Dedicated to my friend Caroline on her birthday, 9/14/2000.
Once, on a golden day, the last day of August, three friends sat on a green hill as white clouds soared past in the brilliant blue sky. One looked a bit wan but was laughing as much as the other two.
After a pause, the topic they had been avoiding all this morning was brought up at last.
"So… it'll never be the same again, will it?"
"Don't have any idea what you're talking about, Remus," Sirius said firmly. "Just because you're going off to teach at that school doesn't mean we're finished. We'll be there next full moon."
"But it can't be the same," Remus said stubbornly. "I've got my job, you've got yours… James, you're marrying Lily soon."
"Not for months," James said lazily, rolling over onto his stomach. "And even then I'll be joining you. She understands."
"Look, we didn't become Animagi to spend two years with you and then forget it," Sirius put in. "Even if Peter can't always make it, well, we don't need him so much now, there's no Whomping Willow to get past here."
"He'll be here next time," James reminded them. "Just like old times."
"Old times." Sirius rolled his eyes. "You'd think we were thirty years old or something."
'Thirty." Remus laughed. "I never really thought I'd get there… or want to, not after I was bitten."
"Of course you will, Moony." Sirius grinned at him. "No doubt you'll last longer than any of the rest of us."
"Yeah… where will we be, in fifteen years or so?" James asked, yawning.
"Dead of old age?" Sirius asked facetiously.
"Oh, no." Remus grinned. "You'll never die of old age, Sirius, you'll smash up on that motorbike of yours, or challenge someone to a duel and lose."
"Me lose a duel?" Sirius looked insulted. "Come on! But I know where Prongs will be, he'll be Minister of Magic by then."
"Minister of Magic?" James sat up, a shocked expression on his face. "Sirius, I always knew you were crazy!"
"No, I mean it," Sirius insisted. "Come on, you'll be Minister of Magic in ten years for certain."
"I hope not," James said, laughing. "Besides, old Crouch will be the next Minister, you know that. I'm about as likely for the job as – as that idiot Cornelius Fudge." They laughed together at that thought.
"It could happen," Remus remarked after they'd stopped laughing. "If Voldemort doesn't…"
"Voldemort will be gone soon," Sirius said confidently. "We've got Dumbledore on our side, right? And now that we're graduated and helping, he'll be through before you know it."
"I hope so," James agreed. "I don't want my kids growing up in a world where Voldemort has any kind of power."
"Oh, thinking about kids already?" Sirius looked amazed. "You're not even married yet, Prongs. Aren't you being a little ahead of yourself?"
"Still, we've got to think about what it'll really be like in fifteen years," Remus insisted. "We're not students anymore, we're adults, and we have to face reality. Voldemort isn't just going to go away when we show up, you know. He's getting more powerful all the time."
"I know." James sighed. "Did you hear about the Boneses yesterday? All dead, except for John. You know, that Hufflepuff two years ahead of us."
"I remember him," Remus said. "Terrible thing to happen to anyone."
"But it's not going to happen to us," Sirius said confidently after a moment, grinning and banishing the specter that loomed over them. "And come on, this isn't a day for being miserable. We're supposed to be having a good time. Why don't I get my bike and I'll race you two on brooms?"
"Sirius, we can't do that, there's a Muggle village right over the hill… they'd see you for certain." James yawned. "Besides, you know I'm having my broom repaired."
"Well, let's do something," Sirius insisted….
The long golden afternoon sloped into blue dusk, and the friends still stayed together, wandering all over the hills and ignoring various 'no trespassing' signs gleefully. The moon, no longer quite full, rose, and the stars began to appear in the warm evening sky.
"Should we go back now?" Remus asked at last. "It's getting late."
"So?" Sirius grinned. "Got somewhere to go tomorrow? Oh, but of course, you do." He turned to James. "I think this would be an appropriate time for us to go to my house."
"Why?" Remus asked warily. "What are you up to?"
"Nothing bad," James assured his friend. "Why don't we go now then?" In an instant, the three friends vanished and reappeared some miles away.
"So what's going on?" Remus insisted.
"Hold on a minute." Sirius turned on the lights and disappeared upstairs. He came back down lugging a suitcase. Setting it on the table, he stood back and grinned at Remus.
"Now you won't have to take your school trunk… you don't want to look like one of your students, do you?"
Remus stared at it; it bore shiny letters saying 'Professor R. J. Lupin' neatly across the top.
"Thanks," he said at last. Somehow this was more than just a suitcase to him. For the first time he really realized that he was a professor now. It was a rather terrifying feeling, yet it was what he'd wanted for a long time.
"And," James said, stepping forward and handing him a jar, "Floo Powder. Just in case this school of yours is like Hogwarts and you can't Apparate out for our adventures."
"Thank you both," Remus said. "And – just thank you." He couldn't seem to find the words he really wanted to say. "For – for being my friend."
"No, thank you," Sirius laughed. "I mean, who else would have put up with James and me… particularly him."
"Hey!" James protested, laughing. "But you're right… Marauders Forever!"
"Forever," Sirius and Remus agreed, and the three shook hands in the peculiar three-hand manner they'd developed years ago.
It was a dark night, with a rumble of distant thunder in the air, a night without stars. A lone man stood beside a pile of boards and bricks that had once been a home. He fancied he could hear, in the distance, the sound of people celebrating, and wondered if he was the only wizard in the world who mourned tonight.
James and Lily were dead. Their bodies had been carried from the rubble hours before, and little Harry taken to safety before that. Remus didn't know where the boy was now. Probably on his way to his relatives' house. Remus shuddered at the thought of the dreadful Muggles abusing the poor, orphaned boy. But there was no one else for him now. He knew he couldn't take the child; he hadn't even had the courage to find Dumbledore and ask. He didn't think he could take another blow today. Not after James and Lily, and Peter – and Sirius. How – but he turned his thoughts firmly from that track.
"Better if Sirius had died too," he said aloud. "He is dead, after all, or might as well be. Azkaban…" He shuddered at the thought. He'd been there once, just as every Hogwarts seventh-year had, and that had been enough. The thought of devilish, carefree Sirius in the hands of Dementors was horrifying. But the thought of what Sirius had done was worse.
They'd thought they had forever, hadn't they? They'd been wrong.
"So we'll go no more a-roving, so late into the night, though the heart be still as loving and the moon be still as bright." That had been one of Lily's favorite poems. And now he knew what it meant. The Marauders were gone now; he was the only one left. There would be no more adventures, no more near escapes. That was all gone.
He looked up at the sky; a strong wind had blown apart the cloud cover and for a moment he could see the shining moon, still bright, and hated it more than he ever had before. It reminded him of wonderful times, and that they too were gone, just as his friends were. Where were they now? Could Lily's good sense help her now? Could James' brilliant mind do any good? Could Sirius' laughter get him out of Azkaban? And would he ever see any of them again? They had been his only friends, they had taken him in when no one else would have. He had loved them all, he still did, but they were all gone now. Only he was left. It seemed wrong that he was here and they weren't. If Remus had been given a chance to make it the other way, for it to be he who was dead and they still living, he'd have taken it without a moment's hesitation.
He remembered then the night that Sirius and James had told him they knew what he was and didn't care, how James had told him how they'd been suspicious and Sirius cracking a joke about it. That had always been Sirius' way of getting rid of problems; laugh at them. Remus had heard that when the Ministry had caught up to him, after he killed Peter and the Muggles, he'd been laughing. Had he laughed when he told his master where his friends who had trusted him with their lives were hiding? Had he secretly laughed when he saw James' body? Or had he, perhaps, realized what he'd done and mourned for James and Lily? Remus didn't know which would have been worse.
How brave Peter had been to face Sirius. Remus knew that he himself would have done the same, if he'd been in that situation, would have faced down Sirius and accused him, demanded an explanation, tried to kill him – and been killed; Sirius had always been a wonderful dueler, and he himself was nowhere near as good.
And James… the leader of their gang. And his lovely Lily, together in death as in life. Remus hoped that somewhere, even now, the two were together; it would have been unbearably cruel to separate them as he was separated from them.
Remus saw something glinting amid the rubble; he stooped and found a crumpled and dirty photograph of the four of them, the Marauders. He vaguely remembered the picture being taken in his fifth year at Hogwarts. The people in it were happy and laughing, Sirius grinning what Lily had called his 'doggie grin' when she'd learned their secret, Peter with a look of rapture on his face at being with his idols, James wearing his customary warm smile. And he, Remus, smiling. He knew his face had seen too few smiles in his life, and he felt now that it might never see one again. The reasons for smiles were gone now. He started to crumple the photograph, then stopped, considered, and placed it in his pocket gently. We'll go no more a-roving rang in his head again and again.
The clouds closed up again and it began to rain. His own tears mingled with the drops on his face unnoticed. He stood there a long time.
Author's Note: JKR owns the characters in this story. The quote is from a poem by Lord Byron that I ran across in a book of poetry and that stuck in my head. Thanks to all my friends for teaching me enough about friendship that I could write this story, Caroline most certainly not least. (Actually, none of you least; no one's last in a circle…). You all mean a lot to me.