URGENT! Next chapter I will be changing the title to A Shadow of Memories. So please keep that in mind next time you go to find my story.

Ok this is chapter four! I must say that I'm very proud of this chapter because it is the longest one I have written yet. This chapter didn't get uploaded for a while cos I ended up righting a little bit for later on in the story because the moment just caught me! I'd just like to say thanks to themidnightangel for her 2 new reviews, thank you so much for sticking with my story, I really appreciate it. PLEASE review if you are reading this cos it will mean a lot to me and I will praise u and review your fanfic if u have one. ~*~ mysticaldreams

Chapter 4: Awaking memories

.....A dusty old hallway lay in front of Harry's eyes.

He stepped onto the floorboards, they were covered in several layers of dust carpet and bits of jip rock were scattered everywhere.

There was a small broken table propped against one of the walls and underneath it a picture was lying in a wooden frame.

The glass that protected the photo was cracked and the photo was torn at the corner.

Harry bent down and picked it up delicately.

There were two people in the picture, a man and a woman, they were both smiling warmly up at him, the man had unmistakable black untamed hair and the woman blew a kiss at him, her green eyes sparkling.

Sirius placed his hand on Harry's shoulder and said sadly "they loved you very much Harry".

With that he moved to an opening and stood with his hands on his hips and his feet spread apart.

He was trying to be strong, for Harry's sake.

He hadn't been to this place since the young boy had defeated the Dark Lord and the two most best of friends he had ever had were murdered.

He stood there, pondering for a while until his thoughts were shattered by a thump and groan from upstairs.

Harry quickly pocketed the photo he had been staring at of his mother and father and ran over to Sirius.

"What was that" he asked?

"I'll go up and check" Sirius said.

Harry walked through the living room and up the stairs after Sirius.

He stopped in front of one of three rooms and signaled for Harry to wait.

He walked into the room slowly, but with ease.

Harry then heard a cry, then a laugh of joy.

He ran into the room and there, standing before him was no other then Remus Lupin.

"Professor Lupin" Harry cried.

"Oh Harry don't call me that, it sounds so old fashioned, just call me Remus" he said simply, grinning brightly.

Harry and Sirius grinned back.

"But how did you get here? And how did you know we'd be here?" Harry asked confused.

"I apparated of course"

"And you were right on time" said Sirius.

"I invited him Harry, thought we needed some company, it'll give us a chance to catch up"!

Harry looked around the room, gazing here and there.

"Whose room was this" he asked?

"Oh, this was the spare room" Sirius said.

"More like the junk room" Remus put in.

Harry could see that, there was rubble everywhere but even if it was to be cleaned up there would still be boxes and stuff filling every bit of the floor space.

"Sirius believed he needed to keep everything, and sadly his own house got so full up with his junk he had to ask Lilly and James if he could keep it all here".

"It was a hobby" Sirius said innocently.

Remus reached into one of the boxes and pulled out a bundle of chocolate frog cards that looked ancient. Remus's eyebrows rose as he looked at the cards and then to Sirius.

"What? They were my great grandfathers, how could I throw them away?" Sirius said with all sincerity.

"Hoarder" Remus said under his breath as he shook his head.

Sirius and Remus then went into an argument about a flowered vase that his mother had told him to hide so his father wouldn't get angry at her for buying something so expensive.

"It was my duty to keep that safe for her and I've become rather attached to it"

"Yeah that and everything else in the room" Remus said.

Harry had never seen Sirius like this, it was like he was 15 again, he looked so much younger and there was a sparkle in his eyes that had never been there before.

Harry walked into a room that was a short way down the hall and on the other side of the staircase.

This room had a double bed in it and was a lot more damaged then the rest of the house.

He picked his way through the rubble and moth eaten pieces of cloth.

Burnt pieces of parchment lay scattered around the room and the curtain in the window ripped and flapped in the chilled night breeze. Harry thought it looked kind of spooky but was determined to find out as much as he could about his parents from this room that was most likely theirs.

He ran his fingers along a broken oak dressing table that was propped up against the wall, at the very moment he touched it a flash of green light filled his eyes, followed by a scream and then a shout that he could recognize as his own name and, there was a loud CRACK and then it all ended with another flash of blue light.

Harry withdrew his hand from the wood quickly and backed away from the dresser.

He knew what that was, it was his parents.

He massaged his head, trying to calm himself from the shock.

Gathering courage again he touched the rusted, brass handle of a draw connected to the dresser and pulled it open. The whole draw fell out and landed with a thump and crack splitting the wood and scattering the contents all over the floor.

Harry sifted through the many pieces of parchment, many of them were singed in places and the ink was spilled over them. They looked like most of them were reminders or letters from the ministry of magic, others were old photos of friends and it looked like some were of family too, as some of the men in the pictures had Harry and James's trait in hair.

There was one object that stood out against the others, it wasn't burnt or rusted, it was pure silver.

The silver chain sparkled at him as he picked it up carefully. As he held the chain between his fingers he examined it closely. There was a white flower hanging as a pendant on the chain, Harry didn't know much about flowers but it was obvious that this was a lily, because entwined in the petals was a beautifully shaped L.

Harry fingered the lily lovingly, thinking of his mother, who had most likely owned it. He clipped the chain around his neck and put it under his shirt, he needed to keep it safe, he had a feeling his mother would want it to be kept safe. As the pendant touched his skin he had a vision.

A man handed the necklace to Lilly and she grinned and put it around her neck. She then kissed him on the cheek and held his hand.

Harry snapped back to reality as he heard laughs coming from the spare room.

Harry looked around the room at the bend picture frames and peeled wallpaper until something suddenly caught his eye. On the wall there was a slight outline of a golden square. He walked up to the wall and placed his hand inside the outlines. The square moved out of the wall and moved with a loud 'thud' onto the ground.

Sirius and Remus appeared at the doorway.

"What's that"? Asked Sirius

"I don't know" Harry said rather perplexed, "I just touched it and it came out of the wall".

"I don't remember seeing any boxes in the walls before, but hey, this was the house of a Marauder, anything could be hidden in it" Sirius said practically.

"Well let's see what's in it" Remus said brightly.

Harry opened the lid of the dusty brick box and inside revealed and envelope with the name Harry written across it in neat blue ink. Harry picked the envelope up and slowly turned it over to found the back stamped with a waxed P imprint. He opened with some prompting from Sirius and as he pulled the piece of parchment out, gazed at the length at it. His eyes moved straight down to see who it was signed by.

Remus and Sirius lent over his shoulder, also curious of whom it was composed by.

Sirius swore under his breath as their eyes rested on the signatures of Lilly and James.

There was a shocked stunned silence for awhile while they slowly read what the letter had to say.

Dear Harry I was hoping that you would never have to read this letter but I had to write it, just in case anything happened to us.

By now you are probably aware of the existence of a powerful dark wizard called Voldemort, though I do not know if he is still living or dead at this moment while you are reading this letter.

It is very disturbing to be talking about your mother and my death (and seems that it has happened) but it had to be done, considering the spot we have been placed in.

I do not know if you have already been told this Harry but your mother and I were secret Aurors that no one new about but the minister of magic and a group of experienced Aurors that we would work with. This group of Aurors and ourselves were given a very important and dangerous task, we would be the ones to take out Voldemort himself and hopefully succeed. I can only hope that we have done so.

It was a great risk on your and our lives, but we had to Harry, Voldemort killed many people and was in risk of taking over the wizarding world and, after some time the muggle world too.

I want you to understand, Harry that it wasn't an easy decision to make, joining the team to kill Voldemort. We were going to refuse at first, not being able to bear putting you into danger, but I'm sure you will understand that we had to help our people, the wizarding that is us.

I want you to know that we love you Harry, more than anything in the world and that we are very sorry to have to put you through this pain. We both hope that you are living a wonderful life with your godfather; Sirius and that Remus and Peter are there too, keeping an eye on you while you're not at Hogwarts, learning all the wondrous things. I'm sure you're making many friends and getting into lots of mischief. Your mother is looking over my shoulder, slightly frowning and hoping that you don't get up to too much mischief.

Remember, Harry that we will always love you and will always be with you and hope that you are growing to be the loyal and brave boy that we brought you up to be.

Love always, your mother and father, James and Lilly.

Tears welled into Harry's eyes and he turned his head away as he finished the letter. He didn't want Sirius or Remus to see him like this. After what he had seen of his parents a couple of months he had been able to visualize them as alive but now, reading this letter he had come back to reality, realizing that they could never live again.

He walked over to the window on the other side of the room, the letter still clutched in his hand. He placed his hands on the window sill, his head bent against his chest and long black fringe flopping over his eyes.

He couldn't bear the grief of knowing his parents were killed by the very person that they were trying to defeat, and didn't succeed.

His hand clutched the necklace he was wearing and the other went straight to his pocket, groping for his fathers invisibility cloak. Sirius came up behind him and placed the cloak into his hand, giving his Godson a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder before leaving him to think things over.

Harry stood there for a while, silently listening while Remus and Sirius tried to work out how the box had gotten into the wall, and how Harry had found it.

As Harry ran his fingers through his already ruffled hair, they stopped on his scar, tracing the lightning bolt that had left from the dark lord.

Suddenly a burning hatred ran all the way through his body.

Harry's parents were dead because of Voldemort and many families split apart, how could one person be so heartless and thirst for so much power? Why wasn't I brave enough to kill him while I had the chance? Harry thought furiously to himself.

He clutched the window sill even harder now and the damp wood crumbled under his grip.

He looked out of the open window at the stars twinkling at him. A cool breeze played across his face, calming him down. It was so quiet, but very peaceful, he remembered when he had looked at the stars like this, his very first night at Hogwarts and as he took a deep breath the anger that had filled him went away. He left his thoughts there; though how ever hard he tried he could not just make them go away fully. He quickly brushed away his tears, though the despair he was feeling was still written all over his face. He turned around and walked back over to where his two companions were standing.

"You alright"? Remus asked.

Harry gave a weak smile and nodded slightly, not sure himself.

"Well I think there must have been a sensing charm on the box, so when Lilly and James died the box would sense it, therefore show itself because of the charm that has been placed on it" said Remus.

"Then how come Harry is the only one that can see the hole in the wall and the outline of the box"?

"Hmmmmm... It's possible that they put a recognizing charm on it so it was only visible to Harry and when they died".

"Good old Lilly, I bet that was her work, all that time in the Library paid off" Sirius said with a small smile.

Suddenly a questin popped into Harry's head and without hesitation he blurted out "Did you know that my mum and dad were Aurors"?

Sirius and Remus looked at him for a moment, stunned at the sudden burst of curiosity, until finally Sirius said uncomfortably "Well yes, but we weren't supposed to".

"James told us, but is the ministry found out that he did then we'd all have gotten punished" Remus explained fidgeting a little.

"Do you know any of the other people who were to help them take out Voldemort"?

"Well yes" Sirius said "But you don't need to know that" he added quickly.

"Please tell me, I'd like to know"

"Alright" said Sirius sighing, "there was Moody, of course, the Flinders, Arabella Figg, the Glutons and the Longbottoms, there were many more but they are the only ones I can remember".

Harry didn't hear what Sirius had said last, he was too busy thinking of poor Neville and started to curse himself for being so self-centered and thought how terrible it would be if his parents were insane.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The next couple of hours they spent searching through old boxes and draws of things until dawn. Sirius looked out the window and exclaimed about how they must get going otherwise the Dursleys would wake up and get a rude shock, thinking that Harry had run away.

"How are we getting back"? Harry asked.

"We'll have to go by floo powder" Remus said grimly.

"Is the Dursleys's fireplace hooked up to the system"?

"Um I think so because Mr. Weasley hooked it up by the ministry so they could come and pick me up last summer to go to their place" Harry said, smiling slightly at the memory.

"Well we can give it a try at least, we'll only end up somewhere totally different if it's not" Remus said smiling.

"I think it's boarded up though" Harry said thoughtfully.

"Oh, well that doesn't matter, we can just blast it out of the way" Sirius said with a cheeky grin.

Ok everyone, that's it for that chapter and man am I glad it is up! It took me ages to write it and I'm hoping that it wasn't too long a wait. I'd also like to say thanks to my new reviewer crazy-chick (hey livi) and please keep reading cos it's gonna get to Hogwarts soon. Thanks ~*~mysticaldreams

URGENT: Next chapter I will be changing the title to A Shadow of Memories. So please keep that in mind next time you go to find my story.