Chapter 8: The Theft That Changed Everything - Part 1
Late December brought fog thick as cotton wool and the kind of bitter cold that made London's homeless population disappear into whatever shelter they could find. Adam Wright moved through the city like a ghost, following a wizard in expensive midnight-blue robes who walked with the casual arrogance of someone accustomed to wealth.
The wizard's destination surprised him: London Docks, an area Adam had avoided due to its reputation for violence and the sort of people who made violence profitable. But his potential mark was heading straight into the industrial maze of warehouses and loading cranes, apparently unconcerned about the dangers that kept sensible people away.
"Rich wizards don't worry about Muggle criminals. They have wands."
Adam hung back, using his hard-won street skills to stay invisible. Three months of homeless survival had taught him to move like smoke, to blend into shadows and debris until he was just another piece of urban decay. The wizard never looked back.
The destination was a warehouse that looked abandoned from the outside—broken windows, peeling paint, weeds growing through cracks in the concrete. But Adam noticed details that didn't fit: too-new padlocks on the doors, fresh tire tracks in the mud, and the subtle shimmer around the building's perimeter that his magical education had taught him to recognize.
Wards. Protective enchantments.
The wizard approached a side entrance where two men stood smoking cigarettes. They looked like standard dock workers—heavy coats, wool caps, the weathered faces of people who worked with their hands. But Adam spotted the careful way they held themselves, the strategic positioning that gave them clear sight lines, and most importantly, the wands hidden beneath their jackets.
Not dock workers. Guards.
The wizard spoke quietly to them, showed some kind of identification, and was waved through. The door closed behind him with the soft click of expensive locks.
Adam crept closer, using a pile of rusted shipping containers for cover. His heart hammered against his ribs as he whispered, "Invisibility."
The spell had cost him 2,000 SP—every point he'd managed to save over the past month. But as the world took on the strange, muffled quality of magical concealment, Adam knew it had been worth the investment. He was a ghost now, unseen and unheard by anyone without magical sight.
The warehouse had a broken window on its eastern side, high enough to require climbing but large enough to slip through. Adam scaled the wall using maintenance ladder rungs and squeezed inside, grateful for his small size and the weight loss that came with irregular meals.
What he saw through the grimy interior made his breath catch in his throat.
Crates. Hundreds of them, stacked floor to ceiling and marked with symbols he recognized from his transmigrated knowledge. Dark magic containment runes. Transport hexes. And scattered throughout the maze of boxes, open cases that revealed their contents: Galleons. Thousands upon thousands of gold coins that caught the warehouse's dim lighting and threw it back in warm, honey-colored reflections.
But it was the ledgers that made everything clear. Open books scattered across a central table, pages filled with names Adam knew by heart: Malfoy. Nott. Crabbe. Goyle. Avery. Death Eaters, all of them. Voldemort's inner circle, supposedly imprisoned or pardoned or lying low after their master's defeat.
This wasn't some wealthy wizard's personal treasure vault. This was a laundering operation—Death Eater assets being moved through Muggle businesses, dark artifacts being sold to private collectors, war chests being converted into legitimate investments.
Voldemort's legacy, managed by his surviving followers.
Adam's hands shook as he processed the scope of what he'd stumbled into. The guards weren't just protecting money—they were protecting the financial foundation of a resurgent dark wizard movement. These Galleons would fund new schemes, purchase new followers, rebuild what the Boy Who Lived had torn down.
Unless someone stopped them.
"This isn't theft. This is sabotage."
The moral clarity was intoxicating. Adam had struggled with guilt over his smaller crimes—stealing food from shops, pickpocketing tourists, taking what he needed to survive. But this? This was justice. Taking money from Death Eaters was practically a public service.
He spent the next three days mapping the operation with the obsessive thoroughness of a general planning a campaign. The guards rotated every eight hours, two wizards at a time, with a Muggle supervisor named Mr. Grimley who clearly knew he was working for criminals but didn't care as long as the pay was good. The warehouse had basic alarm wards—Adam could see their shimmer when he knew where to look—but nothing sophisticated enough to detect advanced infiltration magic.
The real prize sat in a magically sealed safe in the warehouse's center: approximately ten thousand Galleons, based on the multiple transfer operations Adam observed. Enough wealth to live comfortably for years. Enough to convert into significant SP through the System's exchange rate. Enough to fund his transformation from homeless orphan into someone who mattered.
But his current abilities weren't sufficient for the job. Invisibility would get him inside, but the safe required specialized skills he didn't possess. The magical locks needed more than simple Alohomora. The alarm wards had to be neutralized. And he needed defensive magic in case something went wrong.
Adam created a shopping list with mathematical precision: Silencio - 900 SP to muffle any sounds during the operation. Protego - 1,200 SP for defense if the guards discovered him. Together with his existing skills, it should be enough to complete the heist successfully.
The total cost: 2,100 SP. Exactly what he had saved.
He sat in his current hideout—the storage room above the closed restaurant—staring at the System Shop interface and weighing his options. If he bought the skills, he'd be completely broke during the most dangerous operation of his life. No backup resources, no safety net, no emergency funds if something went catastrophically wrong.
But if he didn't buy them, the heist would almost certainly fail. And worse than failure was the alternative: letting Death Eater money fund whatever new horror they were planning.
The memory of Dumbledore's mental violation surfaced unbidden—that feeling of complete powerlessness, of being treated like a problem to be solved rather than a person with rights. Then came the image of the Aurors at the Leaky Cauldron, ready to scramble his brain to protect their precious secrets.
The magical world had taught him that power was the only currency that mattered. Without it, he was nothing. With it, he could make them pay for what they'd done.
Adam confirmed both purchases.
New knowledge flooded his mind: the precise wand movements for Silencio (complex spiral, then sharp downward thrust), the mental discipline required for Protego (absolute focus on protection, willpower made manifest), the sensation of magic bent to specific purposes. These weren't simple utility spells like Lumos or Alohomora. These were combat magic, tools designed for conflict.
His SP balance read: 0.
Everything he owned, invested in a single desperate gamble.
Adam practiced the spells until muscle memory formed, until he could cast them even while exhausted or under pressure. Silencio to muffle the sound of breaking wards. Protego to deflect whatever hexes the guards might throw. Invisibility to remain undetected. Alohomora to open whatever locks he encountered.
He was as ready as he'd ever be.
December twenty-eighth arrived with freezing rain and skeleton crews throughout London's industrial districts. Holiday schedules meant fewer guards, distracted supervisors, and security personnel more interested in getting home than protecting someone else's criminal enterprise.
It was perfect.
Adam approached the docks at midnight, carrying everything he owned in his Mokeskin Pouch—a recent purchase that had proven invaluable for someone without permanent shelter. The warehouse loomed against the Thames like a sleeping monster, its broken windows dark and promising.
This was his first real crime. Not stealing sandwiches or pickpocketing tourists, but breaking into a heavily guarded facility to rob the enemies of everything good in the magical world.
If he succeeded, everything would change. He'd have wealth, power, the resources to forge a new identity and claim his place in the world that had rejected him.
If he failed, he'd be dead or Obliviated, another forgotten casualty of forces beyond his comprehension.
Adam whispered "Invisibility" and felt the world shift around him. The spell settled over his skin like a second layer of reality, muffling sounds and bending light until he was more absence than presence.
Time to rob some Death Eaters.
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