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Charlotte Potter: The Cat Burglar.

Luck almost runs out.

Charlotte shot up in bed, her head feeling like it was about to split open from the amount of pain it was suffering thanks to yet another vision from Voldemort. She closed her eyes fiercely, and she brought her knees up so then she could rest her head in between her legs while she tried to exorcise the vision out of her mind.

Her scar had been aching ever since the end of her third year, but it had been gradually turning from an ache to a really nasty pain. The visions she was getting was new. She had been feeling them just when she was starting her animagus training, but at the time she had just pushed them out of her mind, but now they were becoming increasingly harder to just push out of her thoughts.

At first, they had merely been impressions, like a badly remembered fragmented dream that made as much sense as a house without foundations being built inside out. But they were becoming clearer, easier to interpret. That meant only one thing.

Voldemort was becoming stronger.

He was no longer a wraith, not if he could cast the killing curse she had studied in secret during her second year and was the curse Lucius Malfoy was about to cast on her when she had conned him into freeing Dobby.

Charlotte closed her eyes. She didn't need this, she didn't need any of it. She had no idea what Voldemort was going to do, but if her luck ran true to form then the dark wanker would be returning this year. Charlotte closed her eyes, and wondered if she should just plan a transfer out of Hogwarts and go to a different school, one where she wouldn't have to be pushed into messes which were not her problem since the headteacher and the rest of the staff just ran a school, and not some sick social experiment of Dumbledore's choosing, and definitely not having to worry about a Dark Lord who should have been dealt with a long time ago.

At the same time, Charlotte had no intention of telling anyone about the scar aching. Her friends would badger her into telling Dumbledore, and the old fool would either capitalise on it, or he would hide the information deeming himself as the only one who'd understand it without telling her what it all meant in the long run even if it could help her.

This was not the best of times. Charlotte was currently in East Sussex, in the Brighton area. Charlotte loved Brighton due to its proximity to the sea but the crowds of tourists who were bursting with cash and the jewellery shops, it was the paradise for a thief. Okay, granted, there weren't that many tourists at Brighton this time of year, but that was irrelevant.

She looked around the hotel room she had booked. She had almost made the fatal mistake of choosing a hotel room in the basement where she would have felt nothing but claustrophobia because it was virtually airtight and there were no windows. Charlotte got out of bed with a disgruntled sigh, and she got dressed in her jogging clothes before she was out of the hotel. She jogged up and down the front while casting an air-freshening charm around her to get rid of the stink of petrol, thankful the custom made wand she'd had made for herself could be used and the stupid Trace couldn't pick it up unlike the piece of crap she'd gotten off of Ollivander.

When she got back to the hotel and after getting a quick shower and putting on a fresh outfit complete with a leather outfit although she carried inside her inner pocket a couple of bags she planned to use for today, Charlotte walked out of the hotel again and into Brighton itself.

Wanting some breakfast, she went to a shop and got to the cashier.

"Hi," the young man who looked like he was a few years older than she was smiled at her.

Charlotte grinned back. "Hi," she said as she realised he was interested in her, but a quick look in his mind and she could see he was a bit of a lech, which only put her off. She placed her order on the counter and got out some cash. Just before she paid, he slid over a handwritten piece of paper with a phone number on it.

He looked at her with a hopeful smile, and she smiled back and walked out. She didn't have the heart to tell him she wasn't interested. She walked into the Pavilion park and started to eat her breakfast while she mentally went through the plans she had in mind.

When she had gotten to Brighton two days before, Charlotte had gone around the place and she had cast spells on houses and blocks of flats so she could find the right times to burgle them. At the same time, she had also used a few spells she was positive the Marauders had used to make their map of Hogwarts.

Thinking of her reprobate godfather and her uncle made Charlotte frown (ooh, she hated that title; memories of Vernon's beatings would never take that away) and grimace while she was eating one of the three bananas she had bought along with the pot of yoghurt she had wanted for breakfast. She had received only a few messages from the two men ever since Sirius had been forced to go on the run after the fiasco the last term, but truthfully she wondered if Sirius even knew Charlotte was her own person.

Most of the messages he had sent her had been about her father. It was very rare for Lily to be mentioned, and when she was it was an offhand mention. Charlotte knew Sirius had been her dad's best pal, and she had read some people had a fixation over the past, but Sirius took it a little bit too far sometimes

No, I'm being too kind there.

Charlotte looked down as she continued to slowly spoon the yoghurt into her mouth. Although Sirius was a fountain of information about her parents, she had noticed he was more selective than she would have wanted. Every time she had wanted to learn more about Lily, Sirius would just keep yammering in the messenger book about her dad. It was James this and James that.

On top of that, Sirius kept demanding she play more pranks, and he had worded the requests in such a way they were almost orders, saying she should live up to her father's legacy.

Charlotte thought about the past thirteen-fourteen years of her life. Ever since she had murdered the Dursleys after they had killed that little kitten she had found simply because they wanted to see her suffer, and when she had heard about the murder and what it did, she had given the Dursleys the sleeping pills to render them weak and helpless. Just like her and that little kitten whose cries as Vernon viciously twisted its head before it died had been. And then she had slit their throats.

She had never had time for pranks, but then again she'd never enjoyed them either. Not only because the kids at school, wanting to keep Dudley appeased, had played them on her, but at Hogwarts the Weasley twins showed they didn't really see anything wrong with playing their stupid jokes on her, and her godfather, whom she was starting to think less highly of with each message, was telling her to play them on people for a laugh. She recalled the humiliation of the pranks she'd endured at primary school, played by those muggle children who wanted to keep her bastard cousin off their backs, who had called her a freak, and she remembered how the Weasley twins had continued playing them on her until she had cursed them so badly they had nearly been sent off to St Mungo's to be treated back in her second year when they had really tested her patience.

Charlotte pushed those thoughts aside and after she got rid of her breakfast things, she went out into the city.

XXX

She couldn't wait before she learnt how to apparate. While all the places she had cast the spells on were in close proximity with the sea, but it was still quite annoying getting to them. At the same time, she cursed public transport; okay, granted, she preferred these buses compared to the Knight Bus, but they were so slow it wasn't funny.

After casting a mild notice-me-not charm over herself, Charlotte crept down the alleyway until she saw the houses she was planning on burgling. To her annoyance, she spotted two of them didn't have cat flaps. Oh well, that wasn't really a problem. But with a flick of her hand, and the doors were opened. Another flick of her wand and she found there was nobody inside. She grinned as she closed her eyes and pictured her cat form, and she felt herself shrinking down into her animagus form.

Leaping onto the fence, Charlotte's cat form took a moment to view the area she planned on burgling before she leapt down onto the ground of one of the gardens, and she padded her way into the house through the open door. Once she was inside, she transformed back into her human form, taking out her wand as she did, and with a flick she deactivated any muggle security systems the homeowner may have on the premises, although she wasn't sure she needed have bothered; most muggle security systems were forgotten by the homeowner anyway, and besides from what she had learnt during her career as a thief, you could break into a place but as long as you were super fast the police would take forever to reach the home, giving the time that any good burglar would need to find what was precious and get out again.

Most burglars were only looking for light items, things they could effortlessly carry in their pockets or in bags. It wasn't like in the movies, where everyone had their precious items in safes, and most burglars didn't have the experience or the patience to sit by a safe, ear pressed against the door while testing the combination.

Charlotte cast a quick spell on her shoes to remove any dirt on them, and she went upstairs where she quickly found the bedroom after a quick glance into the other rooms on the top floor. She spotted an office but that could wait for now until she had finished with the bedroom itself. She stood on the threshold of the door, and she waved her wand and summoned any money or jewellery kept in the room and sent it into the bag she was carrying on her back.

Once she was finished, she went into the office and she again lifted her wand and summoned any cash that was here. She wasn't surprised when a couple of drawers opened and a cloud formed above the desk. It was a very pretty cloud, Charlotte thought to herself as the numbers of notes formed above the desk, giving it the same airy appearance of the clouds you saw in the sky, and it glittered with the collection of gold and silver and copper coins that made up a large chunk of the mass.

Merlin, the people who own this house really know how to make a burglar's day, she thought to herself as she silently directed the money into the bag.

With the office now plundered, Charlotte went into the bathroom to see if there were any drugs or medicines she could sell for additional profit. She grinned when she spotted the pills and tablets and bottles inside the cabinet, and she placed them into her backpack after waving her wand and placing cushioning spells on them to stop them from being damaged.

Mm, looks like I'm finished up here, but I wonder if there's anything more downstairs. I don't care if there's any loose cash down there, but who knows?

Charlotte made her way downstairs where she went into the living room, and she grinned when she saw the massive CD collection. Forget cash, she thought to herself, once the DJ sees this, he will definitely give me a nice chunk of the proceeds. Although, I may have to compel him to do it. To hell with the laws about muggles; I'm getting what's mine.

The DJ was one of Charlottes' contacts. Despite his name, he wasn't an actual DJ. He didn't sit in radio stations and broadcasted music from the 50s or 70s. He just acted as a fence for those who brought him anything musical from burglaries. She always went to him whenever she collected CDs or vinyl records, but sometimes he was a bit stingy.

Charlotte waved her wand and the entire collection clattered into her backpack as she used her wand to direct the whole lot into her backpack.

Easy money.

XXX

As she walked through the house of her latest victim, Charlotte couldn't help but smirk in enjoyment as she slowly explored the house from the ground floor up to the second floor. It wasn't really a thorough search because she was still on a time limit before she went upstairs. As she went up, she thought about the last couple of weeks she had spent in Brighton and the general area.

She had already burgled seventeen houses and eight flats, and she had also burgled a number of the jewellery stores in Brighton and also another in Eastbourne (she had needed to use her Time-Turner to rob them; she had gone clubbing in plain view of a whole club for a few hours before midnight, and she had made Winky take her back to the windmill which was the only place she had other than Hogwarts which would support the magic of the Time-Turner without anyone detecting it, and she had gone back in time twice to accommodate the two burglaries which had taken place at radically different times) and that night had been one of her first time travelling crimes.

Charlotte grinned to herself as she thought about how the police were struggling to catch her. All the articles they had written about her had been sniped neatly out of the newspapers ready for her scrapbook back home. She might not like her fame in the magical world but that was mostly because it was down to something her mother had done to prevent Voldemort killing her, but in this case, the burglaries were something she was truly proud of because she had performed them.

Overall her holiday in Brighton was a success. In fact, her entire holiday had been a success. She had not only managed to become an animagus, she had started to use her form to help her get into places and go virtually unseen since no-one would expect a cat to be doing anything suspicious, she had used her Time-Turner a couple of times to help give her watertight alibis, although no-one would suspect her for anything since she never stood out enough for the cops to glance twice her way. And she wasn't stupid enough to leave her stuff out in the open for anyone to see or find, not with two dedicated House-elves there to ensure all of her things were in the mill.

Her former robberies had yielded great results even if some of the pickings had been meagre in some cases, but for others, they had been amazing. This one proved to be going that way.

The house itself belonged to a builder and his family, and judging from what she had observed they were quite well off, and the wife and daughter liked to indulge in shopping trips. Okay, they weren't that extravagant but the fact was the house was bound to be filled to the brim with high-quality gear.

It had been easy for Charlotte to stroll up to the front door while everyone was out - the husband was probably out at the office, the wife was out as well, walking the dogs, and the daughter was at school.

Charlotte had timed it well. She knew the wife would be out for at least half an hour or forty-five minutes to walk her dog, and she didn't want this burglary to take too long. She went into the bedroom and summoned all of the valuables, but when she looked into the wardrobe she smirked when she saw the expensive collection of clothes.

"This will definitely make a few of my contacts' day," she said to herself before she waved her wand again and she shrunk it all down and waved the lot into her backpack. She went into the daughter's bedroom, and she was just getting into her stride when she heard the door open downstairs. For a moment, she wondered if another burglar like herself had broken into the house, but then she heard the sound of an overexcited dog barking and the voice of a woman.

"No, Bindi, you can't," the woman said, scolding her dog. "You've already had enough biscuits."

Charlotte closed her eyes with dread before she reopened them quickly. She couldn't deny what she had heard, the woman and the dog were back. And there was no way she could just will them gone. She was more realistic than that, and she knew quickly thought through her options. Unfortunately, she was limited by what she could do mostly because of the dog. She had seen the type of dog the family-owned.

Labradors were not the type of dog which typically instilled fear into a burglar, but they could still be dangerous. Her animagus form was the best option, but if the dog spotted her it would be a chase in itself. She did consider calling for one of her House-elves, but after being independent for so long, she didn't want to rely on Winky or Dobby for everything even if they would definitely help her get out of trouble. She quickly looked out of the daughter's window, and to her relief, she spotted a sliding roof just outside. If she could climb outside, while in her animagus form and relying on the cat's natural balance, she should be able to slide her way down before she found a way off.

She suddenly heard footsteps outside coming briskly up the stairs. If she was going to do this, she had better do it quickly.

But it was too late.

The sound of the mother outside the door made her transform into her cat form quickly. From her vantage point with the mass of the bed in the way, she could see the woman stride past without being suspicious. Cats couldn't sigh, but Charlotte breathed out through the nose anyway.

Walking over to the window she transformed back into her human form, and she opened it as far as it would go before she sat on the windowsill and transformed again. She didn't want to leap up into the air, she wanted to get out of the house quickly.

But as she stuck her head cautiously out of the window, Charlotte wondered if this was such a bright idea after all. But it was the only one she had, so she knew she would just have to deal with it. The problem was from where she was, it looked like the roof seemed to head down forever. This wasn't going to be easy after all, and for the first time ever she understood why some cats had problems getting down from high places.

Charlotte cautiously leapt down onto the roof, and just as cautiously, she placed her paws forward and she started to slowly and gently feel her way down the roof. She quickly discovered that thanks to the husband's business, the roof was in excellent condition with the roof tiles of the highest quality and placed on the roof professionally, so she didn't need to worry about one of the tiles sliding out from underneath her paws. She was also relieved her weight as a cat was enough to help her get to the bottom of the slide, but it was still a dangerous way down.

Charlotte put her trust in her cat form's instincts although she made sure her intellect was right there, guiding her cat form down the roof. It seemed to take forever to reach the bottom of the roof, so Charlotte was relieved when she leapt onto the nearby brick wall. Very quickly she dashed away before she reached the very end of the garden before she jumped off the wall where there was a road. On the other side was another street, but it looked the best place to find somewhere quiet where she could turn herself back. She quickly dashed across the road after a car sped past, and she continued running until she came across an alleyway. Charlotte slowed down and she walked down the alley, her eyes open while she looked for a quiet place to turn herself back.

She found it with a couple of large bins in the way. Charlotte's cat nose wrinkled at the foul stench coming off them, but she pushed it aside; the bins might stink, but they were large, and she could easily turn herself back into her regular self and leave the alley before returning to the hotel where she could pack up.

She went behind the bin and stopped when she saw a really large, filthy dog. The sudden appearance of the dog startled the cat-witch; she hadn't smelt the disgusting thing from the front of the bins, but it meant nothing to her. The moment it saw her, the dog started growling. Charlotte transformed back into her human form, and she had her wand out before the startled dog even had time to react. The rush of the killing curse left her wand and slammed into the dog, and it dropped to the ground in an instant. Charlotte looked down at the body with regret. She didn't like harming animals, but truthfully the dog gave her little alternative, and besides, she had no desire to run from it.

Straightening herself up, Charlotte walked out of the alley.

Her holiday was nearly over.

She still had a few more tasks to complete before Hogwarts, and she wanted them completed soon.