Real or Not Real {Harry Potter}

Seventeen

-No Plan-

-when all things come from nothing's-

-honey if nothings gained-

"Your boyfriend has officially lost it," Michael says, slamming the Prophet in front of Bria, startling her from her painting.

She is getting really tired of Michael interrupting her precious sketching time with magazines and newspapers filled with trivial matters of her life.

She was also particularly annoyed because this sketch was far more important than the others. She had moved on from Yule Balls and hands touching and had begun to draw her father kneading dough at the bakery.

She had begun to focus on her father's strong, calloused hands. Ones that could bake loaves and loaves of bread until his hands can't stand it any longer.

Hands that had tucked her into bed at night when she was a girl. Hands that have weakened with age, unable to handle the nimble dexterity that comes with frosting cakes. Hands that had taught her how to frost when she was only seven years old.

This has been the longest Bria has been from home. And while Bria was grateful that she had an excuse to not see her mother, she can't help but miss her father and his quiet presence.

More importantly, Bria misses the feeling of familiarity. Even with her angry mother, at least the bakery is a predictable environment. Nothing that has happened this year has been predictable.

She knows that this opportunity to get to be friends with Harry would make her five-year-old heart sing, and even the Bria at the beginning of the year would faint knowing that this has happened to her.

But Bria feels torn between the excitement of the year and the loss of her old life before she met Harry. Because at the end of the day, Bria knows that involving herself with Harry will only lead to dangerous things happening to her.

Bria fears that this is only the beginning.

She looks away from her charcoal sketch of her father and glances at the Prophet's title.

HARRY POTTER DISTURBED AND DANGEROUS

Potter, the Daily Prophet can exclusively reveal, regularly collapses at school, and is often heard to complain of pain in the scar on his forehead (relic of the curse with which You-Know-Who attempted to kill him). On Monday last, midway through a Divination lesson, your Daily Prophet reporter witnessed Potter storming from the class, claiming that his scar was hurting too badly to continue studying.

It is possible, say top experts at St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, that Potter's brain was affected by the attack inflicted upon him by You-Know-Who, and that his insistence that the scar is still hurting is an expression of his deep-seated confusion.

Albus Dumbledore should surely consider whether a boy such as this should be allowed to compete in the Triwizard Tournament. Some fear that Potter might resort to the Dark Arts in his desperation to win the tournament, the third task of which takes place this evening.

"Riveting," Bria tells him when she finishes the story before returning back to her charcoal sketch.

"Oh come on Brioche, your boyfriend is collapsing at school and claims he's in pain. Wouldn't a good girlfriend ask him what was wrong?"

She sighs and puts down her charcoal. "Harry didn't tell me before, it was clearly for a reason. If he wants to tell me why, he can. You need to stop pretending like what we're doing is real."