It's the final day of Hogwarts for the Marauders. They have had seven years together with the castle as a home. Now, as they say their farewells and eat their last feast together at Hogwarts, the four friends reminisce about old times. Through the good and the bad, through discovering Remus's lycanthropy to finally dating Lily Evans. And then, as they board the Hogwarts Express, they realize that this is goodbye forever to Hogwarts and the final end of the group - the family - known as the Marauders.
Goodbye, My Friends...
Remus Lupin generally didn't sleep in. As it was, he was wondering why he was still in bed with his eyes closed. He briefly considered getting up but then dismissed it as a bad idea; his bed was rather comfortable.
Of course, Sirius had to have another idea. He illustrated this idea by jumping up and down on Remus's bed. Eventually, he got off. Just as Remus was beginning to think that his nuisance of a friend had gone from his comfy bed, he felt hot, stinky dog breath against his cheek, accompanied by three good-natured licks and a very loud bark right next to Remus's sensitive ear. The werewolf leapt out of his bed with a yelp and spun around to see Sirius, in his human form once more, laughing.
Remus aimed a pillow at his head, which the dog Animagi easily dodged, thanks to seven years of practice. Remus shot a glare at Sirius. "Why'd you have to wake me up?" he asked grumpily, flopping onto his bed. Srius shrugged.
"Figured I'd do it one last time."
Remus sat bolt upright, a look of shock on his face. "What!"
Sirius gave a humorless laugh. "What, has Moony forgotten? Caught up in N.E.W.T.'s again?"
"Those are over, Pads." Remus said, looking at his friend warily. "So why, 'one last time'?" Sirius looked at him, his gray eyes filled half with sadness, half with laughter.
"Today's our last day, Moony." he said. Remus looked at his friend and he remembered. He had been so stressed out over N.E.W.T.'s that he had completely forgotten the last day he would be in Hogwarts as a student. The two friends sat for a while in silence, both lost in thought; then Sirius got a glint in his eye.
"However, I'm sure that the infamous Marauders won't be leaving without a last prank." Remus glanced at one of his best friends and shook his head, though he was grinning. He clambered out of bed again. Stretching, he surveyed the room. "Prongsie still sleeping?" he asked. Sirius nodded.
"Figured he'd want both of us to wake him up, it being the last day and all." he said, also clambering off Remus's bed and stretching.
"How do we do it this time?" Remus asked, surveying James's lumped up form. Sirius shrugged.
"Fireworks?"
"Nah, that was last week."
"Oh yeah...hm...avalanche of snoballs?"
"I like the way you think, Pads!" The seventeen-year-olds whipped out their wands and walked over to James's bed.
"Time to wake up, my little Prongsie!" cooed Sirius in a mock-sweet voice. They raised their wands and were about to cast the spell when...
A note fluttered down from the ceiling. Remus snatched it up. It read:
"Joke's on you!
-Jimmy"
"Oh, no..." Remus moaned. Just as Sirius opened his mouth to ask what, an avalanche of brightly colored crushed ice rained down on the two boys. As they struggled out, they say James in a raincoat, sitting atop the pile as though he were King of the World.
Just as Sirius and Remus began to launch complaints and threats at the black-haired boy, the door swung open. They turned and saw Lily Evans leaning on the doorway both eyebrows raised.
"I'm not even going to ask," she said, shaking her head. "You boys have no hope."
"Come on, Lils! They were gonna do it to me!" said James. Lily laughed. Sirius and Remus exchanged glances that clearly said "Stupid love-birds." Walking past them, Lily smacked them both upside the head. Ignoring their cries of complaint she trudged up the tiny mountain and sat on James's lap. Where they promptly began snogging.
"Oh come on! You two are going to get married, save it for then!" cried Sirius, stalking into the bathroom to leave the site of such mushy lovey-dovey people. Lily grinned. "Have you told them yet?'
"No," James replied, also grinning. They looked at Remus, who was staring thoughtfully at the bathroom door.
"You know," he finally said, "I don't get why he acts so disgusted when he's actually been in that situation with half the girls in the school."
James nodded. Remus looked at them. "You were saying something along the lines of, 'Have you told them yet?', Lily?" Lily smiled and held out her hand for Remus. He took one look and gasped.
"Aw, man! We missed the proposal!" he cried, glaring at James, who grinnned sheepishly and shrugged.
"It was spur of the moment." Remus looked at him, eyebrow up.
"And you just happened to have a diamond ring with you?"
James blushed.
Somehow I always knew that someday we would part.
With final hugs and tears, a hole now in my heart.
Somehow they all made it down to breakfast without further incident (at least, Sirius said they did; what had happened with the suit of armor and the fifth floor balcony was an epidemic) to find Peter eating at the Hufflepuff table, talking to a sixth-year girl. Seeing them, he rose, told her good-bye, and came over to sit with them.
"Who's your girlfriend, Wormtail?" asked a grinning Sirius. Now it was Peter's turn to blush.
"She's not my girlfriend, Padfoot!" he said, turning pinker by the second. SIrius and James exchanged a "yeah, right" look, before almost literally stuffing their faces into the dishes of bacon and eggs and french toast. Everyone in the seventh year ate slowly, savoring their food, as they would be leaving about an hour after breakfast.
"My mom's cooking is good," said James, looking down at his food, "but nothing compares with Hogwarts." Remus got a look in his eyes.
"Do you remember the feast the year we came to Hogwarts/" he asked. James suddenly shook with silent laughter as Sirius glowered at him. Peter giggled, while Lily just looked confused.
"Shall we explain for you fiancee, Prongs?" asked Remus. James, who was having trouble breathing, nodded and waved a hand for Remus to tell on.
First Year, Start-of-Term Feast
Sirius looked expectantly at the golden platters, waiting for the food to rise. As it did, he pounced upon it, piling steak after steak and chicken leg after chicken leg onto his plate. James, Remus, and Peter stared wide-eyed as he began to dig in. All along the Gryffindor table, students were standing up to look at the one person in the Hall who had not heard Dumbledore's previous announcement. He glanced up at their faces, half amused, half pitiying.
"Whaarh?" he asked somehow, between all the steak.
"Didn't you hear the announcement?" Remus whispered. Sirius shook his head. Remus rolled his eyes.
"The Slytherin seventh years...before the feast, they rode their brooms here and seasoned all the food with Cayenne pepper. Dumbledore told us not to eat any food that came up." said James. Remus glared at him for some unknown reason, and James shrugged. Sirius spat it out and siezed a gallon of pumpkin juice.
"Um, Sirius? James has something he'd like to tell you..." Remus said hesitantly. Sirius waved his hand.
"They put a Hair-Growing Solution in all the drinks."
Sirius choked as hair spouted in a thick beard from his face. The other three grinned as laughter filled the hall.
Sirius was a lovely shade of tomato-red by now, and James was turning blue from lack of air. Sirius had begun to choke him in the middle of the story. Lily leaned across the table and swatted Sirius hard over the head with a textbook.
"You're killing my fiancee." she said matter-of-factly.
We may see each other every day, but it won't be the same.
Friends who had fun and laughed at the jokes, even when they were lame.
The group lounged in the Gryffindor common room after breakfast, reminiscing about their pranks, Lily occasionally putting in an outsider's view.
"Do you remember when we turned Snivellus's hair lime green for three months and none of the teachers could fx it?" Sirius burst out. James nodded, laughing.
"In all honesty, he looked like he was a part of some weird religious cult," Lily piped up. Peter giggled.
"And then there was that time during O.W.L.'s..." Remus began,
"And we bewitched the parchment to catch fire as soon as the essay was done?" Sirius said, wiping away a fake tear of laughter. "Except for our own and Lily's, of course."
James grinned. "I knew she was gonna marry me. I wasn't going to make her take it over again!"
"And that time when we put itching powder in McGonagal's underclothes..."
"I wondered about that..." mused Lily. James let out a snort of amusement. They all fell silent, lost in memories.
"The Express should be pulling in any time now..." Lily said quietly. Remus and Sirius nodded mutely; James didn't show that he'd heard her. After a few more tense moments of silence, James spoke up.
"Do you think it'll be the same? Again, I mean?"
"The same as what?" asked Peter. "We'll still see each other often, won't we?"
"Yeah, we will...But I mean, the same as now. I mean, it's almost like we're leaving a part of ourselves behind." he said thoughtfully. Remus nodded.
"I don't think it will, Prongs. These seven years have been wonderful. But...we'll never relive them. When we step onto that train, they're gone forever..."
There was silence, and than Professor McGonagal's magically magnified voice:
"All seventh year students please report to the train station. All seventh year students. The Hogwarts Express has arrived, your bags are loaded. Thank you."
Now these good times have gone away, taken on the breeze,
Homework done beside the lake under the shade of trees.
Lily had already boarded the train to find her other friends; most of the other students had already boarded. The platform was bare except for the four Marauders. They stood facing the school.
"I can't believe we're never coming back..." Remus half-whispered. Sirius nodded. Peter gave something that sounded like a sniff.
"We'll see it again, though...we'll see each other..." James said, almost as if he was trying to convince himself that it wasn't that big of a deal.
"So? The world is different, Prongs; we can change. That new Dark Lord is rising...who knows what's gonna happen?" Remus said. Melancholy was draped over the group.
"Ah, this so called Dark Lord will probably fade out soon." said Peter.
"Yeah," said James, "and maybe me and Lily'll have a kid..."
"Getting a little ahead of yourself there, Prongsie, old pal." said Sirius with a chuckle. They laughed for a short moment and then stopped.
"But...we should show that we...that all this happened..." said Remus. "A final memento for posterity." The others nodded.
"An inscription!" Peter suddenly exclaimed. The other exchanged thoughts for how it would read.
"Goodbye, sweet school?"
"Nah, too...Shakespearian."
"'Parting is such sweet sorrow?'...Nahh..."
Remus's head suddenly jerked up. "I know!" he exclaimed. And he knew that the others knew that it would be right too. He extracted his wand and wrote in the concrete:
WE WERE HERE.
We walked these grounds
We shared these memories.
And now we say goodbye forever.
Goodbye, Hogwarts.
This period of our lives is over,
And a new day is coming.
Farewell.
Hold our memory forever.
-Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs
The Marauders
As I look back I remember, sunny days now so far gone.
Laughing, eating, having fun, games out on the lawn.
Remus Lupin walked quietly through the halls of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. He opened the door to his dingy room and bent over his old bag, searching for something he needed so, so badly right now. He found it. Pulling it out of the bag, he hurried quietly out of his room and up the stair until he reached Sirius's room. Hesitating slightly before opening the door, he went in and sat down on Sirius's old iron mattress.
He looked at the paper he had clutched in his hand. Four seventeen-year-old boys stood there, standing in front of an inscription, arms over each others shoulders, each blissfully unaware of the cruel world that awaited them. He ran a finger over their laughing faces lightly.
So many years have passed...and so many things have changed. From innocence to evil, from happy to sad, from human to soul, from life to death...so much has gone wrong...so much death. And now I am the last faithful Marauder. Sirius is gone; the real Sirius was gone in Azkaban. James has gone as well; and Peter is...no longer faithful.
Now it's me alone. And after I'm gone, all that will remain of the Marauders is a cloak, a shack, a piece of parchment...and words in stone.
He watched, smiling sadly, as the handsome youthful Sirius nudged him, a happy Remus, in the ribs, making him laugh.
Never again will those days be relived, they are now long past.
Yet they live on in memory, something that will last.
But is memory forever? Sometimes Remus wondered. Memories faded as time wore on. Their clarity dulled, the reality gone. Did this really happen? Did we really exist?
Remus looked back down at the picture.
An inscription in stone: WE WERE HERE.
Let's hope that we'll forever remain best friends to the end.
Because without those days, together once more, I don't think it could mend.
Now my heart is torn in two as I turn away forever.
These days will not be lived again, never turn back, never.
Memory only goes so far, and so I now learn
That it is for those sunny day that I do so yearn.
But they are gone now, and so are we.
Split by betrayal and death...
A tear fell onto the picture. Tear after tear after tear, until the picture was placed carefully on a bedside table. Remus lay down upon Sirius's old bed and cried himself to sleep.
He dreamed of James and Sirius and Wormtail and himself, their final day at Hogwarts.
"That's absolutely brilliant, Moony!"
"Amazing!"
"No one will forget us now...no one can erase us!"
The only proof that we lived on this Earth together...
Remus's eyes snapped open. He stood, and with a swirl of his robes, he apparated to the front gate of Hogwarts. He slowly walked to the train station, oblivious of the ominous black clouds and lightning which now blocked the sun. A chilly wind swept his hair across his face, but he paid it no mind, for he had reached his destination: the deserted train station.
He approached the spot. There the inscription was, a little faded and worn, but still undeniably there. Remus re-wrote all the words, tracing them with magic, deepening the grooves. And he began to write underneath it.
Is an inscription in stone...
He stood back and surveyed his work. He gave a small sad smile and turned his face upwards to the heavens as the sky broke and began to mourn for Sirius.
WE WERE HERE.
We walked these grounds
We shared these memories.
And now we say goodbye forever.
Goodbye, Hogwarts.
This period of our lives is over,
And a new day is coming.
Farewell.
Hold our memory forever.
-Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs
The Marauders
And though memory has faded,
And death has claimed its prize,
And once-friends have turned traitor,
And our lives are filled with lies,
I'll live on for the rest of them,
And fight until the last,
And teardrops fall like diamond gem,
Remembering the past.
Goodbye, Prongs.
Goodbye, Padfoot.
I'll make sure you stay alive
In my heart.
The Last Marauder
Moony