A/N: I've always thought that the days following the murders of James and Lily and the whole Sirius and Peter thing were probably some of the worst of Remus Lupin's life. Everyone out partying because of Voldemort gone, but him grieving over the death of his closest friends and finding himself suddenly alone. At least we know that twelve years later he finds Harry again and realizes that Sirius didn't betray Lily and James after all :)
The Forgotten Marauder
It was foggy, wet, and cold. The gray sky hung low over the graveyard, making it impossible to see the tops of tall trees.
He stared down at the graves, not wanting to look at them, yet he could not tear his eyes away.
They were dead.
Yet how could they be? They were always so alive, so full of life. Love. Laughter.
But they were dead. He would never see them again.
He should be happy. Happy that the war was over. Happy that the most malignant wizard was now gone. Happy that the enormous weight of worry had been lifted off his shoulders. That he no longer had to live in fear. That the obituary in the newspaper would no longer take up more pages than it should. Happy that he could live normally again. Happy that he could be happy again.
But he could not be happy, and he could not live normally, not ever again.
Who knew that in two short days such events could occur that would change his entire life completely? Could steal away all that he had ever lived for? Could take away the only friends he had ever known? Could completely destroy everything that had once made him feel like he had all he luck in the world, especially for someone like him?
He should have known that that kind of luck hardly ever lasts. Especially for him.
He felt a raindrop on his cheek. Or was it really a rain drop? He didn't really care. All he knew was that he was alone. No one was going to notice him. No one would know who he was.
The last time he had seen them was exactly two weeks and three days ago. That was the last time he ever spoken to them, ever exchanged words, ever looked into their eyes.
He should have written letters to them, stayed in better contact. Why hadn't he?
He knew why he hadn't. It was because they hadn't. None of them. Two weeks and three days ago was the last time he had seen any of them, all of them.
It was a terrible visit. It was a visit with too much silence and not enough words. It was awkward, painful, and the way they looked at him was different from the way they looked at him before. There was no laughter and no smiles. He did not understand it. It was not what one would want to call a last visit.
So he was not going to. This would be his last visit. But he would not say goodbye. Goodbye would mean he had a new life. An 'after the war' life. A life he had hardly dared to imagine before, yet when he did he imagined it to be happy, extremely happy and full of celebration.
Not at all how it really was. Not with them dead.
James dead. Lily dead. Peter dead. Sirius in prison.
Never did he imagine it would turn out this way.
Yet he knew they were being sought after. Had known they had gone into hiding. Known that it was very, very possible.
But he never wrapped his mind around it, never let himself think about it. He had enough to worry about as it was, why add something that might not even happen?
It did happen. And though he had known it would, he would never have been prepared for it. It was as if a part of him died along with them.
And then the next day, though it really didn't feel like two days, for he had not slept at all the night before, he lost the two others. Two more best friends. His brothers. One had betrayed Lily and James, and then killed the other.
Another part of him died.
Sirius, who had said he would die for Lily and James, turned out to be the one to cause their death. He was the one who did this. He was the one who tore them all apart. Yet, even though he had been suspecting Sirius, who had been strange around him, the only image of Sirius he could see in his mind was one of him laughing and joking.
It was incredibly hard to believe that someone like Sirius, who had broken his long family tradition of being in Slytherin, who stood up for his friends and stood against his family's obsession with the Dark Arts, who lived for fun and adventure, would do something like this. Become a mass murderer. The murderer of his friends.
It was everything he said he stood against. Or said he stood against.
Loyal Sirius, James's best friend, said he would do anything to help keep them safe from Voldemort, lied straight through his teeth. He had betrayed them. He had destroyed his best friends, James, Lily, Peter. But what about him?
Him. The forgotten Marauder.
He should be thankful that he had not met any fate similar to those of his friend's. He wasn't. He knew it was selfish, knew that he was the lucky one, knew he was the one that made it out free and alive. Yet he didn't feel that way. He didn't feel lucky. He didn't feel free. He didn't feel alive. Somehow, and he thought this with extreme guilt, he felt as though he was the one who suffered the worst fate, the fate of being alone and having to deal with the regrets and everything that could have been.
The rain was coming down harder now, leaving little wet dots on his patched cloak and soddening his hair. The rain drops were cold, leaking down the back of his neck. He hardly felt it.
He thought back to his years at Hogwarts, the best years of his life. It was where he found friends who accepted him for who he was, friends who did more than accepted him, but saw no bounds to which they would stop helping him. He remembered their endless research to become Animagi, them eagerly planning their monthly forays around the castle. Them creating the Marauder's Map, and of that one time where it had gone missing for three weeks only for Sirius to realize it had been in his bag all along. They were more than friends. They were Marauders. They were brothers.
They were gone. And he was alone, completely, utterly alone. More alone than he had ever been before.
He had been left out of the final adventure, no matter how terrible it was.
He read their names, freshly carved into the stone, over and over, as though if he thought of them hard enough, he would be able to bring them back. He would be able to go back, be able to change things, be able to think quicker and act faster, be able to make it so things did not end up this way.
The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
His hair was completely soaked, as was his face, with what, rain or tears, he was not sure. He was not sure if he was even crying. He was glad for the rain.
He thought of James. He thought of Lily. He thought of Peter and Sirius. And suddenly, with a jolt, he thought of Harry.
Little Harry had survived, he knew that, and had destroyed one of the most malicious wizards ever. How could he have forgotten about him? The little boy with James's pitch-black hair and Lily's emerald green eyes? Their son. How could he have forgotten about the little boy who was now one of the most famous people in wizarding history?
Maybe because to him Harry was the cheery little son of his best friend, not some mystery baby wonder. He was the son of his best friends, who were dead, which meant that Harry was now an orphan. And had Sirius, who had always been able to make Harry laugh, not turned traitor, he would have been the one to take Harry and raise him as his own.
Where was Harry now? Surely he, who had been so close to the Potters, should know. Surely someone would think to tell him, one of the last remaining Marauders, the only one who was not dead or insane. Yet, he thought, he was the only one who was a werewolf, and no one would want the 'Boy Who Lived' ending up in the hands of a werewolf.
Or maybe they had just forgotten him.
Wherever Harry was though, he hoped he was safe. Maybe Dumbledore, who had helped the Potters go into hiding and remained in close contact with them, had taken him. Maybe Harry had distant relatives he could go to, though from what he knew, James's parents were dead and so were Lily's, and James was an only child. He vaguely remembered that Lily had a sister, but she was a muggle who Lily did not seem to get on well with. So if it was distant relatives, he thought bitterly, they probably hadn't even known of Harry until that fateful night a few days ago, but still, they were probably better than a werewolf.
Suddenly he remembered how Lily would tell him not to talk of his condition that way, that it wasn't his fault, that all that mattered was who he truly was, and who he truly was was not a wolf.
He lifted his eyes away from the graves. The rain was getting lighter, but the sky was still the dismal gray it had been before.
He wondered if he would see Harry again. Would it be soon? Days? Months? Years? He could not know, for he did not even know where the little boy was. Yet somehow he knew he would, whether it be next week or next year. He looked forward to it, to seeing who that little boy would become. It gave him hope.
The rain was a slight drizzle as he walked out of the graveyard, the end of his last visit.
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A/N: I'm not too sure how I did with this. I tried to incorporate the fact that they had thought Lupin was a spy and how James and Lily never told him they switched Sirius and Peter, and also how Lupin thought Sirius was a spy (why oh why did they never suspect Peter!!). I also think this would take place a few days after they died, though I originally wanted it to be the day after they all died, but I'm not sure how long it would take them to bury Lily and James and do their tombstones and stuff. I hope it's not very confusing!