Harry Potter One Shots

Snapshots

All rights belong to the author, The Treacle Tart

He would dress in his dark blue suit, his Sunday best his mother would say. Everyone else would be in dress robes but it didn't feel right to him. In his world, the one where brooms didn't fly and owls didn't act as postmen, men wore suits on such solemn occasions. It was sign of admiration and reverence as much as an acknowledgment of ceremony and ritual, and so he chose to honor this man the only way he knew how, with a simple gesture of respect from another world.

His hands were unnaturally steady as he did up the buttons. He wore his grandfather's cufflinks, and placed his Godfather's monogrammed handkerchief in his breast pocket. His shoes were shined and his hair was trimmed and neat. When he was done, he found the reflection of a man staring back at him from his bedroom mirror, a sight that held his gaze for several minutes until the trance was broken by the sounding of steeple bells in the distance.

It was time.

As he turned to leave, the glint of a camera lens caught his eyes. Sitting on his bed was the accessory that was more like an extra limb than a simple piece of machinery. In truth, he felt somewhat naked without it, incomplete, and part of him wanted to reach for it, but he didn't. Instead he remembered...

When he was a boy of six years, the age at which one is at the peak of curious mind and contented oblivion, Colin Creevey found a photograph. He was very innocently searching for hidden Christmas presents, as is the sworn duty of all small children and a tradition he was not about ignore, when he came upon a dusty box in the back of his mother's closet. Exultant fingers pried open the box only to discover if was full of some old junk: little pink dresses and scuffed white shoes, hair clips with flowers and a stuffed bear, some dolls and a small stack of pictures.

The pictures were oddly discolored, blurred at the edges, creased at the corners, and not nearly as much fun as the stuffed bear but he was drawn to them nonetheless. There were people who looked like his parents but the lady's hair was very long, and the man, much more slender than his father. They were playing with a little girl he had never seen before; she seemed to be about his age, maybe a bit older, and she looked a little like Dennis only with darker hair that was long and curly. She had a pretty smile with small white teeth that gapped slightly in the font. Colin liked her eyes most of all: they were the color of dark chocolate, which was his favorite treat, and they seemed so warm and gentle.

He quietly sifted through the pictures until he came upon one of just the little girl, in a pale yellow dress and shiny white shoes. She was running though a field that was littered with leaves, her arms outstretched like she was an airplane about to take off, and her dark chocolate eyes were happy and bright. He turned the photograph over and found out her name was Evelyn and she was seven when this picture was taken. He didn't know much about Evelyn but he knew he liked her, he knew they could be friends, best friends, if he could only find her.

Suddenly, he heard the downstairs door slam. He knew his mother was done with her gardening and he had only a minute to get back to his room where he was supposed to be playing with his younger brother. Colin quickly threw everything into the box, pushed it back into the closet, and ran out only to find that his brother had chewed up his favorite book. He would have been furious were it not for a picture that sat in his back pocket, a picture that made him smile when he thought of it. A photograph of a girl named Evelyn, who would be his best friend.

Colin dared not ask who Evelyn was, for then he would have to explain how he came upon the photo in the first place; and the code of small children clearly stated that one never admitted to the hunting down of Christmas gifts. Instead the photo became his secret possession, and Evelyn, his secret friend. Late at night, when he was supposed to be asleep, he would take out his coveted picture and hold in tenderly in his cupped hands. He would tell Evelyn tales of the day's adventures, and giggle at jokes one could only share with his best friend.