Amicus Recordatio
A man jumped over the low, white picket fence, looked around for any other person that may be there aside from him, and, not seeing any, proceeded to pick his way through the dry, overgrown weeds and tall grass that choked the front yard. Around the building, varying sizes of rock and brick lay charred. He stopped at the worn welcome mat at the front door and shoved his matted, unkempt hair away from his eyes.
He blew into his hands. With the end of November came chillier days. Sleet had already lain a thin film on the parched ground, and the trees around the house, if you could call it that, had already shed their leaves. He looked around. The white fence was chipped and was turning gray at the parts wherein the moldy wood was exposed. Dead branches and weeds littered the walkway from the gate to the door. Inside the house, a dirty lace curtain fluttered in the wind sadly. As far as he knew, only one room had survived being torched to rubble. The place, all in all, looked bleak, dead and extremely gray.
He stepped across the space where the front door should have been. Bits of the heavy oak still hung on the bottommost rusty hinge, which creaked when he brushed against it, and oak splinters were strewn on the ground, blackened from the fire. Spotting something poking from under burnt bits of the ceiling, he bent down and pulled out the dirty tassel. He sighed. This place evoked too much memories.
Flashback:
"Oi prongs, we'd better be down there in ten minutes or McGonagall'll skin us alive!" More sounds of retching and sickening splattering sounds answered him.
Remus sighed beside him. "I told you not to let him have too much to drink last night."
"Oh come on, Moony," said Sirius, clapping Remus on the back. "Graduation party. Everyone's doing it."
"Aren't Graduation parties supposed to come after the Graduation?" asked Peter, his face crumpled into its familiar confused look.
"You're not helping with the cause, Wormtail," said a gurgly voice from the Boy's Dormitories, stairs. James staggered down the last remaining steps, all the while clutching the handrail tightly.
He winced. "My bloody head hurts like hell."
"Tsk, tsk Jamesey, watch your language," said Sirius, snickering into his hand at his friend's hung over state. "I hope you didn't put such filthy words into your Grad speech, which, by the way, is due in about two minutes."
It took a few seconds for James' Firewhiskey ridden mind to process what Sirius had told him but when he did; "WHAT!?!"
Remus, Peter, and Sirius all dashed to the portrait hole, but James just fell flat on his face behind them. Remus, being the kindhearted soul that he was, and finally taking pity on his friend, went back and pushed a vial filled with purple liquid into James' hand. "Here, Hang-Over Potion."
"Awwww, Remmy," Sirius whined as they ran towards their Graduation Ceremony, which was being held halfway across the castle from where they were. "You spoil all the fun. I was sooooo looking forward to James making a fool out of himself."
They arrived five minutes late for the crermony.
End Flashback.
Sirius chuckled to himself, still holding the dusty Graduation tassel. The Marauders. Him, James, Peter and Remus. Look at where they were now. He had just escaped from Azkaban, Peter was a Death Eater, Remus was still being continuously shunned from the community and James… well, James was dead. He still remembered discussing his plans for the future with his fellow Marauders, how he had planned and dreamed of someday being the best beater that the Chudley Cannons team or the world, had ever seen. He would have never thought that his life would someday end up like this.
He went to the master's bedroom where James and Lily had slept. That was the sole room that looked even remotely like one. He entered, and stared up at the huge, gaping hole where the ceiling had been. After all these tears, no one had even bothered to come down here and clean the place up a bit. Dead branches and decaying leaves were scattered in piles around the room. Weather and time had washed away all color and that room, like the rest of the house, looked grey.
He crunched his way through piles of leaves and rubble to a faded wooden drawer which Lily had carefully stenciled pansies on. The only trace of the flowers were pale, purplish stains on the mahogany surface. On the drawer, behind a thick branch that had fallen off a tree from outside was a little tarnished silver picture frame. A cold wind gusted through the windows and the place where the ceiling was missing. Pieces of brick, wood and plaster pebbled the inside of the room.
He held the frame up to the watery sunlight and wiped the grimy glass cover with his sleeve. It was a Muggle picture, unmoving and white with mold at the corners and edges. Lily and James were in it. The picture was taken the day they moved in, and the Lily and James in the picture were happy and smiling, so unlike his last memory of them, wherein they had been cold, lifeless and staring. They looked so carefree and light, so untroubled by the terrible fate that was about to meet them. Those two, Sirius knew, really loved each other.
Flashback:
Sirius snickered and motioned for Remus and Peter to follow him.
"Sirius," said Remus worriedly. "I don't really think we should-"
"Oh, put a cork in it Moony," said Sirius. "It's not against the rules, but snogging in a corner after curfew is. We just want to help poor, overworked Remmy with his Prefect duties, don't we, Pete?" he said, nudging Peter.
"Y-yeah, what Padfoot said."
Remus rolled his eyes.
"Okay," said Sirius, after walking in silence for a few minutes. "This is where James said they would meet in the note, right?" asked Sirius, stopping in front of a broom cupboard.
"Honestly Padfoot, you're so nosy."
"Why do you think I'm a dog then, Moony?"
Little rustling sounds from inside the cupboard startled the two out of their argument. Sirius pressed a finger to his lips, then he suddenly turned the knob and yanked the door open.
"Aha!" exclaimed Sirius, pointing at James and Lily, who looked like two deer caught in a headlight.
"Snogging in public now, aren't we Mr. Potter and Ms. Evans? I'm afraid I'm going to have to give you a ticket."
"What the hell's a ticket going to be much use for, Padfoot?"
"Oh James, James, James. You naïve pureblood you," said Sirius, shaking his head. "Come out of there and don't ever let me catch you doing such an… an abhorring act again."
Remus snorted beside him.
Sirius whirled around. "What was that, Mr. Lupin? Do you have something to say to me? Huh?"
Remus looked up at him in mock fearfulness. "N-no Mr. New-girlfriend-every-two-days sir."
"Why you little-"
A slurping sound made them look back to the darkened broom cupboard where James and Lily were at it again.
End Flashback.
Sirius put the frame back on the drawer, where the wind eventually toppled it back onto its side. He looked at James' happy smiling face again. Funny, he thought, how life seemed so short for those people who deserved it and so long for those who didn't. He shoved his hands into his pockets and exited the room.
The frosty wind was biting at his ears and at the exposed parts of his face, and his breath started appearing as little clouds of pale fog. He went into a room and remembered it to be the kitchen. The blue and yellow tiles that had paneled the wall now lay as a fine powder scattered on the stones and rubble. Here too, leaves and sticks had accumulated messily. The only remainder of walls were jagged pieces of cement coming out from the ground.
He remembered how he used to steal the cookies that Lily would make especially for James. He would sneak in from the back and levitate the cookies from where they rested on the countertop. Eventually though, he was caught.
Flashback:
Sirius lifted the window up carefully and pushed the yellow curtains aside. He checked again to make sure that James and Lily were in their room. He cackled to himself, pleased that he, Sirius Black, had thought of such a clever plan. He pushed the curtains further apart and breathed deeply. Ahhh… chocolate chunk and macadamia. His favorite.
Suddenly, the lights in the kitchen went on, with Sirius caught in mid-sniff and James by the light switch, his arms crossed and a vein throbbing in his temple. "Is that how you have been stealing my cookies then, Padfoot? By inhaling them?"
"Heh heh. Prongs, come on, were buddies right? You wouldn't hurt me for er, borrowing some measly cookies…right?"
"Measly cookies? Measly cookies?"
"Okay Prongs, don't go all crazy on me now."
"Those were MY COOKIES!" James said, thumping himself on the chest. "And you ate ALL of them!"
"James?" floated in Lily's voice from their bedroom. "What's all that racket about?"
James turned around to answer Lily and Sirius immediately seized the opportunity. He levitated the plate of cookies to the window and ran off, stuffing the cookies into his mouth as fast as he could.
End Flashback.
A little bit of the countertop still jutted out from the linoleum floor. Like the wall, it used to be paneled with yellow and blue tiles. All that was left of Lily's baking oven was a heap of twisted metal, and, Sirius thought that even if it weren't destroyed, there would be no Lily to bake macadamia chocolate cookies in them and no James to steal the cookies from.
When he was still in Hogwarts, he had imagined the Marauders to go on forever, passing their legacy of prank pulling from generation to generation. It had all seemed very… possible then, back when they were young. At Hogwarts, everything seemed to go right, or the way they had wanted it to go. The world was at their fingertips.
He caught his reflection in one of the cracked, frosted windowpanes and sighed. His hair was matted and hung over his eyes. His face was gaunt, and his cheek bones jutted out from his sunken face. His skin was thin, papery, pale and had a slightly grayish tinge from all those years in a dank Azkaban jail cell. His eyes, which used to be brimming with optimism and cheek were dark and vacant, although they remained the trademark stormy gray of the Black family.
He went to the place where the fireplace still, fortunately, was standing. He dusted off a piece of ground and sat down, hugging his knees close to his body.
He breathed deeply and watched the fog appear, then disappear. Disappear. Just like his life's worth. Just like everything important to him. Just like his friends. Just like Lily. Just like James.