Le gasp, an HP cross that ISN'T with KHR? Be still your hearts! LOL

Oh, and for those of you who are wondering what this is crossed with, the answer is Ghost Hunt, if it isn't obvious by the end of the chapter.

*Click*

A girl walked into view of the camera after hitting record. She was in a relatively decent apartment, which was clean and well kept.

She sat down on the coach and a strangely serene look came upon her face. Which was odd considering what she was about to say.

"My name is Diana Iris Potter. I am fifteen years and ten months old, and I will no longer exist after today."

Green eyes calmly stared at the camera, as she prepared to put into words why she was so calm about the fact she was technically committing suicide...even if she wasn't going to actually be dead.

"I suppose most people would ask me why I am so calm about the fact I am essentially erasing myself from my own memory. By all rights one could consider this my last confession. The simple truth is that if I want to be free of the chains put around me by those who claim they care but have never really seen the pain I am in, I must be selfish and make a sacrifice. It might seem like this is a rather extreme measure, but I can assure you that it was absolutely necessary in order to make a clean start. There have been too many wrongs committed against me and for the sake of someone who didn't exist in the first place for me to fully break free of the obligations that are attached."

She took a deep breath, and sighed.

"I suppose I should start from the beginning. The easiest way to explain everything is that there is a prophecy, one I believe can only be true if everyone involved actually believes it is. However unlike the Greek myth of Oedipus, I would rather have all the facts before I suddenly believe in prophecies that are self-fulfilling. Before I was born a prophecy was made about someone who was born at the end of July to parents that had defied a certain man three times. They would be marked as equals and at the end neither the child or the man would be able to live as long as the other survives. I was born on July thirty-first to parents who had gone up against that man directly, whose name is Tom Marvolo Riddle, three times simply because they were on the opposing side of his cult and lived to tell about it. And thus my fate was set by a drunk Seer who is only peripherally aware of the gift she has."

She looked at the camera and said with dead calm.

"He came after me on Halloween when I was barely a year and a half old and murdered my parents. My mother died in my nursery trying to protect me while my father died downstairs to give her time. He then tried to kill me, but for reasons still unknown it backfired and I was the only survivor of that night. That was the day I was cursed with a title I would come to loath above all others. I was the Girl Who Lived."

Her hands clenched into fists, before she took a calming breath and continued. This was going to be one of the hardest parts.

"I was left with my mother's sister and her family without them even being asked if they would take me in next to the milk. My aunt did not like my mother, and most of that stemmed from the jealousy she had towards her because Lily was born with a gift and she was not. My aunt and uncle are bigoted, racist people who have a very narrow view of the world and despise anything that does not conform to their standards. My cousin was simply the byproduct of bad choices and the worst type of parenting imaginable. Because I was the outside in that home, it was never treated as family. Instead I was made to sleep in a cupboard for ten long years... treated as little more than a live-in slave who cooked, cleaned and did all the chores in the house while my cousin was spoiled beyond imagining."

She smiled sardonically.

"I suppose one could say that my life is a rather cliché story of heroes, villains and magic. Looking back on everything, that is one of the best ways to describe it. Except this is not a fairy tale, despite how much I wish it could have been. There was no prince to save me from the monsters, there was no kindly mentor who actually took my own wishes and desires into account, and there was no escape from a fame I didn't ask for or want. Ironically enough it was that same hateful family who accidentally broke one of the locks on the gilded cage I had been shoved into, though I'm sure their reasons were far from benign or intentional. I will get to that later though."

She took another breath.

"For ten years I was treated and raised like a pauper, told I was a freak and that my parents were drunkards who would never amount to nothing and that I would follow the same fate. And then what had seemed like a miracle at the time happened. On my eleventh birthday the same world my parents died defending me from came knocking on my door, inviting me to a school full of magic. Honest to god, wand waving magic. I was a witch, and I had inherited the gift from my mother and father. I thought this was a place I could belong, where I would be wanted."

She hung her head in exhaustion and defeat.

"Instead I merely traded one cage for another, this one made of false promises and shattered hope. I was famous for something I was too young to remember, with expectations I could never hope to even begin to fulfill. An abused child suddenly shoved into a society that always demanded more than I could possibly give and then turning on me whenever I failed to fit the image they had built up around my supposed legend while I was starved, beaten and neglected by my so-called family. They greeted me with fanged smiles and clawed hands, and then tossed me right back with the people who had made it abundantly clear they did not want me to be there and were angry about my intrusion in their nice 'normal' family."

She relaxed her hands and looked right at the camera again.

"For the first year of 'magical' schooling, I suddenly found myself thrown into the deep end of a lake with almost no idea how to swim. It was overwhelming, and it was a sign of things to come as it would turn out. I made what I thought were my friends, even rescued a girl from a near-death experience when a dangerous animal broke in on Halloween. But the climax of that year came when I found out an important artifact was going to be stolen by one of the teachers. Like a naive fool I went to someone I thought I could trust... who would listen to our warning."

Her face took on a tint of betrayal.

"The teacher not only dismissed our claims, she wouldn't even listen to reason. She treated us as nothing more than errant children who had nothing important to say. Even though we knew certain things about the issue that should have made her at least pay attention. So like idiots we decided that if the teachers weren't going to help, then we would protect the artifact ourselves. It was a test from the start. There was no other way to describe it. And at the end I was confronted with the same man who murdered my parents, in wraith form. This was the beginning of a pattern that continued for five long years. I lived. His wraith escaped."

She took a deep breath and continued.

"The summer before second year was somewhat better... at least until a certain elf got it in his head to keep me safe without telling me why. My limited protection from knowing about magic was stripped away in a single night. They put bars on my windows... which didn't last long as two of my only true friends ripped them out when they rescued me from the house. Aside from a particularly idiotic and dense teacher that year, it started out fairly normal. Then once again the Halloween curse as I've come to call it struck. An ancient chamber forgotten about for over fifty years was open again, and the monster set free."

She covered her right arm, over where an odd dip could be seen.

"As it turns out the monster was a rather massive, mythical snake called a basilisk, and wouldn't you know it, everyone believed me to be the culprit behind the attacks because of a single incident during a rather ill-thought out club by the idiot teacher. I could speak to snakes like it was a second language, and suddenly the entire school...barring the rare people who actually knew me at all... thought I was evil because of knowing another language. I was a 'parselmouth', and therefor I had to be the culprit because the one who made the chamber originally was known for that gift as well. Even at the end when the monster was killed and yet another girl saved, not a single person apologized for treating me like a pariah or like I was some evil monster out to get them all. Not a single one. No one seemed to care that I had once again nearly died saving someone and that the teachers were all but completely useless."

She took a drink of her water.

"Third year was a complete nightmare in more ways than one. An escaped convict who turned out to be innocent and my godfather, a werewolf for a teacher, and monsters that eat souls posted around the school with a hard on for me in particular due to all the trauma I experienced in life. About the only good thing was that I now had another method of keeping my 'family' from harassing me during the summer with the implied threat of my godfather, who I neglected to mention was never actually convicted of anything and was totally innocent, coming by the check up on me. It was one of the least hectic years, since no one was actually trying to kill me outside of the soul sucking demons known as dementors. Aside from the man who betrayed my parents getting away, it wasn't too bad."

Her face took a darker tone.

"Fourth year... fourth year was easily one of the worst, though it couldn't compare to the one after it. I was forced into a tournament against my will that had a very high death toll attached to it. Not only did I receive absolutely no sympathy or help from the adults, they wouldn't even allow me to back out of it citing something as ridiculous as a compulsory magical contract! As if that wasn't enough, a boy I thought was my friend allowed his jealousy to overwrite his common sense and he turned his back on me completely until after the first task. Somehow I survived the tasks, but I was ambushed at the end of it by the man who killed my parents and the traitor who gave up their location. The man was resurrected in a foul ritual and I was made to duel him. I survived and managed to bring the one who came with me back so that his parents could at least give him a proper burial."

Her face became positively livid with fury and repressed rage.

"Of course that was enough. Two dementors came after me shortly after my fifteenth birthday and of course I was blamed for breaking the law. The whole trial was a farce, and to top it all off the new teacher we had to deal with was a complete sycophant who turned out to be the actual culprit behind the attack. The woman was a complete toad who took perverse pleasure in treating anyone who wasn't from a certain family, rich or well connected like crap, all the while refusing to teach us anything important."

Her face became heartbroken and tired.

"I lost my godfather to an ambush, was forced to let the one man who hated me because I am my father's daughter rip through whatever mental defenses I had in the name of 'training' them despite anyone with a brain being able to tell the senile old man who blackmailed into teaching me how to defend my mind that we hated each other with a passion, and the whole school was against me. Only to once again be sent home to a family that didn't want me and made it very clear they would happily see me on the streets if they could."

She chuckled darkly.

"Of course I doubt even that senile old man would have expected them to almost overdose me with sleeping pills and ship me off to on the first plane to go to a country as far away from England as possible...both in language and culture. I doubt they intended for me to adapt and be welcomed like I was, but it was the one good thing they did for me in the long run."

Her eyes became warmer, full of conviction.

"My name is Diana, and by the end of today I will no longer exist thanks to a potion that will allow me to completely suppress all my original memories in favor of a new identity I've created with help from my bankers. There's a risk I won't survive the procedure, but to be honest that's never really concerned me. If and when I wake up tomorrow morning, my name will no longer be Diana Potter... it will be Taniyama Mai. If you are watching this Mai, then I am sorry for the confusion and any echoing pain you felt from my memories. If you want me to completely disappear there is a potion in the drawer along with this tape that reads 'Erase'. Drinking this will completely wipe my old memories clean and leave only the ones I had implanted. The key you have on you doesn't go to your old house where you lived with your parents, but to a lock box that explains in far more detail than what I've gone through here and what you can expect if people ever learn who you once were. I've left an address and instructions on the letter inside the box with the tape if you wish to find it. The remains of my inheritance... your inheritance... are yours for the taking if you wish."

Diana sighed and looked at the photo in her hands. She brought it up for the camera to see.

It was two pairs of twin boys. Both of them had identical twins.

"The red heads are Fred and George Weasley... or as they like to call themselves Gred and Forge. They're the closest thing to brothers I've ever had and they were one of the few to stand by me no matter what public opinion claimed. The other pair I've never actually met, but I've heard a lot from the twins. Their names are Oliver and Eugene Davies... a Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff respectively. Or as the twins called them... Noll and Gene. Noll was a bit uptight but a good person, and Gene was a kind, gentle-hearted soul who could always make you smile. I always thought they were very clever leaving before they were corrupted by the idiocy of the magical enclaves. I wish I could have met them."

She looked at the time, before she pulled out a vial.

"When I drink this, Diana will no longer exist. I wish you the best of luck, Mai. Don't ever let someone else dictate your destiny for you. Though I did leave copies of all my memories in my vault, though you'll have to go through the deposit box first before you're allowed to go into it."

Diana tipped back the vial, grimacing at the taste. She then hit stop on the video camera and turned off the power. Then she removed the tape and put it up in a specific drawer along with the rest, before going to bed.

As she went to sleep, allowing the potion to kick in and the implanted memories to slid into place, she felt herself become detached.

Inside her mind a strange, soothing cocoon wrapped around her like a warm blanket. As if she were a caterpillar going to sleep so that she might one day become a butterfly. She didn't try to fight it... if she didn't wake up then it was fine by her...she had nothing left to live for anyway. She refused to be tied down by those idiot's expectations that she would return and be their scapegoat/savior again.

For the first and possibly last time in her life. Diana was selfish for her own sake. And she was glad for it.

Mai Taniyama woke up, and wondered why her camcorder was out. She put it up where it belonged and made breakfast. She had to go grocery shopping soon as she was almost out and tomorrow was her first day as a high school student.

She had no idea about the tape or the contents, though she would always have the feeling that she was forgetting something important that would linger in the back of her head.

It wouldn't be until a chance encounter with the most unlikely person she could have run into in Japan that she dared to watch that tape. And even then it was only because of circumstances that were quite outside her control...even if she jumped into it with eyes wide open and full knowledge that once she did this there was no going back.