Author's Notes: Done for the "What a Word!" Challenge, where participants are assigned a certain word that must be used at least twice in their story. Mine is "Autopsy," which is far easier than some of the choices, though I used it in an odd way.
Angst was pretty much inevitable, wasn't it? It's also confusingly structured because that felt right.
Dennis remembers that night, but only vaguely. He was sleeping on the floor of Aunt Ida's living room; he and Colin alternated who got the couch. Someone was shaking him, and he moaned, turning over and pulling his blanket over his head.
"Go away..."
"Dennis!" Colin's voice was frantic, but with a certain ring of excitement. "Wake up!"
Dennis moaned again. "What?"
"You won't believe what's happened! Listen..."
Dennis tried to listen, sort of, but he was falling in and out of sleep—he caught the name "Geoffrey," who was one of Colin's school friends, and something about Hogwarts...his mind was too dozy to put the pieces together, but he remembers how the conversation ended.
"...but you don't come, okay? I just wanted you to know. And I guess you can have the couch now."
"Okay."
There was a pause, and Dennis finally thought Colin was going to let him rest. "Dennis?"
"Yeah?"
"I love you."
"Love you too," he mumbled thoughtlessly. "G'night."
Colin finally left him alone. Dennis was relieved as he drifted back to sleep.
He was shaken awake again several hours later by their mother, asking frantically where Colin was. She and Dad and Aunt Ida had searched the whole house and he was nowhere to be found.
About an hour after that, Professor McGonagall showed up at the door, in Muggle clothes, to tell them that he was dead.
If you check the official (Muggle) records, this is what they will tell you about the death of Colin Jacob Creevey, age 16:
He and his family had been on an extended holiday at the home of his aunt, Ida Sullivan, in West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire. At about 10:00 PM on the night of 1 May 1998 he went to bed, apparently in good health. However, the next morning his family awoke to find him cold and unresponsive. An ambulance was called, and after attempted resuscitation he was announced dead at the scene at 9:47 A.M.
On the morning of 3 May an autopsy was done on the body of Colin Jacob Creevey. It was performed by pathologist Cheryl Smith at the West Bridgford Medical Center. His cause of death was apparently some sort of congenital heart condition which his family had not been aware of. The results, however, were inconclusive.
Most of it was a lie, but not all of it.
They had been staying with Aunt Ida for the last eight months—in hiding, pretending to be cousins from the other side of the family, unsure of what would happen if the Death Eaters found them. And Colin had gone to bed that night seeming normal...though "normal" for him was different than it used to be. Colin was moodier these days. They all were. He was worried about his friends, angry about the way they were being treated, and miserable at being locked up in this house for months on end.
But he was still Colin, still the same cheerful, energetic person he had always been. He was dealing with it as well as any of them could. He and Dennis had spent that day joking about some old movie on the telly and played board games in the evening. They had talked about magic, wrung their hands like always, but that was almost a dull routine at this point. It had all been so ordinary. Dennis hadn't known that it was going to be the last day that he ever saw his brother alive.
If he had, maybe he would have roused himself enough to say "I love you" as much as he really felt it.
Here is what the official (Ministry of Magic) records will tell you about the death of Colin Jacob Creevey, age 16:
He and his younger brother, Dennis Creevey, were Muggle-born wizards. The family had been in hiding at the home of his aunt, Ida Sullivan, in West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire. At about 10:00 PM on the night of 1 May 1998 he went to bed, only to be awoken about an hour later by one Geoffrey Ogden, a Pureblood friend who had Apparated into Ms. Sullivan's home. Geoffrey informed Colin that Harry Potter was at Hogwarts and that a major battle was about to take place. Geoffrey watched as Colin briefly tried to rouse his brother, then used Side-Along Apparition to take him to the Hog's Head.
Once at Hogwarts both Geoffrey and Colin petitioned Acting Headmistress Minerva McGonagall to stay and help in the battle; Geoffrey, being over seventeen, was allowed, but Colin was ordered to evacuate. However, he was one of several students who became lost in the confusion and managed to remain at the school. Several witnesses (Hephaestus Kline, Luna Lovegood, Ernest Macmillian and Geoffrey Ogden) would later testify to seeing him participate in the battle, though there were no known witnesses to his death.
His body was found on the grounds by Neville Longbottom and Oliver Wood sometime around 4 A.M. on 2 May. It was formally identified by Professor Minerva McGonagall and Geoffrey Odgen and claimed by his parents later that day.
Professor McGonagall had been in the middle of talking when Dennis suddenly interrupted.
"How did it happen?" His voice was thick and shaking, and he trembled as the four adults turned to him. "Who—what spell—"
Professor McGonagall looked at the floor; her face was stoic but clearly pained. "I cannot answer that for certain. His body has no obvious injuries, so we presume it was the Killing Curse. It would have been painless," she added, looking up as Dennis' mum began to sob.
Dennis' face sort of—twitched. "What do you mean, you don't know?!" he said, surprised to find himself shouting. "How do you know it was painless then?!"
"Dennis—"
Aunt Ida put her hand on Dennis' shoulder as his mother began to cry louder. Dennis' eyes began to water too, and he was still shaking, but this time it was with anger—he looked down at the floor, biting his lip so hard he tasted blood.
Dennis got angry all over again when he saw Colin's body, because Professor McGonagall was wrong—he did have obvious injuries, he had a bruise on his cheek and a cut under his eye, and later they found out that three of his ribs were broken. None of those were fatal injuries—Oliver Wood would even sheepishly admit that he and Neville Longbottom might have broken those ribs trying to revive or carry him—but the point was, there were all sorts of curses that could kill people—ones that caused explosions or shriveled up your insides or left you choking until you suffocated. Professor McGonagall didn't have the right to tell them it had been quick and painless if she didn't know. Dennis wanted the truth.
There wasn't really any way to find out, though. Nobody had seen Colin die, except for whichever Death Eater had done it, and no one was going to come forward and confess to an additional murder charge. Wizards didn't have real autopsies, apparently—just fake ones to put in the government records. Lies.
Colin was like an open book, and Dennis knew him better than anyone. There were few or no secrets between the two brothers. He could ask Colin about anything—friends or school or girls, whatever—and he knew Colin would tell him whatever he wanted to know.
But now that he was gone, Dennis started to wonder if he really knew his brother at all.
He began to send owls to each of Colin's friends. They all asked the same question: Why had Colin gone to Hogwarts that night?
Geoffrey's reply was a rambling apology—he clearly felt terrible for taking Colin to the battle and begged the family for their forgiveness. His other friends mostly just replied with condolences, telling him that Colin was the nicest person they had ever met and how much they were going to miss him. Somehow Professor McGonagall must have heard about his queries, because she sent a long letter about how Colin was a true Gryffindor and he was so brave and he died for a noble cause and Dennis should be proud because his brother was a hero.
Dennis felt his face flush with anger as he crushed her parchment into a ball. "I already know Colin was brave!" he growled, throwing it across the room. "I want to know why!"
He threw himself back onto his bed, staring up at his ceiling with blurring vision.
Dennis honestly wasn't surprised that Colin had run off to the battle. It had shocked him at first, but...not entirely. It felt right. It felt like Colin. If you knew someone well enough you could guess what they would do in a certain situation, but you didn't always know why they did it, what their thought process was. That was what Dennis was so desperate to know, the huge mystery that was marring the perfect memories of his brother.
What had Colin been thinking when he ran off into the battle? Had he wanted to strike back at the Death Eaters for the months of hell their family had endured? Was he worried about his friends, with some desperate delusion that he could keep them safe in the chaos? Was he thinking about Dennis, maybe, trying to make the future safe for the two of them to grow up and be wizards together like they always said they would be? Had he been proud? Confident? Scared? All of the above? Had he expected to come back, or had he known, somehow, that he was going to give up his life for this mission?
Had he known how much Dennis loved him? Had he realized how much it was going to hurt him? Had he cared how twisted and angry and dirty it was going to make everyone feel to go on living without him?
Dennis knew that, practically speaking, it didn't matter—it had been brave and noble and all of that no matter what exact thoughts were racing through his mind at that moment. But to Dennis it mattered a lot, the same way it mattered which spell had killed him and who had fired it and whether or not he felt any pain. He needed to know. There was no way to know but he needed to, with a sort of desperate aching that made him sick to his stomach.
He just kept hearing Colin's voice in that last conversation, sounding scared but so happy as he told Dennis he was rushing off to die...
Life went on, as much as it could.
They moved back into their own house. There was no way that Dennis was going back to Hogwarts, of course—he begged and pleaded, but other than his and Colin's owl all the magic stuff was thrown away or stuffed into a closet. He went back to Muggle school, struggling to make up all the material he had missed.
Months passed. The daily sobs subsisted, even if that desperate ache in his stomach still lingered.
It was about six months after the battle when Dennis' parents had to go away for the weekend. With a lot of begging they let him stay at home. He promised that he would get the neighbors if there was any sort of problem. He wouldn't throw a party or anything, obviously.
They left. Dennis' waited ten minutes, just in case they forgot something and came back, then went into Colin's room and began to tear the place apart.
It started with Colin's journal, turned to the very last entry—two days before he had run off to battle, containing nothing but a summary of the television the two had watched that day. He started reading backwards, then gave up and started at the beginning, then dug out all of Colin's old journals from previous years. Part of him felt guilty, but part of him didn't care—besides, Colin had hardly even bothered to hide these from Dennis. The two had no secrets from each other, except for this huge one that was killing Dennis slowly from the inside out.
Dennis read through Colin's whole Hogwarts experience—getting the letter, starting school, the jolt of surprise when he was Petrified for months and the summer afterwards when he had slaved at home with special tutors. (Dennis could relate.) He teared up at how excited Colin had been to discover that Dennis was a wizard too. He read about homework. He read about professors, friends and new magical discoveries. He found out that Colin used to have a crush on that Luna Lovegood girl in his second year because her eyes were "dreamy." He read about a fight he had had with Geoffrey when he lost Colin's favorite quill.
Some of the information was new to Dennis. But none of it mattered.
He started looking through Colin's drawers, leafing through his old books, and going through his pictures—all of his pictures, hundreds of them, leafing through them one by one and looking for—something. What was he even searching for? There were people playing Quidditch and moving staircases and magical animals and photo after photo after photo of all of Colin's old friends. There were hastily-scribbled jokes about the funny faces people made or various anecdotes. None of the pictures of Hogwarts came from that last year, obviously—all of those pictures were just of Aunt Ida's house and the family, Muggle photos that remained frozen forever.
Dennis paused as he stared at a photo dated 29 April 1998—possibly the last photo Colin had had developed before he ran off and got himself killed.
It was of Dennis, sitting on Aunt Ida's couch, reading a book.
Dennis stared at the photo for a long moment. He had never even noticed Colin taking this, and he wondered, vaguely, why he had. It wasn't a very interesting picture, after all—just him sitting there, reading. Then again, why had Colin taken a hundred other pictures of Dennis, or Geoffrey, or their parents or school hallways or anything else?
Why did Colin do anything? It all seemed so pointless, all of a sudden—sixteen, almost seventeen years of snapping pictures and writing journals and talking with Dennis and acting brave and making people love him, all to just end so suddenly, all a prelude for him to run off and—
Dennis let out a sob. It was followed by another, then another, as the picture slipped from his fingers and fell onto the floor with the hundreds of others.
Then Dennis curled up into a ball on Colin's bed, amidst all the photos and journals and papers, and cried until he fell asleep.
Dennis woke up around 8:30 the next morning, momentarily confused to find himself in Colin's messy bedroom. He lay there for about five minutes before he remembered that his parents would be back at noon.
He dragged himself out of bed and went to the kitchen. He ate a bowl of cereal in silence. He chose Colin's favorite brand; their mum kept buying it out of either habit or sentiment.
When he was done he went back into Colin's room and began to clean up the mess, not even bothering to look at the pictures as he picked them up from the floor.
On 15 November, 1998 an autopsy was done on the memory of Colin Jacob Creevey, age 16.
It was performed by his brother, Dennis Nathan Creevey, in the deceased's former bedroom. The cause of death was apparently some combination of being a brave and stupid and wonderful human being, a heroic idiot and the best damn brother that anyone could ever hope for.
The results, however, were inconclusive.