Ted Lupin looked at the picture in his hand. The edges were yellow with age and his fingerprints were smudged all over it. But the smiling faces were still as wonderful to him as the first time he had ever seen the picture.
He remembered the first time; he was nine years old. He had been at Harry and Ginny's, his real home, and he had been looking around Harry's study. The large mahogany bookcases that lined the room had always amazed Teddy. They held a different kind of magic than he was used to, they were full of history. A history that people would only tell him in parts before deciding that he was just too young to know everything.
A green book with golden lettering caught his eye, the spine read, 'The Marauders by Hermione Granger'. Teddy didn't know that Hermione had written a book. He supposed that it was fiction but somewhere deep in the back of his mind the word marauders triggered something.
He looked around to make sure that Harry wouldn't catch him but he was still at work and Ginny was busy. Teddy pulled the heavy book down and rested it on his lap. The dark green cover was hard and sturdy under his hands and he spent some time just looking at the way the light flickered off of the golden words.
He opened the book and studied the first page.
Hello,
My name is Harry Potter. I'm sure that you all have heard my story but there is a story that was immensely influential in my story that is over looked.
In this book you will find that story, it is a story of bravery, betrayal, loyalty, friendship and most importantly love.
This is the story of Peter Pettigrew, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and James Potter, the marauders.
Remus Lupin that was his father's name. His middle and last names too. Teddy thought of how little he knew about his parents. Mainly all he knew was their names, Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks. He knew that his mother was a metamorphagus like him and her parents were Ted, who he was named for and Andromeda who was raising him.
He also knew how his parents died. They were killed in the Battle of Hogwarts, fighting to make a better world for him to live in, or that's what Harry always told him.
Harry was the only one who would talk about his parents but it was only ever to tell Teddy to walk tall and be proud of whom his parents were because they were amazing people.
He took a deep breath and turned the page. He read quickly his eyes flying over the page, absorbing as much as possibly out of the words. His father had been best friends with the other men, Harry had mentioned. They had met at Hogwarts and been inseparable. They had eventually nicknamed themselves the marauders and had wild adventures. Teddy was able to get to the middle of the book. He had to stop.
His father had been a werewolf. A werewolf who had friends who loved him enough to go through the painful process of becoming animagi so that he wouldn't be alone in his darkest hour. His father had been a Hogwarts prefect, too. Teddy had learned more about his father in the past two hours than he had in the past nine years.
He took another deep breath and turned the page. It only had three words printed on it. 'Life after Hogwarts.' He turned the page again and read on.
He felt his eyes grow wide and his jaw drop as he read about what happened to James and Lily Potter, what had made Harry famous in the beginning. No one had ever told him and reading it now made him terribly sad to think that his father lost one of his best friends in such a terrible way. Teddy thought about it, he now was more like Harry than he ever knew before. They both were left orphaned at a very young age.
He wanted to talk to Harry about this but he needed to keep reading. Teddy Lupin needed to know about this group called the marauders like he needed air because they were the only link he had to the parents he had never known.
As he read on his hope was dashed, of ever finding these people so close to his parents. Peter was a traitor and Sirius was also dead. Sirius had gone down like a hero, fighting to protect those he loved. In a way Peter also died not as a hero but a step above the traitor Teddy had thought him to be. He showed mercy to the boy he sold out all those years before.
Teddy managed to read to the end of the book which ironically, almost cruelly was also the end of his father's story. The last chapter was dedicated to the last hours of his father's life. It told Teddy what he had needed to know all these years, what he realized now was that he had just been given enough about his father to shut him up. They had indeed died like heroes in the Battle of Hogwarts. Teddy knew that from the many times he had visited their graves in the memorial cemetery on the back part of the grounds.
Teddy read the last few words on the page.
The marauder's story is one that is forgotten, much too often. Make this the turning point make the fateful three, James, Sirius and Remus part of the sung heroes group. When you tell the story of the Battle of Hogwarts, tell the bravery of Remus and Tonks. When you tell your little ones about Harry Potter tell them the story of his parents and their love. Tell them of Sirius Black's love for his friends that lasted through the worst place on earth. But don't let the last marauder be forgotten because although Peter made many mistakes, he is possibly the best example because when it mattered, when it was life or death, Peter made the right choice. He chose his friend's son over the one her feared.
His eyes were filled with tears. Teddy Remus Lupin knew the story of his father and his friends. Teddy filled the last page which was blank and a photograph fell out. It was the man he had seen many pictures of in the book that was his father and a pretty witch with bright purple hair who was holding a small baby with turquoise hair that he recognized as himself. Teddy ran his thumb across their smiling faces for the first of many times.
Ted Lupin, who was presently an old man, sat in a chair inside of his real home. Harry and Ginny's house. He ran his thumb across the picture again for what was probably the millionth time. Ted looked at the next picture in his hand.
It was him and Harry on his seventeenth birthday. Harry still looked young in the picture but very tired. It was only two years before the start of the third war. The war that took so much from all of them, during that war Harry looked tired all the time and worried. Teddy was holding in one hand the watch that his grandmother had bought him and in the other the broom that Harry and Ginny had bought him.
"Dad, it's time." His daughter who was a grown woman with children herself led him outside in the sunny backyard that he had played in so often as a child. A large tent had been set up to hold all of the people who were invited. He looked around and saw the few who remained from his childhood; Ron sat in the corner with tears in his eyes that hadn't left for some time. Ron was now alone. The last of the famed Golden Trio.
Ginny, Ted's daughter led him all the way up the aisle where he looked into the casket. There laid his godfather, the closest person he had ever had to a father. Harry's black hair had long since turned grey but it still was thick and still stuck up all over the place. His eyes had been shut but Ted could still picture the bright green that he had look into so many times, looking for comfort, for hope, for love, and for friendship. Harry had never gotten frail looking. Ted's vision was blurred by tears as he was led to the seat beside Ron.
The minister got up and cleared his voice. "Today, we gather here to remember the life of the Boy who Lived..."