Chapter Text
Regulus was going to murder whoever was calling him and if it was Barty, he would make sure it was a slow and painful death, it was far too early in the morning in his opinion. It was 10:30. The shrill of his phone had woken him up after only a few hours of sleep. He had stayed up late working on a new song after an idea had struck him just as he was falling asleep, and he knew if he didn’t get it down somehow before he went to sleep, he would forget it by the time it was the morning.
He sighed as he picked up his phone and saw that it was Gideon his friend who had become a manager. He had been the manager for Regulus band when they had first started out, they had helped each other learn the industry, but they realised that Gideon was far too relaxed in managing them the more famous they got, so parted ways on friendly terms.
“Reg you there?” he heard Gideon through the speaker.
“Uuuggghhh, just about you alright Gid?” he replied.
“I have a massive favour to ask you and the rest of the band,” Gideon said.
“Sure, ask away,” Regulus said as he started to get out of bed.
“I know you guys have literally just got back from the American leg of your tour, but I have a band going on their first tour and one of their opening bands has pulled out and we leave in like three days so if you could please open for them I would owe you forever,” Gideon asked and was pretty much begging Regulus by the end of his question.
Regulus had not been expecting that to be the favour Gideon asked him “I mean I’ll have to ask the rest of the guys, but they’ll probably say yes, so put us down as a provisional yes and I’ll get back to you by the end of the day,” Regulus replied knowing he was definitely about to go back on tour. “Who’s the band anyway?”
“It’s the Marauders they’re fairly new but gained a lot of popularity after their latest album,” Gideon answered.
“Alright, I’ll check their stuff out later and let you know what decision we come to,” Regulus said before ending the call.
Regulus of course knew who the Marauders were the band was made up of his older brother and his friends. They had all met at the boarding school Sirius had been sent to when he was 11, Regulus was supposed to follow him the following year, but his parents thought that his brother had been ‘corrupted’ and was ‘being brain-washed by the left away from traditions’ of course Regulus knew that was bullshit and Sirius had always been more Liberal than the rest of the family. But what could a ten-year-old do in the grand scheme of things.
Regulus had been keeping up to date with what his brother was doing after he ran away from home. He knew that Sirius had started a band about the same time as he and his friends had but Regulus had been more successful faster than Sirius. Although he had wanted his brother to succeed, he couldn’t help but feel smug that he had done something before Sirius had managed to. He also knew that Sirius was living in London with his friends whilst Regulus lived up north in Liverpool.
Regulus shuffled around his apartment getting ready for the day as he texted the band group chat about the offer to open for the Marauders’ first tour. He assumed it wouldn’t be a lot of money for it as they were opening but it was a good opportunity for them to keep playing because as much as he loved touring, he hated rehearsals. It also meant he could control how much he saw Barty who would annoy Evan too much and be sent to annoy Regulus.
Regulus loved Barty though even when he was bothering Regulus. When Regulus had been kicked out of his home Barty had taken him in and introduced him to the rest of his friends and future bandmates. The Band was made up of himself, Barty, Evan, Pandora, and Dorcas. The four of them had been friends at school and Pandora and Evan were twins. Regulus had become friends with Barty as their families had known each other for generations and at one point they had been contracted to marry. The others took the piss out of them because of this, and Barty would also introduce himself as Regulus' future husband much to his annoyance and everyone else's amusement.
Slags
King of the Jungle: Gideon is asking if we would open for
his new band’s tour, it starts in 3 days.
Reggie’s Husband: Fuck yeah, I miss you lot already
The Better Rosier: Yeah, sounds good, where is it?
Ringo Starr: Honestly Barty, we literally saw each other yesterday
Ringo Starr: but yeah, I’m in as well
Reggie’s Husband: Evan says he’s in as well he
also wants to know who we would be opening for
King of the Jungle: cool I’ll let Gids know
We’re opening for the Marauder
And it's just a UK tour it's their first one
The Other Woman: you mean Gids asked
us to open for your estranged brother’s new band?
Does he know you’re related?
King of the Jungle: I don’t think he’s made the connection
Sirius always talks about his sister rather than a brother
so, people never realise
King of the Jungle: He wants to know what we want in return for playing
Regulus dropped his phone on his bed as the group chat continued to buzz with the different demands that they had. Some would be sensible like the first choice of dressing rooms and others would be ridiculous mostly from Barty, he had once asked for a yacht for performing at some celebrity’s birthday. They had gotten a yacht. He would call Gideon back after lunch as he knew he was in meetings about the tour all day but had a break at lunch.
Whilst Regulus knew that the Marauders was Sirius’ band, he hadn’t truly realised that opening for them would mean he would have to see his older brother. The last time he had seen Sirius they had been 14 and 15 respectively and it was as Sirius was climbing out his bedroom window to go and live with the Potters. He had asked Regulus to come with him, but he had refused to leave with his older brother. He knew that if he didn’t stay their parents and family would not stop looking until they dragged Sirius and Regulus back to that house and they would never be able to leave again. Regulus had decided to stay so his brother could leave and never have to come back. Sirius had always protected Regulus when they were younger, so it was Regulus' turn to protect his older brother.
Regulus was pretty sure Sirius wouldn’t recognise him when they saw each other next. The last time Sirius had seen Regulus was before he transitioned. He hadn’t ended up coming out to his brother he had gone into Sirius’ room that night to tell him. However, he hadn’t gotten to it if he had told Sirius he would have either stayed or dragged Regulus along with him and staying in that house would have killed Sirius and Regulus would never forgive himself for doing that to his older brother. So, he let him go and kept it a secret for two more years before finally telling someone else. He told Barty first as he was Regulus' one and only real friend despite the friendship stemming from their family's alliance and being forced to spend time together due to their marriage contract.
Regulus had made the mistake of telling his parents that he was trans and had ended up out on the street black and blue that very same night. He had slept on the street that night before he was found by Barty and quickly taken to the hospital and then to Barty’s house and promptly moved in with the Crouch family. It was never mentioned, and they never brought it up except for occasionally in a song they wrote.
Sirius had been lucky when he left as it had been his own choice and it had happened before their Uncle Alphard had died who left all his money to his favourite nephew. Regulus had been left with nothing from his family after his disownment and had felt a crushing weight of guilt when the Crouch’s bought him things. The first thing he did with the money they had made from their first album was to pay them back in full and then some. It had been a shocking experience having gone from the incredible wealth of his family and then the wealth of the Crouch’s to living paycheque to paycheque for a good few years before they had truly started to make money from their music. He was just grateful that he only had to focus on his music now and not on writing music, producing it, rehearsing, touring and the two more stable jobs he worked.
He had found it especially hard as all the people he had been hanging out with and those in the band had been Barty’s friends from school, the same one Sirius had gone to. So, the majority of them had been wealthy and couldn’t understand what he was going through and they had all known of his older brother and would always ask about him, but Regulus knew less about his brother than they did which always caused his face to burn with embarrassment when he told them as such.
He was currently waiting for Gideon to pick up his phone to let him know that they would open for the tour. It was just about to go to Gideon’s voicemail before he heard the line connecting and Gideon’s out of breath greeting.
“Hey Gid, will do it but we have conditions,” Regulus told him.
“‘course you do, wouldn’t be Slytherins if you’d do it for free,” was the reply “I know I know didn’t go to the school, but everyone knows you would’ve been a Slytherin.”
“Ha-ha so funny Gid do you want to know what we want or not?” Regulus said.
“Yeah, go for it but I swear if Barty is asking for something like a yacht again, I’m hanging up”.
“Nothing that Ridiculous this time,” Regulus promised. “Ok so we want first choice of the dressing room, to be able to choose our own set list and the ability to change it every night if we feel like it and we don’t have to play our own songs if we don’t want to and we want to choose our wardrobe.” those were all their demands.
“Done and done fairly reasonable if you ask me and thank you so much you guys are actual life savers,” Gideon told Regulus.
“Oh, and we might have to miss a show because we have the Brits depending on Dates,” Regulus remembered he was supposed to tell Gideon that as well.
“Not a problem I don’t think we have a show that day,” Gideon informed Regulus. “Oh, umm also the band decided they wanted their friends' band to open for them as well, so I don’t know where in the show you lot are going to end up playing.”
“That's fine it's not like we’re hoping this tour will lead to our break you know” Regulus replied.
“Cool, I’ll send the contracts over to your lawyers after I’ve finished all these meetings I have today, speaking of I’m going to be late to my next one I’ll speak to you lot later,” Gideon said as he hung up.
Slags
King of the Jungle: we can have all the things
we wanted
King of the Jungle: no Barty I didn’t ask for
sports cars
Reggie’s Husband: Boo you suck you always spoil my fun.
The Other Woman: where exactly where you going to store this car at our flat???
Reggie’s Husband: I would‘ve found space
The Other Woman: 🙄
King of the Jungle: 🙄
Ringo Starr: 🙄
T he Better Rosier: 🙄
Reggie’s Husband: 🖕
James Potter hadn’t thought that becoming famous would involve so many meetings. After their album had blown up the Marauders had been in meetings about getting managers and lawyers and stylists and so many more people he honestly couldn’t remember. Now they were in meetings about going on tour honestly James was excited about it, but he was less excited about all the meetings they had been in already today and the load more they had this afternoon.
They were about to start their first meeting of the afternoon luckily this time the girls were with them as they were going on tour with them as well, but they were still waiting for their manager. He was slightly nervous about being in the room without him and being left alone with lawyers and stylists and people who knew were important but didn’t know what their job was, he was worried they would end up agreeing to something bad without their manager there with them.
Just as he was about to spiral out of control and into a full-blown panic attack as he worried himself about signing contracts that he didn't understand and would have some horrible clause he would evidently miss an-
“Sorry I didn’t mean to be late my call ran over.” their manager came crashing into the room and James thought he should probably learn his name.
“Not a problem Gideon,” so that was their manager’s name. “We were about to discuss the issue of the other band dropping out of the tour and what we were going to do about it.” a man who James was pretty sure was a label executive said.
“Ah well I have the solution to that I called in a favour to an old friend and they and their band have agreed to open for the tour, with their own conditions of course,” Gideon replied to the man but spoke to the whole room.
“Who did you ask?” the executive asked but then grimaced when he saw the smile on Gideon’s face “what were the conditions they asked for this time please tell me they didn’t ask for another yacht,” the executive said as he rubbed the area above his brow and looking like he aged fifty years.
James and Sirius made eye contact across the table and pulled disbelieving faces as if it hadn’t occurred to them that they could ask for pretty much anything they wanted. They then turned to face Remus who was now staring at the both of them as if daring them to try it under his watch.
“No nothing like that this time,” Gideon waved away the question and worry of the executive, “they just want first choice of the dressing room, to be able to choose their own set list and the ability to change it every night if they feel like it and they don’t have to play their own songs if we don’t want to and they want to choose their wardrobe,” he said as he made his way around the table to take the empty seat.
“That's it? Are you sure?” asked someone else in the room.
“Yep, although I’m sure Barty probably asked for something ridiculous but was left out when I spoke to Reg,” Gideon replied and the rest of the people in the room look like they agreed with his assessment.
After that James tuned most of the rest of the meeting out finding all the legal stuff boring and difficult to follow but Remus and Lily looked like they were easily following along, probably because they were both studying to become lawyers. James knew they would explain it to the rest of them later if they asked.
Once the meetings they needed to attend for the day had finished the whole group decided to head to the boy’s house to chill out for the evening and talk about everything that happened today.
James, Remus, Sirius, and Peter all lived together in a townhouse and lived together since they had finished school. They decided to live together as they had shared a dorm for seven years at school and had yet to run into any issues. Well other than Sirius and Remus remembering that it was a shared house and yes that does mean you can’t shag each other in the kitchen or any other room that isn’t their bedroom or bathroom because somebody else might walk in and see them.
After they had all arrived back at the house and their takeout had been delivered, they settled around the coffee table in the front room. When they did things like this it often reminded James of being in Gryffindor's common room over the years though they hadn’t always all been friends.
“Who do you think the other band is?” Marlene was the first to ask what they all wanted to know.
“They seem to be under the same label or at least known by them given how they reacted to Gideon telling them,” Lily said whilst she was focusing intently on trying to get her noodles to stay on her fork.
“Do you reckon we could really ask for a yacht?” Sirius asked the question James also really wanted to know the answer to.
“No, you can’t Pads, nor you Prongs don’t look at me like that I can see you thinking about it.” Remus told the pair of them who definitely didn’t pout about it.
“I can’t believe everyone just agreed to let them choose their dressing room when they're going to be opening for the openers and we’re the ones people are coming to see,” Sirius complained “no offence girls” his comment was waved away by Lily, Mary, and Marlene
“The way they were being talked about sort of suggests they’re more famous than we are,” James started to say, “but that wouldn’t make sense for them to open for us if that's the case.” the others all made sounds of agreement except for Peter.
“There is one group I can think of I mean the names fit and they were Gideon’s first band they all started together so it sort of works but they’re massively famous and are on a break from their own tour, so I’d be surprised if it was them.” Peter said before he turned back to his food ignoring the looks from everyone else.
“Well, who do you think it is Peter?” Mary asked.
“It could be The Green Vipers but like I said they’re on a break from their own tour so it’s probably not them.” he said.
“I’ve never heard of them are you sure they’re that famous Pete?” Sirius questioned.
“No offence Pads but they aren’t really your style of music and yeah they are pretty fucking famous I mean they’re currently doing arena tours and are nominated for a shit ton of awards,” Peter replied, “wait let me go get their latest album I have it on vinyl.” Peter Jumped up and left the room.
When Peter came back into the room, he was holding a Vinyl that had a dark cover that was possibly a dark blue James couldn’t work it out from where he was sitting. Peter moved over to Sirius’ record player and set it up to play the album. The opening of the first song was a funky rhythm played on some drums before they heard the singer.
“I can’t break the cycle, am I just a fool? …” James was a bit surprised at how upbeat the song sounded considering how depressing the lyrics were. They listened to the whole album Peter getting up a couple of times to change the records as needed. James was pretty sure he had fallen in love with the voice of the lead singer it was low and sultry it had a natural rasp that he and Sirius had to work hard on getting right when they sang. They could also sing well in the higher range which he definitely was not jealous about. The songs seemed to be more about family rather than relationships which Peter explained was common in their albums.
“God, I hope they open for us could you imagine how cool that’d be?!” Peter said excitedly.
“Careful Petey you wouldn’t want to scare them off by going all fanboy over them.” Sirius joked and got an eye roll in response from Peter and a jab in the ribs from Remus who he was leaning on.
“Oh, piss off pads you’d act the same way if we were talking about Queen, it's not my fault your favourite artists are dead.” Peter joked back.
Sirius pretended to faint in shock and fell into Remus’ lap before ‘waking up’ and started to fake sob into Remus's shoulder, who pushed him away causing him to actually fall as he hadn’t been expecting it.
“Moony how could you? Did you not hear what he just said?” Sirius fake gasped
“Honestly Pads no need for the dramatics,” Remus said.
Sirius looked at him in disbelief before he turned to face James who had been laughing at the scene along with the girls “Prongs they’re being so mean to me I need you to beat them up for me” Sirius pleaded.
“Not a chance Pads” James scoffed in response.
They finished eating their meal and watched a film which they all passed out watching so ended up having an impromptu sleepover that night. James spent the night dreaming about the voice he had heard on the record earlier that night. He wasn’t sure how he had developed a crush on just a voice, but he had.
He was unsure about it as he had never thought about the fact that he might fancy boys but after hearing the singer last night he couldn’t deny he thought that he at least sounded attractive. He wasn’t worried about what his parents would think as they were always supportive and well Sirius was their second son, and they had no issues with his sexuality. James was worried about what would happen with the label as they had been alright with Sirius and Remus being gay and together because James and Peter were straight but what would happen to the band if James wanted to date men? He didn’t want to be the reason the band failed.
Before James could spiral further, he realised he had a crush on a voice and had never fancied men before he heard the singer so there was no point in worrying about something that hadn’t happened yet. Well, that's what he told himself, but he was still thinking about it when he got up for the day.
As he was moving about the kitchen starting on breakfast for everyone, he noticed a text in their group chat from their manager.
Marauders + Gideon
Gideon: the other band has signed the contract.
all good for tour starting next week.
James felt relief that everything was going to be fine for their first tour.