Author's Note: I lifted about sixty percent of this fic shamelessly from Velvet Goldmine and Oscar Wilde. I will say right here and now that I only own about forty percent of the prologue and about fifty percent of the first chapter. Also scattered through are lyrics from the songs "Hot One" by Shudder to Think and "Make Me Smile" by Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel. We could almost play a game with this fic: how many Velvet Goldmine references can you spot?

PROLOGUE

Histories, like ancient ruins, are the fictions of empire, while everything forgotten hangs in dark dreams of the past, ever threatening to return. For once there was an unknown land, full of strange flowers and subtle perfumes, a land of which it is joy of all joys to dream, a land where all things are perfect and poisonous.

Perfect, poisonous, and past.

There were times when I felt that the whole of history was merely a record of my own life. Filled with those strange, terrible figures that had passed along the stage of life, and that had made sin so marvellous and evil so full of subtlety. Strange and terrible. Strange and terrible were once words used to describe the four of us: James, Sirius, Peter, and me. Those strange and terrible Marauders. The best thing to come out of England since sliced Beatles.

Once there was a gorgeous, gorgeous time. We were all living our dreams. But that went away, all of it---

That one night in October.

Gone in one fell swoop. James and Lily, dead. Sirius, locked away in Azkaban. Peter, murdered by his best friends. I alone of our old foursome, unemployed and living on the fringes of wizarding society, a perpetual pariah, shunned for the horrible curse that wracked my body every full moon.

I had thought that it had been forgotten. The past was gone, without a trace of memory to be found. But the past, like Voldemort, lingers on like dark dreams.

In Harry.

Harry Potter.

"The Potters were wanted wizards," Dumbledore said quietly. The assembled members of the Order were gathered around Molly Weasley's table, their faces peaked, intense, and expectant.

I placed a reassuring hand on Harry's clenched fists. The boy's face was drawn tightly, a face so like and unlike James's. Hermione gave me a look and I removed my hand.

"But why were they wanted by Voldemort?" Dumbledore asked. There was no answer from the witches and wizards gathered in the Burrow. The great man surveyed the room coolly. "That, my friends, is what we want to know."

Harry jerked. "Isn't it obvious?" he asked bitterly. "It's because of me. That bloody prophecy Professor Trelawney gave before I was born. Me or Neville, two boys born as the seventh month dies." He looked away to hide the tears in his green eyes and Hermione gently rubbed his back.

Dumbledore held Harry in his blue gaze, but there was no trace of a twinkle there.

"No, Harry," the sage headmaster shook his head. "It was chance that you were born at the end of July, not fate. You are forgetting the other part of the prophecy: that you would be born to parents who had thrice- defied the Dark Lord. Your parents," Dumbledore said gently, "Were wanted wizards before you were the apple in your father's eye."

Harry bowed his head, his knuckles whitening. Severus threw a nasty look my way, but I did not respond.

"Remus," the old man turned to me suddenly, surprising me. "I want you to find out why. Why your best friends were marked for death."

"Me?" I asked, feeling the cold threads of dread wind their way about my heart.

"Yes, Remus," Dumbledore said, holding me in his steely gaze.

"But why?" I asked. I felt my throat closing tightly with the remembrance of things long past. "James and Lily---it seems so meaningless now."

"Meaning is not in things, but in between them, Remus," Dumbledore said gravely, watching me carefully, his hands folded on the tabletop. "Knowledge, Remus, knowledge of what lies in between can be a weapon."

"And naturally you want me for this because I knew James and Lily, right?" I asked, ashamed of the bitterness I heard in my voice.

"No, Remus," Dumbledore said calmly. "I want you because you remember."

I was stunned.

Because I remember.

Remember what? Some meaningless prank, over a decade old that had cost two of my friends their lives and one his freedom? Why was it suddenly up to me to figure out when clearly there was something, something from the past spooking me back?

The members of the Order said nothing. Molly walked over to Harry and held him tightly. Severus, away from his potions for once, had his mouth set in a firm line. Nymphadora, her hair aflame with riotous oranges and reds, stared at me earnestly with large brown eyes. Ron, Ginny, Fred, George, the only children of the Weasley clan still present, all looked exchanged significant glances with Hermione. Hermione, with her hand laid so tenderly on Harry's arm. And Harry---

I didn't trust myself to look at Harry.

Yesterday, upon a stair,

I saw a man who wasn't there.

He wasn't there again today,

How I wish he'd go away.

I wished I were anywhere but there. Anywhere but in a room full of ragtag freedom fighters. Anywhere but in the thrall of Harry's eyes, eyes so like Lily's, in a face so like James, young, vulnerable, and sad.

"All right," I said softly.

"Thank you, Remus," Dumbledore said quietly. With a nod, the other members of the Order rose from the table to leave. Harry looked as though he was about to say something, but with a look from Molly, he too left the room to join Ron and Hermione upstairs.

All right.

I sighed and looked around the darkened room. Severus was the last to leave, putting out the candles and dousing the fire. When he had finished his task, he stared at me with an unfathomable look, leaving me at the Weasley's dining room table to sit in contemplation.

Put out the torches. Hide the moon. Hide the stars.

With one last, useless, and unnecessary glance about the room, I rose from my seat.

And I went out.