Well that was Unexpected
Disclaimer – I do not own anything from Harry Potter or from the Vampire Diaries. Those honours go to JK Rowling and Julie Plec respectively. The only thing I own is the idea and any OC characters. Basically anything that you recognise isn't mine.
Hallie(POV)
After the war had ended I took a few days to myself to finally go through all my parents possessions. I spent a lot of time organising them into things that seemed special that I wanted to keep with me when I moved, things that I felt belonged in Potter Manor and things that I was going to get rid of.
While sorting things out I came across a set of letters in a keep sake box in her school trunk. They were letters from a woman called Elizabeth Forbes. After looking through the letters I discovered that Elizabeth or Liz as she preferred to be called was my mom's half sister and lived in a small town called Mystic Falls in Virginia. Apparantly my mom's dad had been on a business trip and met Liz's mom Alice. They went on a date and ended up having a one night stand. He went back home less than a week later when his trip ended and didn't know that Alice was pregnant. She never told him as she didn't think he would want anything to do with the child. Several years later they had both married and moved on. Alice eventually told Liz who her father was when she was 16 after she expressed a desire to really know who her father was. Liz had done some digging and found that she had two half sisters and sent letters wanting to get to know them. Petunia had sent one or two letters but hadn't been very interested in getting to know her but Lily had and they continued to sent letters back and forth. I spoke to Petunia asking if Liz knew about what happened to Lily and she confirmed that she had sent a letter explaining things shortly after and had invited her to the funeral to be polite . Liz had attended but couldn't stay for long due to her job. Liz had continued to sent letters for some time after that but Petunia had never bothered to reply so eventually Liz stopped.
After I finished sorting everything and had moved into a cottage in St Ives that my dad's grandparents had bought I worked up the courage to send Liz a letter of my own hoping she would want to get to know me.
" Dear Elizabeth Forbes,
My name is Hallie Potter and I am your half sister Lily's daughter. I know this letter has come out of the blue but I came across the letters that you and my mother sent one another during your teenage years and thought I would send you one to see if you wanted to get to know each other. I didn't know I had any surviving family left apart from my Aunt Petunia and one or two distant cousins from my fathers side so I thought I would reach out.
I have also included some photos of me growing up as well as a few of me with my friends.
I hope you are well,
Your niece ,
Hallie Potter"
I folded up the envelope and put the address on the front from the last letter she had sent Petunia hoping it was the same address. I made sure to put the correct postage on it and sent it off at the post office in St Ives.
It was a little over a week before I got a reply from Liz which I expected given that it was going all the way over to the US and back. The post had arrived that morning but i had already been up and out by that point. I had apparated over to see the Weasley's and have some lunch with them before going to meet Professor McGonnagall as she wanted to know if I had decided to go back to Hogwarts when it re opened to re do my seventh year along with Hermione. I hadn't made any decisions as of yet and explained it to her which she understood and told me to let her know when I had made up my mind. I had been having trouble deciding exactly what I wanted to do as there was too many offers and options from people. One option was gong back to Hogwarts for my seventh year, another was to go into Auror training. I had also been given options from several different ministry departments. They all sounded good options but with so many to choose from I couldn't make a concrete decision. It didn't help because I knew that no matter I chose I would be letting someone down.
Not to mention that I was trying to deal with the fall out of the war. I was helping a lot with the rebuilding efforts on Hogwarts so they could get it all repaired before September and it was a tougher task than anyone anticipated. The battle had done more damage than previously thought. I was also trying to come to terms with Fred's death. There had been many death's during the battle but the one that had hurt me the most was Fred. We had been dating throughout my 5th and 6th year and I had been devastated when I had gone back to the Great Hall before facing Voldemort in the forest and seen that he had died. I had briefly seen him using the Resurrection stone in the forest along with my parents , Remus and Sirius and it had helped a little bit to see him. He had made me promise him that I would allow myself to move on and open my hear to love again but I knew it would be hard. The hardest thing was that I never got to properly say goodbye. It was why I decided to move in to the cottage in St Ives on my own. I had stayed with the Weasley's for a few days immeditely after and they had said I could stay as long as I wanted but I couldn't manage staying there much. It was all too fresh and everything reminded me of him. It was hard enough visiting every so often but I promised them I would.
After meeting with McGonnagall I had apparated to a small hidden alley way in St Ives to get my food shopping done before heading home with it. Thankfully I didn't live too far away from the local supermarket so I was always able to walk home with it. As St Ives was on the south west coast not far from Cornwall it had lovely weather in the summer months so the walk home was most often beautiful weather. The locals were all super friendly and I would always stop and talk to them while i was out enjoying the weather. When I walked in once I was back from shopping I noticed the post had arrived while I was out. I picked it up and took it into the kitchen with me. I threw it down on the kitchen table while I started putting away the shopping. Once everything was away I made up a cup of tea and sat down to go through the post. There was one from the Ministry regarding my Order of Merlin, one from Neville wanting to meet up sometime next week and lastly one from Liz.
I opened up the letter and started reading.
" Dear Hallie,
I was pleasantly surprised when I received your letter. I am glad that you decided to get in touch. I would love to get to know you. Lily sent me several letters and a few photos of you as a baby before she died. I had hoped Petunia would have told you of me but given you only found out recently and you are almost 18 makes it easy to assume she did not which is upsetting but not exactly surprising. Petunia was never much interested in the two of us getting to know one another other than enough to be polite.
I am well and I hope you are too. My daughter Caroline is the same age as you just a few months younger, (10th of October) and is excited to get to know you. I have included both of mine and Caroline's mobile numbers as well as the landline number. I figure that would be an easier and quicker way to get in touch rather than sending letters back and forth across the Atlantic ocean.
Thank you very much for the pictures. It is nice to have a photo of you grown up as opposed to a baby. I have included a few of myself and Caroline for you to have. I think Caroline included one of her and her friends too.
Thank you,
Your aunt and cousin,
Liz and Caroline Forbes
P.S am aware of the wizarding world so you don't need to worry about keeping it a secret. Lily told me all about it shortly before she got married"
I smiled as I read through the letter and pulled out the pictures that she had included. There was one of both Caroline and Liz on their own, a few of them together and one of Caroline and her friends. On the back it said that from right to left it went Matt Donovan, Elena Gilbert, Caroline Forbes, Bonnie Bennett and Tyler Lockwood.
I left everything on the table and went into the living room. I grabbed a wooden box off of the coffee table along with the photo album from the window sill. I took them back to the kitchen and placed the letter in the box along with the ones that my mum had used to keep her letters in from Liz before placing the photos in the photo album. I flicked through the pictures inside smiling. I had added pictures into the photo album that Hagrid had given me at the end of 1st year as there had been several pages left empty for me to fill.
I placed the album and box back in there places in the living room before going back to the kitchen table to write the replies to the letters I had gotten from the Ministry and from Neville.
Authors Note – I hope you all enjoy this story. The idea had been in my head for several weeks and I just had to write it all down. Just to clarify the timeline changes, everything is the same except it is taking place in more modern times than the originals did. Rather than Hallie being born in 1980 she was born in 1996 making this story take place in Summer 2014. Everything that happened in Harry Potter still happened but just 15 years later than canon. Same with Vampire Diaries except the timeline change is only 4 years. This will be taking place in Season 3 of Vampire Diaries.
