Holly preened as she stood in front of the mirror in their bedroom, smiling as she took in the adorable pink t-shirt with the white cat printed on it while she wore a pair of black slacks. Harry, who was unpacking some of the books they'd purchased from Diagon Alley, smiled; after they'd left Diagon Alley, it was easy to force Aunt Petunia to take them shopping. If they were going to America, they wanted to look their best.

"You look cute, as always Holly," Harry smiled.

Holly beamed, "When are you getting changed?" She clapped her hands. "I want to see how well you look!"

Harry chuckled before he indulged his little sister. He had originally planned on just sorting their books out, but as always he just wanted to please his little sister. "Okay, sis," he smiled at her fondly before he picked up his shopping bags and he quickly put on a pair of brand-new jeans and a black T-shirt.

Holly clapped her hands. "Wow, you look good in fresh clothes."

"We both do, Holly."

"I'll add these clothes to the ones we got from those department stores in Little Whinging," Holly said.

The Potter siblings had received their clothes from Dudley and secondhand stores, but they had mostly stolen some of them, but again they were secondhand, although they occasionally robbed the department stores in Little Whinging; now they had brand new clothes. As he put on his new trainers, Harry stood up and walked to the mirror and admired himself.

"You look so good, Harry," Holly looked at him with a smile of admiration.

"I do; I've spent so long in secondhand clothes that wearing something new is amazing for us both," Harry grinned back at her and hugged her. "We're going to be okay, Holly."

Holly hugged him back, inhaling the scent of her brother's new clothes and natural smell. "Do you think we're going to America, Harry?"

Harry bit his lip. The question was a good one and something he had been thinking of himself. "I hope so, Holly," he whispered.

He hated giving his sister a pragmatic answer, but he didn't know how the American Potters would react.

"They have to, though right?" Holly whispered, her voice quavering in terror at the thought of something wrong happening.

Harry tightened his grip on his sister. "I hope so."

If there was one thing Harry hated it was frightening his sister when she'd been given so much hope. But this was the problem they both had with their situation; they both had each other, and Harry had gone out of his way to make sure he did the opposite of what the Dursleys had done to them, by showering his sister with love and affection. Holly had reciprocated. But they didn't know how a real family interacted and so they didn't know how the Potters in America would react to what their British cousins had done to two of their children.

Holly and Harry had pleaded with them to not contact their parents, but to help them. But would they?

Harry realised this wasn't doing his sister any good. "Come on," he whispered as he pulled back so he could bend down and look into her emerald green eyes, "let's get on with studying the magical world, hmm?" He smiled invitingly at her.

Holly nodded and she sat next to him on his bed while Harry looked at the books awkwardly. "Well, we just need to work out where to start," he said.

Holly chuckled, and she picked up the book which introduced muggle-borns to the magical world. Within a few minutes, they were both engrossed in learning more about the magical world. Within an hour, the Potter siblings had absorbed the information which they should have been taught by their parents. The Potters learnt of the magical world's shopping districts in Diagon Alley with Knockturn Alley, Midnight Alley, and Dawn Alley, looking at the map of the different alleys. Harry and Holly both promised themselves to explore them at the earliest opportunity. They also learnt about the Ministry of Magic, the various departments and what their primary duties were; they learnt about the Department of Magical Law Enforcement which was tasked with protecting the magical world from dark witches and wizards and were tasked with working with the obliviators who would erase the memories of muggles who had seen the magical world, or signs of magic. The Ministry department that fascinated him the most was the Department of Mysteries; granted, the booklet didn't truly describe their job that well, beyond explaining they were tasked with studying obscure magics to investigate magical secrets and mysteries from the past, and to see if it could be assimilated for the current generation.

When he read that part, Harry was immediately fascinated, and he wondered if he could do a job like that, but he wasn't going to automatically decide to go for it now, not until he was old enough to make his decision.

As Harry studied the pages which described the Statute of Secrecy and its basic history, he could understand the logic leading up to that step in the first place, but he couldn't help but wonder if the magical world had overreached itself since they needed to have specialist teams and he wondered if the Statute was more problematic than it needed to be, but his knowledge of it was scant and the only thing he had was his imagination. He tried to picture a group of wizards setting the Statute up, and he found they would have needed to deal with magical creatures as well as wizards; they wouldn't have taken this without some kind of fight, surely?

Harry relegated his questions for the Statute to the questions pile, and he kept reading.

Within a few hours of reading the handbooks, the Potter siblings turned their attention to the history of the MACUSA.

Both Harry and Holly knew enough of the United States of America to know they had a congress divided into a House of Representatives and a Senate, the MACUSA just had a single legislative body, with the only true similarity between them being there was a President, democratically selected. The President's job was to uphold the laws and to maintain the yearly running of the MACUSA; one of the primary jobs was to uphold the Statute of Secrecy. Their headquarters were based in New York, and some pictures showed a building which showed grandiose statues, with witches and wizards going about their business.

One of the defining statues which showed the history of the MACUSA's darkest periods was the group of statues commemorating the Salem Witch Trials, under the monument, were four Latin words - 'Integritas, Unitas, Virtus, Magia' which translated into Integrity, Unity, Valour, and Magic. Harry frowned as he examined the statues, seeing proof that even in this age, and how the Dursleys treated him and his sister, there was no way they would ever be accepted. Muggles, or No-Maj's, as the MACUSA called them, could never accept magic.

Holly hugged him, she had seen the statues and was scared. He held her tightly.

"It's okay, Holly," he whispered. "I won't let anyone hurt you."

As they kept reading, it became obvious to the Potter siblings there was no true cooperation between the MACUSA and the No-Maj government, and as they continued reading through the history, they realised it was never going to change.

The roots of the MACUSA began in 1693, with the Statute of Secrecy, as a result of the Salem Witch Trials. The moment he saw that Harry made an unhappy face, imagining the amount of resentment and loathing the wizards in America had likely felt as they bore witness to the consequences of No-Maj's being aware of magic and how many paid the price. Unlike the United States of America, the MACUSA predated the muggle equivalent by a hundred years.

Josiah Jackson became the first MACUSA president. One of his first jobs, and not something that was wanted, was to deal with the Scourers. They were a group of witches and wizards who took advantage of a lack of a central magical government with an effective law enforcement agency, and they formed a vigilante group. The Scourers. They hunted down anyone for a sufficient reward. They were the perfect example of an organisation which, if left alone with nobody capable or willing to touch them, they'd become more corrupt. They abused their power and they began indulging in their power too much. By the late 17th century, their numbers had swelled considerably, attracting many unpleasant characters who sought to get rich quickly while indulging their whims, and with nobody to stop them, they got away with it. They engaged in trafficking their fellow witches and wizards, even kidnapping No-Maj's, and passing them off as wizards to collect bounties from witch hunters. Harry shook his head as he saw an illustration of a group of people wearing black pilgrim-style clothes, corning an innocent family. Something told him that image was based on reality, and he pitied them.

Historians had even concurred some judges who presided over the Salem Witch Trials in 1692-1693 were Scourers who were seeking to settle vendettas, and after reading about how corrupt they'd become, Harry could well believe it. Emigration among pureblood families in Europe to America had dried up out of fear of the Scourers.

The Scourers ended when the nascent MACUSA was founded, and one of their first jobs was to bring the Scourers to justice. While many were put on trial for their crimes, some of them survived despite endless searches for them and they married into No-Maj families, renouncing their magical ties forever, which would later have many profound effects on the magical world as the centuries passed. As outcasts, they swore vengeance, and as he and Holly read through the history book, they found out the Scourers had nearly gotten it a few times.

Theophilus Abbot, a magical historian had noted America's No-Maj's seemed harder to fool than European muggles likely because of the Scourer's influence. They had spent years spreading hatred of magic through the population for centuries. In the 18th century, a Scourer descendent called Bartholomew Barebone managed to seduce and ply details of the magical world from a witch called Dorcas Twelvetrees whom he met at a picnic. Twelvetrees was so smitten she had given him the location of Ilvermorny and where the Headquarters of the MACUSA were. He stole her wand and took pictures of it and sold them to as many newspapers as possible, and he took the wand to newspapers and they couldn't deny there was something different about it.

To make things worse, he took the locations of Ilvermorny and the address of the Headquarters and distributed them to others. Some people were prompted to investigate to see if 'evil occult parties' were there.

Unfortunately, Barebone made the mistake of attacking people whom he believed were MACUSA personnel, but weren't, and he was arrested but the damage was so severe. The MACUSA had struggled to clean up the mess, and even to this day, they weren't sure if everyone had their memories adjusted.

President Rappaport was forced to introduce a law named after her which led to the complete segregation of the MACUSA and the United States of America. This law prevented witches and wizards from meeting with and marrying No-Maj's, and having children with them. From that day forth, the witches and wizards had to have a permit to carry a wand to ensure that if it was lost, they had the magical signature to track it down if something suspicious happened to it. The segregation was completed within a year, and once it was over the MACUSA was reinforced with more protections. One of the things that bothered Harry a little even if he understood the logic, was how Rappaport introduced legislation to take children away from the No-Maj's who were magical. These Newbloods were made wards of the MACUSA or they were adopted by families. Their former biological families were made to forget about them. The idea was sinister but as Harry thought about how there were likely muggles like the Dursleys who treated him and his sister like dirt before he'd put them in their place, it was likely there were dozens of children who weren't as lucky.

'Maybe there's some sense in what they're doing,' Harry thought to himself, pulling his sister towards him. He'd learnt enough to know their mother she was born in a No-Maj family, but if she'd been taken and then adopted, they would never have been sent to the Dursleys. He and Holly wouldn't even be here.

Harry made an unhappy face as he read about the incident involving an Obscurial who was being manipulated by Grindelwald for his ends would have revealed the existence of magic if Newt Scamander hadn't used a potion spread by a Thunderbird in the rain to wipe the memories of the No-Maj's in New York to prevent the exposure of the magical world, and his blood chilled in his veins as he read what an Obscurial was; a witch or wizard, who suffered from agonising abuse and was taught to hate their powers until it twisted inside them.

The implications were obvious and it made Harry wrap his arms around Holly.

"Harry, what's wrong?" Holly asked in surprise as her brother's tight grip made her gasp. "You're choking me."

"Oh, sorry, sweetheart," Harry kissed her head and showed her the passages relating to the Obscurial incident. Holly read through it, but she lifted her head, her pretty face and innocent green eyes staring at him in confusion. She didn't grasp it.

"It's the Obscurial part, Holly; think, if I hadn't discovered my powers if you had been alone, then you might have come to hate your powers and it would have twisted you. It might have twisted me," Harry explained as he held his sister.

Holly got it and she gulped in fear. "I-I can't live without you, Harry. W-what if you weren't here?"

Harry held his sister, and he made his mind up to have the American Potters keep watch on this fucked up house to make sure if Lily and James played this game again, any future siblings would come to America.

"Come on, let us have a look at the history of Ilvermorny," he whispered.