So, this is my Marauders Era version of the Great Gatsby (five points to me for being so original omg.) This isn't going to follow every detail of the GG exactly and this is set during the 1920's but in Britain. Before each chapter, there'll be a letter from one of the characters and then the actual chapter will follow. And if you haven't guessed already but the babe Nick Carraway is Remus Lupin.

Enjoy, read, review, and set fires to feel joy xx (no, seriously.)

If I ever believed in anything—and I've always been the one to morally observe, to look without a sneer, or at least I hope that I've tried—it was what lived within his eyes; trembled in them; strode in them; and most of all, dared to burn within them.

I'd like to think that I started out naive (painfully naive, mind you) and by the end of everything, I ended up as someone different; someone who I could only dare to let my eyes linger upon for a second, like a stranger in the street. Most times I felt inside and outside of myself at the same time and I had no idea what to do about it.

So the remedy was the seduction of colour and champagne that awaited me at his parties.

It was easy enough for a young man who was raised with enough importance of the times and of his place in society, to rip those shackles off himself and live on the brighter side of life which was condensed into his smile.

James Potter's smile.

But...

The past is for us to look back on, smile or scorn at what we've done, and eventually, we stand up straighter and move on.

I hold that true...now.

If only James Potter had.

(Why is it that we realise everything too late?) I've collected so many regrets recently from going back to the past and remembering how everything unfolded...how all of our lives unfolded so quickly...but it's something I can't quite give up. I've tried it. Believe me when I say that, please. I'd rather not relive it. But it's all stuck, either way. It's all stuck in my head and sleep only lets it fester and ignorance only makes it yearn to be heard and it's worn me out. If you put me and Dumbledore in a room, you'd wonder who the real old geezer was.

And now that I think about it...words are beautiful. They can sit in your soul, swim in your eyes, imprint themselves upon your heart, dine upon your fears and most of all—of which I recently managed to string together—they can preserve a memory, and perhaps—and this sounds kind of silly, I'll admit, but bear with me—preserve who we were, or who we wanted to be, at least.

So that's what this is.

And all I can hope that it'll ever be.

For there was no man seduced further by perseverance than James Potter, and who allowed himself to lose himself in it majestically.

R. J. Lupin