Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THE LYRICS TO THE INCLUDED SONG OR THE HARRY POTTER SERIES. I only own the characters of Liv, Els, Val, Rose, and Cyd. The song was written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and the Harry Potter series was written by JK Rowling, so they own most of this story.
A/N: This little one shot came to my mind when I was listening to a gorgeous acapella arrangement of The Long and Winding Road. The original recording of this song as sung by the Beatles is wonderful, but the haunting melody and pure naked sound of the arrangement that the group at my school performed sent me into this piece: a study of the journey that those left behind by Lily and James' deaths would have had to take in order to get by in the aftermath. And so here is the result. I used the characters that I created for my big Lily James fic, but that has yet to be really posted so I guess I should explain the parts of the situation that I created:
"Liv" is Remus' longtime girlfriend, a daughter of a pure blood family from which she was disowned for her continued involvement with a certain muggle born werewolf. When Harry is about 9, her brother, who has gone crazy from grief over their father's recent death, blames Liv for driving their father to death, and kills her and himself in a moment of hysteria. At Hogwarts, she remained a dear friend of purebloods Peter, James, and Sirius, and was easily spotted with her striking brown hair in a 60s flip.
"Els" is another dear friend of the Marauders. She is also a pure blood, and grew up with James, Sirius, Peter, and Liv. The only part of her story that matter in this particular fic are that she is so bent by grief over the deaths of her dear friends that she determines immediately to hide from it all, and that she and her family disappear into the muggle world with no clear intention of reestablishing ties to her past. She is also furious that Dumbledore insisted on sending Harry to the Dursleys, being convinced that despite any "character building' that might occur there, he would be better off in a loving home with herself or one of the other remaining Marauders. In the end, she comes around when news of Voldemort's return gets to her and she is begged to come to back and help the cause. Her daughter is Rose, a redheaded replica of Lily Potter.
"Val" is the 4th of the female companions of the Marauders. She was the long time lover and recent fiancée of Sirius when he was taken, and was with him on the night of the murder, thus knowing his innocence. Unfortunately, she was also pregnant at that time, and her involvement with the convict was known widely enough to make her testimony seem biased, so o matter ho hard she tried to fight for his release, no good came of it all. Her child is "Cyd", a pretty little thing, and technically the last of the Black Family line, although only by blood and not marriage, (and even if she had been legitimate, her mother's blood would have kept her from being recognized by the family anyway…)
I think that's all you need to know to understand this fic. If you have any questions, just review and I'll try to get back to you. Enjoy.
The Long and Winding Road
The long and winding road
That leads to your door
Will never disappear
I've seen that road before
It always leads me here
Lead me to your door
A lone figure stood at the end of the walkway. Before him stood a small unplottable cottage, silent as death and just as sad. Two nights earlier several of the man's friends had wandered into the building on a worried whim, and had found their entire worlds shattered across the cottage floor. By the following morning evening, their group of eight had lost three to death, one to prison, and another to fear, leaving behind only three sad souls to pick up the pieces. The years of constant fear had taken their toll on the two remaining young witches and their wizard companion, but nothing had prepared them for the shock of such a loss. For the two intervening days, words had been at a surprising minimum, having been replaced with an abundance of soul-searching that blurred the fine line between justified sadness and overwhelming self-pity.
And so, there sat Hogwarts favorite werewolf, staring blindly up at his best friends' house, trying desperately to banish the horrid truths from his mind. Lily and James were dead, and Peter had been brutally murdered in their wake. Els had turned her back on them all out of fear and grief, planning to hide from her past forever in the safety of the Muggle world. And Sirius…there was the one hitch in the conclusiveness of it all; Remus didn't know what to believe. His whole being knew that Sirius had been the betrayer, except for one tiny little segment of his conscience which kept defending the overall plausibility of Val's tale. For the sake of closure, they had come to an agreement: Val needed all the help she could get from her friends, and Remus didn't want to deprive her of his aid out of grudging uncertainty, so he would do his best to help Val, agreeing to a makeshift "gag rule" on the subject. Both were rational adults, and all that was required to keep peace was simple understanding.
As he sat at the end of the walk, Remus began to think ahead. Everything was going to change, bringing a confluence of uncertainty and grief that none of them had every imagined, and he wasn't sure he knew how to move on. He knew how much he needed to carry on, how many people needed him to do so; Liv needed him, this child would need him, and Val would as well, however brave she always seemed. This was a new kind of loss that one of them ad ever experienced, and even the strongest among them would prove susceptible to the pain of it all. They knew the past would never leave them. The only thing to do was to try to keep on living.
The wild and windy night
That the rain washed away
Has left a pool of tears
Crying for the day
Why leave me standing here
Let me know the way
It had been a terrible night, full of fear and hunger and animal instinct, but Remus Lupin had grown used to it all. It had been eight years since his evening companions had been ripped from his side, and that lonely feeling had become altogether quite routine. As he lay in the soft grass, letting the newly rising sun warm his face, the usual flood of memories hit him.
They had all changed drastically in the years since Voldemort's fall, growing up and learning to find every possible scrap of optimism to calm the ever-questioning Cyd. Once, Remus and Liv had simply been a cute and happy couple within a group of eight or so friends, the quietest of the bunch and often the steadiest. Now, they were the godparents to a lovely little fatherless girl, and had forged and unending bond with the unlikeliest of the group. No one who had known the Marauders at Hogwarts would have ever guessed that Remus Lupin and Liv Brown would have ever spoken with Val Livingston after graduation, but thanks to a mutual friend and a mutual tragedy, they had come together and created a flawless partnership that was raising Cyd beautifully.
Remus awoke with a start. He had only dozed off for a few minutes, but his mind had had enough time to wander to a certain Halloween eight years earlier. This was not an uncommon occurrence for any of the three remaining Marauders. Any time the mind was left to its own devices, it would find its way back to Godric's Hollow and that horrifying image of the limp form of James Potter lying at the base of the stairs. Over time, that night, along with all the memories of Lily and James that had been accumulated over the years, had become no more than an illusion, a foggy suggestion of a memory, an empty feeling that had found a home at the back of the mind.
Remus got up. He couldn't sit there any longer letting the stream of unhappy memories overtake him. He needed to go home and relieve Liv of her unfailing worry as he had done every month since she had discovered his secret back in 5th year. He lingered only a moment to lose himself in the sunrise, having no idea that when he arrived at home, he would find his love shattered forever.
Many times I've been alone
And many times I've cried
Anyway you'll never know
The many ways I've tried
But still they lead me back
To the long, winding road
You left me standing
here
A long, long time ago
Don't leave me waiting here
Lead me to your door
The gentle rocking and jolting of the train was enough to make a man sick. Remus had not remembered this, not having tried to feign sleep on the train to Hogwarts in order to avoiding awkward conversation since his first year. The sick anxiety churning through his heart was in no way helpful either. Even just that slight thought about his first express ride had sent him whirling through seven years' memories. He didn't even want to think about what it was going to be like to wander the halls and grounds again if he was already woeful in thinking about it. He expected the usual combination that he had come to identify with Liv: an initial rush of happy memories followed rather quickly by the realization that most of the members of those memories had disappeared from the natural world. It was not the most pleasant juxtaposition to experience on a daily basis. Needless to say, it was taking a great toll on all of them, and Remus knew that Hogwarts was home not only to hundreds of these "initially happy memories", but also to a living, breathing imprint of those memories. Remus had not yet met the boy that had so effortlessly destroyed his life, but it was inevitable now. He was going to have to face it. Whatever animosity Remus felt should rightly be aimed at the actual murderer, not the surviving bystander for whom the victims had been killed. And truthfully, most of Remus' being was curious to meet the boy. So much had been said about him over the 12 years since his orphanhood had begun, and everyone was eager to know just how much of it was true. As Val had pointed out, it was time for them to assess if Els had been correct to complain or if Dumbledore's mild wisdom had again persevered. Remus genuinely suspected the latter; any son of James' would generate courage from such a household situation, and any son of Lily's would certainly deal in humility.
He tried to push his mind to another topic, but as usual, he failed to find his way out of the melancholy reminiscence. The topic he chose to distract himself with was that of Sirius' escape, an issue about which he didn't know what to think. For so long, Remus had been able to avoid making a real decision as far as his beliefs regarding Sirius, but soon he would have to take a side. Between the situation with Sirius and that with Harry, Remus felt utterly overwhelmed with uncertainty for the future, and it was beginning to worry him.
As he brooded, Remus began to hear voices chatting excitedly about the year to come, having been woken slightly from his reverie by a sharp whistle within the compartment. Hearing the sounds around him, he felt as if he had been plopped right back into a September 1st some 20 years earlier. He was hearing the usual banter of his old friends within his head, the kind of conversations where summer stories are retold and schedules are discussed with mixed anticipation and anxiety. However, Remus became increasingly aware of the oddly serious tone of the conversation that the occupants of his compartment were having. These students were discussing topics far too relevant than should be the worry of such young people, he thought with despair, but perhaps that was the way with war; once a tyrant begins a reign, the demeanor of the world has to change, and even with the coming of his fall, it would take time for the world to heal.
As the afternoon wore on, the tone of the room stayed constant. It seemed that whatever had been discussed earlier was so worrisome to the students that no matter what frivolity they thought of later, it remained a constant and terrible truth to be applied to every word. Remus remained "asleep" through the events of the children, lost in his own grief and euphoric memories. It would not be until the premature postponement of arrival later in the afternoon that the newly appointed professor would begin his job, when he would both connect with his students and defend them against the dark arts.
But still they lead me back
To the long, winding road
You left me standing
here
A long, long time ago
Don't leave me waiting here
Lead me to your door
The broken stillness of the night was as eerie as ever. Through the mist, Remus could see the four figures in front of him wandering slowly and tentatively toward the still building in the distance. In all the years since its unexpected vacancy, the house had lost all of its warmth, but in the quiet of the ghostly night, the memories blew back through the dark like and angry wind, leaving the remaining friends in a state of familiar regret. Every year on the same night, the little sleepy town at the bottom had been alive with spooky Halloween excitement, completely ignorant to the ceremonies of mourning occurring just up the hill. The members of the party would very, but in 16 years, the house at Godric's Hollow had never been left alone on the last night of October. This year was no different. The group would be unusually large for this, the 16th evening of remembrance, including three of the original octet, their two young daughters, and some combination of a golden trio, just recently released from the clutches of formal education.
Up the path, the shortest of the group began to falter. None were particularly surprised by this, so when she collapsed on the grass, eight sturdy hands were ready in moments to comfort and calm their mourning friend, and soon the group continued carefully across the lawn toward the empty house. Once there, the two young girls paid their solemn respects, and wandered some way off to allow their mothers and uncle to find peace together. Left alone, the trio began their usual ritual, an open discussion of favorite memories sprinkled with laughter, tears, and the general sarcasm and fun of old friends. The experience had been renewed each year mostly for the cleansing effect that it had upon the participants, as well as the obvious homage that was paid to the fallen comrades of the past. The house would fill with the liberated and united spirits of the four distant friends, and leave those on the grass with the joyful revitalization of their memory.
Some time into the night, two more figures were to be found joining the group on the hill. On third of this "Golden Hogwarts Trio" was unable to join in the ceremonies, being stuck with his twin brothers on an important assignment. Had it not been for the sudden illness of another of the Order of the Phoenix, the young redhead would have gladly made the group an even eight, but as it was, his two friends had come alone, paid their respectful regrets to the mourning adults at the house, and made themselves comfortable getting to know the two young American girls with whom they had only recently become acquainted.
Contrary to the beliefs of the mourners, it seems that the full octet was "completed" that night. On the path sat the three adults, Elsbeth, Valerie, and Remus, the last living members of Hogwarts' most memorable pranksters. Some way off sat four young people, shadows of their elder counterparts: a sweet young thing with wavy red locks; the last in a long line of Blacks; a strong, proud boy by the name of Potter; and a smart little witch with a bold brown coiffeur and a longstanding friendship with several boys. To the naked eye, this would seem only seven, but the outcasted must never be forgotten: the rat in the shadows, watching his old friends from the nearby wood, and shivering in the cold.