Disclaimer: As much as I'd enjoy it I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters, they belong to one J.K Rowling who in my opinion is one of the best authors… ever, she's brilliant.

There Was A Time When Life Was Normal

Summary: After the battle and Voldemort's defeat Harry finds some old home movies once played it gives him a sense that there was a time when life was normal.

CHAPTER ONE: FINDING A HIDDEN TREASURE

It was a year since the battle and after Voldemort had finally been defeated, life was as normal as it could be all things considered, everyone had regained some form of routine. Harry had done his best to move on, he'd done it but it was all still a blur for him, where to go, what to do, after all he couldn't just live with the Weasley's for the rest of his life. He'd ventured to Grimuald Place one evening in the summer of 1998 and decided to clean the place up so he could stay there. It had taken him a few days to fully get the house spick and span, he'd removed the house elves from the wall and put the portrait of Mrs. Black away where he'd forget about it and he'd repaired the wall paper back to its original state.

One room stayed untouched until the very last, the plaque on the door hung loosely but it still read the same; Sirius. Harry walked through the door on the Friday afternoon and began restoring the room to normal, once he'd finished the walls and such he moved onto the floor, he picked up a dusty rug and shook the dust from its woollen fibers. He was about to put it back when he noticed what looked like a trap door, his curiosity got the best of him as he reached for the handle to pull the door up. Under the door was a small compartment, inside was a stack of photos, a large silver box with the initials J.D.P and a few old looking letters. Reaching in Harry slowly pulled the contents out to look at them.

There were seven pictures in the stack all of them muggle photos; one was of four boys: Sirius stood out in the middle with a dark hair boy, James Potter, to Sirius' right stood Remus Lupin and to James' left stood Peter Pettigrew. The second picture was of a man and a woman with a large black dog in a top hat beside the man: James and Lily with 'Padfoot' on the Potter's wedding day. The third was of James and Lily again but in James' arms was a small baby with a smile on his face one that barely rivalled that of his parents. The fourth was a picture of Sirius with baby Harry pulling his hair but despite the hair pulling he wore a huge smile on his face. The fifth was of Harry and Lily beside the Christmas tree in 1980. The sixth picture was one of three young men: James, Sirius and Remus. The final picture was of James and Lily while Remus stood to the side laughing with Harry in his arms; James had on his head a large orange pumpkin with a hole in the bottom where his neck started. The last one was labelled; 'Halloween 1981: James the Headless Marauder.

Harry was silent while looking through the pictures but the whole time there was a small smile on his face, he was happy that there was some reminder that his parents had once laughed, how could he be sad really knowing that his time with them had been one with smiles. He moved onto the letters next one was addressed to 'Padfoot' he pulled the letter out of the already opened envelope and saw a messy scrawl on the heavy parchment. With that he began reading slowly;

Dear Padfoot,

I've been sat at my desk for an hour now, thinking of how I can write something to explain exactly what I need to, needless to say it isn't as easy as I thought it would have been. We've all heard it a thousand times now I know but we are in dark times aren't we? Lily and I can't help but feel a little… off, it's October now and Autumn has set in but it means nothing too significant these days, Harry is the only thing that's keeping Lily and I sane.

It all leads me to be writing this letter to you right now, I've known you for ten years now and I trust you with my life that if something were to happen to Lily and I, Harry would have somewhere to go in times of need, just make sure he knows how this all came to be. We've left the old home movies for him, for when he's older, feel free to watch them yourself, relive the memories and all that jazz. It's hard for me to be writing this letter honestly, it's as if this is good bye…

If this is goodbye Padfoot just know that the years you and I had as friends, as brothers even were some of the best, remember them, they'll make great stories one day.

'I solemnly swear I am up to no good.'

Prongs.

Harry had to smile at the letter his father had written, even though his father knew something bad may have been drawing near he never gave up the loyalty he shared with his friends and family. With a smile he moved onto the second letter addressed 'Harry James Potter'

To our son,

The only circumstance in which you will have received this is in the event that your father and I are no longer with you, the thought alone sadden s us so much .We wanted to leave you something to which gave you a connection to us, this letter being one of the things, the second thing being a silver box, it belonged to your father but he used it to store the home movies we had of our time together. The dates range from 1978 up until around 1981, we hope that when you watch them they bring you happiness and not sadness. Wherever you are now Harry, however old you are we hope you are okay and share a happiness with friends, we don't have the chance to tell you that we love you everyday but please know that we do love you, more than anything no matter what. We're always with you, and Harry, good luck in life we know you'll do great things.

Love,

Mum and Dad

P.S: Give Remus and Sirius our best, we hope they taught you some good things while you grew up.

With a smile and a single tear Harry stood up and grabbed everything in his arms before he apperated to The Burrow. With a small crash he landed in the Weasley's living room causing everyone to run in and give a sigh of relief when they saw it was him. He said a quick 'hello' before running out to Mr. Weasley's shed to look for a projector. After two hours of searching he dragged a dusty projector into the house where everyone gave him a confused look.

"Harry, what are you doing?" Ron asked while he watched Harry pin a white sheet to the wall and dust off the projector.

"I found some old home movies, from when my parents were alive, I knew your dad would have a projector so I brought them here." Harry replied getting up off of the floor and put the projector on top of it and putting the earliest dated reel in. He and Ron went into the kitchen where everyone was sat and after some dinner Harry brought up the movies. Everyone agreed to watch them with him and so they moved into the front room and grabbed a seat and flicked the lights off and set the reel going.

/

"Oh Merlin, I've gone blind!" Sirius' voice cried from behind the camera, the screen was black and you could only hear talking and background noise.

"You left the lens cover on Padfoot." A second voice relied before there was a ton of noise before a hand pulled the cap off to show a room decorated for Halloween. Two young men were sat in arm chairs one had sandy coloured hair and a tired expression and the second was thin with black messy hair and round glasses; Remus Lupin and James Potter.

"Oh there we go, okay so one of you two come up with like an introduction or something. Like they do on the muggle news. Prongsie, you do it."

"Okay let me think of something." James replied ruffling his hair and adjusting his costume robes. "Welcome to Home Movies Marauder style. As you cans see it's Halloween, it's 1978 and we're going to a party at Lily's tonight."

"A-and tell the camera what you're going as." Sirius laughed making the camera shake.

"I'm going as a werewolf see." James laughed standing up and twirling in shabby looking robes.

"Explain it a little bit, because you're not hairy, nor do you look like a werewolf."

"Right so, seen as only family is going to see this anyways, I'm going as Moony here, so hence forth I am a werewolf, just not transformed."

"Fairly smart right Moony?"

"It's smart for James, I have to give him that." Remus laughed watching his friends face fall.

"Smart for James, pft, and you call yourself my friend whatever Moony." James said spinning on his heels and walking out of the room to the front door.

"He is such a drama queen. Moony who's at the door?"

"Take a guess, I'll give you a clue, the name is that of a flower."

"Daisy, no wait, Tulip, no no, Pansy, no wait! Got it! Lily-Flower, is that you?" Sirius called out standing up and walking with the camera to the door to see James and Lily talking, James with a blush on his face. "Ah the love doves, just get married and have a couple hundred kids already would you? I'm tired of the 'Awh I love you' 'No I love you.'"

"Bugger off Sirius we do not sound like that." Lily said with a laughed. "Anyways are you all ready? The car's out front."

"Front seat!" Sirius and James yelled at the same time both of them bolting out of the door to the car, the camera shot shaking with Sirius' strides. James being a little bit faster made it to the car faster and jumped in the front seat laughing at Sirius from behind the window.

"Lilyy I called it! I called front seat and James took it!" Sirius whined much to Lily and Remus' amusement.

"Get in the car Sirius, James beat you to the seat, you can have it on the way home." She laughed getting in the driver's seat and starting the engine. "Oh and Sirius, why don't you just turn that off for a little while, then you could actually film later too."

"Oh, good point, thanks Lily-Flower." The camera turned off and the screen went dark for a minute before turning back on to reveal a front room filled with jack-o-lanterns and sweets. Not to mention people, Lily, James and Sirius were sat on the couch so Harry and the group assumed Remus was holding the camera.

"So James, let the people watching know what happened, oh around an hour ago." Remus' voice said from behind the camera, a tone of excitement colouring his words. The camera moved to focus more on Lily and James both of which looked happier than they ever had.

"Well I asked Lily here to marry me." James said proudly to the camera his hazel eyes holding a twinkle of excitement.

"And I'm guessing she said yes?" Sirius asked with a bored sounding tone.

"Well actually she said no but hell I'm not giving up." James replied nonchalantly.

"You said no? What the hell Lily!" Sirius exclaimed the camera jolting just before James cracked up laughing, the corners of his eyes crinkling up and tears streaming from his eyes.

"She said yes you prat." He laughed getting words in slowly.

"You absolute arse James! I believed you and… and well I just can't look at you right now, you're supposed to be my friend."

"And you're supposed to be a Marauder Padfoot, take a joke." Remus laughed taking the camera from Sirius and turning it towards himself. "As for this video, the dog almost used all of the tape. So I suppose that's all for now."

The camera cut off and the screen went blank and Harry reached over to flick the projector off while everyone turned to gauge his reaction to seeing his parents, hearing them and all.

"There's around eight or so more reels if anyone's interested in watching the rest of them with me?" was all he said while everyone watched with a look of disbelief before turning to everyone else and nodding.

"We'd love to watch the rest with you Harry so long as they're not you know making you uncomfortable or… sad or anything." Hermione said from beside him making Harry roll his eyes.

"They're making me feel the total opposite to sad Hermione, there they are you know my parents and Sirius even Lupin. It just makes me feel better knowing there was a time when life was normal, you know what I mean? It's easier knowing that they were all happy when they were alive."

"Then that settles it doesn't it, on to the next reel it is." George grinned helping Harry change the reel over before sitting down again.

This chapter is obviously short, and it's not as funny as I hope some of the future chapters will be this is just a trial chapter, I'd really like it if the people who read this will review just to let me know what they think, what I can do to improve, what they'd like to see and everything like that, even if it's an anonymous review that's fine.

I will try to reply to all my reviews I've been slacking on that recently and so it truly would mean a lot to me to see what you think. It motivates me to write more when I know people like it, plus I get things done quicker with motivation.