The Followers

The Followers

In books the main character always remembers the exact moment they realized they were in love, or the moment they first met the "special" person. I remember neither.

I don't really remember meeting any of the other three future Marauders. They were simply there, and slowly, through simply sharing a dorm and classes, we became friends.

I don't remember when my first crush began, either. It seemed like it simply always was.

James was our fearless leader, filled with enough hubris and bravado to lead any merry Gryffindor band; Sirius was the fire of the group, the energy, and the perverse sense of humor. Peter and I were the followers, worshipping our idols and friends.

Peter followed James, the one with the unconscious grace and ability, the one who could lead people and make them love him. He was everything Peter wished he could be, everything he wanted. Everything he desired.

Sirius was the same thing for me. I was a pale shadow hiding in a corner. I brought no vibrancy to the group. The only thing I ever gave them was unlistened to advice and an excuse to have a good time once a month. I was shy and timid, scared of people, scared of the moon, scared of feeling. And Sirius, well, Sirius was emotion. He was all about feeling things and living things and simply being. I wanted that, needed that.

Simply, I needed him.

Sadly, however, neither James nor Sirius ever saw it the way we did.

I never got up the guts to tell Sirius I was in love with him. I think it might have been better that way, now that I know what telling James did to Peter.

I remember before he told, Peter and I sat up late at nights in the common room, whispering to each other about our loves, about how we would tell them, about how wonderful they were, about how perfect we would be with them. During one of those nights in our seventh year Peter stood up suddenly, eyes gleaming, and proclaimed that the next day, the next morning, he would tell James, no matter what.

And he did.

Peter didn't attend any classes that day, nor did he show up for any meals. James went through the day with an unsettled, uncomfortable look on his face, shaking off Sirius's attempts to get him to tell him what was wrong.

I found Peter before dinner huddled in a corner near the library, tears streaked down his cheeks, shuddering with his ragged breathing. As I hurried over to him a few more tears slipped softly down his cheeks.

"Oh Peter," I sighed, kneeling before him and embracing him. He sobbed, burying his face in my shoulder.

"I told him Remus, I told him and now he hates me. He hates me. He looked like he was going to throw up. He even backed away from me out the door. How could he? How could he just refuse my love like that? I love him! I love him so much."

His tears came harder as he clutched desperately at me, fingers digging almost painfully into my back.

"Shh, it's all right Peter. It's all right." The inanity of my whisperings surprised even me.

"It's not all right. It's never going to be all right ever again! He hates me! He's never going to even be able to look at me again! He's going to go off and marry Evans and have lots of little red-headed kids and life is going to be simply horrible."

I couldn't help but chuckle slightly. "James is never going to marry Lily. She hates him. And James can't hate you; you're his friend. Just give him some time to think about things, all right? Give him some time."

Peter pulled away then, rubbing futilely at his eyes. "No," he whispered softly, dejectedly. "There's no more time. He made sure I knew that. He doesn't want me, and he'll never want me. He wants Lily, and if not her, then some other girl, but never me. Never me."

He looked up at me then, and the despair I could see so clearly in his light brown eyes filled me just as fully. Who was I kidding? Sirius was a lady's man and constantly made his thoughts about homosexuality and those bloody pooftahs known. He would never love me, never. I had even less hope than Peter.

"I feel so lost, Remus," Peter whispered, an odd, desperate light gleaming in his eyes. "I feel like the world has been pulled away, out from underneath my feet. James has always been there and I feel as if I've always loved him, but now he's gone."

"They'll never love us." My voice cracked over the soft words, tears filling my eyes.

"No, they won't," Peter agreed. "We've been wasting our time and love on them."

"There's nothing else, nothing." I now sounded much more ragged than Peter, as if the person I loved has just turned me down, and not the other way around. I couldn't help, just then, picturing Sirius's disgusted face as he told me he never wanted to see me again

"We have each other," Peter offered gently, sealing his words with a tentative kiss.

"I think it's time we stop following them, don't you?" he asked me breathlessly when he had pulled away. I stared at him, dumbfounded, a new world rising up on the horizon.

Then realization dawned and I pulled Peter closer, deciding that it was time I settled for something instead of aiming too high.

* * * *

Before that horrible Hallowe'en night, Peter and I lived together, and had for a year and a half. Fear had settled thickly over our world, but I felt safe in our house, with Peter, talking about mundane things, trying not to notice as he slowly changed.

We used to talk about who the traitor was, Sirius, of course, (as my past love for him turned into a searing hate), and about how James would never see the light (as the same sweep of emotion had occurred in Peter's heart as well). We'd lie in bed at night, feeling a soft space between us that was only filled with content and ease, but never love, and talk in hateful whispers about the two men we had once loved.

No wonder they had thought me the traitor, what with the hate for the both of them that swelled within me whenever I so much as looked at them. Peter always was a much better actor than I.

And then that night came, and Sirius finally got James killed, and murdered Peter, and got himself sent to Azkaban.

I didn't cry when I found out.

I sat on the edge of our bed, staring blankly through the wall, and could only think about how I couldn't remember when I had fallen in love with Peter. It hadn't been in that dark corridor, or at any time during our last year at Hogwarts. It hadn't been when we left, or when he asked me if I wanted to move in with him. It hadn't been when we'd first shared a bed or first had sex or first... anything.

It just sort of snuck in, slipping in between the cracks of daily life. It had grown in my heart with each day, every time I held him, every time I kissed him.

Somehow, in the daily monotony of simply living, I had grown to love him.

And now he was gone.

Still, I couldn't cry.

I thought about James, who had finally married Lily, but had only had the time for one, raven-haired boy, who Peter and I had sworn to hate. I thought about us growing apart, about the hate Peter had transferred to me, it seemed. About how he could hide it while I could not. I thought about how happy he seemed, even as Fear and Death and Pain flapped their black wings around his home. I thought about him, dead, laying on the floor of his ruined home, along with his wife, their little boy crying uselessly, somehow alive.

It was sad and horrible and the stuff of nightmares...

And still, I couldn't cry.

Then I thought of Sirius, the obvious traitor, the one who had killed Peter, killed James and Lily and that little boy I just couldn't put a name to, as Peter and I had sworn never to say it. I thought about him cornering Peter on a street, taking advantage of a moment of weakness as Peter's finely cultivated hate turned back to love at the loss of James. I thought about him laughing as he killed thirteen people. I thought about the madness behind his eyes and the horrid thoughts that must have been running through his twisted mind.

Then I thought of the young man who I had loved and followed faithfully with star-struck eyes. The one filled with energy and pride and power. The one who I had always loved and would always love, even if he were evil and hated me and had killed everyone else in my life, everyone else who mattered. I remembered his grey eyes laughing happily at me, and his tongue lolling from his mouth in his canine form.

Then, curled up in the middle of a bed meant for two, then I cried. For in my heart, I knew that I was still a follower, and always would be.