This is part of the Twelve Fics of Christmas challenge which has been organised by TheOriginalHufflepuff.

This is based on the 'Photograph' prompt, number eight.

Once again, enjoy!

Oh and season's greetings too!

It's just another story caught up in another photograph I found,
And it seems like another person lived that life a great many years ago from now,
When I look back on my ordinary, ordinary life,
I see so much magic, though I missed it at the time.

Photograph by Jamie Cullum

Photograph

The Janus Thickey Ward.

Again.

It's funny though. Only this year I realised that I never bring a present for Mum and Dad. After twenty years of visiting them in hospital, I have never once bought them a present. Ever. I suppose I've been going by the whole 'they'll never know whether I bought them a present or not' thing, which, now that I think about it, isn't very nice at all. I find it sad that it took me this long to work that out. I'm ashamed. But the way I see it is that they'll wake up the next day and wonder what on earth that new object sitting by their beds is. It'd just confuse them, and to be quite honest, I don't think they need that at all. Mum and Dad are routine people, you see, which means every day is the same for them, and that is how they like it. A change would be too much for them.

This year, though, I was getting a present for them. Why? Because, more than anything, it would be a change for me. Now that I think about it, Mum and Dad aren't the only routine people in this family. I've lead a pretty routine life too (apart from the whole war thing, but I couldn't help that). So I had a thought that maybe I could break the routine for all of us.

So what did I get them?

I spent a good, long while thinking about this. I didn't want to get them anything too extravagant, because that would've just scared the living daylights out of them. I didn't want to get them anything too shiny because Mum would just spend days on end looking at it in wonder and awe. I didn't want to get them anything too musical because Dad would just spend days on end just clapping along loudly and happily to whatever it was. I didn't want to get them a plant because the last time someone in the Janus Thickey Ward received a plant for Christmas it ended up being Devil's Snare and it strangled the patient to death, that and since that incident happened, giving plants as gifts has been banned at St Mungo's all together. Anything that would be dangerous for a five year old wouldn't be suitable for them, and anything that would be too fragile wouldn't be suitable for them. Getting them stuff that people usually buy for mums and dads was pointless because Mum and Dad never needed to use kitchenware and they never read books and they don't like wearing robes other than the ones that the hospital supplies them with. So they were hard to buy for.

It is understandable why I spent a good, long while thinking about what to get for them. It had to be something that wasn't extravagant, wasn't shiny, wasn't musical, wasn't banned in the hospital, wasn't dangerous, wasn't fragile and wasn't useful. What the hell was there left to get?

It hit me. Well not literally, of course, but when I saw it I knew it was perfect.

You see my parents, before this happened, were like any normal parents. Like any first parents, they took billions of photos of their child. So, naturally, when I was born, they took countless photographs of me with Mum and me with Dad and just me. Gran has alot of them now, but when I moved out I took quite a few. There was one that I loved much more than any of the others. Gran and I fought a little bit over me taking it and in the end she won, but I took the photo anyway without her noticing. The photograph is of Mum and Dad and they're holding me as a baby. Mum has a very pretty, elfin like face framed with short, stylish hair. She's beaming up at Dad, who looks alot like I do now, with a roundish face and he's got a very friendly smile. He looks delighted beyond anything as he gazes down at the tiny baby he has in his arms. Me. I'm tiny, a little bit chubby, bald and sleeping, with my hand closed around Dad's thumb. It's a perfect picture. The lighting, the positioning, the sepia tone, it's all so perfect. It's so perfect it just breathes magic.

I framed the photo. Inside a dark wooden frame with delicate detailing carved into it, the magical perfect photo lives. It's clutched in my shaking hands as I approach their beds in the Janus Thickey Ward.

"Hi, Mum," I say. "Hi, Dad."

Mum looks up at me and smiles. Dad looks up at me and claps his hands once. I look down at them and smile.

On the little table between their beds I put down the photograph. Mum and Dad both sit up to look what I've put there. Mum points at it excitedly. Dad studies it from all angles, then finally settles on looking at it straight, a look of curiousity on his face. Mum reaches out and touches the photo with one finger and quickly withdraws her hand, waiting for something to happen. It doesn't so she smiles. I think they like it.

I leave the photograph with them when I go. It was a nice change.