Prompt: photos. Write a 100-word or 500-word chapter that features a photo and someone's reaction to it. It could be either the photo being taken or being looked at.

You can pick a photo on Google or imagine it, as you like.

From Ted's point of view.


She has a room dedicated to them. A tiny study crammed full of pictures. Portraits, photos, newspaper clippings. Some are hung on the walls; some are stuck into albums; and one is free standing. It sits on the desk. It's her favourite. If you can call it that. I mean, how can your "favourite" make you cry?

I'm not allowed in this room. She's never said anything, but if she sees me here she bolts to my side and asks me what I'm doing. Her voice is strained and nervous and her eyes dart around checking the photos. Then back to me. Then back to them. Then me. Them. Me. Them. Me. And it doesn't stop until I say "Nothing Dromeda," and leave.

And once I'm out she'll stand there, staring in, for a few minutes, looking at them. And then she'll go in and close the door and stay there for ages. Hours. Minutes. It doesn't matter. It'll seem like days to me. 'Cos I can't hear anything. And I know she's put up a silencing charm, so I won't know she's crying. But I do. And it hurts.

It hurts that she's choosing them over me.

'Cos I'm not in that room. I'm in other parts of the house, of course. But everyone has photos of their family in their own houses. Even if they aren't photo people. And Andromeda certainly isn't. The only real photo we have on display is our wedding photo.

And it hurts. 'Cos I only get one lousy photo and they get hundreds.

Dromeda is Dromeda. She can't change who she is, and I can't either. And if I could I wouldn't. 'Cos I love her the way she is.

I love the way she laughs with derision at things in the news that make me want to vomit.

I love the way she calls my friends "scum suckers" and "mudbloods" when she thinks I'm not listening.

I love the way she gasped with horror when she found out Dora wasn't in Slytherin, then turned to her at Christmas with a perfectly joyous expression and said "We're so proud of you Nymphadora. Hufflepuff, just like your Dad."

She's a hypocrite. She's a paradox. She's an enigma.

I love her.

But sometimes she leaves me. Leaves me for that room. Leaves me for their paper faces.

And sometimes I can't take it. Sometimes I open the door. Sometimes I march past the portrait of a young blonde girl in Hogwarts robes. March past the photo of a grey eyed Quiditch Capitan decked in emerald green. March past the cuttings announcing the marriages of "Mrs Malfoy" and "Mrs Lestrange." March right up to the desk and grab the photo of three sisters, happy as can be, not a care in the world, with their arms around each other.

She chose me! I silently scream. She chose me!

"Ted! What are you doing!"

"Nothing Dromeda."

I leave. She stays.

She misses them. But she chose me.