AN: Was going to make this longer, but I rather like it as a snapshot. Enjoy!
Warnings: Present tense? Nothing else, really.
Disclaimer: I do not even own a working camera, how could I possibly own a bestselling series of books and movies?
Pieces of the Puzzle: Colin Creevey
There is something Colin knows about Harry Potter that no one else does, and that is that Harry is never still. He is always moving, always in action, because he is not a man of thought but action.
He had a lot of blurred photos, muggle and magical, before he learned to compensate for the movement. There were the obvious ones: Harry on a broom, Harry running across the grounds, Harry bolting down the stairs. Harry, Colin has noticed, likes to move fast. He never ambles, saunters, glides; he only hurries. As if he knows there isn't enough time to get it all done. As if speed is a release, a freedom, that he can't get while sitting with friends or playing Exploding Snap.
Colin loves to take shots of Harry flying, because that is when his face holds the most animation, the most joy. His eyes and smile and even his skin light up as if the sun is shining at just the right angle, all the time, even on cloudy days. The grace as his hands grip the broomstick and he leans forward just that little bit to put on that extra burst, or as he executes that little dip after a Wronski Feint…it is a photographer's ideal. Harry-on-a-broom is always novel, always interesting, never posed. Sometimes, as he's watching a picture develop, Colin almost expects Harry to fly right out of the frame, as if nothing can hold him back.
Even shots that seem safely inert showed some imperfection on later study. A tapping foot as he stood outside the Charms classroom. A turning head, distracted by a Slytherin walking past. Fingers moving along the shaft of a wand or quill like fluttering birds not sure it's safe to land. And of course, that hand raking through his hair, in agitation or apprehension.
Finally, Colin decides this is because Harry is truly the Boy Who Lived. He is so full of energy, of magic, of emotion, of life, that he cannot be still. Stillness is lack of change, is death, and Harry doesn't know how to die, even a little bit. He is too busy learning and growing and fighting to even pause to consider his mortality.