Written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition, Finals Round Two
Team: Montrose Magpies
Position: Chaser 3
Challenge: Your story must begin and end with the same word.
Prompts: Season, Camera, Rush
Words: 1, 339
Invisible is the boy behind the lens. Invisible is the boy who captures, but is never captured himself.
Click, flash, a memory, a moment forever preserved. Ten thousand scenes of ten thousand people, seasons and faces changing as the years pass. At first the shots are blurry, strange angles and fingers over the lens, stiff poses. Slowly the skill of the photographer improves, and the pictures come to life.
Throughout the pictures, there remains only one constant. The cheerful blond boy never once enters the frame.
Colin is alone when he is summoned. He lies on his bed, staring at the ceiling, contemplating the glow-in-the-dark stars that he stuck there when he was seven.
The curtains are only half drawn; the room is dim with the dusk of an English spring evening. Downstairs he can hear his parents talking. Next door, Dennis's room, he can hear a radio. His room however, is silent.
Photographs coat the walls, all his own work. Some of the subject smile and wave, but Colin turns his head away. In the corner, jammed between the wall and the wooden wardrobe is a large trunk containing all the items required to attend the school that he is now forbidden from entering – on pain of death.
It is as his thoughts turn towards Hogwarts that he feels it. A heat burns against his upper thigh.
His mind is slow to comprehend for a second, his thoughts thick and tepid. Then his eyes widen as the meaning hits. He scrabbles hastily at the fabric of his jeans, pulling the coin out of his pocket. It's hot. He is being summoned.
He squints at the numbers as they change to 1-5-1998. The first of the fifth...
"Bloody hell, that's today!" He blurts out in excitement, then slaps a hand across his mouth. He waits a few breathless seconds, but no one knocks on his door or calls out to him.
Peeling his hand off his face, he turns back to the golden coin. He can already feel his heart racing, his blood pumping.
"Harry needs us. He needs me to fight for him." Colin wouldn't believe the hushed words coming from his lips if he didn't have the proof right in front of him. He jumped off his bed, grabbing his wand.
This is his chance. His chance to prove himself to Harry, to everyone.
He flings the trunk open, hurriedly digging through parchment and books, robes and socks and red-and-gold-striped ties. When he finds it, he pulls the broom out triumphantly. His Cleensweep nine –well, technically he shares it with Dennis – in perfect condition despite months of forced neglect.
He grabs a piece of parchment and a quill, and only now does he pause. He stares at the paper, his mind going just as smooth and blank as its surface. Chewing on his lip, he glances at the clock. Time is ticking away! He dips his quill into the ink pot, and scrawls a message.
After all, he'll probably be back by dawn and they won't even have ever noticed he was gone.
After fiddling with the radio for a good half hour, Dennis gives up. He gets up from his desk, stretching, and walks over to his window. He unlatches it and sticks his head out, breathing in the sharp spring air deeply.
Just as he is about to withdraw, a white flutter appears in the corner of his vision. Startled, his heart stops for a second. He turns towards the movement and blinks in surprise.
Colin's window is wide open, his curtains billowing in the gentle breeze.
"Oi, Colin!" Dennis calls, grinning in exasperation. "Colin! You might wanna close your window."
Silence, besides the rustling of trees.
Dennis exits his room, walks to Colin's door. It's closed. He knocks a couple of times, the rapping cutting through the sleepy air.
No answer.
"Colin!"
Now Dennis is frowning. It's not like Colin to ignore him.
"Colin?"
He knocks again.
"Colin if you don't answer me I'm going to come in."
...
A chill creeps down his spine, and he shivers involuntarily. He reaches out slowly, then stops.
What am I so afraid of? He probably just fell asleep or something, Dennis reasons.
He opens the door, walks in.
"Colin, what ..."
His voice trails off. The room is empty.
Objects are strewn across the carpet, spilling out of the trunk in the corner.
This is his first clue, but he doesn't understand it.
His second clue is the galleon abandoned in the center of the bed. He walks over to it, inspects it. A dawning understanding begins, but he shoves it away, refusing to believe it.
But his third clue, the parchment on the desk, is irrefutable.
Dear mum, dad and Dennis,
Gone To HogwarTs To fighT wiTh The D.A. Don'T worry abouT me, I'll be fine.
Dennis, sorry abouT sTealing The broom, you can use iT when I geT back, promise. Also, don'T Touch my camera while I'm gone – I'm serious This Time, Dennis.
I'll be back soon.
Love, Colin xx
The camera in question sits beside the rushed note. Dennis knows Colin would never leave it behind unless it was something serious. It's not a joke.
Slowly, Dennis sits on his brother's bed. And then he begins to wait.
There are lights and noise and dust everywhere and everything is fast fast fast and Colin is having the time of his life.
He's already duelled one masked opponent, and he won. The adrenaline is a rush, and he's ready for anything.
Everywhere he looks is something new, and he can't help wishing for his camera. I can't wait to tell Dennis all about it! He marvels.
But the thought has barely crossed his mind when a rough voice shouts out "AVADA KEDAVRA!"
He spins around wildly, wand out, but he's too late.
The last thing he sees is bright, bright green filling his vision and then he is falling, he is floating, he is gone.
When the sun peeks her golden eyes over the horizon, Dennis is suddenly awake.
There is a moment of disorientation, confusion, before he remembers who-what-where-when-why.
Rubbing his eyes, he realises he's still in Colin's room. And Colin is still gone. He makes his way downstairs, clutching Colin's letter.
Their parents are still asleep, peacefully oblivious to the fact that their oldest son is miles away.
Dennis goes to the kitchen and sits where he can watch the front door. And he sits there as the sun begins its slow trek up the sky. When his parents enter the room, cheerfully questioning his uncharacteristic wakefulness, he simply hands them the parchment, not taking his eyes from the door even though inside he knows the truth. He knows that Colin is not coming home.
Dennis is thirty-three. He walks through the front doors of Hogwarts for the first time in nineteen years, and he feels his breath catch in his throat the same way it did all those years ago, when he was an eleven year old boy in an oversized coat with the whole world ahead of him.
Now ... Now he is older, wiser, a little more jaded. But as he gazes across the entrance hall, he pulls a photograph from his pocket.
Taken from almost this exact spot, it was the first picture Colin ever took inside Hogwarts. Taking in the blazing torches, the crowd of children, Dennis remembers the first time he saw this photo, sent to him with his brother's first letter. The excitement was clearly visible in the scrawled handwriting, the shaky shot, and Dennis had been filled with longing to be standing next to his older brother in that moment.
Now, he turns to the spot beside him where eleven year old Colin would have stood as he took the picture, and he smiles.
Immortalized through his photographs, though he was never in the frame, in a way Colin is still standing there, clutching his camera. He's just...
Invisible.
Aaaaah, omigosh, that was a lot harder than I expected. Well, I got it done just in time!
As always, reviews make my day and favourites are awesome also. Have a lovely day!