There's a grief that can't be spoken

There's a pain goes on and on

Empty chairs at empty tables

Now my friends are dead and gone

 

Remus stared at the silent and empty great hall. Three days before the start of the school year was always the most silent at Hogwarts. Remus remembered that from his own school days, from the times he had to come early before the full moon. His eyes lingered on one silent table, almost...seeing the past in that moment of time.

 

Here they talked of revolution

Here it was they lit the flame

Here they sang about tomorrow

And tomorrow never came.

 

"Lily, put the book down, James didn't mean it....Did you?" Sirius asked, leaning over to his best friend.

James glared at Sirius, though there

 

was laughter lurking in his eyes. "Of course not!"

 

"Guys," Came Peter's timid voice. "I think young Harry is awake."

 

Lily sighed and gave Remus back his book on dark creatures before picking up baby Harry and bouncing him to stop his crying.

Remus sighed and sat back down, frowning at James who was laughing over their battle plans.

 

From the table in the corner

They could see a world reborn

And they rose with voices ringing

I can hear them now!

The very words that they had sung

Became their last communion

On the lowly barricade..

At dawn.

 

Sirius wiped a way as it started it's journey down his dirty cheek, that so many had taken that day. He sat on the staff table, staring at the chair that had once held his best friend. Echoes of laughter and jokes, of joy untold sounded through the air as he stared at that one point in space and time.

 

Oh my friends, my friends forgive me.

That I live and you are gone

There's a grief that can't be spoken

There's a pain goes on and on

 

Peter's beady eyes focused through the misty haze of tears at the high staff table, made higher by the fact he was only three inches high. He lay curled up in the hard wooden chair, memories flowing across his rat mind at a remarkable rate of speed for a brain so small. Memories filled with a bittersweet pain, filled with the horrible knowledge of what he did and what he sacrificed to live. His friends were gone, dead and lost to him by his own actions, and still he remembered their smiling faces that held love for him.

 

Phantom faces at the window

Phantom shadows on the floor

Empty chairs at empty tables

Where my friends will meet no more.

 

"Well done Peter!" James called banging his fist on the table. Sirius and Remus joined in the noise, causing the young wizard to blush with pride as he changed from a human, into a rat and back again in quick succession.

 

"Finally!" Remus said, hugging their youngest friend tightly, almost spinning him around.

 

Sirius beamed at his third best friend before pouring him a goblet of the strongest whiskey James had in offering. "We now have a way to be with our friend at all times.”

 

"Here, Here!" James said, raising his own goblet of whiskey. "To Peter Pettigrew, Animagi!”

 

Oh my friends, my friends, don't ask me

What your sacrifice was for

Empty chairs at empty tables

Where my friends will sing no more…

 

 

Dumbledore watched young Harry Potter as he lay in the hospital wing, pale and crying. He had learned the truth, finally, about everything that had happened that long ago night. Dumbledore turned away from the silent tears of Harry's and headed up to his office. Locking himself in his study, he silently unlocked a desk drawer, and pulled out a fading photo of four smiling wizards and one bemused witch. Their smiles and waves did a little to lighten Dumbledore's heart and he smiled through his tears as the Marauder's danced and waved across the picture. He laughed lightly as James and Sirius tackled poor Peter, hauling him up to the front of the group. So much happiness, lost in one dark moment. Did the ends, really justify the means?