Whispers in Time

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"Do I really look that beautiful?"

"Always."

Five:

During my fourth year, I began to realize that I had spent three years wasting my talents. I had always had a knack for art - a certain art, mind you - but wasted it on idealizing admiration of one person or another. When fourth year started I realized that I needed to rethink what direction my art should take. I spent two weeks wondering what I should do with my talent before it hit me like a house elf on speed. I was going to catch moments and never let them go.

I began small: Quidditch matches, Hogsmeade weekends, and Friday nights in the common room. I was poised and ready with one hand on my camera and the other on the wall. My moments came out perfect, caught on a roll of black and white forever.

I soon realized that small wouldn't cut it; my thirst for life in a still frame drove me to new things. I began using Almost Muggle Selective Color Film. Many people found my pictures boring, stationary as they were, but I found something very...elegant about them. I could hold each frame in my hand and, using the grayscale, drain the color from whatever part of the picture I wanted.

My real problem was finding subjects who would ignore my presence. I spent hours perfecting the way I walked and moved. I began to speak less and much calmer, I'm sure I was being quieter, too. It wasn't long before people would jump when I talked, exclaiming that they had not known I was there. I even managed to sneak up on my brother once or twice.

Now that I could go anywhere and catch any moment, the world was wider and freer than I could have imagined. As a teenager, I knew exactly where my mind lay; I took hundreds of pictures, each of different girls at the school.

It was a Saturday morning, if I remember correctly, when I came upon a most beautiful image. Ginny Weasley. She was in a yellow skirt and a white shirt underneath her school robes; her vibrant red hair was plaited and tied up with black, silk ribbons. She was sitting on the window-ledge with one leg tucked up under her and one dangling over the edge; a blue journal was just barely visible in her lap. As if that wasn't enough, she had her arm propped up on the window bar and was absently stroking her lips with her index and middle fingers. Something about her complete innocence screamed out, "Corrupt me!" in the most alluring voice I could imagine ever hearing. While I wouldn't walk up to her face and do so, corrupt her I would.

I steadied my camera and adjusted the focus of the lenses. I waited until she let her head lean back just so...and then I snapped the picture as quickly as my fingers would move. I took another picture, then another, and another, and another. When my roll, which was fresh when I first saw her, was used up I quickly made my way back to my room to develop my artwork.

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As the year went by, I continued with my almost frantic need to capture beauty with my shutter. I continued to shoot anyone or anything I found picturesque, but it was becoming very self-evident that the more pictures I took, the majority were of Ginny Weasley. I could not explain it, but she made me feel inspired as no other subject could. It was not as though she was the prettiest girl at school; no, she was average at best, but something about her was intoxicating.

My hidden profession was coming along very nicely, as was my year. I felt that I would never reach sixteen, though my birthday was only some months away. It was a sunny afternoon, Friday, and classes were out for the weekend. I ran up to my dorm to begin developing my fourth roll of the week. When I got inside I found the men's common empty, not a rare occurrence, but definitely appreciated. I sprinted my way to the sixth year rooms, excited to develop the roll.

I stopped dead inside the room. There was Ginny, sitting on the edge of my bed, holding some of my pictures, the top drawer of my nightstand open. Her outfit, pink and white, matched the innocence I saw on her face when she turned to look at me over her shoulder

"I...I was not aware that you had been taking pictures so much, Colin." Her voice was soft and chaste, giving away no emotion. I came to sit next to her on the bed. In her hand she was holding a picture I had taken of her earlier in the year. She was laughing, as she did frequently, her arms spread wide trying to catch the falling snow in her hands. Her hair was flying around her; she had been spinning, I remember, laughing and spinning and glowing. I had drained the color of everything but her eyes, her beautiful eyes; it was one of my favorite pictures. "Colin?" she asked tentatively.

"Yes?" I felt my throat dry and my voice cracked.

"Do I really look that beautiful?" It was said wistfully, with the slightest smile.

I looked at her. "Always."

She smiled thoughtfully. "Colin?"

"Yes?"

"I am not interested in you in a romantic fashion, you know?" She said it sweetly, almost as an apology.

"I understand, Ginny." The words forced themselves from my throat. I cannot say that I was not disappointed, but I did not feel very hurt; I had no illusions about us.

"Colin?" she asked again.

"Yes." It was barely a whisper.

Breathlessly: "Your pictures, they...make me feel beautiful. They make me feel like a princess; you make me feel like a princess. May I kiss you?"

I smiled; Ginny Weasely may not like me, may not love me, but I was ready to give her what she asked, to corrupt her perfection. After all, I was feeling inspired.

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