We use to have so much more
The smiling faces that beamed up from the thin paper reminded me. Back in the days where the sun constantly shone down upon us and we thought that we could have it all. The world was our oyster. Everything was ahead of us and through every challenge we faced our bond would grow stronger. Nothing could ever break us apart. Yet the smiling faces of the picture didn't know what I now know. We didn't know what would befall us in our later years of life. We just smiled and waved looking happy. It was the trust that glowed between us. The trust that had taken seven years to become the way it had when the photograph had been new. Yet the trust was broken now. The friendships in tatters and back then, back when we had all been together we thought nothing would ever do that to them. We were invincible. Nothing could touch us. How wrong had we all been? How could we not know what this war was going to do to us? How did I not see what we would all become?
We use to have so much more.
It was true we had it all. I had it all. We were made up for life. Through each new challenge our friendship grew until we thought we would never loose each other but look what has happened to us. When did we realise that it was all just a dream and that in reality we would never be together forever? When did we realise that we were going to be broken apart? We had been strong. We never knew how our strength would crumble. When did we realise that we would be broken apart? Was it when we joined the Order of the Phoenix? Was it when we hardly saw each other for months? Was it when we knew there was a traitor and suspicion laced our friendship? Or was it when hiding from each other became necessary to stay alive? Not that it had worked. Not that the hiding did any of us any good. We are broken apart and no longer does the bond continue. No longer do we smile up to the camera laughing at the silliest things. No. We are broken apart. We no longer have each other and this earth is slowly laughing. Turning and laughing at us. Had we been so arrogant to assume nothing could touch us? Was it really what we all thought? I did. I believed that we were invincible. I was sure we were but now I know we never were. Maybe it was that belief that was our downfall. Maybe it was our arrogance that broke us apart.
We use to have so much more.
When did it happen? Was it as soon as we left Hogwarts? Was it then? When we moved into different flats and spent most of our time doing work for the Order? When was it? When did we begin to loose the bond? Was it when Sirius skulked around Knockturn alley trying to learn Lord Voldemort's plans? Was it when Serena closed herself off from us over the death of her mother? Was it when Emmeline started dating that Alan idiot? Was it when Lily and James had to keep changing house? When did it happen to us? Was it Dumbledore's fault we fell apart? Trying to keep us separated because all of us together was just too great a target for the Dark Lord. Was it when the traitor was learned of? I just don't know when we fell apart. We thought we had returned to reality when Harry and Kerr were born. We spent so much time together looking after the babies. Sure it was tough being cornered in the street by Death Eaters when you least expected it. Slowly though we began to fall apart again. I began to see less and less of everyone. Sirius became a shadow as did Serena taking Kerr with them. James and Lily with Harry became like a distant memory. It was hard on all of us to learn of the traitor. We were all suspicious of each other.
We use to have so much more.
When Lily had James went into hiding I though maybe that after the terrible years were done we would be together once again. Maybe the friendship would return to what it had been at school. How wrong was I? Could I have been any more wrong? Yet maybe I wasn't the only foolish one, maybe the others dreamed of it too. Maybe they believed everything would be okay in the end. Why did we believe in such a dream? When did we realise we could no longer live they dream we had all believed in? What broke us? Was it the death of Lily and James that finally broke us? I think perhaps it was. Sirius gone to Azkaban, Peter, the forgotten marauder, dead, Emmeline faded into the background and Hesita got swept up in a web of confusion at the auror office. And Serena. She disappeared off the face of the planet taking his daughter with her after I refused to believe her about Sirius. It all came down to the trust but by then the trust was broken and I could hardly look her in the face when she tried to tell me he was innocent. We had lost the trust. It was all gone.
We use to have so much more.
I thought maybe by some grace of Merlin that we had been revived. Without Lily and James however nothing was the same. Maybe the trust began to reform between us when I found out Sirius was innocent. It only took me twelve years. How could I have not seen what was going to happen to us? How could I have not seen who the traitor was? Had I really been that naïve? That blind? Yet Sirius said the same. He could never understand why he hadn't seen what was right before his nose? Before my nose, before all of our noses? Why hadn't we seen? Was it because of the trust that use to run so deep between us all? Or was it the idea that we always underestimated Peter Pettigrew? Was that what it was? We trusted him because he was the one who looked up to us for power. Was it that which broke us apart? I thought it was over when Sirius was returned to me. I thought that we who had survived the first war would live through the second and things would maybe form into some semblance of a friendship. The friendship that use to exist. Of course it would never be the same but then none of us would. We would all be haunted by the things that had happened in the past. We would never get rid of what had happened to us.
We use to have so much more.
Yet things never did get back to the way they were. Sirius was the next to be taken from us. That cousin of his. We never did like her. She was our sworn enemy at school and it makes me think. How did their friendships survive whilst ours didn't? How come the ones that caused the suffering did not suffer? All we did was exist and love each other. I suppose it was because their friendship was never really a true bond but some union of fear under the power of a madman. I still don't understand though. I still think that life is unfair. It feels hard to loose another best friend. I'm the last of the marauders left. Telling Serena about Sirius was left to Dumbledore but I insisted on accompanying him. It was hard to see the haunted eyes that Serena already possessed from the first war become even darker. Her soul seemed to evaporate. Her daughter now has those eyes. The eyes that have known loss. The loss of her father was where it began.
We use to have so much more.
After Sirius went Emmeline murdered in her own flat. I could hardly believe my eyes at the Prophet. I thought surely this isn't happening again. We use to think we were invincible. Why hadn't we been? Why couldn't we have retained the belief that everything was going to be okay as long as we stuck together? Why didn't we stick together? Maybe would have made it if we had kept together. Sirius' death destroyed Serena. I think the only thing that had kept her alive the first time was Kerr, a year old baby. Yet with Kerr grown up the loss of Sirius slowly drove Serena insane. She resided at St. Mungo's for a while suffering from Captive Shock Syndrome. She could barely see Kerr without thinking of him. It took a while for her to over come that. For a while we thought we lost yet another one of us but slowly she recovered. It took her so long and there was nothing I or Hesita could do to help her. Nothing we could say to tell her everything would be all right. The dream was gone and we had gone from eight down to three. Serena, Hesita and I would have to keep struggling on and trying to finish this war.
We use to have so much more.
When the final battle eventually came I thought on how we use to be. Running around Hogwarts playing pranks and having fun. I remembered all the good times we use to have. I remember the fear of having my secret found out but the feeling of having friends that were willing to do what they did for me is what I remember most. At the end of the battle I felt enormous relief. Peter was dead. I had killed him myself but I am sorry for that. I am sorry that we weren't good enough friends to make him realise that standing up for yourself and your friends is the only way to win. Once the relief was over worry began to cloud my mind. Kerr was helping Harry and it was strange to see them side by side like two replicas of Sirius and James. I could hear them calling on Ron and I hoped he was okay. I could see Hermione being extracted by Fred and George from under Luicius Malfoy. Bodies lay all around me but all I could think of was Hesita and Serena. Where were the last of my best friends? Hesita was dead. Her black hair fell across her pink cheeks as she lay peacefully as though she was sleeping. Yet where was Serena? I ran everywhere to find her. There she was lying next to a dead Bellatrix Black stabbed with a knife I recognised to be the one Sirius use to carry around with him. Serena was slowly dying but she opened her eyes to me. 'We're still invincible Remus,' she whispered. 'Our love for each other always was.' I remember crying slightly but more I remember Kerr when she saw her mother. The haunted look has never left her eyes since then.
We use to have so much more.
When I look at this picture taken on our final day at Hogwarts I think back wondering what broke us apart. I always think that James and Lily were the first to be sacrificed but I am wrong. Peter was the first to go and I am sorry for it. I know that along the way we lost some of our closest friends. Frank and Alice Longbottom, Fabian and Gideon Prewett and we even lost Albus Dumbledore. Yet it is Lily, James, Sirius, Serena, Emmeline, Hesita and even Peter that I miss the most. I miss the times of Padfoot, Prongs, Moony and Wormtail. I miss the moments we laughed together. I miss the happiness we shared and I wonder why it is me that has been left behind. Maybe it is for my new wife and our unborn child. Yet I'm sure I'm here for Harry and Kerr mostly. Maybe my friends know that I will look after their children as well as my own. Life for me has always been a struggle no matter what and it is becoming better. I always remember what Serena said. The love that we share is invincible and it always was.