Remus Lupin
Severus Snape
Peter Pettigrew
Sirius Black
Lily Evans
James Potter
Once these were just the names a group of eleven year olds wrote on the front of their school books. They became the cast list of a tragedy incredible enough to make the front page.
They made up for a quarter of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry's graduating class of '78 (five courageous Gryffindors and a single sorry Slytherin). The Sorting Hat knew each better than they came to know themselves, and if anybody had asked it how each of them thought they would have died, it could have told them in the plainest of terms; that Remus would want to die standing up for what he believed in and Severus, protecting somebody he loved. Whilst Peter had only wanted to know that somebody was waiting on the other side and Sirius would want to go laughing. However James would have wanted to die locked in fierce battle and Lily would have wanted to live forever as happy as when she was with them.
Ultimately, each was touched by untimely death. They were casualties of war, or rather two separate wars, in which the same enemy wiped out whole generations of some families and left more placing annual bouquets beneath weather beaten headstones. But before all of that they were childhood friends, enemies and lovers; shoulders to cry on, mean right hooks and hands to hold. School taught them the properties of plants, the lifespan of underwater beasts and the antidotes to fatal poisons. Life had lessons too; that the bitterest betrayals had no remedy, that consequences could echo on for decades like the ripples in a lake and that even the shortest lives could leave an indelible mark upon the long history of men. The beautiful miracle in all of it was a child with his mother's eyes and his father's hair. The legacy of the little 'boy who lived' and the man who longed to master death became the only immortality they would ever share.
Though none of it would have been possible without love-paternal, platonic, unrequited and true. But it was a handful of letters heavy with promise which lit a candle beneath their twisted cat's cradle...
A/N: This story is from one Marauder to three others, circled by cities and separated by oceans, throwing words at one another; my soul sister and saint Mathilda who never stops telling me that I'm good for something; PrioritiesSorted, the Pre-Raphaelite voyager who literally lives in my pocket and the-wolf-and-the-star in the hope that one day soon he'll be on our turf for tea fueled adventures.
A/N: REVIEWS are like smiles from a stranger...a really hot stranger...wearing a 3 piece suit...and tipping his hat.