Chapter 1. Photography

I guess it's not that unusual for Muggleborns at Hogwarts to have had a hard time fitting in back when they were attending Muggle primary schools. I, for instance, was really never as sporty as most of the other boys at my school. I was never good at playing rounders, and really didn't enjoy it very much, and the other kids – boys mostly, but some of the girls too – made fun of me for the fact that I preferred to mess around with the camera my parents had given me. My mother told me that she never really fit in either, and that if I was just patient that things would get better.

Patient. She had no idea. I guess she probably thought that as my classmates and I grew up, the differences wouldn't be so important. Well, that and the fact that she was also quite certain that I was gifted in the visual arts and that someday what she saw as my immense talents for photography would get the recognition they deserved.

Did she imagine for one moment that the photos I took would come alive when they were developed? How could she? Personally, I was terrified when I found out. I still remember the shock I felt the day I took out the photographs I'd taken at my school's May Day celebration and saw that some of them (only some of them) moved. I was sure I was going crazy, and in my panic, I quickly stashed the moving photos in the shoebox I keep under my bed. When she called me over to show her the beautiful pictures I'd taken, I only showed her the ordinary ones.

She exclaimed how talented I was, as she always does, but I almost lost my lunch when she said, "Look how you've captured the movement of the maypole dance!"

I'm sure I mumbled something like "Er, what?" as I hurried over to take a look, but the photo she was holding looked normal, and she just went on as she normally did. Then a moment later she happened to look up at me, and her face transformed with sudden concern. She said I looked pale as a ghost, and was I feeling ill. I don't really remember exactly what happened after that, except feeling vaguely confused as she herded me off to bed. I think she brought me some tea and dry toast a bit later, but of course I wasn't so much ill as scared. When she came back later she said that I had certainly eaten quickly, that since I looked a lot better, I'd best come down to dinner.

I actually managed to convince myself that I'd only been imagining the thing with the moving photographs, and promised myself I wouldn't think about it any more. I almost managed to forget about the photographs under my bed until a few months later, when I happened to look over the batch I'd taken on the family holiday in Venice. I flipped through comfortingly static shots of the gondaliers steering their boats, and the merchants selling colourful masks.

Then I dropped the stack in alarm as I flipped one over to reveal a lively flock of pigeons descending into a piaza, devouring scattered bread crumbs, and then shifting to hungrily crowd around a gaudily dressed American tourist who wasn't emptying his bag of crumbs quickly enough to satisfy the flock.

Dennis came in just then, and I hurriedly shoved the remainder of the photos into the shoebox, before gathering up the "safe" pictures I'd already looked at to show to Mum who I knew would be waiting downstairs. I didn't escape without rousing his suspicion, though. Little brothers have a way of making life difficult. They always come in at awkward moments, and never know when to leave well enough alone.

"What are you doing?" he wanted to know.

"Nothing."

"What's in that box? Is it alive?"

Dennis was always obsessed with insects, birds, and animals. I happened to know that he had a pet tarantula he kept hidden in a box in the back of our closet. The tarantula's name was Rose, and if Mum had known he had her, she would have thrown a fit.

Sometimes when Dennis thought he was alone he used to take Rose out of the cage-box she came in and talk to her by name. He said that she could understand him, and that she always let him know when she was hungry for crickets. Not knowing about magic at the time, I of course thought this was extremely childish, and a little daft. Maybe I should have wondered a bit after the weird photos that had developed from my camera, but at the time I was still sure that all that was in my head. Well, almost sure.

"It's just my stuff, and it's not your business. How's Rose?"

Dennis looked defensively at the closet, and I knew that as soon as I left the room he'd hurry over to check on the spider. So I took my time. I got up, headed for the door, then casually ambled back to the nightstand to get the little pile of safe photos from Venice, dawdled a little bit as if perusing our bookshelf, and then wandered downstairs. I could hear Dennis scrambling for the closet after I left, and smiled a little.

I found Mum reading at the kitchen table, and sat down next to her. When she looked up, I said, "Here are the best photographs from Venice, Mum. I know you wanted to see them," and handed her what I had. She smiled and put down her book to take a look. With a little bit of embarrassment I listened as she cooed over each one in turn. "Look at the colour!", "Beautiful composition in this shot from the mask shop!", and so on. She said that I was talented beyond my years and that I should find a way to show these in a gallery somewhere. I mostly shrugged these remarks off. Appreciation is great and all, but she's my mum, and I don't even know what she means by "composition." I just took the snapshots that I thought would look nice.

When she'd finished showering praise and insisted on putting a couple of them into the family album, I took the remainder upstairs. I walked quietly, working to time things so that I could walk in on Dennis playing with his tarantula and make him feel uncomfortable.

I walked in to find him sitting on my bed. He knows I don't like it when he does that, but I barely noticed where he was sitting, once I took in what he was doing. My shoebox was open on the bed next to him, and he was holding the thick stack of photographs and gaping at the pigeon picture.

"This is bloody brilliant!" he said, and then added "Rose thinks so too. How did you do it?"

"I don't care what bloody Rose thinks," I told him, "You stay out of my stuff, and keep that tarantula off of my bed, or I'll tell Mum!" I added the last part as he guiltily got up from my bed, setting the photographs aside, and turned to pick up Rose who had been sitting on the bed next to him.

He shuffled over to his own bed, and then sat there holding Rose, and asked again, "How did you do it? You're always fussing with that camera, but I've never heard of anybody taking photographs that could move!"

After a moment, I went over to my bed, carefully brushed off the area where the spider had been sitting, and threw myself down on my bed. I was furious, but I guess I was also relieved: I wasn't insane. Dennis could see the pictures move too.

Another minute later, he asked again, "How did you do that?"

"I don't know," I said. I really had no idea. "It just happened. I honestly thought I'd gone daft." And then I realized how relieved I really felt. "Do you have any ideas?" I asked.

I didn't know whether to be annoyed or what, when he first shrugged, and then looked at the spider as if he thought maybe she'd have something to add. Then he just shrugged again, and said, "Not really. Have you showed these to Mum and Dad?"

It was really good to have somebody to talk to, and we debated for a while about the wisdom of showing something this weird to our parents. In the end I decided to put it off until the next morning, and to try to figure out the right way to bring it up, and maybe show one of the May Day photos to Dad tomorrow. The several moving pictures of the maypole dance somehow seemed less startling than the pigeon picture. I don't know why. Probably something about the cyclic movement of the children holding the coloured ribbons. There was just so much going on in the pigeon picture. People wandering in and out of the frame, and interacting differently with the pigeons all the time. The maypole picture was just more believable. I almost felt like I'd seen something similar in a travelling hologram exhibit we saw one time.

So, I planned: I'd show the photo to Dad, and ask if he'd ever seen anything like it. I wouldn't say I'd taken it, and he probably wouldn't notice that it was the pole from our own school's fair. Maybe he would have an explanation.

Author's notes: The next chapter should be published on or before January 15, 2014.