Smile

“He would have wanted you to have this, dear.”

It didn’t really require much thinking to go through the motions of receiving the dull black item from her father’s hands. In fact it was almost an automatic action, or at least it was until a thought occurred to her.

The camera that had once appeared to be shiny and onyx colored had now lost its glorious luster. This was probably because the camera had been separated from its beloved owner. This camera, this darling Polaroid camera had probably been one of the last things her brother would ever get to hold within his lively and ultimately tiny little hands. Her delicate fingers ghosted over the exterior of her younger sibling’s most prized possession. Once a new wave of tears began to drip from her puffy, baby blue eyes she became startled. The camera now clutched in her hands had meant a lot to him and she would be damned if it got even the slightest bit ruined by the splash of the salty, overemotional tears she was unable to control.

“Freda,” Her father called softly as he quietly removed the hat of his milkman uniform from his graying head of hair. Slowly but surely she allowed her gaze to drift from the camera to the man that had helped bring her brother into this world, but much like herself was unable to prohibit him from going out of it.

“As always, these are also for you, although I dare say he’d taken a – a great many more for you than usual.” Slowly but surely, her father managed to shove a pile of slightly dirtied Polaroid pictures into his daughter’s arms, right beside the camera. Much to Freda’s dismay, at the top of the pile there existed an animated picture of a defiant looking, “boy who survived” or whatever it was that the male of her brother’s obsessions was so endearingly referred to as. However, the fact that it was a picture of that Henry Potter wasn’t what was eerily concerting to Freda; rather it was the messy scrawl at the bottom of the frame that caused her to burst into a brand new wave of tears and heart-wrenching sobs.

Fred,
Harry’s back! It’s going to be okay now. So, you don’t have to worry. Just smile. It’s very photogenic, you know.
Love, Colin~