Broken Promises

A fine mist coats everything in a glistening blank of moisture. Hundreds of tombstones blink and glitter beneath the orange glow of the setting sun, dancing just beyond the reach of twilight's approaching shadow. Like so many sentinels, the graves stand watch for the helpless dead who lie beneath. But what they watch for, I do not know.

A harsh wind whips across my face and bites at my cheeks. I've forgotten my gloves and hat at home, so I fist my hands deeper into torn pockets and bury my face against the collar of my ragged jacket. The protection's not much, but on days like this I prefer to feel. To prove to my mind that I'm still alive, that the heart within still has a reason to beat. Even while the hearts of all I once loved have long since grown still and turned to dust.

My steps grow sluggish and I know I'm close. Close to the place I've visited every Halloween for almost two decades. A place I will visit until the day I die.

Reluctant, my eyes drift downward, to the final resting place of James and Lily Potter. Their names on the headstone, embossed forever in buffed granite, always come as a shock. As if, for an entire year, I manage to pretend they're alive, living in some far corner of the world with Harry, happy as the day they married. But each Halloween I stumble across their tombstone and remember the truth. A horrible nightmare I relieve year after year.

October 31^st, 1981.

Like every other time before, as my eyes fix on the date of their deaths, my grief is swept away by a crippling anger. Anger at the weakness that causes one friend to betray another. Anger that Lily and James never had a chance to be saved. Anger at a world that allowed two such decent and kind souls to be murdered. An anger for which I have no words.

My heart pounds so furiously I become light headed. Bright dots of light play against the backs of my eyes and I stumble forward, the ground shifting beneath my feet. Blindly I reach out and catch my hands against their headstone to steady my toppling form. The rage unabated, I close my eyes and take deep, chest-expanding breaths. I will my heart to slow and pray to whatever god will listen to show me a path to acceptance. For though I remind myself daily that I cannot undo the past, and that raging against the unchangeable will not restore my friends to life, the anger still thrives.

In minutes my breath comes easier and almost as a reflex, unwilled but unavoidable, I open my eyes to gaze at the grass beneath my feet. To where James and Lily now lie. They've rested beneath this earth for eighteen years, almost as long as they lived and breathed above it.

On some days I can't believe they've been gone so long. Sometimes I can still see James so vividly, as though he's standing in front of me once again, his eyes full of mischief and his hair horribly disheveled. He's always so young and confident in my memory, so certain that through all the danger and evil doings that good will prevail and us along with it.

And I can see Lily, too, sitting next to me in Charms with her brow furrowed in concentration as we go over our latest assignment. She turns her head toward me and touches my arm, and as she moves the faint aroma of her shampoo drifts beneath my nose. Even years after her death my senses can still feel her. My nose tingles with the familiarity of her scent; my skin's still heated by the mere memory of her touch.

There are moments when my imaginings seem more vital and alive than anything in reality. And it is at those times I long to shed the burden of life and join my friends in their immortal existence. Forever young and forever free, without pain, fear, hurt, or shame.

But on days like today, when the clouds blotting out the sun are darkest, it feels as though Lily and James have been dead my entire life. Their friendship a dream I can't quite recall in the morning, a dream that slips further and further away every time I open my eyes. And it's on these days I can't remember James's favorite joke or the sound of Lily's voice whispering in my ear. Memory becomes a mere wisp of smoke carried out of my reach on a lonely October wind.

A wind that has taken Sirius and Peter as well. A wind that, god willing, will take me - the last Marauder - someday soon.

A lump forms in my throat and I work to control my emotions for a second time. But it seems like so much wasted effort. Without a care for who might see, I drop artlessly to my knees, sending a jolt of pain up my body as my knees collide with the cold-hardened ground.

The wind has picked up and manages to blow a lock of hair across my eyes. Slowly I brush it away. Their names are at eye level now. James and Lily. An ache starts in my chest and I wonder, not for the first time, why I was the one to survive. Why only I, the werewolf whose existence was cursed from the start, have lived to see forty. We all had so much promise, so much youth and energy. Now I am all that is left of that promise, a broken, middle-aged man who only feels truly alive in dreams.

But the universe does not explain itself and I have long since learned that the search for something that does not exist leaves only misery in its wake. And so I go on and live the only way I can, from one day to the next. Inhale and exhale.

The sun is setting and soon it will be too dark to see. I stare at the horizon and my chest collapses with a sigh. Another day has come to an end and soon I will be shrouded in darkness, the only company kept by the dead.

The dead.

I reach out and brush the tips of my fingers across Lily's name. Gently, as though I am touching flesh and not stone, I trace the lines of her name. My fingers begin to flutter and before long my entire hand is jerking. I press my palm flat against the lifeless granite and splay my fingers to stop the trembling. A sudden, aching sense of loss tightens my stomach and twists my gut. It takes only a moment for my weakened body to buckle beneath the pain. My back curls and I slump forward, weakly my chin drops to my chest.