Tear Jerker / The Shoebox Project

• The deaths of Mr and Mrs Potter, who were loving parents and overwhelmingly kind to James and his friends. They were murdered by death eaters and it's only pure luck that James wasn't there with them. There's a family photograph included just after we learn about their deaths, showing a young Mr and Mrs Potter with an infant James.
  • James's parents' funeral. James can't find a pair of trousers and almost calls out to his mum to see if she's put them anywhere only to suddenly remember exactly where he is.
  • The little detail that Mrs Potter spilt her tea when she was killed and it left a stain on the carpet James can't get rid of.
  • Sirius breaks down at their funeral in front of Remus because he very much considered them his parents too, but thinks that he's unable to openly grieve as he doesn't want to take that away from James. Remus finally gets over his awkwardness and gives Sirius a much-needed hug, allowing him to cry on his shoulder.
• The talk between James and Lily when James returns from his Auror training, after having been ambushed by Death Eaters and saved by Sirius. It's all at once funny and so, so heart-rending, mostly in the way that Jaida and Rave manage to flawlessly capture the amount of pure love Lily has for James and the terror that that love inspires, and in such realistic terms.
  "No," Lily snaps. "We can't just, we can't just anything. I know I only have a stupid desk job, James, but I've seen what the Death Eaters can do – what they have done already! – to people. I don't want you brought in there like that. James, I love you, do you have any idea what it means?"
  
  "Yes," James tells her. "Actually, yes, I know exactly—"
  
  "You do not!" Lily's voice tears off, sudden and awful to hear. "It means that I'm terrified, I'm terrified all the time, and then when they brought Sirius in and you weren't there, what was I supposed to think?"
  
  "That I was making my report," James says, mouth dry. "That I was telling Dumbledore what happened."
  
  "That you were in seven hundred pieces somewhere. Gone. Forever." Lily stares at the ceiling, clenching her own forearm so tightly that James wants to take her hands before her nails reach bone.
• Realizing that ever single named character except for Professor McGonagall and Kingsley Shacklebolt was killed or had their lives otherwise destroyed by the Death Eaters. And there are quite a lot of named characters.
• Watching Peter gradually being pushed out of the Marauders is absolutely heartbreaking. Peter is a sweet and well-meaning boy but he's just not as smart or brilliant as James, Sirius and Remus and he ends up falling behind. It starts as early as the fact that Peter actually has a date for Valentines is completely ignored in favour of them trying to set up James with Lily, which makes it all the sadder as Lily does end up replacing Peter when she starts dating James.
  • Peter desperately trying to meet up with his friends only to be pushed away as they're busy with their own lives. It makes you wonder what would have happened had one of them invited Peter in instead of leaving him to be befriended by Death Eaters.
    • Remus actually does worry about Peter when Sirius turns him away, but is swiftly distracted by Sirius himself and seems to think nothing more of it.
  • The final chapter ends with a series of photographs depicting the Marauders and how Peter is slowly being pushed out of the group. The first one has them all smiling together with equal focus, while the next one has Peter's face partially out of the frame. Then there's a photograph of James, Sirius and Remus walking together while Peter is trying to catch up to them some distance behind and another where James, Sirius and Remus are all looking at one another mid-conversation while Peter stands awkwardly behind them. And the final one has Remus and Sirius, and James and Lily, all smiling and posing together while Peter is in the background, standing awkwardly between the two couples with a frown.