Disclaimer: Harry Potter, Hogwarts, etc. belong to JK Rowling.

This story is dedicated to victims of the December 2012 elementary school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.

Colin Creevey

The smooth wood feels comforting in your hand, but odd too. Like meeting a dear friend after a long while.

Because it has been a long while. They didn't let you come back to school, just because you are Muggleborn. Not that you'd want to go back to a Hogwarts under the Death Eaters' control.

But one thing becomes terribly clear to you now, as you return to Hogwarts through the secret passageway, wand in hand. There are some things worth dying for.

But you didn't think you'd actually die, did you? Not then. Because despite it all, despite the horrors you've seen, and all the magic you've learnt, and how you try to shield Dennis from all the pain, it doesn't change what you still are. A child.

The magical world held a sort of surreal quality for you, like it wasn't quite real, because that's what everyone told you when you first started doing magic. It's not real. You're imagining it, Colin. And then the letter came and changed everything. But somewhere deep inside of you you were still worried, afraid really, that someone would come up to one day and tell you it was all a dream. Or worse, that it was all a mistake, and you aren't meant to be part of this amazing new world, that you're a muggle.

So you carried that battered old camera around with you everywhere, taking pictures to show Dennis and your dad, but more importantly, to look at over and over all summer long, trying to convince yourself that you really will be going back to a school of magic next term, that it wasn't all some sort of spectacular dream.

And then one day you realized you wouldn't be going back to Hogwarts. Because the Death Eaters had finally taken over Hogwarts. And they'd be coming, coming to find you and Dennis, and if they caught you with a wand you'd be killed for sure. The eight months of hiding are terrible, fraught with fear and restlessness.

So when one day your pocket grows hot for the first time in years, it is with surprise that you pull the old DA Galleon out to find that the fake serial numbers now bear today's date. 020597.

You dig your wand out from it's hiding place, you leave before Dennis wakes up. Because you know that this is it.

The Battle of Hogwarts.

You fight. You fight for Dennis and yourself and the muggle borns everywhere. You fight because you are a Gryffindor. You fight because you despise the Death Eaters and all the crime they have done. You fight for Harry Potter, because he can do no wrong, in your eyes.

You stay to fight even though Professor McGonagall told everyone under seventeen to leave. Because Harry Potter needs you. And if anyone can beat Voldemort, he can.

And as that jet of green light rushes towards you to take your life, you die with the faith that your death will not have been in vain.

Author's Note: To me, Colin has always represented innocence, even though when he died he was probably fifteen or sixteen. He was always that adoring kid with a camera, and his death, to me, was despicable. I also found the way he idolized Harry really cute, and also a bit sad, because Harry sort of brushed him off a lot of the time, which I imagine would

It turned out to be kind of drabble-ish, almost like a rant, I guess. This story is dedicated to the victims of the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut last month. Their deaths deeply saddened me, as they have the world. I guess I sort of poured some of those feelings into this piece.

If anyone wants, I'll add on other characters who died. If you have any ideas for which characters, please tell me in a review. They would have to be young, though, I guess.

Please review.

VictoryNike