Disclaimer: Not mine, of course!
A/N: Six things Colin couldn't capture on camera. Was meant to be five things for the Five Things Challenge, but I didn't want to take any of them out. A kind word makes my day!
Love.
Colin never had the love of a woman, nor did he ever seem to have time to desire it. But he saw love. Everyday of his life, he saw love.
He saw his dad look at his mum, who would giggle back like a school girl.
He saw laughter exchanged between Fred and George Weasley, and their audiences.
He saw Ron Weasley stealing glances at Hermione Granger, the want evident in his eyes.
He saw Luna Lovegood trying to offer her friendship around.
He saw kisses being exchanged by Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley.
He saw the hope and support of those who loved each other. He saw love all the time.
And yet, he could never capture it. He had hundreds of pictures, thousands. Pictures of friends, family, romances. Some he had from up close, some from far away. It was a look in the eye, a brightness, a gleam, love. It was a simple gesture, a brushing of fingertips on forearms, a kiss on the cheek or hand. Something so lovely and easy and wonderful. Something that was lost when the camera flashed.
Hope.
Hope kept people going. It kept them pushing through the horrible times, to find the better times. It held them above the water, keeping them alive. It was what made people fight, even when they didn't know why they were fighting anymore. It was the purpose, a light in the dark, clouded and shadowed as it was.
There were times in the DA when it felt like they had no hope. Neville, who was somewhat of a leader to them, spoke to them passionately. And that was hope. He tried to take a picture of the scene, but it didn't do it any justice.
There were times when hope was simply a piece of information, something good and promising from the war effort outside the school. They all beamed and jumped about excitedly with renewed keenness. But that didn't translate either, it lost some of the brightness. It was just another picture.
Hope, he discovered, was in everyone, a personal, brilliant thing. Not to be copied. To copy it was to take away from it. He couldn't do that and he didn't ever want to.
Joy.
Joy, Colin found, began in many forms. A smile, shining with joy. A laugh, laced with joy. A single second held the ability inspire joy. He couldn't capture any of those things.
He saw that joy was sometimes something which bubbled up in the stomach, a lightness, an easiness. He didn't know where to start to photograph those things.
He heard Joy in many sounds at Hogwarts. The birds whistling in the trees. A first year's no longer so naïve giggles, but they were laughing and that was a joy in itself. The click of a camera. A sound couldn't be caught on film.
Joy was a scent. Freshly baked Hogwart's bread. Recently cut, dewy spring grass. The Library, old books, musty, the scent of intelligence and imagination. A smell could never be the same through a camera, even a magical one.
Joy was a taste. Rich, milky chocolate. The lips of a great love. Simply fresh, cool water could be joy. A taste couldn't be reproduced.
Joy could be seen, when it was being felt, cascading out of every part of that person. It could be seen, but it couldn't be shown truly, honestly in a photograph. In the end, Colin stopped trying to achieve perfect, undeniable joy in a picture. He settled for seeing it in real life instead.
Fear.
There was fear in their eyes, but on film, they looked like soldiers, bold, brave and defiant. No one looking at the pictures would ever know how afraid they really were.
Shaking hands clasped nervously around wands, faces hard and gazes set against whatever enemy, however small or pointless it seemed. The camera didn't capture the movement, so in the end, the pictures just showed people who wouldn't ever show how scared they were.
There were times when the air was thick with terror, but that didn't show.
There were times when the fear took over, wrapping around like a blanket and people were close to giving up. Somehow, that didn't show either.
Beauty.
Some people photographed magnificently. Colin took a picture of Parvati Patil looking devastatingly lovely without her even realising it. He had a picture of Hermione Granger, bent over her work, hair shining and glowing by the firelight. That one he was surprised by.
Some people didn't photograph so well. Lavender Brown let him take a picture of her - something she didn't permit very often - and her loveliness hadn't looked half as amazing on paper. There were pictures of Terry Boot, Antony Goldstein and Michael Corner, handsome boys laughing, who look like nothing on paper.
Colin learnt not to judge beauty on what be saw. Beauty became the strength and desire to go on. Beauty became the kindness and love he saw in people. Beauty became romance and friendship and a light that seemed to shine from so many of the people he knew.
Colin never did manage to capture beauty, but he experienced the beauty of others so often in real life that it stopped mattering.
Death.
He was surrounded by death. He shouldn't have been so used to it at sixteen. But his world was in the middle of a war and his school was being run by the enemy.
He saw the body of Cedric Diggory, grasped in the arms of Harry Potter. He hadn't meant to take a picture of that, but it hadn't mattered because it'd hadn't captured any of the scope of the awfulness. He'd burnt it within seconds of seeing it.
He photographed the grief caused by death, too. Or at least, he'd tried to. Professor Dumbledore's funeral, he had taken pictures. There had been tears and emotions were running high, and there had been something in the air, something he couldn't describe. But he hadn't caught any of that. Just faces and expressions, nice, but meaningless.
He didn't like to try to capture death. He didn't see it coming in time to capture it, usually. And even when he did manage it, it didn't work. There was something about death that just didn't translate.
He wanted to capture death. It would have been a work of bittersweet art.
But he didn't capture it, when he had the chance. He didn't capture that lingering green light as it flew towards him. He didn't capture anything else.