Harley Potter - the Black Cat.
Runaway.
"Ow!" Harley moaned as she made an awkward landing in, according to the map she had managed to get hold of, Helensborough which was just outside Glasgow.
Good.
She knew Glasgow, as a major city in the United Kingdom, would have a rail link with London, so it wouldn't be hard for her to return to London. Harley stood up, barely able to control the wince; seriously riding a broomstick for a few hours was not fun. The flight was bad enough, especially since it was happening in the dead of night while the entire school was asleep, but now the landing was much worse.
The journey had been uncomfortable on the broomstick and she was eternally grateful she had acquired one of those special dimensional trunks in addition to the trunk Hagrid had made sure she acquired since it meant her cat would've had a more comfortable flight, but thanks to the enchantment she had found she had been able to fly through the night as easily as she might have flown through the daylight. Harley had no idea how many miles she had crossed, but since it was almost dawn she estimated she had been travelling for a good four or five hours before she had landed on the beach in Helensborough.
It was pitch dark, but the light of dawn was beginning to appear. Getting off of her broomstick and pushing it into the dimensional trunk, Harley considered the next step of her plan. Glasgow was hardly the city she had imagined using to get herself back home to London, but when she had formulated her plans she had quickly worked out the awkwardness of the flight, the problems of sitting on a broomstick for long periods, and it being a night-flight in order to ensure nobody came after her once she had thrown off whatever tracking charms had been placed on her and her things, she had realised as long as she travelled to a nearby city with an adequate rail connection to London, it honestly did not make any difference where she ended up so long as she got to London.
In hindsight, Harley knew her plan to slip out during the dead of night was perhaps one of the most basic plans she had ever come up with. It was hardly imaginative, but after the way she had been treated following the confrontation in Dumbledore's office, it was the best she'd been able to do.
With her wand, Harley opened up the trunk and grinned. She loved this trunk; not only did it have so many nifty pockets showing different little compartments where she could store her clothes in one pocket, her books in another, and so on, but there was even a tiny little bedroom she had prepared and handy. The bed inside the trunk had been slept in, and the bathroom en-suite had definitely seen its own fair share of uses over the last four or five days.
She had made her decision to leave exactly one night after the messy confrontation with Dumbledore and the other teachers in the Headmaster's office during the heat of the moment. She had known she would need to have a suitable plan which would work in her best interests, and she knew she had likely inherited some Gryffindor impulsiveness from her parents, although she had no idea which one. Just getting on a broomstick in the dead of night and flying it out with Trouble's case attached to the front or back with her guiding the broom all the way to London was just asking for trouble. She had no idea how easily she would be found by Dumbledore. She still didn't know she was away from Hogwarts.
No. She would need to find a better way out of the school. For the plan to work she would have to make a better plan than come up with some reckless scheme that would explode in her face. The good thing was even after the confrontation with Dumbledore which had led to Snape once more demonstrating how much he relied on Dumbledore to cover his actions, and attacking Trouble, Harley had known she had needed to calm down and relax so she could think things through to stop herself from making a nasty mistake which would get herself being sent back to Hogwarts.
As soon as she had calmed down, Harley had logically realised she could not just leave so soon after the confrontation for a number of reasons.
For a start, she had no idea if Dumbledore had some way of knowing if somebody had left the castle or not, and as she had begun to think about it she had made her fair share of mistakes. The biggest was taking Trouble through the school instead of putting him in her dimensional trunk. And then she had worked something out, something important. For a few days, she had decided to continue attending her classes except for Potions to lull Dumbledore into a false sense of security, that she had no intention of running away, but also so then she could ascertain if some of the secret passages she had been exploring for the last year and a bit were still viable for her escape from Hogwarts.
The staff and the students at the school had been pathetic and predictable following how she had sworn an oath making it clear she was innocent of the attacks, and aside from a few ignorant idiots who had believed for some insane reason she had been fooling everyone, Harley had not been touched in the least.
It was a little sad, if she'd bothered to put her mind to it, the students at the school had fallen that far. Whenever something happened, they were so happy pointing their fingers and casting doubts and blame without even bothering to investigate. And the teachers were even worse. They refused to help anyone who was blamed and they fell into the trap fully convinced they had the culprit. And they did not investigate. To them, the culprit was guilty. Case closed. It just was. The end. Amen.
X
By the time early morning came, Harley who had been resting after her long, uncomfortable flight on the broomstick, went out to find collect enough money for the trip into Glasgow and then on to London. By chance, Harley found a Bookie's and using her wandless magic she disabled the local security and broke inside before she found the safe full of cash. Counting it out quickly, Harley discovered she had over £2,000 worth of cash at her disposal; that should be more than enough to get her to London.
After a quick, hurried breakfast, Harley went to one of the local stations after learning that Helensburgh Upper had an almost non-stop journey into Glasgow Queen Street and she would cut down on her travel time easily if she used that route. Granted, it took her a while to reach the station and wait for the right train, which took about an hour to arrive, but her hopes for a quickened travel time cut down was proven correct.
When she got into Glasgow, Harley was faced with another problem; finding the station which would get her to London. She was used to London and Brighton, Glasgow was a different kettle of fish. With the help from some of the locals and the use of a tourist map, Harley found her way to the mainline station and she made arrangements to buy herself a ticket.
Glasgow had two mainline routes which headed for London, the West Coast Mainline and the East Coast Mainline. The West Coast Mainline sounded the better option since the East Coast mainline would take much longer. While Harley genuinely didn't care how she got to London she did not want to spend so many hours on a train. The good news was there was a good service for both lines, so Harley was free to go whichever way she wanted to go.
Once she had settled down in her seat, Harley waited for the train to leave the station.
X
Amelia Bones, head of the Department of Magical Law-Enforcement, rubbed her head at the monumental mess this disaster had caused, and despite what Fudge and his ilk would like to believe in themselves, Harley was not to blame. There were simply too many factors to consider. When Amelia had gotten word of what had happened, she had been annoyed and horrified by just how badly things had spiralled out of control.
Harley Potter's disappearance and departure from Hogwarts by running away had sent shockwaves through the magical world. Many were demanding she be found and returned to the castle, saying her parents would have wanted it, but since Amelia had been personally acquainted with the Potter girl's parents, she could safely argue and state that Lily and James would have wanted their child to be happy and safe regardless of which school Harley went.
In all the time Lily and Amelia had known one another, Amelia had never gotten the impression Lily would have minded her child attending a different school. In fact, Amelia had the impression if Lily had survived that horrible night where she and James were murdered, and Lily had seen what the school was doing, she would withdraw Harley from Hogwarts and she wouldn't give a damn about the consequences. But what Amelia did mind was how Harley had run away from the school, and she knew it was not for attention as certain individuals believed.
Fudge, likely having the poisoned words whispered to him by Malfoy and Umbridge, was all for believing Harley was merely lashing out because she wanted attention (honestly, why the Minister for Magic of Britain had to be a parrot and a puppet, she had no idea) but that meant nothing since now Fudge was pushing her and her department to find the girl and send her back to Hogwarts where she belonged.
Fudge thought it would be easy, finding the girl and putting her down because he believed her to be attention-seeking.
No. Harley didn't work like that. When she had investigated she had been horrified by what she had learnt. Harley had been accused of releasing Slytherin's creature/monster, whatever, on the castle and many had accused her because she could speak parseltongue.
Amelia could understand the prejudice, of course, but what she couldn't work out was Dumbledore's approach to this whole mess; she knew the Headmaster well enough to know he could be petty underneath that twinkly-eyed grandfather routine of his, but she hadn't expected him to allow things to get this bad so quickly. Not only had he allowed Harley to be victimised and bullied to the point where she was a pariah in Hogwarts, but he had allowed Snape to attack her and attack the girl's cat!
Under those circumstances, Amelia was unsurprised the girl had run away. She was just annoyed Harley had not come to her, but after a few weeks of not finding any sign of the girl, Amelia had come to suspect and accept Harley had just become tired of the magical world. She had gotten hints of it ever since the day they'd met. Harley might've been a Gryffindor, but she cared more for her self-preservation more than she did any kind of some stupid sense of honour and courage. Besides, as she thought of it, Harley must have been worried the school would turn on her again so she had left and truthfully, while she didn't like the implications, Amelia had to see the logic behind the thought of Harley's departure.
She would have done the same thing if she were in the girl's position and everyone was turning on her simply because of circumstantial evidence although she knew her parents would never have sanctioned it.
But what Amelia couldn't work out was why Dumbledore had allowed this mess to get so far out of hand. It was bad enough he had allowed the students to bully and harass Harley in the first place, but what she couldn't work out was how everyone believed the circumstantial evidence. It did occur to her Dumbledore had let things get so bad because then he would make Harley regret her actions during the girls' first year; she knew Dumbledore well enough to not really trust the man, and she knew he could be petty at times. Only if this was an example of that pettiness it had exploded in his face. Big time.
Harley was never going back to the school, and when she had kids of her own Amelia could not be surprised in the least if Harley simply refused to let them go near the place.
At that moment a regal looking owl swooped into the office, making Amelia alert instantly. She wasn't expecting any kind of letter; all of her senior aurors had communication mirrors instead of relying on owls for contact, while a few could send off a Patronus, which would take too long and she did not recognise the owl in the first place.
The owl didn't bother landing on the desk, it just dropped the letter and flew out without a backward glance. Amelia studied the letter and took out her wand, and she began scanning it. Some would call her paranoid, and she knew if she time-travelled back to her fifteenth-year-old self and the Amelia then saw what she would do, she would definitely think the woman she became was paranoid.
But Amelia had grown as a person. She had seen many terrible things in her time working for the DMLE. She had witnessed dark wizards cursing muggles using mail, inflicting terrible injuries which needed to be quickly resolved. She had lived through a terrible war where the tactic was augmented to a vast degree by a Dark Lord who found the tactic petty and pathetic, but he augmented it to deadly effect and dozens of families around the country - muggle and wizard - died as a result, all because of a simple letter.
So was she being paranoid, or prudent?
The Ministry was screened against curses like that as a result when it was revealed how those families were being destroyed, but some things did slip through the cracks
Luckily there were no spells on the letter. It was safe for her to open. When it did, Amelia's eyes shot open in shock. It was from Harley Potter and as she read it through the once, Amelia had to close her eyes, put the paper down on the desk and then reopen them again to read through it so she was sure she had the words in her mind.
Dear Amelia,
By the time you've gotten this letter, three weeks would have passed since my departure, by which time I will have left the British isles so I can focus on what I want the most at this point, a magical education rather than the subpar example I've been getting at Hogwarts. I don't know if I'm going to come back or not, maybe in a good ten years from now, who can say? First, let me assure you that I'm alive and I'm well. I'm so sorry I ran from Hogwarts (well, sorry for you but not for the dickhead you work for, nor the idiots at the castle) but I had to. I don't know if you are aware of this, but life at Hogwarts was becoming truly bad.
That is no exaggeration.
In a few days time, a different package will be sent to you and to the Magical media in different countries which will showcase for everyone just how far Magical Britain has come. And no, you can't stop it. I don't think you should, especially since something bigger will be happening, but that's a surprise for now.
The package will contain a number of memories of my recent year at Hogwarts. Needless to say, I think you will find them more than enlightening and will tell the story from a different perspective, my own.
But what I regret the most at this point is how I left without telling you, and without saying goodbye. You've been an amazing help to me, Amelia and believe me, I appreciate it more than you could imagine. I found you to the point and blunt way of speaking refreshing compared to Dumbledore's pointless cryptic pseudo wisdom which had more holes than it filled. I did consider informing you of what Snape did while in Dumbledore's office, but I had just become so sick and tired of Hogwarts I had to leave. I've never felt comfortable in a place without knowing if there is a way I can escape. I never imagined when I got my Hogwarts letter I would have this much grief.
Amelia, I know Fudge is putting pressure on you to find me, but there's little he can do about it. Dumbledore is not my magical guardian so he can't force me back to Hogwarts and neither can Fudge. I wish there had been another way, but there isn't.
I will miss you, and very sincerely yours,
Harley Potter.
Amelia closed her eyes. She should have done something, she should have found some way of taking Harley in, perhaps make her into a ward of her family to give the young witch the support net she needed. But she hadn't. Amelia wondered what kind of outcry would come when Harley's packages reached the media, and she knew the girl would be making many new enemies out of them as a result.
She hoped Harley would be okay.