This story is for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition

BEATER 2- The Wigtown Wanderers

Optional Prompts:

5. Perfume

8. Harmony

He hadn't even told us that he was going, one minute he was in his room working on photographs, and the next he was gone. We had thought he merely wished to not be disturbed; hours passed before we knocked on his door and realized he had gone out. It was pure chance that I saw the D.A. galleon he had kept laying haphazardly on his bedroom carpet. It only took a glance to know that he'd gone to battle. I wanted to join him, but my mother and father forbade me, so instead we sat in wait, all night, for him to return. He never did.

The battle must have been horrible, and disorienting, or perhaps people were too busy celebrating the fall of Voldemort to tell us. For whatever reason, no one came to tell us that Colin was dead for 3 days. We had spent 3 restless nights losing hope before they came to wipe the last dredges of it away. They gave us his camera; that was when mum started crying; solemnly dad brought it upstairs and into Colin's bedroom. He laid the camera on Colin's desk, left the room, and shut the door. It would sit there gathering dust for a long time.

I went back to Hogwarts, a year late for 4th year, but no one minded. 5th, and 6th, and 7th year all passed by. There wasn't a day among my final 4 years of school that I didn't walk down to the war memorial to lay a hand over my brother's name. At my graduation I stood there for so long that I didn't even notice her move to stand behind me, she could have been there the entire time, but I wasn't aware of her presence until her soft perfume tickled my nose. Alice Tolipan had already graduated, she was Colin's age, yet here she was, standing behind me at the memorial, I briefly wondered who she had lost.

"You should look." She told me.

"At what?"

"His pictures." Then she walked away.

I didn't listen to her advice for another two years. I had been at home for Christmas dinner when mom had gotten a rather determined expression set on her face. She stood from the table and began marching up the stairs. Dad and I followed after her. She paused for only the briefest of moments, her hand immobile on the doorknob, before she resolutely pushed the door open. She took a hesitant step forward. I looked inside the room; it was covered in dust and had the distinct musty scent of something that had sat uninhabited for too long. Dad frowned as I moved to pick up the camera, but I knew it was time that we saw.

A tiny faded shop in a corner of Diagon Alley had the photos developed for us in a matter of minutes, but we didn't dare look. They sat safely in an envelope, cradled preciously in my arms for an hour until we were all home. Squished together on the couch, I carefully spelled open the seal.

The first picture in the set was the last picture Colin ever took. Spellfire flashed through the photograph, a twisting red, a curling and sickly yellow, the occasional ominous green. The picture had obviously been taken whilst running; there was a slight blurring to each face that Colin would have never allowed if he had been paying attention. We had to watch the photograph loop through a number of times before we had gathered every little detail of its last moment. A pretty round face, marred with fear and blood, an arm wrapped protectively around herself, the other side of the frame was a horrifying splash of green in that instant.

It showed the horrifying picture of how Colin had died. My mother quickly fled the room, and my father chased after her. I sat transfixed, unable to look away. I fiddled with the photographs for a minute before flipping to the next one.

There was a sick sort of harmony to the next photo, the witches and wizards caught battling in its looping frames seemed more like dancers. Leaping elegantly, spinning swiftly, ducking, diving, and dodging with stunning grace. Even the lights flashing across the scene seemed to move as though directed by expert choreography. Only Colin could have captured a ballet out of chaos.

I flip to the next photograph. It's sickening, the Hogwarts grounds are littered in bodies, and even in this one picture, a brief captured piece of time, two more fall. I don't want to see any more of this madness, but transfixed, I flip to the next image.

It was clearly taken at the beginning of the fight; an impressive glow of protective wards shimmer. Then under the bombardment of hundreds of Death Eaters, the wards spread too thin and crumble.

Four photographs of the Battle of Hogwarts, the only four likely in existence. Yet they seemed like so few. A mere four pictures from the three hours of battle that Colin lived to see.

This should be the end of the pictures, but it's not. So I flip on to the next, suddenly the pictures are of Christmas, one with mum, one with dad, a picture of Colin and I. I'm about to put the packet down when I catch a glimpse of the last. Two people lying side by side in the snow, they're sporting cheerful grins despite the chilled flush to their cheeks. The first is my brother, and the other is a girl from Hogwarts based on her Hufflepuff scarf. Guilt wells up as I realize my inability to recall her name. Surely if she'd been friends with Colin, I should know her too. I pluck out the family photos from Christmas, leaving them on the end table I bring the rest back upstairs to Colin's room. They'll have to remain a mystery for another day.

After that, I forgot about the pictures, the camera, and my brother's dusty room for a few months. Life went on; I went back to my job at Flourish and Blotts. Stacking shelves and selling school books wasn't a particularly interesting job, especially not for a former Gryffindor. We were all expected to run off and get auror jobs and the like, but after the war… I just wanted something peaceful.

It wasn't until months later that I thought of the pictures again. It came about in a rather peculiar way; I had been stacking shelves in the children's section when I saw her. She was holding the hand of a little boy, apparently her son. So many children had been born in the aftermath of the war, the wizarding population had skyrocketed in recent years. I thought nothing of her oddly familiar face, she had likely been at Hogwarts around the same time, perhaps a few years older.

She lingered in the store a few minutes, talking quietly to her son and picking out a few books. When she made her way past me to the counter I stared after her, a soft perfume, I should know it. I shoved my thoughts aside and began stacking the arithmancy books in their places. My curious gaze followed them on the way out of the store, they had only just crossed the threshold when the puzzle fell into place.

She was Alice Tolipan, Hufflepuff, Colin's age. She was the girl from the picture, in the snow. I dropped the books with a loud 'thump' on the floor and quickly ran after her. "Alice,…" I called feebly, but she didn't hear over the roar of Diagon Alley "Alice!" a bit more urgently, I slowed down as her head turned searchingly. "Alice." I breathed, stopping at her side. "Why didn't you tell me you knew Colin?"

She looked up at me, a soft lilting smile lighting her features, "You had your own grief to manage, I didn't want to bother you."

"It wouldn't have been a bother." I scurry to assure her, but honestly, she's likely right. I frown, "I'm sorry, I should have looked at the pictures sooner, I would have recognized you more readily."

"It's alright, I'm sure it must have been very painful to."

I nodded, and suddenly I felt like a fool, chasing her out of the store with nothing to say. "Uh, sorry," I step back, "I shouldn't have bothered..." I had only just glanced down at her son. He was a bit too old to have been born 9 months after the war, more like 2 or 3. It was the blonde bouncing curls that made me pause, a crooked upturned nose that was painfully familiar to me. The boys thin spindly fingers, so like my own, fiddled nervously on a camera, and my world stopped.

"Oh." My legs went out from under me and I collapsed roughly on the cobblestone, my knees 'clacked' as they hit the ground. The first picture rushed back to me, "a pretty round face, marred with fear and blood" Alice's pretty round face. "An arm wrapped protectively around herself", protecting the baby. The horrible flashing of green light, obviously on path to hit Alice, but something got in the way. Someone. "Nng-" my voice cracked as I stared up at her.

"I'm so sorry I never said anything." She blinked to no avail, a few tears leaked down. "I didn't want to bother your family."

"You're not a bother," I assured her, this time honestly, "My parents would love to meet you. You both."

Alice came to my parents' home on a Saturday, and introduced us all to Colin Richard Tolipan, "It was a bit of a surprise," She blushed, "Initially I thought of… termin- but I couldn't do it, and I'm so glad." No more explanation was needed, they were family now.