Colin loved to take pictures and carried his little Wizdak camera around with him every place. Being a very small boy, this tended to result in many pictures of legs and feet. Nonetheless he was proud of his pictures and put them in a book labeled 'A Study of Wizarding Shoe and Pants Fashion'. His Mummy said that was a fine Ravenclaw like name. His Daddy just smiled at him, looking like he was remembering something.

Having filled his current book, Colin was hunting around his house for some more paper or a new binder (he didn't much care which). Having wiggled into a corner of the basement he found an old tatty box labeled 'Effects of Colin Creevey'.

Little Colin found this odd. Granted, he found many things in his house odd (his favorite being the curtains that tried to eat random people) but this stuck him as odder than normal. After all he was Colin Creevey, and the things in the box couldn't belong to him, they were all too big!

After rooting around in the box for a bit, he was about to give up, but then saw a wonderful looking binder. It had a funny picture of four animals on a shield on the cover, and it had his name on it too! But when he opened it, it was full of the most wonderful pictures!

There were a lot of pictures of this one boy with messy hair and a giant man standing next to another little boy who must be using the giant man's coat. There were a few pictures of a really old guy with a long beard who kept trying to give him candy and another of a scowling man with black hair. He also found a lot of pictures of all these people with red hair, a lot of which had the messy hair boy and a girl with bushy hair in them too. He even found one picture of a blond man and his blond son, but they didn't look very nice. Then there were a few of a man in tatty brown robes, another man with a wonky eye, and a funny looking woman whose hair kept changing! A woman all in tartan was on the next few pages. The last few pictures were of this boy who was always with plants and an odd blond girl who looked sort of lost..

Fascinated he took the book with him as he went back upstairs. Finding his daddy he took the book over to him and tugged on his hand.

"Daddy, why does this book have my name on it? I don't remember taking these pictures! And who are all these people anyways?"

His father looked down at the book, stunned for a moment. Gently he turned the pages, smiling at some pictures and scowling at others. When he got to the end of the book he picked Colin up and placed him on his knee, reopening the book to the first page.

"Well, once upon a time, before the war..."


A/N: For the icons that were inspired by this ficlet, please visit "http : / /myene-01. livejournal. com/tag /once+upon+a+time+-+before+the+war..."

A/N: Other stories by me can be found at my LJ under myene 01, at any of the Sycophant Hex archives, the fanfiction .net archives, and at the hpfandom .net archives. At and at My LJ will have all my fics, the other archives are spotty.