Real or Not Real {Harry Potter}

Forty Two

-Two Ghosts-

-we're not who we used to be, we're just-

-two ghosts in the place of you & me-

It's to Harry's surprise when he finds Dumbledore in Muggle London. It's to his surprise when they visit Horace Slughorn, to pull him out of retirement as a Potions professor again.

It's to his surprise when Dumbledore sends his things to the Burrow to spend for the remainder of summer.

It's to his surprise when Dumbledore tells him that he and Bria will remain in their fake relationship and that Bria will be coming to the Burrow for the last two weeks of summer, no exceptions.

He tries not to think about Bria.

Harry is glad that he gets to be at the Burrow. He has felt incredibly lonely this summer, even more so than the previous summer when everybody had refused to write to him after Cedric's death.

Everybody except Bria.

He tries not to think about Bria.

He knows it's the loss of Sirius that has made Harry feel like a hollow version of himself. Even through his isolated summer the previous year, he was reassured that Sirius was okay. That he was alive.

But now Sirius is gone and Harry has lost his godfather and he has never felt more alone in his life.

Everyone tries to distract him from thinking about Sirius, and it reminds him of that last month of school after the Ministry. Harry had been angry for a while, then the wave of depression crashed over him and he had found himself unable to feel happiness at all.

Hermione had taken to dragging him to the library to at least have something to do, and Ron had forced him into chess games and Quidditch scrimmages.

Harry tries to pretend he is better than how he felt during school, but he knows that it's a weak lie. Everyone can tell that he's not doing well.

They all try to make him feel better by engaging him in Quidditch matches, even getting Hermione to play. That's when Harry knows they're desperate to cheer him up. Hermione would never in her life willingly fly.

They split up into teams, only using the Quaffle and one Bludger, no Snitch. Fred and George engage in these games as well, and usually the team divides up so it's Fred, Harry, and Ron on one team and George, Ginny, and Hermione on the other.

The team is pretty evened out since Ginny is spectacular at being a Chaser while Harry is only average, making up for Hermione being on Ginny's team.

For a while, the Quidditch games got the job done. Harry was distracted, and he had fun. But there's only so many Qudditch games Harry could have before he was going to lose his mind.

Harry was thankful that Mrs. Weasley had saved Harry from playing another Quidditch games, and had said it was that time of year for them to go shopping for the upcoming school year.

They were allowed to go to Diagon Alley, much to Mrs. Weasley concern that Voldemort was going to pop out of the shadows and kill Harry right then and there.

The only positive out of this was that they got to visit Fred and George's joke shop. The outside had a grand entrance, and atop of the doors was a massive version of one of the twins, lifting up his top hat to reveal a rabbit inside.

Harry took one look at the entrance, and knew instantly that it was Bria's doing.

The inside was only worse. Everywhere he would look, he was just reminded that Bria was the one to make the designs, the labels, the packages.