There were plenty of ways for a healthy, logical young wizard to make money in this day and age but Darren was really ever only interested in one of them: theft. He was smart enough to succeed in just about anything he put his mind to, but instead of applying himself to something useful he chose instead to prey on the weak. He spent his time thinking up new ways to steal things from people and it never mattered what kind of people. There was a lot of hate still left out there, even with the Dark Lord supposedly gone, but Darren wasn't biased when it came to choosing his marks. Pureblood, muggle, old, young, male, female, it didn't matter as long as they had something he could steal and sell. It was more about the accomplishment than the actual sickles it would put into his pocket. Every night he set out into the alleys of Shoreditch, a place that was so familiar to him he could navigate it with his eyes closed. From there he chose where he was going to set up for the evening. Tonight it was not far from where he had been last night or the night before, he was slowly making his way down the block.
There were a few run down shops with cardboard in the windows, a pizzeria that had been there as long as Darren could remember, but it the one projection theatre at the end of the street that kept the neighborhood alive. It was nothing special, no cathedral roof or expensive shows but it was a little bit of culture in the sea of blah that was downtown Shoreditch. He leaned up against the wall of an alley way across the street from the theatre, hidden in the darkness, and started to wait. The show had been running for a about an hour so it wouldn't be long until it was over and then the crowds would start departing from the glass double doors. He reached into the pockets of his worn in black
slacks and pulled out a cigarette and a lighter. Darren took long drags as he thought about the people who were about to come out of the theatre. They were muggles, most likely all of them, since this was a muggle part of the city, but that just made them easier to fool. He'd been perfecting this little magic trick for a few weeks now and in his opinion it was brilliant. Muggle baiting was illegal, but Darren could argue that he wasn't so much baiting them as he was distracting them.
When the lights on the doorways outside the theatre began to brighten, signalling the show was about to close and soon patrons were emerge onto the streets, Darren stamped out what was left of his cigarette and pushed off from the wall. He pulled out his wand, spoke the words, and circled his wand over his opposite hand. With a glow of green and orange muggle paper money, clearly fake but good enough to fool someone long enough to get them away from the crowd, was conjured in his off hand. Darren performed the last of the charms on the fake bills before he stepped out onto the street. His figure cast shadows along the cracked pavement as he walked a few paces, far enough from the theatre where not everyone would see but maybe a mark or two, but close enough to the alley that they would follow without realizing where they were going, and set the money down. After that he retraced his steps back to the dark alley and waited. The muggle money was enchanted with a simple charm that would cause it to seemingly float away on the wind when someone tried to pick it up. It would float away a little bit further each time someone tried to grab it, leading them straight down the alley way, straight to where Darren was waiting to hex them.
He didn't kill people, that wasn't his game, he simply hexed them so that they'd forget they ever saw him as he emptied their pockets and stole their jewelry. Then just like he arrived he'd slip back out through the shadows and they'd never know what hit them. If he was quick, the jinx on his marks would protect him, but he didn't have forever, only a minute or two, before even the weakest of muggle minds could break the spell. So he waited, patiently, as he heard the doors begin to open. He listened for the familiar sounds of theatre guests laughing, recalling the picture they had just watched, and then for the moment one of them discovered the money sitting ever so innocently on the sidewalk.
