Authors note: Okay first fic :( very scary. This is a drabble from a while ago now but I still rather like the idea. At the time there was a word limit and I'd have liked to expand it more but I haven't yet- obviously.
Enjoy! Maybe review?
Pictures of You
"Damon! You don't know what's been in that drawer!" Cho whined as her boyfriend threw the next pile of rubbish into her reluctant hands.
Laughing, he dug further into its depths and pulled out a few more worn boxes. "We'll get nowhere with that attitude! Just start looking through these." He handed her one of the boxes and continued to plunge into the riotous mess.
Cho sighed and collapsed onto the nearest sofa. She grimaced as she used her thumb and index finger to pull the lid off the cardboard box that was crushed and weathered from the years of storage; she suspected first from her time at Hogwarts and then her various dwellings in between.
Throwing the lid onto the floor nonchalantly she spared a glance inside the box. Her eyes widened, threatening to leak dry tears as she suddenly realised why this particular box had always been kept in the farthest corner of her drawer.
It was her box of memories. Those perfect memories lost in time and shrouded by war. These were the things she had never let go, because she would never let herself to forget...
Cedric…
She hadn't let his name escape her lips for so long now. In fear of bringing back the hurt it once caused her to feel.
Inside the box were pictures- pictures of him.
Her fingers shook with apprehension, not yet noticed by the young man fearlessly rummaging through the darker remnants of their existence. He didn't know that he'd handed Cho possibly the darkest box that was there.
She reached in and clasped her fingers around the curling edge of a photograph. She tugged it from the pile, feeling a weight much heavier rise from the pit of her stomach and lodge in her throat.
And she looked. The faces staring up at her held resilient smiles. Her eyes were drawn to the taller of the two. Imbedded in a flawless face, grey eyes rose to meet her own. The boy laughed and turned to the younger version of herself who was looking admirably up at him. The sequence repeated; the dead were replaying in front of her eyes.
Damon, finally noticing her uncharacteristic silence, rose from the floor and walked behind where she sat on the sofa. He bent over her shoulder and saw the seemingly ordinary photograph.
"Who's that?" he whispered beside her ear.
"I- it's no one," Cho croaked, "just, someone from my school."
"Boyfriend?" He guessed.
"Yes." She closed her eyes and realised the truth. "But it doesn't matter. Here, put this in the discard pile." She handed him the box, keeping only that one picture clenched in her fist.
Damon would never really understand what he was doing as he threw that box away. But as he did, Cho smiled. She never had the strength to do it herself, but now she had someone else to do it for her. Someone who she could create new memories with to replace the ones she lost.