All any of us want to remember about that fateful day was how cold the weather was. Lily and James had always enjoyed the cold; it was more romantic according to Lily. It was a match that only a few of us saw coming. We all hold to the fact that they knew deep down that they cared about each other, but those feelings didn't surface until our seventh year at Hogwarts.
Hogwarts, now those were good times ... good times. James Potter and Lily Evans, Head Boy and Girl, a more perfect match could never be found. Hogwarts was a melting pot for all of us you could say.
The Marauders would never have met each other and James and Lily would never have gotten together had it not been for that school. That school was Lily's ambition and the Marauders' playground. Those are the times that we will all try to remember ... if we can that is.
They seem so long ago, so distant. Like completely different people experienced those things. I guess that fate has a way of dealing its cards that we don't always agree with but have to go along with. James and Lily were the perfect couple in the end; but it didn't start out that way. Lily thought James was an arrogant, cocky, rule breaker and she hated him. James thought Lily was a goody-goody that thought she was better than everybody else, but he still wanted her. It started out as a competition you could say, between Sirius and James. Whoever could get Lily to go out with them for at least six months and get a kiss from her would get one hundred galleons from the losing person. This competition was strictly between Sirius and James, Peter and I had nothing to do with it. The reason they chose Lily was because she had never had a boyfriend, never kissed a guy, and had the innocence and beauty of an angel. She also had a brilliant mind, was top of every class, and she had even helped a few of the professors teach in her seventh year. But even though she was all this and more, James didn't like her. I on the other hand had fallen for her slightly, but she was too good a friend. She was almost like a sister to me in a sense, a sister that I never had, and that was why Sirius and James would get so annoyed with me. I would always stick up for her, no matter what the situation. But eventually they learned to deal with it and went back to their Lily-hunting.
I knew Lily would never care for me more than as if I were a very dear brother, but sometimes that wasn't good enough for me. I would see Sirius and James flirting with her, and the glares and threatening remarks that they would get in return. Then she would see me, smile and walk on, giving me a cheerful wave.
Oh how I wanted to be in James or Sirius positions. She would never love a werewolf, she knew what I was and, in a way, it scared her. She would never admit it to me though, because I was her brother, in a sense of the word. My best friends would always give my waves from Lily envious glances, but they never knew how much I would have given to be in their positions. Looking back, I know I knew that I was not really deeply in love with Lily. I let my jealousy overtake my true feelings, tricking my thoughts into becoming untruths. I blamed it on my transformations, my looks, and even my friends. This girl was tearing us all apart, but we were too blind to see it. Eventually, a bond began to build between James and Lily, a bond of friendship, and then love. Sirius was not heartbroken over it, he was mainly ticked that he was probably going to be the one that would have to fork over the money in the end. I watched them carefully, the way that she smiled when she saw him and the way that he gazed into her captivating green eyes. They were in love; that was obvious. I was happy for James on the outside, but on the inside there was a constant battle. James saw it immediately.
"Moony,"he asked me one day in the common room, "do you love Lily?"
The one thing about James that took me a while to get used to was his bluntness. If he wanted to know something he wasn't going to beat around the bush, he just asked you straight out. I looked long and hard at my closest friend before answering.
"I love her like a sister and sometimes, when I'm lonely, more. But Prongs you honestly care about her, deeply and all the time in the same way. You love her and she you, and that is something that I am not going to take away from you. I know that you would consider breaking up with her if I asked you to, but that would break her heart, something that I refuse to do if it is avoidable. Yes, I love her, a friendship sort of love though. And I promise to never interfere with the two of you." The sigh that escaped from James' lips at that moment is something that I will never forget. He was happy now. He had a wonderful girlfriend and a truthful and thoughtful friend. Or at least that was what he thought of me. Sirius eventually gave up on Lily Evans and was prepared to hand James the money, but James refused to take it.
"I'm not buying our love for each other,"he told Sirius one night in the common room. The grin that spread across Sirius's face was uncanny. He suspiciously glanced at James before turning to Peter and me.
"Think he's serious guys?"
"Dead serious,"I said, cracking up laughing at my fellow Marauder's joke. Peter grinned and nodded in agreement. Sirius gave James a swift pat on the back as he stood up to leave. He had been assigned a detention for slipping a sleeping draught into the Slytherins pumpkin juice that morning.
Those were the days that I have never forgotten. The days of carefree youth. Even when the world around us was suffering, somehow we still found a way to have fun. But those days seemed to end after we left school.
The moment that we graduated Professor Dumbledore came to some of us with a proposition, a chance to join the Order of the Phoenix, an organization that he had founded, "A genius idea if I say so myself,"had been his added comment as he told us all the details. We were young, looking for adventure and a chance to establish ourselves in the wizarding community.
Dumbledore was careful to make it clear that there was great danger involved in the whole thing. For some reason this important message was the one that we all took the lightest. What did danger mean to us? Danger in our minds was a Quidditch game, or maybe a curse that we had not yet learned to block properly. The farthest thing from our minds was death -the deaths of our friends or even our family. That was the point that he stressed the most, the part that we should have all taken seriously. It would never happen to us. If it happened at all it would happen to the "other guy".
How wrong we were.
I remember the first meeting as though it was yesterday. We met in a hidden room in the Hog's Head in Hogsmeade. It was not the securest location in the world, but it was the best we could do at that time. Dumbledore eventually found a room in Hogwarts that would work for our meetings, but that wasn't for another good year or so. The back room at the inn worked well enough for its purpose; Dumbledore had added a few security measures, passwords and such. At that meeting we were introduced to many people that we would become extremely attached to over time, which would make it even harder for us to lose them. Our first mission was to find a job, one that had something to do with the mission that was assigned us.
James was to apply for a position on the Bulgarian Quidditch team, as Seeker of course. Dumbledore greatly stressed the point on how important it was that he make the team. He had his suspicions that some of the players on the team were Death Eaters and he wanted James to keep tabs on them. This was a hard thing for all of us who were friends with him. It was especially hard on Lily because it meant that he would have to move to Bulgaria. It was obvious that it hurt James as much as it was hurting us, but he was not one to back down from responsibility and duty, that was just his way, that was the way he had been raised.
The most surprising of all our jobs was the one assigned to Sirius. He was to apply for the recently vacated job of Astronomy teacher at Beauxbatons Academy in France. Sirius Black, a professor, and he must have been the most unlikely candidate in the world for such a job. I couldn't help but laugh inwardly at the things my good friend Padfoot was going to teach them, likelier than not nothing at all.
What had Dumbledore been thinking when he gave Sirius that job? I never got around to asking him, but what does it matter now anyway? Sirius Black, my dear friend Padfoot, is gone forever.
Lily was assigned a job at a Muggle bookstore in a local rural village where there had been several reports of suspicious characters lurking around, and Dumbledore wanted her to take a look at the whole situation. That job would be one of the most dangerous things that Lily would ever do in her short life, but that is something that I do not want to delve into now ... another time perhaps, but not now. My task was somewhat simple compared to what some of the others were, probably one of the easier tasks that Dumbledore gave that night, or at least at first glance.
My job was not anything special, in fact it sounded more like a job fit for Sirius, instead of teaching, which was a task that I would have been more than happy to oblige with, and Sirius with mine. I was to just continue what I was doing; keep looking for a job in the wizarding world, but also to hang around the Ministry of Magic and Hogwarts, helping Dumbledore and some of the other teachers. I accepted my task, but it was not what I had wanted. After the meeting had come to an end, I ignorantly and selfishly pleaded with Dumbledore to let Sirius and I switch tasks, but all it achieved was a kind reprimand from a man that I greatly admired and hated to disappoint.
"I have my reasons for making certain choices, Remus. I realize why you have voiced your concerns on this issue and I agree with you. Sirius is not well suited for this challenge at first glance, but I am still going to hold to my decision. But I promise I have justifiable reasons for doing what I have done and that I am only doing what I feel is best. Please do not doubt my judgement, for it could have fatal consequences and you do not yet know the full extent of the future that you are helping to mould. On the other hand, I am reassured that we will triumph in the end with your commendable patience and perceptiveness. Ironically the two qualities that you made you a very admirable choice as a school Prefect in your fifth year if you have not forgotten?" He smiled at me.
What could I answer to that? Nothing. I could do nothing but mutely nod my head in acknowledgment and feel the color rise slightly in my cheeks. I had foolishly questioned one of the greatest and wisest wizards of all time; I deserved what I got. Except for the compliment that is.
I went home that night with a feeling of great loss that was only out done by the deaths of Lily and James, and now Sirius. James left for Bulgaria early the next morning, Sirius departed for France that same night, Peter Flooed to Wales the following afternoon, and my dear Lily left for her new home the next morning after seeing James off, her heart broken at having to be apart from all the people that she loved.
Actually, she was not separated from everyone. The village where she was to be living and working was not far from Hogwarts, so most days I would go and visit her after I was done helping Professor Dumbledore. I will never forget the sadness that was always evident on her pretty face, hidden from the world but obvious to those who knew her well. Scared for James, her family, her friends, scared that nothing would ever be the same again. But she was never scared for herself, never worried that she wouldn't make it in the end. She was my inspiration, she kept me going with her determination and hope. I have never forgotten her impact upon me during that very trying time and sometimes those memories become so real that I feel as if she has come back to me, the wistful thoughts of a heartbroken man.
I do not know why I had such a yearning to record these horrible events in my life, but what does it matter anyway? I can no longer continue with this heart-wrenching task tonight, I may never finish it. But it has done me some good to get this all off my chest. Maybe my dreams will be less torturous tonight. As this is all that I can write I might as well stop wasting parchment and ink and tears. Good-bye for now, maybe eternity.
RemusJ.Lupin