Written for the Ultimate OTP Competition II on HPFC
Prompt used: Ollivander's Wand Shop
To my dear readers: I am trying a new style here, please do not kill me!
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Necrosis Of The Soul (Of Colin Creevey.)
His had been serious and seventeen when he started working at Ollivander's. He had no longer been a jumpy puppy. He had been fragile and empty and pathetic.
(There had been a freaking war and he had been hopelessly in love with a girl— a girl who had been hopelessly in love with another boy. How could he have not been pathetic?)
(He really was a hopeless case.)
(Maybe, he still is.)
He is still serious, albeit thirty-six now, and still looks after Olivander's old wand shop. He is still pathetic.
(When it comes to a certain woman with hair like fire and eyes so brown that they may be chocolate.)
He has not seen her in person in a long, long time. He has not met her in nineteen years, not even once. He does not, he absolutely does not, die to meet her.
(He stacks picture after picture in his secret shoe box under his bed, away from Dennis and Demelza.)
(He is a fan.)
(Maybe not...)
They had struck together through thick and thin when they had been forced to hide in the Room Of Requirement nineteen years earlier. He had seen her everyday and she used to kiss him on the cheek every night before going to sleep.
(How could he have not fallen for her?)
Some days after the war, he had tried to kiss her. How foolish of him. He had very well known that she loved the saviour of their world, and he had also known that the saviour loved her back, but still, he had tried it. He had gotten pushed away ferociously by the fierce redhead and hurt his back.
(And his feelings)
Anyway, he had picked himself up, both literally and figuratively and left running after her. It had not been easy and certainly not a happy experience. It had seemed that she had taken away his soul when she had pushed him away. He did not mind though; it was already rotten to have chosen her.
He had been wrong; there was still a bit of soul in him. In fact, there is a lot of it and Demelza makes him see it everyday.
Demy is good. She is graceful, honourable, hardworking, plucky, intelligent, good at Quidditch and somewhat beautiful. She is all the things that he wants in a woman.
(But she is not her.)
(Sad, isn't it?)
It is a normal day when the shop bell rings, heralding the arrival of a customer. He gets up from his spot, clearing away his thoughts . His boss— the owner of this ancient shop is dozing somewhere upstairs; old Ollivander does not do much work these days, now that his apprentice is experienced and fully trained in all things wand making.
Colin does a double take when he sees who is at the door. His heart waltzes and his eyes sees stars. Literally. Harry Potter and Ginny Potter walk into the dusty shop. They are stars of the wizarding world and they are here; she is here. He is so excited to see them that he stumbles against a shelf and knocks down two or three boxes when he goes to greet them.
He is so wonderstruck on seeing her again that he fails to see that a little boy with hair just as black as his father has come in too. It takes him a moment to process the fact that the Potters are here to buy a wand for their son.
"Hello!" he says to the boy. "Albus Potter, I presume?"
The boy nods silently. He quickly takes the boy's measurements. As Colin tells them to wait for a few moments while he goes to check out some wands, he wonders what she is doing here, because three years ago she had not been present when James had come. Then he remembers that she quit being a part The Holyhead Harpies this year only and he reasons that she must have had much more time to spend with her family.
When he comes back, he sees Harry and Albus engaged in a deep conversation, while Ginny is looking at him, as if silently asking where he has been hiding all these years.
('Away from you,' he wants to reply.)
Colin clears his throat a little loudly for a fake dramatic effect and the father and son stop talking.
"This is elm, dragon heartstring core, twelve inches long and dry." he says and hands the said wand to Albus. The boy waves it and the window's glass shatters. Ginny hurridely jumps away from it. The wand maker sighs and quickly repairs the broken glass. Albus frowns.
"Okay... that wouldn't do. Don't worry though, nobody gets it right in the first attempt." he says, handing him an other wand. "This one has the same core as your father's first wand, Phoenix Feather. Try it."
Albus waves it and nothing happens. "That's better than breaking windows, I suppose." he says dejectedly.
Colin smirks. "No, not better. And that was quite unexpected. Perhaps your mother's combination will do you good." he says. Mrs. Potter raises her eyebrows but does not say anything and neither does Harry.
"Here, have this!" He tosses the wand to Albus. "Walnut, Asphodel core, fifteen and a half inches, reasonably springy."
This time too, nothing happens. Colin runs a hand through his brown hair, exasperated beyond measure.
(He is getting positively frustated.)
(Don't get him wrong, he loves making wands.)
(Selling them? Bleh.)
(He is rather impatient, you see.)
He does not know why he does it, but in a flash of inspiration he goes and brings a very unique wand. It is made of Hyacinth wood and is coreless. Unique indeed. He tells all this to the boy who listens, amazed. Albus waves it and a bright yellow light emerges from the tip.
"I believe this your wand, lad." he says, jolly once again. "That would be ten galleons." he adds and looks towards Harry, who promptly hands him the said amount.
"It was nice meeting you after all this time." he says to the man. "Last time I saw you, you were with James. Now I think next you will be with your littlest one, Lily. That's her name, right?"
"Yes, my little Lily will be coming next." Harry replies with a smile. "It was nice meeting you too, Colin." he adds cheerfully. Ginny is oddly silent, he notes. Perhaps, he thinks that she is remembering their last encounter when she had told him that she thought of him just as her friend and nothing more.
(He had walked away.)
(What else could he have done? Shut her up and pushed her against a wall? Nahh... She would have punched him or something.)
'Don't think about her. Don't, Creevey, don't,' he chants inwardly.
(He keeps thinking about her.)
(It is a disease.)
(It is an incurable disease.)
He had been so lost in himself and his memories that he does not notice when the others have left and she standing alone in the ancient shop. Apparently, she wants to speak to him about something, alone. He notices this fact when she speaks his name.
His eyes widen. "What do you want, Ginny?" he asks, trying to sound as cool and collected as possible.
"To regain our friendship."
(Well, that was unexpected.)
(Knowing her, he had expected her to lash out for walking away.)
"Okay," he replies tentatively and brings forward his hand in peace. Anything is better than nothing, isn't it? Besides it is just a useless attraction now after so many years.
Instead of shaking hands, she hugs him.
(That was unexpected too.)
For a small, small moment, he is the hopeless, pathetic boy who loved her and she is the unreachable friend, both seventeen. And for a small, small moment he is the boy who wants to kiss her when she pulls away.
But truth snaps him into reality. He remembers his life and the woman who made him regain his rotting soul.
(He sees Demy and how her eyes light up when he returns home.)
(Ezra's and Fiona's eyes run across his vision. They are so similar to Demy's.)
(Dennis, now older but not any wiser, smiles at him. He is standing with Emila.)
Most of all, he remembers that he is now a man with a family and responsibilities. Ginny is not his family. Ezra, Fiona, Demelza, Dennis and Emila are.
"See you later, Colin," she utters softly and goes out.
He bades her a goodbye. It is all he can do. It is all he is meant to do. Later that day, he goes home and burns his secret shoe box. She is her friend and calling her something else would be wrong. Sticking to old thoughts and being lost in past experiences does not do anyone, any good.
(But he is still - to sum it all in a single word - mesmerised)
-end(?)-
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