Fanfic / Harry Potter and the Lady Thief

Harry Potter and the Lady Thief by Starfox5 is a completed Harry Potter Alternate Universe Fanfic in which Hermione Granger is a expelled from Hogwarts after being framed for robbery and decides to take revenge by becoming a thief and robbing all the purebloods that scorned her blind.

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Tropes:

• Absolute Xenophobe: Aboriginal wizards are The Dreaded, as they will kill any foreign wizard on sight that enters Australia.
• All Men Are Perverts: Harry wastes no time to use his enchanted glasses to spy on girls. He does grow out of it though.
• Alternate History:
  • The first year, Quirrel was not actually possessed by Voldemort who instead was possessing a corpse. The trio accidentaly faced Voldemort when the trio was out after curfew along with Quirrel. Quirrel is killed by Voldemort, whom is soon defeated by Harry's touch.
  • The second year sees Harry almost dying by poisoning from Malaclaw venom, and then the trio deciding to brew Veritaserum and feed it to Draco during dinner time. This triggers Lucius Malfoy to frame Hermione.
• Alternate Universe: It's not only a AU for canon but for also another fanfic of Harry Potter.
  • Canonwise, the first year has gone completely different and the second year did not involve the Diary or the Golden Trio using polyjuice to infiltrate the Slytherin common room. Also Peter Pettigrew is captured, which means that Sirius Black is declared innocent, as well meaning that Harry no longer has to go live with the Dursleys' in the summer anymore.
  • Regarding Divided and Entwined, Lady Thief uses the same background: the Obliviators waged a vicious war of extermination against Central African wizards when they violated The Masquerade to stop European colonization; the Wizengamot is an unreformed oligarchy whose seats are hereditary for purebloods and last, there's no magical version of the United States (instead having a bunch of warring wizarding communities) and Magical Jamaica is The Dreaded of the wizarding Americas and practise Hollywood Voodoo.
• Ancient Tradition: The reason why Aurors need a NEWT in potions as requirement to join the force is that, when it was founded, Aurors needed to know how to brew potions because the Ministry refused to pay for them but when Aurors started to require ever more complex potions, the Ministry decided to expand their budget while retaining the NEWT requirement for Auror membership. Harry is not amused when Ron tells him.
  • Also the reason why Astronomy is taught at Hogwarts. The impact of constellations on magic is negligible and even in latter years, there's no focus on studying whether stars affect spellcasting. The fact is that an important wizard or witch decreed Astronomy to be a core subject and it became a tradition.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Ritual magic, as wands and potions require far less time to cast/brew.
  Harry: I could have brewed a cauldron's worth of Pepper-up Potion in half the time this ritual took.
  Dumbledore: And there you have the reason rituals are rarely used any more-for the vast majority of them, there are far more convenient and effective alternatives. However for some, unfortunately often nefarious, purposes rituals are still the most effective, or even only, option.
• Bat Deduction: Harry is able to deduct the Caper Crew identities based on the fact that they're never around when a heist occurs, the only successful heist were against people who framed Hermione and are Sirius' rivals, that Hermione never held the "stray cat" and that she seemed to poorly dress on purpose.
• Becoming the Mask: Animagi develop traits associated with their animal forms, which can also severely affect their personality. Hermione, for instance, becomes a literal Crazy Cat Lady as seen below.
• Best Served Cold: Hermione repeatedly exhorts Harry and Ron not to do anything hasty to Draco. Ron isn't familiar the specific phrase "revenge is a dish best served cold," but he grasps the idea quickly, and acknowledges that leaving Draco to Hermione's plotting will almost certainly be the worst punishment in the end.
  Ron: Can you imagine what she'll do to him with enough time to prepare?
• Big Fancy House: The houses of Old Families are not only luxurious but also protected by ancient wards created through dark spells that are now illegal.
• Blatant Lies: Pratically everytime that Harry tries to justify to himself peeping on girls.
• Blood Magic: A forbidden form of ritual magic, which uses blood and Human Sacrifice for spell-casting. Lily used it to cast a powerful shield for Harry to protect him from Voldemort at the cost of her own life. Later Dumbledore teaches this magic to Harry in order to weaponise his mystical protection.
  • In fact it's considered so bad that when Hermione finds out that Lucius Malfoy used blood magic to protect his vault that the Ministry sends hundreds of Unspeakables, Aurors, Hit Wizards and even Obliviators to Malfoy Manor.
• Can't Catch Up: Subverted and Played with. Initially, Hermione has difficulty to remain as good at magic as she was before her expulsion while being homeschooled but, after dropping a few classes like Astronomy and Ancient Runes, she manages to achieve good grades.
• Caper Crew: Hermione and Fletcher forms this with Jeaene and Sirius. Hermione is the mastermind along with role of burglar (more specifically Classy Cat-Burglar), with Fletcher being the partner in crime and the Conman. Sirius is The Team Benefactor as well The Big Guy while Jeanne is the Gadgeteer Genius.
• Career-Ending Injury: Alastor Moody is hit with a unknown curse during a Death Eater attack, which causes enough damage that he's forcibly retired as well bed ridden.
• The Chains of Commanding: Played for Drama. Harry and Ron, due to their experience combating dark wizards, have a great hostility to higher-ranking but incompetent leaders. Especially because the Ministry is made of Corrupt Politician and Obstructive Bureaucrat.
• Chase Scene/Chase Fight: During the False Flag Operation, when the Caper Crew tries to throw off suspicion by making a simulation of a heist on Grimmauld Place, Harry relentlessly persues Hermione on a broom through half of London.
• Classy Cat-Burglar: Hermione trains throughout most of the story to become this, until she succeeds.
• Chekhov's Gun: In chapter 12, Sirius gives a pair of enchanted glasses as a Christmas gift to Harry. Played with in that, in spite of confronting the thieves many times, Harry does not use the glasses to find out their identities.
• Clark Kenting: Adverted with Hermione's disguises but played straight in that Hermione pretends to be bad at combat magic so not to reveal that she's catching up to her peers taught at Hogwarts.
• Combat Pragmatist: Defence training with Sirius initially involves very little spellwork and a lot of running away from hexes. Once the boys have learned to dodge spells effectively, they move on — to dodging area effects like explosions or clouds of gas. Because in a real confrontation with an adult, the ability to dodge and run is what someone on Harry and Ron's level would actually need.
  Sirius: We're not teaching you how to hex Slytherins in the hallways, but how to survive when Death Eaters come after you.
• Crazy Cat Lady: Hermione after succeeding in becoming an animagus starts to refer to werewolves and Sirius as "stupid dogs". Also Harry thinks Hermione is this, because she has Crookshanks and a "stray" cat as pets.
• Crazy-Prepared: The Black family cursed their own home, 12 Grimmauld Place, and it takes months for Sirius Black to get rid of all the curses.
• Demonic Possession: Voldemort possess people as he has not yet regained a body however possession slowly destroy the body. He later uses Black Magic to create a temporary body, while he searches for a more permanent solution.
• Depraved Dentist: Even in the wizarding world dentists are infamous.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Hermione's punishment by the Wizengamot is to have her family lose everything as reparations for the false robbery, which throws her upper middle class family into poverty.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Fleur's robes at the Yule Ball would have drawn attention even on a plain witch. On a Veela, they're enough to cause several accidents.
• Doorstopper: The story is 600 thousand words long completed, nearly a quarter of the book series' word count and larger than any of the individual books.
• Embarrassing Nickname: The Quibbler nicknames the manor thieves as "Night Nargles" which Hermione absolutely hates.
• Engineered Public Confession: Harry, Ron and Hermione decide to brew Veritaserum to feed to Draco at dinnertime, in order to make him confess attempting to poison Harry in their second year.
• Fandom-Specific Plot: Of the Sirius lives variety where he and Harry become gentleman thieves in order to rob purebloods. Except that it's Hermione that becomes a Lady Thief - it's a case of Tropes Are Not Bad as there's no Training Montage or Time Skip and the readers actually experience Hermione's growing skills so it doesn't come off as out of nowhere.
  • The concept of magical cores, which is basically power levels, is mocked. Fletcher points out to Hermione that wizards don't have a limited amount of magic nor can magic be exhausted. Intelligence, knowledge and experience is what distinguish a competent from an incompetent wizard.
• False Flag Operation: The Caper Crew uses two, once during the heist on the Davis manor by pretending to be Death Eaters and another one by simulating a heist on Grimmauld Place. Deconstructed in that in both cases it backfires and the Caper Crew was nearly caught by Aurors with only luck and skill preventing that.
• Fatal Flaw: Hermione's are her pride and thirst for revenge, which has caused her to be nearly caught by Harry twice and only managing to escape due to luck and cunning. She also endangers Harry's career by giving a smug smirk while disguising at the end of her heist at Greengrass manor.
• Five-Finger Discount: Hermione is unimpressed by Seamus asking her out purely because she's female and single, and retaliates by stealing most of the contents of his wallet before he walks away.
• Forgot About His Powers: Very early in the story, Harry gets a pair of enchanted glasses that can see through clothes and in spite of many opportunities, he does not use them to find out the thieves' identity.
• Friend on the Force: Subverted, Hermione knows that Harry, who wants to join the Aurors, would become this if he knew his best friend is training to become a thief but Sirius doesn't want Harry to become The Hypocrite in trying to clean up Ministry's corruption wile covering for a criminal. Thus Harry is Locked Out of the Loop.
• Frameup: The basis of the story is that Hermione is framed for robbery in her second year and then expelled from Hogwarts, which was the result of a Engineered Public Confession using Veritaserum.
• Gentleman Thief: Mundungus Fletcher is re-imagined as this instead of the lowlife thug he was in canon, and Hermione is training to becoming a Lady Thief. What distinguish them from common criminal is that they have rules, such as Thou Shalt Not Kill, do not rob the poor and do not talk or brag about their exploits.
• Greed: Hermione's insistence in stealing all valuables of Old Familes and not just the gold in their manor's vault nearly results in the Caper Crew being captured by Aurors while making a break-in at Davis Manor.
• Hellfire: Fiendfyre. Hermione however decides to use form of enchanted chemical fire to reproduce its effects without getting killed in the process.
• Homeschooled Kids: Hermione receives training from her 'tutor', Smith which is simply a disguise for Mundugus Fletcher. Played with in that homeschooling is far less effective and insufficient education than the professional education of an actual Wizarding School, and while she's allowed to take the Hogwarts tests and has good grades, her grades are far inferior compared to her talent.
• Hot Pursuit: Harry pursues a disguised Hermione through half of London until she uses a Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder to distract long enough to escape.
• Human Sacrifice: Common in Blood Magic. It was used by Lily Potter to protect Harry and later Voldemort used it to possess Alphonse Bagnold by sacrificing the former Minister of Magic Millicent Bagnold.
• Humiliation Conga: Hermione's MO is to humiliate as much as possible the people responsible for her expulsion.
  • Allan Borgin is silenced and had his entire shop and apartment cleaned up while he slept. All his clothes, furniture, his emergency bag, along with all jewelry, weapons and enchanted objects are taken. The only thing left was a pile of dark artifacts along with his book records that prove those are artifacts are his, which resulted in Borgin being arrested.
  • Hermione infiltrates Bulstrode Manor by pretending to be a stray cat. Millicent Bulstrode takes her into the manor where at night Hermione shifts back to study the wards and guard patrols and a few days later she takes the guards down one by one, knocks the Bulstrodes uncounscious and then use Basilius Bulstrode to bring Sirius and Fletcher into the manor. Then they take all the gold and valuables in the vault, along with the family library and all expensive furniture, china and silverware and vanish the rest. The Bulstrodes are ruined financially and socially, becoming pariahs in pureblood society.
  • Hermione and Sirius shrink a vanishing cabinet and put in the trunk of Ewan Davis, who decides to form a deal with the head of the Davis family by having his fortune and other valuables hidden within their manor vault. Then the Caper Crew of Hermione, Fletcher and Sirius enter the manor through the vanishing cabinet and steal all the gold and use fake fiendfyre created by chemistry to make everyone in the manor runaway so they can rob the whole mansion. This backfires when they are nearly caught by Ron, Harry and Moody and barely manage to escape in time.
  • When doing the heist on Malfoy Manor, Hermione finds out that Lucius Malfoy used blood magic to protect his vault and had the vault filled with empty cursed trunks and only a single trunk with gold. Hermione obliviates him and his wife of the knowledge that they hid most of their fortune, making them destitute.
• Imagination-Based Superpower: This is how magic works basically, although it is not easy to wield.
• Impoverished Patrician: The Old Familes after the Caper Crew robs them of their gold. They still wield vast political power as their head of family has a permanent seat in the Wizengamot, but without their fortunes they become pariahs and it becomes easier for Sirius Black to counter their influence at the Ministry.
• Inept Mage: Hermione pretends to be one so not to reveal her training as thief
  • It's also remarked how mediocre the average wizard is at magic, with most wizards and witches, including Ministry employees, can't cast a Shield Charm which is actually part of the OWLs examinations.
• Jerk Jock: Hermione dates one after Voldemort's defeat, her muggle neighbor Paul Simms, who prefers to watch sports rather than do sports.
• Karmic Thief: Hermione's goal is to rob to poverty all the purebloods who had her expelled from Hogwarts.
• Kill Steal: Sirius is gloomy to the point of being driven to drink upon hearing of the death of both Peter Pettigrew and Barty Crouch Sr before he can do the deed himself.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: Snape is killed by Voldemort during the Battle of the Ministry.
• Ladykiller in Love: Sirius to Jeanne, whom he eventually marries.
• Land Downunder: Unlike their muggle counterparts, Aboriginal wizards in Australia are extremely xenophobic and will kill any other wizard that dares enter their domain. Dumbledore exploits this later on.
• Longest Prologue Ever: It takes 27 chapters and more than 250 thousand words for Voldemort to be defeated and Hermione start finishing her thief training.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Harry and Ron are practically the only good guys unaware Hermione is training to become a thief.
• The Masquerade: The Obliviators, who work for the ICW, are willing to defend it by any means necessary, even up to waging a genocidal war against Central African wizards when they use magic to stop European colonization.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: Everyone thinks Dumbledore, who has been giving secret lessons to Harry, died in Australia. It was part of a Batman Gambit to trick Voldemort into an open confrontation.
• Muggle–Mage Romance: Hermione starts dating her muggle neighbor Paul Simms, although they eventually break up.
• Narrative Profanity Filter:
  • Upon learning more about Albus' plans to oppose Voldemort's return, "Mundungus swore a string of curses. Some even Albus didn't know, and he made a note of them — maybe he would be able to surprise his brother next time they met."
  • Harry doesn't enjoy being shot out of the fireplace at Grimmauld Place, and mutters a number of curse words that Sirius is sure his own mother would be appalled to hear.
    His godson really took after him!
• No Honor Among Thieves: Peter Pettigrew isn't useful to anyone once he's convicted, so Lucius Malfoy steps up to distance himself from Pettigrew by calling for the most extreme possible sentence.
  Ron: One rat sacrificing another rat to save himself.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: After Hermione's expulsion, Dumbledore takes twenty points from Slytherin and assigns detention to Draco when he gloats by using the term mudblood to Harry and Ron.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Vampires are immortal, have powerful senses, need to drink blood and are vulnerable to magic and sunlight. Voldemort's plan is to create a vampiric body without any of the drawbacks.
• The Perfectionist: Voldemort.
  Dumbledore: Many would be content with having solved a problem thought insourmountable. Not him, though. He would want a perfect solution. And 'perfection is the enemy of good enough', as the saying goes.
• Power Perversion Potential: The enchanted glasses that can see through clothes that Sirius gives to Harry as a Christmas gift in chapter 12.
• Pragmatic Villainy: The reason why a Gentleman Thief does not kill is that Aurors go after murderers with much more effort and that the punishment for murder is either Dementor's Kiss or life sentence in Azkaban. Pragmatism is also the reason why they don't steal from the poor, not only because it's bad form do so but also because the poor have little of value to steal in the first place.
• Properly Paranoid: Deconstructed. The Old Families do not rely on Gringotts which is mostly used by the working classes, instead keeping the majority of their fortunes in enchanted vaults within their manors. This of course means a skilled Classy Cat-Burglar and her crew can ruin them by infiltrating their manors.
  • Taken even further with Lucius Malfoy. After the Night Nargles robbed most Old Families manors (including a False Flag Operation on Longbottom Manor and Grimmauld Place), the old wizard decides to fill his vault with empty cursed trunk and a single trunk with gold. However Hermione obliviates him of the knowledge that he hid most of his fortune, ruining him. He also goes to Azkaban for using Blood Magic to protect his vault.
• Recursive Fanfiction: Inverted, the fanfic borrows elements from another ''Harry Potter'' fanfic(see above) but it's both fanfics are written by the same person.
• Revenge: Hermione's reason for becoming a thief is so she can rob blind all the people responsible for her expulsion from Hogwarts.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: After Voldemort kills Dumbledore during the Battle of the Ministry, Harry decides to put his training to use and unleash his mystical protection against the Dark Lord.
• Shout-Out: To British Avengers movie from the 90s, from which Hermione takes inspiration to wear a catsuit.
• Secret-Keeper: Apparently Moody learned that Harry was working for the Caper Crew while staying at the Grimmauld Place.
• Taking the Heat: Hermione doesn't admit to stealing Pansy's necklace, but she allows herself to be prosecuted and convicted, instead of testifying under Veritaserum, because she realises that questioning her under Veritaserum would almost certainly reveal her own highly illegal use of that potion, which carries a much harsher sentence than theft, and which would implicate Harry and Ron too.
• Thrill Seeker: Hermione, to the point she wonders whether she will stop being a Gentleman Thief after exacting her revenge.
• To Be Lawful or Good: Harry faces this trope when he finds out Hermione and Sirius are part of the Caper Crew. He does acknowledge in his mind that Lucius Malfoy is untouchable as long he holds his gold and that as such the Ministry would remain corrupt in spite of Harry and Ron's best efforts.
• Turn in Your Badge: During a raid against the escaped from Azkaban Death Eaters, a commander named Bertie Macmillian threatens do this when Harry keeps questioning his orders.
• Uncle Pennybags: Sirius Black, after being finally declared innocent, uses his wealth to pay up the remaining debt of Hermione and allow her family to recover some of their lost middle class lifestyle.
• Underestimating Badassery: John Dawlish is looked down by most characters, with good reason, but he's able to connect the dots and realize that Hermione and Sirius are conveniently away every time a heist occurs.
• Varying Competency Alibi: When Mundungus praises Hermione for her improving climbing and movement skills, he also cautions her not to let anyone else know that she's good at that.
  Mundungus: When the Aurors are looking for a roof-running thief you want to be known as a clumsy bookworm.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: There are two ways to become an animagus, the Inner Path (the Spirit Animal Path) and the Outer Path (the Skinwalker Path). However becoming an animagus results in certain animal traits to appear in the spellcaster while in human form. Sirius teaches Hermione how to become an animagus and her form is a cat.
  • The Inner Path focuses on discovering the Animal Motifs that embodies the wizard's soul and is achieved through meditation until that part of the soul is strong enough to allow this trope, but the wizard can't choose their form.
  • The Outer Path allows the wizard to choose their animal form but it changes the personality of the person, and it involves skinning the animal alive.
• The 'Verse: This fic is part of the same universe as Divided and Entwined, another Harry Potter fic by Starfox5.
• Wham Episode:
  • Chapter 27: Culmination: Voldemort is defeated and the war ends
  • Chapter 37: First Steps: Hermione begins her revenge by robbing Borgin and Burkes
  • Chapter 47: Led Astray: Alastor Moody is cursed during a Death Eater attack, resulting in a Career-Ending Injury for the old Auror and stripping Harry and Ron of much needed back up in the Auror office.
  • Chapter 62: Revelations: Harry deduces Hermione and Sirius are part of the Caper Crew
  • Chapter 63: Confrontations: Harry confronts Hermione, Sirius and Jeanne and tells them he knows they're the Night Nargles. However To Be Lawful or Good ensues for Harry.
  • Chapter 66: Full Circle: Hermione infiltrates and robs Malfoy Manor, also discovering that's using Blood Magic to protect his vault. Lucius Malfoy is sent to Azkaban for using such illegal magic.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The last chapter, which ties up the loose ends and plot points.
• White Sheep: Sirius Black to his family, who were feared for their mastery of The Dark Arts. Played with in that Sirius is also a master of the Dark Arts and knows enough Black Magic to get rid of a vampire with a One-Hit Kill.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: Voldemort does, so much that he's not content with Horcruxes, he also wants to have a vampiric body without any of the drawbacks.
• Will They or Won't They?: Harry and Hermione. As of chapter 49, they do.

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