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Feel what you feel and let it go. It was Astoria's mantra, and she was convinced that the more that she said it, the more that it might actually become true.
She wasn't going to deny that she had feelings for the Gryffindor boy, though she had never and would never admit that aloud. No-one would ever ask her about her feelings though because no-one knew that she even knew that he existed, which was the way that it was meant to be. If her sister or her sister's friends knew that she had feelings for a Gryffindor, let alone a Gryffindor Muggle born, then they would blow a fuse.
So while Astoria wanted to make sure that she felt the things that flooded though her, she also knew that for the sake of her own mental health while still at Hogwarts, and for the sake of her family name, she had to push her feelings away.
She had joined the photography club in her fourth year when the boy had started it though. She told herself it was because she wanted to capture the fleeting moments in life, but underneath it all, she knew that that was not the truth. It did, however, allow her to get closer to him and that wasn't something that she was going to argue with.
Colin taught her to take photos, both muggle and magical, though she didn't dare tell anyone that she sort of preferred to take muggle ones. There was just something beautiful about being able to completely freeze a moment.
But Astoria's favourite thing to do was to take photos of the Creevey boy. He was always the one behind the camera, so she doubted that there were that many pictures of him. To begin with it had just been a secret mission of hers to take as many pictures of him as possible before he noticed, but after a while she had found that those pictures were the most beautiful pictures that she had ever taken.
When she had found out that Colin died in the Battle of Hogwarts, Astoria had gathered up every single photo that she had ever taken of him - not that she had to look far as she kept them all in a box under her bed. She went through them and lovingly stuck every single one into a scrapbook, making sure to use muggle glue rather than a sticking charm so that she would be able to give it to it's intended recipient.
Each page was slightly stained by her tears but she couldn't help that. The Gryffindor had been a good friend to her, and it hurt to know that she would never be able to speak to him again, that she would never be able to ask him for advice, that she would never be able to get one of his squeezy hugs.
The last photo in her box was the first photo that she had ever taken of him. She stared at it for a long time before realising that she couldn't part with that one. She couldn't give up all of her memories of Colin. She would continue to feel what she felt but there was no way that she could completely let him go.
And maybe that was the way that it was meant to be. They were called memories for a reason, after all, because you were meant to remember them.
Colin's father and brother would now have an album full of memories as well. She couldn't give them Colin back, but she could give them this.