And it's been another two forevers, but finally, here's the fourth and final installment of "Colin Creevey Lives On." Be warned, there is some mild language at one point of the story, but I don't think it rates higher than PG (which is basically what K+ is). Also, a piece of dialogue in this story indirectly refers to another fanfic here called "Friends and Fathers," in which the author essentially brings Lupin and Tonks back from the grave. It can be found in my favorite stories list. Also, one of George's lines to Ron is a reference to one of Hermione's to him in the Order of the Phoenix movie. Well, thank you to Wod Nazi, the only one who reviewed after my last chapter was posted. Here you go, everyone! And yes, there is a reference somewhere in the chapter title. XD
Colin Creevey Lives On
(Harry Potter
Chapter 4: The Power of Love
As Ron Weasley refilled a box of fake wands, his brother George came and clapped him on the back. "It'll be a shame to see you go, Ron," he said. "I owe quite a bit of this store's success to you."
Ron smiled and replied, "I am gonna miss this place, George. But, I am onto bigger and better things once I pass my Auror test tomorrow."
"Not so fast," his brother laughed. "To be an Auror, you have to prove how well you can operate under stress. And, everyone knows you have the emotional range of a teaspoon!" he added sarcastically.
"Oh, ha ha, real funny, George," he droned sarcastically.
George just shook his head laughing, and then he saw Dennis approach. "About time for you to pick up little Colin, eh?" said George as he came up to meet him. "How's the little guy doing?"
"Just fine," Dennis replied with a smile. "And, in just four years, he'll be attending Hogwarts. I've been saving up my paychecks from here for his school supplies, so I won't have to exchange my Muggle money to pay for all of it. Speaking of Colin the Second, how's Fred the Second?"
"He's doing great!" said George. "A chip off the old block, the little prankster is. I'm so proud, though his mother, I'd have to say, thinks differently." He said that last part with a wry smile.
"And, is he still the little Quidditch star you told me about during Colin's birthday party?" asked Dennis.
With a grin, George said, "Second year of Hogwarts, and Fred's already a beater for the Gryffindor team!"
George noticed that Dennis's look said, I need to say something to you alone So, when a customer was calling for an employee at the other side of the room, he said to his youngest brother, "Why don't you go get that, Ron?" He nodded and went to assist.
Glancing around to make sure no one was watching in, Dennis whispered to him, "Just this morning, Colin asked me about the Basilisk."
"Really?" George raised his eyebrows. "Has anyone ever told Colin about that ruddy, big snake before?"
"Never," he said. "He didn't know the creature by name, but he described it just as his uncle did, when I asked about it... a slithering, hissing creature with big, scary yellow eyes."
Thinking for a moment, George said, "You know, Colin's not the only nephew of a KIA who's asked a little too much about his parents and their sibling's past. I never told my kids about it, but sometime during last summer, Fred asked me about the Marau--"
"The what?" Dennis asked when George stopped.
"Nothing," George said innocently. "Nothing important."
As Creevey father and son reentered the house, the awkward tension was thick enough to cut with a knife. Dennis wondered how Colin knew so much from before he was born; Colin wondered the same thing. But, Colin knew there were quite a few things he didn't know. And, his visions only made those questions emerge.
"So... Colin," Dennis finally broke the silence. "How was school?"
"It was fine," he replied, trying to sound casual. "It rained, so Mike and I played Waterfront for recess."
Dennis raised his eyebrows. Colin used to love Waterfront; a trait his little namesake shared.
"Is there a magic version of the game?" Colin asked almost automatically.
"Someone I knew once tried making one," he found himself answering his boy, "but he never got to finish it."
"Why not?" Colin asked curiously.
Dennis just sighed and said, "It's a long story, OK?"
Colin had not been feeling well at all lately. He asked if he could go lie down before heading to his room where he flopped down on his bed.
As he headed up the corridor with his trusty camera around his neck, he came by 4th year Draco Malfoy who jeered towards Pansy Parkinson, "Look out, Pansy! Here comes the paparazzi!"
"Your not funny, Malfoy," Colin mumbled bitterly. As Malfoy made his response, Colin noticed something pinned to his robes.
"Shouldn't you be off licking Potter's shoes, fan boy?"
"What is that?" he asked, pointing to Malfoy's robes.
"Oh, this?" With a smile, Malfoy pointed to the badge with bright, red letters on it. "You like?" It read,
Support CEDRIC DIGGORY--
The REAL Hogwarts Champion!
"But wait, there's more." Malfoy's nasty grin spread as he pressed the badge, and the words changed to green ones reading,
POTTER STINKS
"Cute, Malfoy," said Colin as he pushed on. "Not!" As he went, he thought to himself, Self note: Make a 'Support Harry Potter' badge.
He continued onto Gryffindor Tower, once Malfoy and Parkinson were gone, to pass his idea onto Dennis.
That night, Dennis sighed deeply as he drifted off to sleep next to his wife. "Why did you have to go back, Colin?"
Dennis stared around at his surroundings. He was in his old room! He was 14 again!
"I just... had to, that's all." He glanced at his bed and spotted a familiar 16-year-old boy sitting in his bed.
"Colin!" In seconds, Dennis was holding his brother close in a warm embrace. Sixteen years after Colin died, it was so wonderful to see him again.
"If it's any consolation," said Colin with a wry smile, "I did take down a few Death Eaters with me."
After a moment of chuckles, the two reunited (if only temporary) brothers just sat there, not saying a word. It had been over a decade and a half; there was so much to be said... but neither knew where to start.
The deceased elder boy finally broke the ice. "Well, glad to see Mr. Soccer Star is doing so well."
The dreaming younger boy couldn't help but smile, hearing this from the one who inspired him to pursue the career in the first place. Trying to think of something else to say, Dennis piped up, "So, um, I hear there's this really big portrait that got put in the Hogwarts entrance hall in memory of everyone who died in that battle. You in that picture?"
Colin nodded. "Yep. It's kind of fun being part of the painting community. I even visit the Fat Lady in her portrait form time to time." With a mildly irritated sigh, he added, "Just wish Fred Weasley would stop using me as his prank dummy." Dennis laughed until he got the look in his brother's eye.
Dennis then sighed nostalgically, comparing his brother next to him, as he often did, to the little boy sleeping in his bed back in reality. "If only you could've gotten to know him."
Colin smiled, seeming to read his mind. "In a way, I already know him. Because, well... in a sense, I live on through my favorite nephew."
"Yes, in a proverbial sense," the other said with a nod.
But then, there was something odd about his brother's smile. "Oh, it's more than that."
Dennis stared at him. When he thought about it, not only did his son behave so much like his brother, but he seemed to draw objects of his memories from him as well. How did he knew about the Basilisk? What put the idea of Wizard's Waterfront in his mind so quickly? He had a feeling all those questions would be satisfied with the answering of, "What do you mean?"
Colin took a deep breath and plunged into the explanation. "Well, you see... Colin, your son, has been having flashbacks of my memory since October. I could feel it happening, and I didn't know why. At least not until Dumbledore came and explained it to me."
"But Dumbledore's dead," pointed out Dennis.
"Painting community," Colin reminded him.
"Oh, right." Needless to say, Dennis was rather embarrassed of forgetting this. "Carry on."
"What Dumbledore said went with what he usually says, about love being the strongest magic of all," he continued. "He said when very close relatives--both by blood and by personal relation--are separated by death, a piece of the heart and soul of the dead relative remains with the surviving one. And, if it's strong enough, that piece can be passed onto the surviving relative's offspring, creating a reincarnation of sorts... like mine and Fred's namesakes."
Dennis paused, frowning. "But... then you and Fred wouldn't be in the painting community anymore," he said. "When Professor Lupin and his wife woke up from their death coma four years ago, they vanished from the painting community." There wasn't a witch or wizard that day who didn't hear of the general shock of Remus and Nymphadora Lupin "inexplicably rising from the dead."
"That's different," Colin went on to explain. "Mr. and Mrs. Lupin are alive now (well, technically, they were never dead in the first place, just seemingly so). I'm dead. Your son isn't truly Colin your brother... just Colin 2.0, the world's second chance at having me in it since that night I died."
After a long pause, Dennis couldn't help himself anymore; he had to know. "Colin, what did happen the night you died?"
Colin took a moment to reflect on that day. "Well..." he began, recapping the events to his brother. Though he didn't intend to, merely recollecting the moment in such loving detail made it begin to replay in his namesake's dreams.
There was only one way to put the scene in Hogwarts: all hell had broken loose. With all the Order members, Death Eaters, and senior students running about the madness (a/n: Madness? THIS IS HOGWARTS! Ahem, sorry; couldn't resist, mate.) of the battle, nobody even noticed he wasn't supposed to be there.
At that moment, he hard a voice behind him and just managed to dodge the curse aimed at his back. When he looked over at the dark wizard that sent it his way, the latter snarled, "You won't be so lucky this time, twinkle toes." But when he began to perform the curse again, Colin had his wand out.
"STUPIFY!" The Death Eater was down before he could strike again, and Colin smiled. "Care to rethink that?"
"Expelliarmus!" Next thing Colin knew, his wand had left his hand like a fish pulled by a fly hook.
"I wouldn't," sneered the Death Eater who disarmed him. However, next thing either knew, the dark wizard was running away, screaming as he was attacked by bat bogies.
Colin looked around for his rescuer and was surprised to find... "Ginny?" He stared at the 16-year-old witch, wand raised and a grin on her face. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you have left with the over underage wizards?"
"What about you?" she replied smartly as she lowered her wand.
After a moments thought, Colin smiled and responded, "Touche."
As he went to retrieve his wand, another "Expelliarmus!" rang through the air and a figure shoved him aside and cornered Ginny. Colin looked up and recognized him instantly from pictures the other members of Dumbledore's Army showed him and Dennis: Amycus Carrow, one of the two Carrow sibling Death Eaters who took up a position as teacher at Hogwarts.
"Well, well, well, if it isn't the young girl who helped stir up so much trouble for us," he jeered at the disarmed Ginny. "Rounding up resistance, trying to break into the headmaster's office... what do you have to say for yourself, Miss Weasley?"
"Go to hell, Death Eater!" she spat.
Carrow's wand was out in an instant. "Wrong answer. Crucio!"
Ginny doubled over, screaming in pain as the curse hit her. As Carrow laughed at his nasty work, Colin slowly got up. He felt a surge of rage build up as he watched the Death Eater torture poor Ginny. Before he knew what he was doing, he scrambled up and snatched his wand, barely hearing the curse that seemed to spontaneously leave his lips. However, he came to his senses moments after the flash of green light faded away and Amycus Carrow's body fell limp on the floor.
As Ginny got up to retrieve her wand, Colin dropped his own and staggered a bit in shock. "I... j-just killed someone!" he stammered in an almost squeaky voice.
"You did it to save me," said Ginny, managing to smile in spite of her own shock of this rather out of character action.
"B-but, I just... did an unforgivable curse," he continued as they headed for the entrance hall.
"At this point, I don't think any curses done in his battle will be held against anyone fighting against the Death Eaters," she replied. "Luna told me she and Harry saw McGonagall use the Imperious curse on Carrow earlier to disarm him and his sister and tie them up. Wonder how he escaped and got his wand back, anyway."
Just starting to get over his shock, Colin just said, "We'll probably never know."
With a nod, the two separated as they went outside. It wasn't long before Colin spotted Neville Longbottom in a duel with another Death Eater. Wouldn't hurt to cut in and help, he thought to himself as he snuck up on the two.
The Death Eater eventually gained the upper hand on Neville and was about to finish him off. "Avada--"
"Stupefy!" But he was cut off by Colin, who quickly took him out.
"Colin? What... what are you doing here?" Neville was genuinely surprised to see him. "Shouldn't you be with the other underage wizards?" With a smile, he added. "Not that the help isn't appreciated."
However, his smile quickly faded. Before this change in expression could even fully register in Colin's brain, "Avada Kerdava!" rang out from behind him. When he saw the green light envelope around his back from the corner of his eyes, he knew he was done for in this world, and his last thoughts were something like, What goes around comes around.
Neville's POV (not part of Colin I's story or Colin II's dream; merely included for the readers' convenience)
Neville couldn't believe it. Not Colin! He never even got the chance to become of age! He wasn't even supposed to be there!
However, now was not the time nor place to think of that as the Death Eater now had his wand pointed at Neville. "Now for you, Longbottom."
"Evening, Yaxley," said a sarcastic, rather familiar voice. A stunning spell hit Yaxley before he had time to react, and to Neville's surprise, out stepped none other than Augusta Longbottom.
"Gran?" Neville asked incredulously.
His grandmother grinned as she replied to him, "You didn't think I'd miss out on all the excitement, did you, my Dumbledore's Army boy?"
Neville grinned back at her words, and soon the Longbottom duo set out to see where else they could be of help. As they went, though, Neville chanced a quick, grief look at Colin's body, which (as it did to Harry Potter, later on) looked tiny in death.
After the character he was seeing through he eyes of died, Colin bolted awake in his room. What was...? Aw, the heck with it, he thought to himself, flopping back down on his pillow and attempting to get back to sleep.
And the next morning, his father weaved the story that Colin's late uncle wanted to get to know him better from the beyond, so he was using pieces of his memory to do so. Though that last one was a tad creepy for him, Colin accepted this tale.
And within four years, Colin began his education at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. There, he received good grades and soon gained the mutual feelings of one such Lily Luna Potter. Though he did not know the whole truth of his nature just yet, Colin always felt a special connection with the boy whom he was named after and always smiled whenever he'd see him in the paintings in Hogwarts.
Well, there it is. Though Colin died, he lives on through a certain Colin 2.0. Colin II belongs to me, and every other character (including Fred II) belongs to J.K. Rowling. Her creation of George's son didn't really have anything to do with my idea for Colin II, but it certainly helped. That's why I decided to reward Fred and his namesake by making the latter a Fred 2.0 the way Colin II is a Colin 2.0. Now I better get started on my next Harry Potter story. And it's gonna be a big one, so you guys are gonna have to wait some time before I post it up. Until then, ciao!