The Last of the Gang

The first of the gang to hold a gun….

Peter. He would eat and eat gunpowder, thinking 'One day, I will explode'. Those two were always so unkind, taking his praise and him for granted. I wasn't much better but I did think I knew him. I understand him more now. He loved James so much that the next natural step was to hate him with such ferocity. It was weak and pathetic, running to Voldemort. But we made him like that.

The first of the gang to do time…

Sirius. He was so strong but too strong, I think. It made him reckless or perhaps truly brave. He spent his whole life proving he wasn't a Black but perhaps that left him without an identity. He bore such a burden. Azkaban must have nearly destroyed him but it couldn't. Nothing could destroy that man, not even his family, not even death.

The first of the gang to die…

James. Arrogant, but he had something to boast about: a deep sense of honour, love, truth, justice. He was the luckiest one of us all. He got Lily, well one of us had to, and… Harry. We all had them, I suppose but he, most of all. They only the good die young. Prongs was always lucky, he died whilst he had nothing more to dream for.

That leaves me. The last of the gang. Sometimes Harry looks at me with a quizzical look in his eyes. I know what that look means: "How do you live on, when you have lost everything? And how do I?" Albus worries about me, he keeps making me take the potion although sometimes I deliberately forget.

A wolf can scream and cry and savage. But a man can merely die inside. Die of loneliness.