Starting Over – Chapter 9

Disclaimer – I do not own anything to do with either Harry Potter or Twilight. Those honours go to JK Rowling and Stephanie Meyer respectively. The only things I own are the plot and any OC's.

Authors Note – I am so sorry about the delay. Just after my last update I started a new full time job that left me with very little time and energy to properly sit down and write. I can not guarantee when I will be posing next but I hope it isn't as long a gap.

Hayley (POV)

I got home sometime in the late afternoon and practically collapsed on the sofa. It had been a long day and I was exhausted both physically, mentally and emotionally. After Avery had attempted to kill me I was quickly hurried out of the way and up to Madame Bones's office along with Minerva, Remus and Christina. Although I wasn't physically harmed at all I was in shock. I had been through several near misses with death before but for it to happen so suddenly and so close, it had freaked me out. After they were all sure I was okay and necessary incident forms had been filled in we got ready to leave as Madame Bones said that the attack would be investigated and she would let me know of the outcome. She also mentioned that almost all of the named death eaters who had been part of the Wizengamot had been taken into custody to await trial except for two. Both Lucius Malfoy and Benedict Nott had managed to apparate out of the ministry before they could be taken into custody. Both Remus and Minerva had been nervous about me going home alone after what happened but I told them that I would be okay and probably safer at home than in London.

I eventually forced myself up from the sofa and went to make myself something to eat. I was texting Alice when I got in that I was back and vague details of how it had gone. I was in the middle of eating when there was a text from Jasper.

"Hey Hayley. Alice told us that you were home and that you weren't feeling the best. Wondering if you wanted some company?" Jasper asked

"Yeah that would be nice. Don't bother knocking when you get here just come in" I texted back as I continued to eat

"Okay that's fine" He texted back

Less than a minute later Jasper gently came inside smiling as he joined me on the sofa

"So do you wanna talk about what happened today or not?" He asked

I sighed." If i'm being completely honest not really no. Today was a lot and I haven't really fully processed it all yet"

"That's fine, don't worry about it we can just relax" He says

We spent a few hours sat either in silence or making small talk to try and distract me from the days events before Jasper went home giving me some time alone. Once he had gone I headed up to my room to write a letter to Neville as there wasn't one there currently. I told him about the trial and what had happened including the fact that my memory had both inadvertently given verified evidence to the minister that Voldemort was back as well as revealing several Wizengamot members as death eaters leading to one of them trying to kill me outside the court room. I finished the letter by asking him to send me a copies of the Daily Prophet when they arrived and keep me updated on what people at Hogwarts were saying. I sent the letter off and changed out of my smart clothes that I was still wearing before getting a shower and then starting to get ready for bed because despite it only being like 8pm I was completely exhausted and given that I had to be back at school the next day I figured it was best to give myself an early night.

The next night after I had gotten back from school I saw that I had a letter from Neville and I opened it to read it.

"Dear Hayley,

I'm glad that your okay after the trial, I can't believe something like that could've happened in the ministry, thankfully McGonnagall and Mrs Bennett had acted quickly enough. An issue of the Daily Prophet arrived this morning at breakfast and it was crazy. Almost everyone was waiting for news about the trial since it was announced that classes were cancelled yesterday as many of the teachers would be attending. Everyone was shocked reading about what actually happened, especially when it brought up that you had cast such a powerful patronus at 13. Ron was boasting and gloating to some of the other Gryffindor's as he and Hermione had been mentioned in the article. It was quite annoying after a while when classes began and he shut up about it.

Even the teachers were reading the article at breakfast. Snape even ended up giving out several detentions when people kept taunting him about you blasting him into the back of the bed in the shrieking shack. Umbridge has also been really frustrated today, While she had us reading some of the theory text book I saw her reading the paper and she was positively fuming. Fudge hasn't announced about Voldemort's return yet but i'll let you know as soon as he does.

I'm glad that you've made some friends in Forks. Despite the Cullen's being vampires they seem quite nice. From what you've told me it sounds like they care about you a lot especially Alice and Jasper. Bella also sounds like Bella considers you a good friend too. Just don't do what you always do and push them away for fear of putting them in danger. The Cullen's especially can look after themselves.

I'll write again soon.

Neville"

I smiled as I finished reading and put the letter down on the table and pulled out the copy of the Daily Prophet out of the envelope. On the front cover there were several large photos and headlines about the trial. After a look through the contents page I found that apart from a couple of pages at the end of the paper every single article was about the trial, Sirius or me. As I glanced through the different articles I was surprised to see that the photographer had managed to get a photo of the memory when I had cast the patronus to save Sirius from the dementors. Even though it was in black and white I was amazed at how good the photo was.

As I had expected the majority of articles were written in a way that subtly presented the biased and judgemental opinion of the writer to the readers but I was quite surprised at how well the article about the truth of Voldemort's return due to my memory was written.

"He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named , Returns?

Dear Readers,

As a result of Hayley Potter's testimony supporting Sirius Black at his trial yesterday it was revealed that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did indeed return on the evening of the 24th of June 2015 as claimed by both Hayley Potter and Albus Dumbledore after she returned to the Hogwarts grounds after the final task of the Tri-Wizard Tournament in which her fellow student and champion Cedric Diggory tragically died. The memory that was presented to the court showed the moment in which Peter Pettigrew, who was previously though to have been killed by Sirius Black on October 31st 2001, killed Cedric Diggory on the orders of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named before performing a dark magic ritual to bring him back. The memory continued by showing He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named summon his inner circle and address each one by name many of whom were in attendance as Wizengamot members, subsequently leading to their arrest after the trial except in the case of Lucius Malfoy and Benedict Nott who managed to escape before they could be taken into custody.

Another development of the case is that shortly after the trial had concluded another exposed death eater Anthony Avery proceeded to leave the court room and attempted to murder Hayley Potter through the use of the killing curse. Avery was unsuccessful and was swiftly disarmed and apprehended by Mrs Christina Bennett, President of MACUSA who had attended the trial seemingly in support of Miss Potter. Miss Potter had become emancipated shortly after she turned 15 this past July and did not return to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in September instead choosing to leave in favour of continuing her studies elsewhere. It has not been revealed where Miss Potter has chosen to study and live but considering she attended the trial with the president of MACUSA, one could potentially deduce that she is living somewhere in the United States of America but i will leave that one up to you to decide"

I sighed as I read the end of the article. It had started quite well but then she had gone back to her usual style of writing. I knew that Dumbledore would have eventually figured out that I was living in America but I had hoped that it wouldn't have been revealed to the entirety of the British wizarding population in the way that it was. Despite that I shook my head and put the paper away in my desk. I looked at the letter that was from Sirius who said that he had allowed the Order to continue using Grimmauld place as their headquarters but himself and Remus were in the process of moving out as it brought up too many horrible memories from his childhood so they hopefully wouldn't be there much longer. He had told me that they would come and visit whenever I wanted them too. Sirius said that he understood that I would want my privacy and I might not want them there all the time and they would respect that. I sent a quick reply to him before doing some homework and then going to make something to eat for dinner.

Nothing much happened for the rest of the week until Neville sent me a letter on the Friday which I read when I got home from school given the time difference because when Neville had finished classes for the day at 15:30pm, I was just starting classes. The letter went on about that Fudge had held a press conference on the Thursday evening addressing and admitting to Voldemort's return. His excuse for not admitting to the return back at the end of June was that there was no substantial evidence at the time and did not want to cause mass panic over unproven accusations. He had also sent me a copy of the Daily Prophet issue that had been published that morning covering the news which I also had a look through.

I knew I should be expecting a letter from either the ministry or Dumbledore trying to force me to return to Britain and possibly Hogwarts to deal with Voldemort per the prophecy. For the time being I decided not to worry about it all until the letter arrived. Besides they couldn't really do anything to force me to return, Christina would make sure they didn't have a legal leg to stand on. I knew for a fact they would try and make me feel bad about the whole thing and try to guilt trip me into returning but it wasn't really that I didn't want to handle it even though I really didn't. It was more a case of that I didn't see the point of fixing their problems for them when they were never appreciative. They were more than ready to turn on me at the drop of a hat and I was sick of it. If they had done the right thing by believing me and admitting Voldemort was back in the first place it might have been a different story entirely, but no he denied the truth choosing the easy option. I shuddered slightly in annoyance. Dumbledore and his actions had been in my head so much I was starting to think like him.

/ SKIP TWO WEEKS/

It was about two weeks later when I recieved the letter that I was expecting. I had recieved an official letter from Minister Fudge himself requesting that I meet with himself and Dumbledore at the Ministry at my earliest convenience to discuss the matter of my return to Britain to deal with Voldemort. As I read the letter I rolled my eyes as it was painfully obvious that he was being much more polite than he would have liked but had to remain as being professional due to his position as Minister and because he knew that I wouldn't tolerate him or anyone else being rude or disrespectful towards me and that I certainly wouldn't hesitate to call him out. I took a picture of the letter and attached it to an email that I sent to Christina asking her what the best way to proceed was.

Over the past few weeks both before and after the trial Christina had taken me under her wing slightly mentoring me politics and different wizarding laws of the US compared to Britain. I wasn't sure exactly why so during one of our regular meetings I asked her. She told me that it was because she recognised that growing up with muggle relatives had meant I was very ignorant and unaware of many of the kinds of subjects that someone of my family status should know and that when I had re-entered the wizarding world at 11 I should have been educated in those subjects but for some reason ,most likely to keep me ignorant and under his control, Dumbledore neglected to do so. She also felt that it was important that I had someone from the wizarding world in America that I was able to trust. I greatly appreciated it because the amount of people I knew I could trust in the wizarding world was in extremely short supply these days.

There was also a letter from Madame Bones informing me about the outcome of the investigation she had launched about the attack on me after the trial. Avery had been interrogated in a trial where he had admitted to being a death eater of his own free will and that when my memory had implicated him as a death eater he was angry and wanted revenge. Apparantly he had been sentenced to life in prison for a combination of the crimes committed as a death eater and for trying to kill me. This made me feel somewhat better but I knew that it wouldn't be long before Voldemort made his first official move since his return was publicly announced.

I had continued getting closer to the Cullen's especially Jasper and had slowly began confiding in them more and more both about the wizarding world and what was going on and about my childhood and how I grew up. That topic in particular had been brought up after Carlisle had questioned me about some injuries as well as why I was much thinner than I should be. I had explained to them that although the Dursley's had never really been physically abusive at least not excessively they had been fairly neglectful and it would take a lot for them to be bothered to take me to the doctors or to the hospital.

Thankfully a lot of the times I had been injured growing up my accidental magic had helped my body to heal slightly better but there I had several burns and cuts on my hands from when I was forced to start cooking at a young age and I had accidentally cut or burned myself in the process. Those sorts of injuries would be difficult to explain away so I had to make do with treating them at home. They didn't know everything just because I was still uncomfortable revealing everything but they knew a lot.

A few hours later I recieved an email back from Christina with some suggestions on how to go about responding to the minister's letter. Firstly she suggested to arrange the meeting for about a month away so we had plenty of time to prepare and plan our strategies. She also told me to request that the meeting take place in her office at the MACUSA building. That way it allowed the two of us to set and control the terms of the meeting. I knew for a fact that Dumbledore and Fudge would hate having to travel to America for the meeting but that was the point. We wanted to make them uncomfortable and outside of their comfort zone to make it harder for them to manipulate the situation. I sent off a reply to the minister arranging the meeting for the 15th of November at 11am and for it to take place at the MACUSA building as Mrs Bennett would be in attendance per her request. I sent it off after getting the letter approved by Christina.

/ SKIP 4 WEEKS /

Over the next four weeks Christina and I spent a lot of time planning and preparing for this meeting coming up with a counter argument to every point they could possibly come up with. Our base argument was that in our eyes I had already defeated Voldemort back in 2001 therefore fulfilling the prophecy . The prophecy only stated that I had to defeat him which I had already done once. It never mentioned anything about having to defeat him again should he find a way to come back afterwards.

They had tried to request that the meeting be held sooner and in London but we explained that due to my school schedule it had to be on a weekend and that due to Mrs Bennett's busy schedule could not be held any earlier than that. The whole thing was causing me a lot of stress but I wouldn't admit it. Jasper could tell that it was causing me stress without me having to tell him and he would do whatever he could to distract me from what was going on as did Alice. Alice mostly took me shopping to try and cheer me up and sometimes it worked but other times shopping was the last thing I wanted to do.

By the time it came around to night before the meeting I was nervous but ready to get it over and done with. On the Saturday evening I made sure to have a shower as well as an early night so that I was as well rested as possible much like I had done with the trial. I had once again planned to meet with Christina before the start of the meeting to go over everything one last time but also to make sure we were ready in case they showed up early. The minister had confirmed that he would be attending along with Dumbledore and his undersecretary Dolores Umbridge.

Authors Note – Hey guys I hope you enjoyed the chapter. There isn't that much happening in this chapter and is shorter than normal due to being mostly filler. I promise the next one will be a lot more interesting and quite a bit longer than this one. Let me know what you think. See you next time.