Mini Display and Thunderbolt Question

So I have a Macbook Pro with mini display port and I bought a Thunderbolt enabled iMac. I thought because of the supposed "backwards compaitbilites" that everything would be fine to connect. I bought the Thunderbolt cable recommended by an Apple Authorized Reseller, only to find out that it cant connect the laptop to iMac for use as a bigger display. Further research confirmed that a thunderbolt device can go to mini display, but not the other way around.
So I am wondering, if I have a mini display to hdmi, can I buy a Thunderbolt to hdmi and use the hdmi to link to two since the signal will be converted for hdmi?
I really need this to work...

That will not work. Your iMac can only be used as an external display for another Mac through a Thunderbolt cable, not a Thunderbolt adapter.
Instead, the only way you have in order to use your iMac as an external display is ScreenRecycler > http://www.screenrecycler.com You just need that both computers are connected to the same network

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