Disclaimer: Am I a published author? No. Therefore, Harry Potter is not mine.
A/N: For the Photo Album Competition hosted by Morning Lilies, on HPFC.
Dennis Creevey sighed. It had been three months since the Battle of Hogwarts, the battle where Colin had been killed. Colin, who hadn't even been of age, but had sneaked in, determined to fight. He was to be starting his fifth year at the school next month, but going back was not something that he looked forward to. It was the place his brother had been killed. It would be sad to return to the place that held so many memories of his brother, both good and bad. The memories would be everywhere - in the common room, in the library, in the corridors, in the Great Hall, on the grounds...was there actually a place he could go without reminiscing about his brother?
Yet again he reached toward the camera on his end table. Colin had given Dennis the camera when the former went back to Hogwarts to participate in the battle. He could remember the moment so clearly. "Keep this safe," Colin said, looking serious for once in his life. "Everything's on this. I can't lose it. But I'll be back soon, don't you worry." Then he had left before even giving his younger brother a chance to say good-bye. Don't you worry had been the last words that Colin spoke to him. He had worried, though, and his worries had come true.
He picked up the camera. Underneath it was a folder, in which many pictures lay. His mum had developed them soon after Colin's death but couldn't bear to look at them; she had given them to Dennis, just to keep them out of her sight. She never went into Dennis' room - formerly the room of both boys - and it was a safe haven for him. He could be alone. He liked to be alone, recently. For some people it would have been more difficult to be alone, with time to think, but for Dennis it was easier. Being with other people meant facing their pity and trying to put on a brave face, which was even worse than being by himself with his thoughts.
He pulled the folder of pictures onto his lap, replacing the camera on the nightstand. He hadn't looked at the photographs either. He could only imagine the memories that would go along with these pictures, and part of him wanted to put the folder under his bed and forget all about it. But a different, braver part of him was what opened the folder and began sorting through the pictures. All of them were in there - although Colin had gone through more than one roll of film, they had all apparently been put together, in a jumbled, not-chronological mess. There must have been hundreds, and he spent hours going through them. Some he would stare at for minutes on end, others were put in a pile nearly instantly.
There were some which stuck in his mind more clearly than others as he set them all back into the folder and lay back on his bed. There was a picture of a Quidditch match, players captured in mid-flight. Although the photographs had been developed the Muggle way, and they were still, this picture seemed like it could move any minute. The people were blurs, yes, but it was almost artistic in the blurriness, like they really were flying. The game seemed to be Gryffindor against Slytherin, judging by the colors of the blurs, and he couldn't help but wonder which game it was, and who had won. It was a ridiculous thought, but apparently, his natural boyish curiosity still existed.
Another picture stayed stuck in his head. This one was obviously taken during a meeting of the D.A. in Dennis' second year. He recognized Lavender and Parvati in the middle of having a conversation. The silvery blur of a Patronus could be seen on the very top of the picture. A couple of Ravenclaws whose names he couldn't remember were in the background, heatedly debating something. Luna Lovegood - who could forget her? - was staring at the camera. Nobody in the picture had been expecting it, but to Dennis, it captured the essence of the D.A. - the unpredictability, rebelliousness, wildness of it all. They had been a secret, anti-Umbridge school group, for Merlin's sake, and they had managed to stay undetected for the better part of several months. To him, a posed picture just wouldn't have fit as well with the idea. Perhaps that was a bit of Colin, left over in him.
The last picture which stuck in his mind was of him. It was only taken a month or so before the battle that claimed Colin's life, and might have been one of the last photographs on his camera. There hadn't been too many pictures when they had been on the run, but this was one of the few. In it Dennis was sitting on a chair, tilting back as he played with a yo-yo. He hadn't been looking at the camera. Remembering that day, he recalled it as being one of their 'good days' - they had been able to go into a small town and buy several things without even being looked at funny, and he had insisted on getting the toy. It had been such a welcome relief to have food and some clean clothes that they both had been quite relaxed; thus the yo-yo. It wasn't a particularly good picture of him, at least in terms of looking handsome, as his eyes were half-closed, but Colin had managed to perfectly capture his younger brother's relaxed happiness, which was probably the reason for the picture, not to make him look good in any way. That wasn't the point of Colin's photography.
He glanced over at the camera. With Colin gone, who would use that camera? The answer was clear to him, and he picked it up, slinging the strap around his neck to carry it. It felt right, and he nodded to himself. After all, somebody had to fill Colin's now-empty position as the unofficial Hogwarts photographer, and that position was best filled by the person who knew Colin the most. Dennis remembered how Colin had always tried to get him to photograph things, but he hadn't been interested then. It was only now, after Colin's death, that he realized just how much this hobby had meant to his older brother. He sighed, clutching the camera, and wished, for what wouldn't be the last time, that Colin was still here with him.