy water sprayed at her with enough force to shove her off of the fence into next doors garden hedge. Furious, Charlotte spat and growled as she wrestled her way out of the hedge. She spat with pain as the pointy bits in the hedge went into her skin underneath her pelt.

When she had righted herself, Charlotte shook off the water - she could very well understand why cats didn't like being sprayed with jets of the stuff - off of her body before she realised she was in the garden belonging to someone who appeared to own a cat of their own. Charlotte's tail flicked a little bit before she padded softly over to the cat flap set in the door, and she pushed her way inside. She peeked in slowly sniffing the air and pricking her ears to catch whatever sounds were in the house, but there weren't any. A brief sniff told her no-one was in the house.

Cautiously she walked into the house and she started exploring the house. From the living room, she saw that the house belonged to a family with a single mother, who was likely to be at work, and she had about two children. A boy and a girl. Charlotte heard a hiss behind her, and she turned and saw another cat, a siamese nearby. Charlotte caught the scent and identified it as another female.

Refusing to back down, Charlotte instantly hissed back, but that caused the second cat to snarl. With an inner sigh, Charlotte turned herself back

into a human, startling the other cat whom the witch ignored for a moment before she walked back to the kitchen and transformed herself back.

"Needs work," she muttered to herself before she fully transformed herself back into a cat.