We never thought about the Run. It just happened, a day like any other summer day where we - the four mauraders - would run up the hill and back down the hill. There was a hill overlooking the Potter mansion, and in our animagus forms it was great fun for us. Remus sometimes came along in a stumbling jog when he could, but mostly he sat down by the tree near the river and read his books.
The Run made us a tight network - a fighting trio, with Remus as back up so maybe qaudrio - and that would be useful come the war with Voldemort, say lalala.
Lalala has never been a phrase so commonly used until quite recently, when Professor Albus Dumbledore made it the incantation of a very famous duelling spell he used against Voldemort one night, and such a funny spell it was too. Maybe I will tell you about it one day. But anyways lalala is used frequently and often for a great many things, like "Oh lalala," when you made a mistake or "You stupid lalala," to call someone a moron, "Let us have a lalala," to have sex with someone, "Did you lalala yet?", did you orgasm? And so on, and so on.
Voldemort's a dark wizard, say lalala, always has been, a subtle monster hiding behind a mask - Tom Riddle. Savage and brutal, completely hideous and evil. This was Mr. Hyde, undiluted, concentrated in a single form - the dark mark. Whenever I saw that in my work as an auror I thought only a single thing: Mr. Hyde's at it again.
Muggle story books were a great way to pass the time when Lily and I went into hiding with dear little Harry - The Boy Who Reflected - named such when he destroyed Lord Voldemort and himself when he got struck with and reflected back a killing curse, supposedly unblockable. The baby has died. The baby has died. Three booms of the canon, hail the new baby. Can a Fallen King be crowned once again? No. Make way for new things, new times, a new era, a new King. Voldemort was that King. He took control.
There can be no replacements for dear Harry. So we did not try. Lily drifted apart. She started to have lalala with Severus Snape. I hate Severus Snape, and so we did not - could not - spend time with each other. Lily lost herself in the world, leaving I bereft of her company in my time of silent and cold stoney mourning. Our lalala was broken, perhaps forever.
The Run kept me sane, kept me alive when Voldemort resseructed himself. Of course now one was lost, Peter. "I am no traitor," says Peter. But you are a traitor, you are. If only I knew it then, back when, maybe Harry, dear Harry, would still be alive. Unfortunately and fortunately for Peter, I did not know. Could not know. Ever naivve and trusting, was James, James Potter of the Potter House, seated at the Wizengamot - why? - for a full time career as a respectable pureblood.
It was during the run, with Serios in his doggy dog costume and Remus with his book that I - a stag/wild stag - decided it would be nice to take a furious leaping run into the air and up through the leafy canopy of the short trees by the river. I ran into a field leaving Sirius behind. The berries growing there were delicious, red delicious, looked as crimson as blood, as Voldemort's eyes. It was then I remembered suddenly the memory of the night Harry died and my joy halted suddenly, utterly. I resumed my human shape and cried. The tears were hot and salty, and ancient, as ancient as the day I was born. It was the second time I remember crying. The first when a rabid squirrel ripped through my favorite broomstick when I was six.
I looked at the sky with wet eyes. The sky looked back a swirl of cloudy grey.
Then I got an idea, a marvellous idea, to take down Lord Voldemort once and for all.
I dusted myself off and thought, hit the road, Jack, baby's coming back.