Harry Potters Imaginary Friend

I own nothing but my overactive mind

Harry had an imaginary friend. Most young children do, though most everyone else that does don't get placed in a psych ward for them though. Harry Potter was drawing pictures with Angelica. He was drawing dinosaurs while she was drawing superheroes. This was part of their daily routine. First, they would wake up and he would take the pills he was supposed to and go to the mess hall, which he thought wasn't very messy, for breakfast. Angelica didn't have to take pills because the adults here said she didn't exist, but she didn't want Harry to get in trouble so she told him to take the pills too. Even though he took the pills she never disappeared like they said she should, she just played with him like she always had.

After breakfast he had classes, he liked music class best because it was Angelica's favorite. His first class was English where they practiced writing and spelling new words, Angelica liked practicing long words like 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious ' and 'Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia'.

In between classes, Harry and Angelica would be allowed go to the courtyard and play for a while. Harry usually swung on the swings while she skipped rope next to him. They would talk about what sort of changes they would make to the ward, Angelica wanted more places for 'Imaginary friends' to sit while Harry wanted newer toys for them all to play with. They would talk and about the shapes of the clouds they could see when they could see that sky cleared up from the view windows gave, or about what they missed from the outside world, which wasn't much, and then he would be brought back inside for another lesson.

Next was math, Harry understood it much better than Angelica so during class she would look at photo books and remark how pretty they were.

[time-skip]

It was nearing Harrys' birthday. He knew this because every year on July 31 he would get a cupcake with his dinner. This year he would be 11. He had been a resident for the last 5 years, ever since he started seeing his best friend. He looked down at his socks, they were only allowed to wear shoes outside in the courtyard, wiggling his socked toes he smiled to himself as he saw his best friend trying to make a paper drum out a thick sheet of paper, it wasn't going well.

"Hey, Harry? When is craft day? I want a crown."

Craft day was twice a month, the staff was reluctant to hold such a messy event and only held it in the middle and at the end of each month.

"It's in four days Angelica, on my birthday remember?" He told his friend, "what happened to the last two crowns i made for you? Did Mr. Evenstamp find and throw them away again?"

"Yes." she said dejectedly, "I couldn't fish them out because he rips things up before shoving them in the garbage can just so he has an excuse for putting them there."

She sighs and gives up on her project and starts cleaning it up. Swapping the topic to something nicer.

"What flavor cupcake do you get this year? I hope they get you a real chocolate one with homemade frosting, not that all sugar stuff that comes from the shop. You deserve something special since you've never gotten in trouble, ever."

That was true, he never did get into trouble or argue with the staff members. Actually, most of the staff thought he was a delight even if he did see someone they didn't, but some were more realistic minded than others, and that was how he lost craft projects.

"Harry? Are you over here?" he heard Mrs. Danielson calling for him, "Yes Mam. Right here" He answered, and stood up and walked to the staff station. "Yes?" he asked the woman. "you have some mail." and she handed him a peculiar looking envelope. "Mail? For me? I've never gotten mail before. Do I open it here?" She nodded with a smile at the boy. Harry read the envelope.

Mr. Harry Potter

Bedroom 204

Long-Term Ward

(some road in London)

London

Curious, he opened the seal and read the letter it read:

HOGWARTS SCHOOL

OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore

(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,

Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

Dear Mr. Potter,

We are pleased to inform you that you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of witchcraft and wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall,

Deputy Headmistress

He looked back at the staff, "How would I attend a school if I live here?" he asked. "And where would I get an owl?" he added as an afterthought. He handed the letters to the woman. "Should I write a reply anyway?"

"Let me look this over and make sure that it's not some prank. Sending someone in here a letter about a magic school, we have enough to deal with without some person making some impressionable kid believe in magic. You can go back to playing now." The last part she said to him and he left the station.

He went back to where Angelica was. She was twirling around in circles in an attempt to make herself dizzy. She was giggling like a fool as she stopped, swaying on her feet.

"That's fun." She laughed and grabbed onto a nearby chair so she wouldn't fall over. She took in a few deep breaths and calmed down. "So, what was it that Mrs. Davidson you for?" she asked still smiling wide.

"I got a letter," he told her simply

"A letter? Was it from the Dursleys? Are they finally accepting you into the family, and taking you back for Home-care?" She asked him with wonder.

"No, they're probably glad they finally got rid of me for good anyway. It was a letter for some school for magic. Mrs. Davidson has the letter now, convinced it's just a stupid prank to make a crazy kid crazier." he told her. "It said that the classes start on the first of September and that they 'await my owl.'"

"Where would you get an owl?" She asked.

"Yea that's what I asked. I don't think we've ever seen a real-life owl before, just the ones on the calendar."

"Want to go do something fun? There aren't any toys in here and all this talk of the outside world is kinda sad." she proposed.

Harry looked around and saw the clock, "Maybe we can worm in on a music class there's half an hour left before group."

They walked through the hallways. A couple of months ago Angelica tried to do cartwheels down the halls but kept on losing her balance and falling over. Since then she's been practicing Harry's vocabulary words by doing hopscotch on the tiles that made up the floor. This time she was practicing her long words.

"H-i-p-p-o-p-o-t-o-m-o-n-s-t-r-o-s-e-s-q-u-i-p-p-e-d-a-l-i-o-p-h-o-b-i-a"

"Wow, you really got that word down don't ya?" He looked back at her impressed with her progress on her most challanging favorite.

"Of course, and look, it takes up about half of the hallway. I practice while you're in math class."

"Oh. So that's where you've been disappearing lately. What, get bored looking at the pictures in the back?" he asked his best friend. Thinking back and realizing that she did seem to disappear when he was in math class.

"Duh," she said it as if it were obvious. "My other option was to try sleeping, but since I don't do that anyway this was better."

Years ago he had asked once what she did when he slept and she replied that she practiced reading in the library and ran around the hallways.

Over the course of the next few days, he received more of that strange mail, all addressed the same way and presumably had the same contents. He wasn't even told he had mail anymore since whoever it was wouldn't stop sending the same thing in every. single. one.

Finally, his birthday arrived. Birthdays weren't a very big occasion around the ward, you just got to go first in the meal lines, a cupcake with your dinner, and a couple more privileges around the ward. You also got an occasional gift from the staff members that liked you, most likely a book you haven't read before. This year he received 'Gullivers Travels', a new drawing book, and new pencils with erasers to go with it. He thanked the staff members and put his gifts in his room.

He looked out the window and saw an owl sitting on the sill. holding another letter. He could see four identical letters sitting next to the owl. He left his room and went to the Staff post where he caught the attention of Mr. Jabberly. "Sir, there are letters on the outside sill of my room," he told the man. Mr. Jabberly said that he'd get a janitor to dispose of them since they've been bombarded with so many letters that they've been appearing in odd places all over the ward, that a few letters on a window sill were no longer surprising.

Harry sat down by Angelica who now was stareing at a chessboard trying to will it into readiness.

"Set up the board, Birthday boy." she taunted teasingly, "Still have any clue on what flavor they'll get you?" she asked as he set up his pawns.

"I thought I smelled strawberry while at the station, so I'm guessing it's either vanilla with strawberry frosting or the other way around. Not that I'm complaining of course, better than plain vanilla." he told her, "While in my room there was an owl sitting right outside my window with another one of the letters. There were four right next to it also."

All the windows in the building only opened enough for a slight breeze. It's like they expect us to try to escape or something, no thanks, Harry was fine right where he was.

"They're going to have to stop sending them sometime. All that parchment and green ink and sealing them all with wax is going to bankrupt them sometime. Maybe they'll recycle the paper and wax and we can finally do Paper Mache`." Angelica ended hopefully, looking at the board Harry finished setting up.

"This pawn to here." she pointed at the piece she wanted to move to the spot she wanted him to move it. He complied. "What book did you get this year?"

"Gullivers Travels," He said while moving a knight from the back row.

"Didn't we already read that already? This one here." he moved the piece for her

"No, we read 'Oliver Twist', remember?" he moved one of his pawns two places forward

"Oh right, that book by Charles Dickens right? with the orphan? This there." piece was moved

"Yea. It was nice that Oliver ended up with his rich grandfather he never knew he had. Wish that I had one of those, a rich relative instead of just the Dursleys. But then again, I wouldn't know what to do with all that money except maybe donate to this place for a t.v."

"Eh, I think the lack of tv motivates people to interact more. Doesn't matter anyway, remember anytime you got close to the t.v. at the Dursleys, it always freaked out. So you wouldn't be able to use it anyhow. I think this piece there." He moved the piece and could see that the middle of the board was getting quite crowded.

He was about to move a piece to take one of hers when he heard his name being called. "Mr. Potter. You got visitors." He recognized the gruff mean voice of Mr. Evenstamp who was now manning the staff post. He looked back at Angelica with eyebrows raised. This month was turning out quite peculiar, the Dursleys never visited him ever.

"Think it's the Dursleys or the person sending the letters?" he asked his imaginary friend

"At this point, I'm going with Charles Xavier coming personally to drag you to the mutant academy." She said as she trailed him.

It took him a stop at the desk to find where the visiting area was. He simply never had a reason to go there, It was a relatively large sized room with a door on the opposite side and there were multiple tables placed in rows, each table had four chairs and were all very simply decorated. He looked around the room and only saw one table. "Are they my visitors?" he asked one of the staff nearby. They nodded and escorted me to the table where two men sat. One of them was old with a long flowing beard and dressed oddly like he forgot to put on something more normal. The other man was in his thirties with pitch black clothes and a greasy shine to his hair. Harry, on the other hand, was dressed in pajama pants with white socks and a bright green shirt. Angelica was dressed in a dark blue tee shirt with striped pajama pants and black and white striped socks, but only Harry knew that.

Harry stopped at the table and pulled both chairs away from the table, one for himself and one for Angelica. the dark haired man raised one eyebrow questioningly but said nothing. Harry picked the chair in front of the old man and sat down.

"Wow. My first visitors and they are an old man that looks to be old enough to have a permanent residence in a home and a man that's glaring at me like I've done something wrong. Which is not true, I've been here for the last six years. So, what do the two of you want with a mad boy in a psych ward?"

He said as he leaned forward in his chair folding his arms on the table. Angelica leaned back and placed her socked feet on the table since she was seated opposite the greasy haired man, had she been real, her feet in front of his face by one foot.

"My boy, I am Professor Dumbledore and this is Professor Snape, we are here to talk to you about attending Hogwarts."

"That magic school that can't stop sending letters, isn't it?"

"Why yes, it is. We didn't hear a reply from you so we sent more and then decided to visit you personally." The old man told Harry

"Well, I did read the first one and the second and noticed that they all said the same thing. The staff was thinking it was some cruel prank and now they believe them a nuisance since they are starting to run out of room to put all of 'em. Couldn't reply to them cause they said to reply by owl and nobody here has any sort of pet."

"You don't worry about that anymore. But Harry, why are you here and not living with your relatives?" Dumbledore inquired the boy

"Started seeing someone that wasn't there and they hated me anyways. My Aunt and Uncle dropped me off here when I started talking about my friend that wasn't there, anyway It's much nicer living here then there anytime, I actually have my own room that I can stand up in, full pieces of food and not scraps, and I don't get hit for being smart. Way nicer."

"Don't forget, you get presents and a cupcake on your birthday here. There they just ignored you and Dudley beat on you most days." Angelica voiced from her chair

"Oh yea can't forget those things," Harry said to seemingly air.

Snape's eyes left him and studied the chair that to them was empty. His eyes went back to Harry. And he spoke up for the first time in this conversation. "Who are you talking to?"

"I told you. My imaginary friend. She's been with me since I was five, and she's sitting right there with her feet in your face." that last bit Harry smiled.

"Harry, what are you going to do about magic school? Isn't that the whole reason they came here?" Angelica reminded him.

"Oh right, she wants us to get back on topic. What about me actually going to this school. What would I, a kid who has spent most of his life in here, do out there, where I haven't stepped foot since I was five."

He looked at the men. The old man's face was hard to read mostly because of the facial hair and Snape's face was trying to be hard to read but the conflicting emotions in his eyes said otherwise.

Leaning back in his chair, he taps his feet on the floor. " I see you've thought this through. If we're done here, we were playing a very nice game of chess in the board game room and since it's my birthday, I have a cupcake to look forward to." standing up from the table, Angelica also stands up. Harry places their chairs back against the table. "Nice meeting you Mr. Dumbledore, Mr. Snape. If you figure out the situation let me know. It might be nice to get visitors." and with that, he left the two men.