The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix - Part Two

They Were As We Are

If Lily couldn't stop talking about the history and beauty of Paris next day, James couldn't stop talking about the prospect of becoming a quidditch trainer.

"I know I ought to have talked to you first and probably ought to have looked into precisely what it takes - do I need to be registered somewhere, for instance? And I'll need equipment... Blimey I could use the field out back our place, it's perfect training ground. My dad trained me back there when I was small. I was just so excited Evans! Do you reckon I'll be alright at this?"

"You'll be better than alright, James," Lily answered "You'll be the absolute best."

The catacombs were a strange experience. Neither James nor Lily could quite put words to why they wanted to see the macabre sight of the bones beneath the streets of Paris, but they were both drawn to the idea of the place in a strange way. It was one of the things James had marked in the book and one Lily mentioned before she'd seen that he had put a marker there. "I know it's dreadfully sad, a place like that, but I feel as though it's important to go and see it, too, like we'd be doing Paris wrong by not encountering that part of her," Lily had said when they'd been looking at the guidebook on the balcony the day before.

"I know precisely what you mean," James had agreed.

Now, the morning mist turning the city foggy, the catacombs seemed even more haunting of an idea than they already had. They walked together, wearing their wool coats and holding hands, to the entrance of the tour. They waited on a short queue - being off season for tourists to begin with and so early in the morning on a misty day, there wasn't many people to vie for the attention of the tour guides and they were ushered down into the ossuary fairly quickly. Lit by low, amber lamps, the catacomb tunnels were somber and smelled musty, like time gone a bit stale. 

"This place makes me think of Mopsus," Lily whispered. 

James nodded. "But not in a bad way."

"No, not at all." Lily looked about. "It's... oddly peaceful?"

"Yeah," James had been thinking the same. 

The walls were lined with bones, stacked nearly into patterns, and there were stones engraved with words that Lily read some of the translations from a sheet given to them by the muggle man leading the tour group through the tunnel. 

"They were are we are; dust, the wind's plaything; fragile as men, feeble as the void."  

James looked around. "Funny to think of, isn't it?"

"What?"

"They were as we are. All of these bones had stories that were just as vibrant and real to them as ours is to us... and how tragic that their stories are forgotten," he stared into the hollow eyes of one of the skulls that were stuck in among the femurs that lined the walls of the catacombs. "It's a shame that not a single soul alive knows who these people were. They're nothing but remains now."

Lily felt a strange melancholy at these words. "I - I suppose that's what death and life is about, though, isn't it?" She stared at the same skull he was looking at, and added, "I do wish the stories weren't forgotten, though," she added. She could feel the love magic in her stirring, and a strange feeling of deja'vu filled her up as they continued walking. It was as though the bones were calling out to her magique amour, vying to be heard, to have their stories remembered. She wished she had the capacity and the time to listen to every one of them.

"Our days flowed like water," she read from one of the engraved stones.

"That's rather pretty," Lily commented.