Chapter Text
The letter arrived on a Tuesday.
Remus left it unopened on the kitchen table for three days.
Not out of protest. He simply found that unopened envelopes had become surprisingly patient companions in recent years. Bills waited. Invitations waited. The Ministry waited. If something was truly urgent, someone invariably sent a second owl with considerably less dignity than the first.
This one bore the seal of the Daily Prophet.
He knew what it would say before he broke the wax.
The fiftieth anniversary of the end of the First Wizarding War had inspired a fresh wave of commemorations, documentaries, biographies, memorial editions, collector's supplements and, rather bafflingly, commemorative chocolate frogs. Somewhere, someone had decided that history ought to become marketable.
The letter was impeccably polite.
Would Professor Remus Lupin be willing to participate in an interview regarding the legendary Marauders and their lasting legacy?
Legendary.
He disliked that word immediately.
Legends required polishing. Sanding down edges. Filing away inconvenient truths until all that remained was something children could admire without asking difficult questions.
James had not been legendary.
James had been nineteen.
There was a difference.