Disclaimer: I own nothing Harry Potter. That goes to J.K.R. and Warner Brothers. I just spin tales.
Last Shots
Take it or leave it?
Colin looked at his camera, thoughts swirling within the eager 6th year brain hidden under a mop of soft mousy hair. He pondered in haste the potential possibilities afforded by bringing the clumsy photography apparatus into the battle to protect Hogwarts.
By all rights, he should leave it in the Room of Requirement, where it would remain safe and sound. Yet how did one leave so dear an instrument, so closely intertwined in his heart, his best friend, from the dangers and thrills of combat? Always, his camera had accompanied him to all places, rarely unloaded and even more rarely beyond his immediate touch. The curves of the bulb, the texture of the buttons and switches, the brightness of the flash—with such a magical device as this, who needed a woman?
It had saved his life once. No man could ask more a favor from any friend than that. Through it, he gazed into the eyes of a basilisk, and survived, though the poor device itself developed a sort of colic afterwards. Nothing that could not be cured by Old Man Hobbes at The Picture Palace in Cornwell, though. After he had done with the instrument, it worked better than ever. Never gave Colin trouble again with any sort of malady.
No. He could not bear to bring it into the danger zone of the toxic fight. If he, Colin, fell by the hands of a merciless death eater, no one would care to spare a thought for his prized possession. People's boots (Colin had Snape's in mind especially) would stomp it, wrecking the lenses, the viewfinder, the coordinates. Oh, but he shuddered to imagine the gentle twinkling of broken glass, the crunch of plastic, the ring of pierced metal. A crack would ring out with the eruption of his unique film, invented with his own hands in his darkroom at home, the stuff easily susceptible to destruction by the quickest exposure from light. The little invention would burst into a gray-gold flame, burning fast and furiously until the ridiculous little box had turned into a pile of ashes with a sickening odor.
Alternately, if Colin did die out there without his camera, at least they could have something intact to remember him by, something his mother could weep over and place on the mantel as a trophy of triumph and glory to her son. Something visitors would pour over, those who knew him even vaguely recognizing the thing. 'Was this Colin's camera?' 'Yes, dears, that it was. Poor boy, our firstborn, died in the great Battle of Hogwarts. It is said he fought bravely and valiantly, paying a great homage to Gryffindor and to England.' 'Oh, how lamentable that he died. He really adored his photography, did he not?' 'Of course! Everyone knew that!' And so Colin's memory would not abscond with his departure from Earth, and so they all should recall him, with his camera.
On the other hand, though, he had no guarantee that he should die. No, Colin did not want to die, but realized it as a highly probable result of this great effort. So, if he should not die, well, why not get a few pictures out of it? He doubted any professional journalists would show their faces at something as unexpected as an attack on Hogwarts, at least, not in the beginning of the action. Pernicious and valiant as many photographers and writers were, they might not find themselves able to gain entry to Hogwarts or get into the heat of the battle. If Colin took his camera, and if he survived—well, he could gain at least some notice from The Daily Prophet and some smaller-scale local newspapers as well. Maybe he could ensure himself a job to follow his graduation, if he got some really excellent photographs.
In the three seconds it took to process all this information, Colin decided that, after all, he should bring his camera along. Just in case.
If he died, well, at least the thing he loved most would die with him.
………….
The next morning, they found his body among the slain. He would have been surprised to know that, somehow, the camera remained intact—and a bounty of captured images survived as well.
That summer, Ron and Hermione worked on the Albus Dumbledore Room of the Elius Barnaby II Wizard Memorial Museum, their great joint project to honor the fallen of the war.
"Here are more photographs from the Creevys," Hermione sighed, lugging a stack of four shoe-boxes laden with pictures.
"That kid was obsessed," commented Ron taking most of her burden and depositing it on the floor.
"Funny how few pictures of him we actually have," Hermione commented, "I guess it was his way of evading the camera's glare, to be the man behind it."
Hope you liked that, please review! It'll make my day! Poor little camera boy! I was so sad when he died . . .