Real or Not Real {Harry Potter}

Thirty Nine

-Born To Die-

-choose your last words it's the last time-

-cause you and i, we were born to die-

Out of nowhere, black shapes began to emerge out of thin air all around them, blocking their way left and right; eyes glinting through slits in hoods, a dozen lit wand-tips pointing directly at their hearts.

"To me, Potter," repeats the drawling voice of Lucius Malfoy as he holds out his hand, palm up.

Bria finds herself suddenly parched. She should've known something like this was going to happen.

"To me," Malfoy says yet again.

"Where's Sirius?" Harry says.

Several of the Death Eaters laugh. A harsh female voice from the midst of the shadowy figures to Harry's left says triumphantly, "The Dark Lord always knows!"

"Always," Malfoy echos softly. "Now, give me the prophecy, Potter."

"I want to know where Sirius is!"

"I want to know where Sirius is!" the woman mimicks.

She and her fellow Death Eaters had closed in so that they were mere feet away from Bria and the others, the light from their wands dazzling Bria's eyes.

"You've got him. He's here. I know he is."

"The little baby woke up fwightened and fort what it dweamed was twoo," the woman mocks in a horrible baby voice.

"Don't do anything," he mutterers to them. "Not yet —"

The woman who had mimicked Harry lets out a raucous scream of laughter.

"You hear him? You hear him? Giving instructions to the other children as though he thinks of fighting us!"

"Oh, you don't know Potter as I do, Bellatrix," Malfoy says softly. "He has a great weakness for heroics; the Dark Lord understands this about him. Now give me the prophecy, Potter."

"I know Sirius is here. I know you've got him!"

"It's time you learned the difference between life and dreams, Potter," Malfoy tells him patronizingly. "Now give me the prophecy, or we start using wands."

"Go on, then," Harry says, raising his own wand to chest height. Bria and the others follow suit, all prepared to fight.

But the Death Eaters did not strike.

"Hand over the prophecy and no one need get hurt," Malfoy says cooly.

Harry laughs now, and Bria wonders if he's officially lost it.

"Yeah, right! I give you this — prophecy, is it? And you'll just let us skip off home, will you?"

The words were hardly out of his mouth when the female Death Eater shrieks, "Accio Proph —"

Harry was ready though. He shouts, Protego!" before she had finished her spell, and though the glass sphere slips to the tips of his fingers he manages to cling on to it.

"Oh, he knows how to play, little bitty baby Potter. Very well, then —"

"I TOLD YOU, NO!" Malfoy roars at the woman. "If you smash it — !"

The woman steps forward, away from her fellows, and pulls off her hood. Bria recognizes this woman now, she seen her in the Daily Prophet. Azkaban had hollowed Bellatrix Lestrange's face, making it gaunt and skull-like, but it was alive with a feverish, fanatical glow.