Title: Sometimes
Sometimes, when he thought no one else was looking, Remus Lupin would make himself a glass of hot chocolate and pull a tattered, musty-smelling old photo album out of his battered Hogwarts trunk. Then, he'd sit down in the chair that Tonks kept closest to the fireplace and let the memories wash over him. He knew, some how, that this would be his last war; he wasn't strong enough to make it through another alone, and so as he let the memories wash over him, he'd write them down in a little book so that Harry and Remus' unborn child would have something to remember him by.
Sometimes he would look at pictures of Lily that James had insisted that he take because he wanted to look at them. Remus had grudgingly agreed, but only because James had threatened to steal his secret stash of chocolate. He would smile, remembering those days when there were no words like war or Death Eaters in his large vocabulary. There was a picture of Lily reading a charms textbook outside, practicing the wand movements for some charm that was two or three years ahead of where they were in class, and a picture of Lily slapping James upside the head when he asked her out for the 1,469th time. Then he'd flip a couple pages, and look at the picture of the 1,989th time James asked Lily out, the one where she finally said yes. He'd smile, knowing how happy they both were then.
Sometimes he would look at the individual pictures he'd taken of each Marauder. It was easiest to look at the pictures of James, but only because he had had so much time to deal with his death. There were pictures of James in First Year, his silver glasses much too big for his nose and his hair flying in what seemed like a million different directions. Then, he'd flip a few more pages, to the pictures that James had demanded he take of him as a stag. Most of the pictures in his album were ones that James had demanded him to take, and although he didn't like it at the time, Remus was happy he did. Remus always paused before moving on to the pictures he'd taken of James and Lily together, because those were the closest to the time when everything went so devastatingly wrong. There was the picture of Sirius and James at James' wedding, the only picture of the whole day that featured James looking scared out of his mind, tie askew, hair messier than ever, and Sirius grinning like an idiot. The actual wedding photos had been taken by a professional, but Remus got plenty of shots of the prank he and Sirius pulled, in which they blew up a fake cake with patented Marauder fireworks. Then, he'd see the pictures of Lily, James, and Harry. Those were ones that almost made the worn werewolf cry, even though he'd been out of tears for years. The pictures of Sirius were difficult to look at because his death was still so fresh in Remus' mind. He'd been there, pulled Harry back from the veil when he too wanted to follow the third last Marauder. But he knew that Harry needed to know these stories, and he was the only one left who could tell him. There were pictures of Sirius grinning madly in his Gryffindor tie, so proud that he hadn't gotten into Slytherin…pictures of Sirius and James throwing snowballs at each other and Lily in Seventh Year. He had pictures that Lily had taken, on the last full moon they'd spent together of Moony, Padfoot, and Prongs.
Sometimes, but rarely, he looked at the pictures of Peter. Those were difficult, but not because they made Remus sad, but because they made him so angry. He still didn't know how none of them saw it at the beginning.
The ones he'd taken of all four of them together, as the Marauders, were the hardest of all the pictures to look at, and the hardest to write about. He couldn't put into words what having friends that knew what he was and still liked him meant. He knew that Harry understood what that was like. He knew his child would too, as much as it pained him to think it. The child would have a metamorphagus for a mother, a werewolf for a father, and, it had been decided the second Remus and Tonks reconciled, Harry Potter as his/her godfather. Normal wouldn't be a word that would ever apply to the child.
The last time he wrote he looked at the very last picture in the book. Harry had given it to him last Christmas, because even Harry had known Remus would end up being the last Marauder. It was a picture of Remus standing defiantly alone near the old tree on the Hogwarts grounds. Remus smiled, set his quill and the book down, and looked at his wife. He nodded. It was finally time for him to do something that would be remembered.
Sometimes, pictures, especially ones taken by a certain now battle hardened, then thirteen year old who would be the one anyone would die for, really do say things without using any words at all.