This isn't real. I know it's not real. There's no way that this can be real. It's just not. I refuse. Can I do that? Just refuse to believe that you're gone? I wish I could, wish I could just retreat into my own head, to a world where you're still here. And you'll pop up any second, put me in a headlock and give me a noogie. All those things big brothers do.

This is just... just a set up, for a photo, right? Like all those times you used to transfigure weird things so that you could get more interesting photos. I found them, the other day. Luna with wings, and all that sticky glitter. Ginny sitting on the massive teddy bear's lap. I keep expecting you to jump out at me, you know? Scream 'Cheese!', and send me blind with the stupid flash of your stupid camera. Funny how I'd give anything now, for you to do that again. Please, do it just one last time?

It's sad, really, but we don't have many pictures of you. You were always the one behind the lens, staging your masterpieces. How ironic, that there are so few photographs of the most avid photographer I'll ever meet. There's talk of an exhibition of your photographs, you know? It was Harry's idea - that we could show the photographs you took of all the things that you loved. I'm going to help him; you deserve to have them shown, and the world should see them.

Hermione's planning on writing about the war, she says. She asked me if she could use some of your photographs of Hogwarts - of everything, really. She said she's writing a book introducing Muggleborns like us to the Wizarding World too. She said she's dedicating it to you, and that she's going to write a section on Muggleborn heroes. Heroes like you. Not people who did amazing things, necessarily, people who didn't take the easy path, but stood up for what was right, for what they believed in. People that we should all aspire to be. Well, I aspire to be you. If I'm ever half as good a person as you are, then I'll be better than I ever thought I could be.

Mum doesn't really understand what's going on. She hasn't touched your camera, not once, and your room still looks the same as it always did. I like to sit there, sometimes, just sit there. It smells like you used to too. Like moonroot, from that potion that you developed your pictures in. She says she doesn't want me to go to Hogwarts, not anymore. She doesn't understand that I have to go back there. I need to see it, again. I need to go back to the Gryffindor Common Room; to sit in the chair that you sat in, to lie on the bed that you lay on, to walk the halls that you walked. I need to get closer to you, brother.

I need to know how you felt, when you did it, when you snuck away to join the battle. I know why you did, after the letter you left for me. I'm glad you left the letter, otherwise I'd have been thinking so many different things. Everyone seems to think that you did it for Harry, you always would follow Harry when you could. I'm going to tell them the real reason, because I'm proud of you, so proud. You were a true Gryffindor, more than I ever was. Standing up for what you believed in, for yourself, and your family. For mom and dad. For me. I wish I was more like you.

They don't understand, how can they understand when they – mom and dad – missed out on so much of our lives? It's hard for them, I know. They've lost you, but I lost you too, and the world lost so much more. I need to go back – to stay, maybe – in the Wizarding World. I need to heal in a world that you helped to create. If I choose not to live where you fought for life, then I've failed you, and I won't do that. I'm going to live a life that you'd be proud of me for, I'm going to show those bigoted Purebloods that nothing can keep a Creevey down, and I'm going to do it for you.

I miss you so much. See, you and me, we were always like each other. When you came to Hogwarts, at first, I was so upset. But then, I worked out that I always did what you did. I always followed you. And one day, brother, I'm going to follow you up to heaven. Just not today.

I don't think Mum and Dad really understand what I'm doing. Of course, they've been trying to tell me things that I should put for your epitaph. They don't get that it has to come from the heart, that it has to mean something. Not just the Muggle 'Forever Missed', although you will be. Ginny explained it to me, she's a Pureblood, she'd know. The epitaph has to represent you, the sort of thing that someone else could look at and know, just know your soul, know you.

I'm leaving your camera here too, slung over the cold stone it almost looks the same as when it was hung around your neck. This way you'll always know where it is. Hermione promised to put an anti-theft jinx on it, so it'll stay where it is.

I know what I'm going to write, and I hope that you're looking down on me and smiling. Maybe, even as I tap my wand to the cold grey stone you've got the newest camera in heaven, and you're taking a photograph. A photograph of the world, my world, so much emptier without you.

Colin Creevey

A photograph worth a thousand words,

and a thousand photographs too few.