Closed Snapshot Of Us

[Dhivya Khatri]

Dhivya had known her later years at Hogwarts would be stressful, but she hadn't anticipated just how busy OWL year would keep her. It felt like she had been been pulled in all directions constantly, and hadn't had a second of time for herself. Sixth year would hopefully be a bit of a breather, time for Dhivya to focus on the things she enjoyed. And to her surprise, Accio! had become one of the higher-up entries on that list. Photography was never an interest she had had as a child, signing up to the yearbook had mostly been a whim, but over time Dhivya had grown to look forward to working on it every year.

Over the holidays amidst catching up on all her non-Hogwarts friendships and activities, Dhivya had found herself dreaming up a few ideas for shot compositions in the next issue. As soon as she got back to the castle she had set out to do a few test shots, checking how the backgrounds of different parts of the castle looked under different lighting, hoping she'd be able to get some good photos there when it came time to actually start capturing her classmates. Glad to have access to a darkroom, Dhivya had been able to develop the photos herself and was now waiting to see the result of her efforts, the pictures strung up in a neat line to develop. A sound distracted her from her work and she looked up, grinning as the door opened. "Hey, Elise." She smiled, pleased for the friendly face. "You getting a head start too?"

 

[Elise Ito]

Elise had always struggled to feel present. She much preferred to get lost in her own thoughts and float through life, only stopping to smell the roses when she felt like it. But as her last year of school really got started she felt like she couldn't quite stop being painfully aware of everything. Every day she was extremely conscious of the days ticking down until graduation, and it was starting to get on her nerves. It also made making art difficult and she couldn't quite get anything right. So she figured if she couldn't be creative she'd go get a head start on some of her Accio work. She liked working on the yearbook and having a birds eye view of the school and all that went on through pictures, but the editors never let her have the creative freedom she really wanted. Her pitch to invert all the class photos hadn't gone over well but she thought it would have looked cool and been memorable at least. She sighed but was surprised to find she wasn't the only one who had found their way to the Accio room. "Oh hellooo." she said and let the word drag on. "I guess so." she answered. "Not sure how much I can get done yet but I like to get myself familiar with things ahead of time, so I can mentally plan what I'll need to shoot." she continued and traced her fingers along her work startion and the negatives she had left scattered all over. She liked the look of all thos black and white ghosts looking back at her. "Is that what you're doing?" she asked Dhivya with her head cocked to the side. She had been curious about the younger girl. She never spoke much and always seemed to have a tension to her that Elise could never understand.