Real or Not Real {Harry Potter}

Forty Three

-Jolene-

-your beauty is beyond compare-

-with flaming locks of auburn hair-

Bran was not pleased that she would be leaving him for the last two weeks of summer, to spend at the Burrow of all places. Frankly, Bria wasn't thrilled about the idea either. Seeing Harry again just confirmed what she had already knew: she could not stand looking at him.

Bria wishes that she could be angry and bitter at him, but all she feels is sadness. It plagues over her like a tidal wave, until Bria is neck-deep drowning in it. She can't get out of the water, can't get out of the sadness that she feels when thinking about Harry.

She's a very good actress. She has lied and manipulated for years, protecting her family's dignity and devoting her time to being Harry's girlfriend.

She's sure that no one is none the wiser, that everyone truly thinks that Bria hates Harry. She can pretend to them for an eternity without blinking an eye. But she can't lie to herself. That's the only person she cannot fool.

After seeing Harry at Michael's store, she had come back to the flat empty and hollow. Bran had tried asking her what was wrong, but she had shut herself in her room for three days. She didn't do her rehabilitation, she didn't paint or bake, she just laid there. And when three days had gone by, Bria went to the kitchen and baked forty-eight cupcakes.

She didn't eat any of them, she could barely stomach to lick the frosting off. So she gave the remaining forty-seven cupcakes to Bran, who had given them away to other healers at St. Mungos. Needless to say, Bria is very popular with the healers now.

Things got better after that. On the outside, at least. The sadness is still there, but Bria is better at not letting it eat away at her. She grows accustomed to the feeling. It's there when she bakes for the healers, it's there when she eats dinner with Bran, and it's there when she gets lost in her paintings.

Bria can't deny that her paintings have taken a tole on her. As she packs her things for the Burrow, she feels helpless when she looks at the increasingly dark and gloomy paintings that she had created over the summer.

She sorts through canvas after canvas, and even the more light-hearted paintings, like portraits of Bran or Michael, are glazed over with the lingering trails of melancholy.

Despite the warm tones and highlights overpowering the dark shadows of her nightmares, a painting cannot lie. It can't hide her true feelings, her despair and pain that she had experienced the night of the Ministry.

She shoves the faux-happy paintings to the back of the stack leaning against the wall, and looks at the paintings that she has dreamed about every night since the previous year.

Paintings and paintings are filled with the room of the planets, the veil, the cloaked Death Eaters chasing her and the others. She pauses on the paintings that she has of her leg, examining the destroyed flesh and deep gash.

She hastily shoves it to the back. Looking through these paintings, she knows that they're all a lost cause. She's not going to bring any of these with her, she can't. She grabs about five or six canvas', and winces when she gets up off of the ground. She sighs when she is able to stand, and turns around to find Bran leaning against the entryway.

His arms are crossed, and he's leaning sideways against the wall, his lips slightly downturned. "You don't have to put those away."

"It's just going to collect dust in the living room."