Endgame

Chapter 23

"How do you get through it Ana?" Hallie asked.

"I let people think what they want," she said. "Why do I need to care about other people's expectations?"

"The minute you accept yourself Hallie, is the minute you will stop caring what other people think of you."

Hallie nodded at this statement and thought about it for the rest of the day. One day she knew that she'd accept it, and get closure with what had happened. She knew that the only way to get closure was to leave the things she didn't want to feel behind.

***
"Oh my goodness, Freddy, look at this article," she handed over the Daily Prophet newspaper with a chuckle. Not because it was particularly funny, but because of how ignorant they were.

"Sirius Black tied to the escapes from Azkaban?" Fred nearly choked on his pumpkin juice. "And they think we are the stupid ones."

"I've gave up listening to what they have to say," Hallie admitted. "The Quibbler is far more resourceful."

"Aye, I agree."

"Do you think I should send a letter to my mother about this?"

"Maybe not, it'll send her into worry," Fred reasoned. "I've heard a lot about people leaving Hogwarts after this year. Fearing for their safety and all of that. Surely they'd believe Dumbledore is well and capable of taking care of this school?"

"Oh really?" She said, eating her cottage pie and swallowing it. "Muggle born people are getting particularly fearful, remember that whole Chamber of Secrets fiasco that happened a few years back?"

"Yep, people getting petrified left, right, and centre," he sighed. "That's the year a lot of our sweeties didn't make a good sale."

"Well I suspect that if you-know-who infiltrates the ministry a lot of muggle borns will be targeted as well."

"God, Hals, how did you guess that?"

"Well back in the 1920s, in the muggle world, there was a government called the Weimar constitution. They were very weak, didn't create much morale for people."

She continued, cutting up pieces of her potato. "The ministry of magic aren't a very strong government either. Look at how they are handling all of this. Denying it's even real."

"A cruel leader, Hitler, was able to use Weimar's weakness to his advantage and a powerful wizard like you-know-who would easily be able to do the same thing and initiate his statutes and fear through the ministry."

"So, when people see something weak and corrupt, a leader will use that as a weapon or something?"

"Uh huh," she nodded. "You've got the imperio curse here aswell."

"That makes sense, Hals," he nodded. "I think it's all going to reach a boiling point and then, it'll all overflow and something will go bad."

"As much as people don't want me there," she said, "I want to go back to Dumbledore's Army. Harry won't even speak to me though, so that's a bit of a problem. Maybe it's best not to go back, because if they can't realise that I deserve to be there now, then they don't deserve me at all."

"Yeah, very true.  I was going to ask, what's up with that and Dumbledore's Army?"

"No idea," she sighed. "I know what I'm going to do next though Fred, but I'll need your help".

"And what's that?"

"Fight for something I believe in."

***
"Hallie, what letter are you on about? Have you gone nuts?" Fred asked as they left the Great Hall.