Afterlife

The Train still moves forward

Remus John Lupin sat on the Hogwarts Express in time for Harry's third year. Moony looked sad, James thought, half keeping an eye on Harry to make sure he actually got on the train this year - last year he had been biting his nails in anxiety as his only son nearly fell out of a flying car onto a moving train at a high speed and height - and half watching Remus in his lonely compartment. He was drifting off to sleep now, and then Harry was on the train and he happened to go into the same compartment. Their compartment, the Marauder one. If Harry looked above the seats in detail, he would find the little wooden engravings - Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs and various doodles they had done over the many years.

Remus was even sitting in his normal seat - clearly didn't want to change tradition. Harry shuffled into the seat opposite, trying not to wake the sleeping stranger and plonked himself down into James' seat. James felt himself straighten up. Oh, that was interesting. Fate took a cruel twist sometimes.

James watched eagerly as he waited for Remus to sit up and introduce himself as one of his Dad's best friends, but the man didn't. Time ticked by and then the windows started to go cold, it darkened and the train slowed. Ron made a remark about how starving he was and then all the lights went out.

Neville and Ginny joined the compartment and then-

"Quiet!" Came the voice of the man who'd been asleep.

Professor Remus John Lupin. James sighed. He looked tired, and then he swung the lamp over to Harry's face and Remus' eyes went alert and pained at the same time - an imperceptible change you wouldn't notice unless you had known the man for a very long time.

James winced. He must have been surprised - everyone said Harry was the spitting image of James and to spring a life-size look-a-like of teenage James was very very cruel. The pain he must be going through. That's not James, that's not James, James is dead and has been dead for years.

Remus did, in fact, shed a single tear after leaving the compartment, his face a facade of calm and seriousness but his eyes portraying something different, the eyes of a man who has suffered.

James couldn't watch anymore. He turned away from the hurt and the pain in Remus' eyes and tried to banish that look from his head forever, to try and not let it scar into his head like a brand.