Night.

Disclaimer: since I’m not rich, I don’t know how the series will end, I’ve no daughter and I’m not called JKR, I suppose I don’t own Harry Potter…

Thanks to my beta-reader,  great Felina Black!

It’s night, Moony.

That time of the night, of the month, when I and you meet and you pitilessly and cruelly take my body, stealing my most precious thing: my humanity. It’s night as when the other werewolf bit me, linking my existence with yours, Moony. Do you remember the first time? I, I’ll never stop having nightmares about that pain, about my childish cry, about my parent’s fear…I’ve spent my life fighting against you, against your rage, your implacable hate of all human beings. And I’ve always lost.

Until them. Do you remember them, Moony?  The dog. The stag. The rat. Your friends. My friends. They made you acceptable, the pain you brought to my body bearable. I even thought I was lucky of sharing with you my body, because having this monstrous nature gave me my greatest gift: I wasn’t alone anymore.

The truth is I wasn’t the only one that shared the body with you: Prongs, Padfoot, and Wormtail all shared their bodies with you. And you were happy, Moony, just as me.

Happiness…Centuries seem to have passed from our last run into the Forest. Ages seem to have passed from the last time I was happy…from the last time I saw my last friend… 

And now you and I, Moony, are alone again, enemies as when I was a child, opposite of a single coin, sadness and pain the only feelings we share. A cursed man and his curse.

We both died when our friends died.

It’s night James.

Night as when we all ran into the Forbidden Forest. Night as when you and Sirius walked through Hogwarts’ corridors, under your cloak, in search of adventure, without caring about my advice or school rules. Night as when you died.

Why, James? Why am I allowed to live this hopeless and cursed sort of life while you aren’t?

Why am I allowed to see your son, while you can’t? Ah, if you could see him, James…

If you could see his expression-your expression-when he smiles to his friends or when he flies, as well as you used to…

If you could just see his eyes-Lily’s eyes-and lose yourself in them and the memories they bring…  

Ah, James, you had the strength to react, the strength I now have not. You could give Harry what I can not.

I know what you’d want from me, James, what you’d say. You’d say I am the right person to raise Harry, to be for him what you and Sirius can’t be anymore. You’d order me to stand up and fight the darkness, to stand by Harry and be his guardian and guide instead of you. You’d say I’d be as good as you could ever be.

No, James. I won’t ever be for Harry what you and Sirius had been or could have been. I don’t have your energy, I don’t have the strength to react and fight for the Order as well as you’d have done. I can just teach Harry what I know, I can just be for him a shadow of what you could have been. Because I am a shadow, James, the shadow of a man died long ago, along with his friends.

It’s night Peter.

Night as when you pressed the wood on the Whomping Willow to let the others enter the Shrieking Shack. Night as when we swore our friendship would always be indestructible, pure, uncontaminated. Night as when you contaminated it.

Why, Peter? Didn’t we always protect you? When did you start thinking of us as enemies? What made you betray us? What kind of darkness devoured you? Why didn’t you talk with us? We would have understood everything. We would have done everything for our Peter.

But tell me…did the Peter you showed us ever exist? Because he still has a place in our heart. You still have a place in our heart, Peter. And the place you have is the place you had when you really were alive.

But you actually were the first to die. You died the night you betrayed our friendship.

And then your betrayal killed us, every one of us. Our friendship wasn’t mean to be broken: our lives were bound to it, as our hopes and dreams.

I don’t know if you will be able or will want to be able to live again, Peter. I don’t care now. I can’t care now.

I only know that your betrayal killed me, Peter, putting a silver dagger in my heart that  continues to bleed even now that I am dead.

It’s night, Sirius.

Night as the endless night you saw for years as the  prisoner you should never had been, in a prison nobody should have built. Night as when you proved to me your innocence and gave me the gift of two more years of life.

That night of two years ago, at the Shrieking Shack, for a moment, I was happy because we were all together again. You, tired but innocent; Peter, evil but alive; James, dead but reborn in Harry; and me, mindful of life again with my friends’ return. It was one of the happiest moments of my life. Now I see that it was a fool emotion, but I’m glad I felt happiness a last time before…what happened after.

Don’t ask me to remember what happened after that night, Sirius. Don’t ask me to remember that night at the Department of Mysteries.

That night contains the greatest and scariest and most powerful truth of my life: the truth that when you fell through that veil, I came with you.

I died for the second time when you died for the second time, my dear Sirius…

It’s night my friends.

Another one of the countless nights I’ve spent alone, here, waiting for the curse to start.

But I can’t give up. There’s Harry, your hope, my last hope. You all died for him, we all died for him. I have to stand by him, to let you - us - live in him. I have to complete what you started. I’m supposed to be the last one of the Marauders, the last who can do what the Marauders wanted.

But, as I’ve said to you, I am not. I’m dead as well as you. It’s just that I can’t leave. I have a body and I have to carry on. For Harry.

What can I say? I’m doing my best. Sometimes, with Harry, who contains all your hearts and my heart, I feel memories of life. Sometimes, with him, I dare to be happy. And live.

I’ll carry on, even if I don’t know what will happen, how darkness will fail- because Harry will succeed. He has the heart of the Marauders. I’ll carry on even if I don’t know what the world will become. 

But when it’s night and I feel the convulsions of my curse, I just wish I did not have to be here, alone, fighting the wolf we once defeated together.