Chapter Text
The sound of pencil on paper was a common one from Remus Lupin.
He spent hours scratching away, writing then erasing, then writing again.
Most of the time he wrote about Sirius. He was the star of most of his songs. No pun intended.
How does one even begin to describe Sirius Black? He was erratic and spontaneous. He could never sit still and acted irrationally. He reacted on emotion and instinct and never thought anything through.
Basically, he was Remus’s polar opposite. And Remus, bless his soul, loved it. Craved it. No matter how much he tried to resist, Remus could not stay away from Sirius.
It drove him mad.
Remus and Sirius spent most of their time together. Remus wrote music, Sirius played the melody he was thinking of. They worked well together.
The Mauraders were a well-known up-and-coming band, and on their way to becoming as big as Fleetwood Mac. Or Queen.
Okay, maybe not that close, but they were still on their way up!
The night before, the guys had all gone out for drinks. Somehow, Remus found himself in tow. He didn’t drink with his friends, didn’t want to. He didn’t like the thought of not fully being in control of his body or mind.
Instead, he babysat them. Remus didn’t mind taking care of them. What were friends for, right? But Sirius had said some things that Remus just couldn’t push to the back of his mind like usual.
***
“Moony!” Sirius crowed as he walked through the door, arm around James and Peter following close behind, “Have I ever told you how great you are?”
Remus rolled his eyes and chuckled, “Tell me that when we’re stupid rich and famous.”
“Hey, I’m already one of those things!” Sirius laughed.
“Yeah, stupid,” James snorted.
“You alright, Pete? You look a little green…” Remus said, trying to direct the attention anywhere else.
Peter wheeled out the front door and promptly threw up in the bushes.
Remus tried not to listen to Peter’s retching, lest he get sick himself. He rounded up his bandmates (who also doubled as his best friends) and helped them change into pajamas as well as left them with bowls for them to puke in. Remus loved his friends, but he would not scrub puke out of the carpet.
He tucked each of them in like children, leaving glasses of water and painkillers on their nightstands. Remus swore to himself that if this was anything similar to parenting, he’d have none of it.
Sirius was the last one he “tucked in” (James had been right before, and begged Remus not to tell their manager, Lily, because he still believed he had a shot).
As Remus was about to leave, Sirius grabbed his arm.
“Mooooony,” he slurred.
“Yes, Padfoot?” Remus replied as if Sirius was a small child.
“I gotta tell you something!” Sirius said.
“I’m sure it can wait for the morning. Get some rest.”
“No!” Sirius insisted, “Moony, it's urgent.”
Remus sighed, “Fine. I’ll take the bait. What is it?”
“You gotta lean closer!”
With a scoff and roll of his eyes, he did as Sirius told him, assuming that he wanted to whisper in his ear like he had done so many times in their first years of being friends.
Instead, Remus was met with a firm hand holding his jaw and Sirius’s mouth on his.
Remus didn’t process it at first. Everything in him was screaming “Yes!” like he had been waiting for this moment for a lifetime.
In truth, he had. Remus had been in love with Sirius since he had even known what love was. But Sirius wasn’t like him. He wasn’t…queer.
Soon, Remus came to his senses. He (unfortunately) pulled away from Sirius. He was breathless and panting and his curly hair was wild. He was beautiful.
But he wasn’t for Remus to have.
“What the bloody hell was that!?” Remus sputtered.
“Moony, I had to. I need you. I want you,” Sirius pleaded.
For a second, Remus wanted to tell him he felt the same way. He wanted to tell him that he had been in love with him for years. But then he remembered who they were. More importantly, he remembered that Sirius was drunk.
“Stop talking nonsense,” Remus scoffed, “You’ve been drinking. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Remus,” Sirius said, a sincere look in his eye, “I love you.”
“Real sweet,” Remus said, leaving the room, “But I wish you were sober,” He said, more to himself than anyone as he shut the door.
From then on, the words just flowed out of Remus.
And that’s how they had their first #1 single.
***
“We’re not putting it on the setlist!” Sirius pressed.
“Padfoot, that's the only reason there’s a tour at all! That’s the only reason we’re even known!” James insisted.
“That’s bullocks and you know it! We would have been fine. We could’ve made it with a different song!”
“Sirius, it's going on the setlist. You can either embrace it or hate it, but it’s your first #1,” Lily said.
Sirius knew better than to argue with Lily. At the end of the day, what she said was law. He shot Remus the dirtiest look he’d ever seen and stormed off. James sighed and looked at Remus.
“Why does he hate that song so much?” Peter asked.
Remus and James shared a look. After the incident in Sirius’s room, James had been the first -and only- person Remus told. He knew how Remus felt when it came to Sirius and had never judged or teased him. James was a wonderful friend. The best Remus had ever had, even, though James's best friend was Sirius.
“Not sure. I think it's just difficult to sing,” Remus lied, “So many riffs and stuff.”
“But you guys are the ones with the hardest parts, right? The backup vocals with the strings have got to be more difficult than what he does-”
“Just leave it, Wormy,” James interrupted.
Peter huffed but didn’t press the matter any further. Remus gave James a grateful look.
***
Three months later, The Mauraders were on the "Mischief Managed" tour. Their stage presence was phenomenal and their other songs were climbing the charts faster than they could keep track of. Wish You Were Sober fell to number five, but other than that, all was well.
That’s what the world thought, anyway.
Backstage there was nothing but tension. Sirius wouldn’t even look at Remus, James and Lily had slept together, but hadn’t spoken about it, and their costume director (a wonderful young woman named Mary Macdonald) and tech manager (Her best friend, Marlene McKinnon) couldn’t agree on anything when it came to colors.
In addition, another band, a metal group called the “Death Eaters” blocked their songs from reaching anywhere higher than #5 on the charts.
“Listen,” Lily said, five minutes before they were supposed to go on stage, “I don’t know nor care what the hell is going on with you two, but you need to put it aside for this. I’ve received word that someone from Rolling Stone is in the crowd tonight, so get your shit together, or so help me-”
“Got it,” Remus said quickly, nodding.
Sirius saluted in response.
“Lily-” James started, but she was already on her way to her spot on the other side of the wings.
He sighed.
“Women, am I right?” Peter joked, but no one laughed.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” Ludo Bagman, a bodacious man they hired to announce, said over the speakers to the dark stadium, “Are you rrrrrrready!?”
A cheer erupted from the stands. Even now, after doing this four times a week for the last month and a half, it made Remus nervous. His stomach started doing backflips and his hands were shaky. It was a mix of adrenaline and anxiety that was terrifying and addicting all at once.
“Mauraders! Marauders! Marauders!” The crowd chanted over and over again.
“Introducing… Moony!”
Remus appeared onstage from the wings, bathing in the spotlight. He waved and smiled, plucking notes on his bass and winking at girls in the crowd.
“Wormtail!”
Peter came out from the same place as him, tossing his drumsticks in the air and spinning them in a fancy pattern he had been practicing for weeks.
“Prongs!”
James came running from the wings, shredding a solo on his bright red electric guitar that matched his equally bright Chuck Taylors. He slid across the stage on his knees, head thrown back as he finished the guitar solo. By now, the crowd was going wild. James was considered their “heartthrob.” Girls across the world had posters of him in their rooms.
“And last but certainly not least…give it up for Padfoot!”
Sirius came from the wings and the crowd exploded. He jumped and waved, then did some sort of handshake with James. They made it up when they all met, and now it was a pre-show ritual.
And with that, the show was off.
***
Things were going swimmingly. The band’s chemistry was wonderful. It almost felt like everything had been back to normal.
That was until the finale, Wish You Were Sober.
The song started slow, the stage was dark and there was a spotlight on Sirius playing the piano.
“This party's shit, wish we could dip
Go anywhere but here
Don't take a hit, don't kiss my lips
And please don't drink more beer
I'ma crawl outta the window now
'Cause I don't like anyone around
Kinda hope you're followin' me out
But this is definitely not my crowd”
Right after the pre-chorus, the stage exploded into lights and colors, with the other three Mauraders playing along. Sirius jumped on the piano and belted the words he hated so deeply.
“Nineteen, but you act twenty-five now
Knees weak, but you talk pretty fly, wow
Ripped jeans and a cup that you just downed
Take me where the music ain't too loud
Trade drinks, but you don't even know her
Save me 'til the party is over
Kiss me in the seat of your Rover”
After that, James and Remus came in with:
“Real sweet, but I wish you were sober”
Remus had a solo in this song, which James insisted he have. He begrudgingly accepted it to Sirius’s disdain.
“I wish you were sober
Wish you were so, wish you were so, wish you were sober
I wish you were sober”
The second verse was more fun, and Peter got to do backing vocals for all of it. He didn’t always get the spotlight vocally, (he wasn’t the best singer, the other three learned that from his shower concerts) but this song wasn’t as hard to sing as their others.
Remus watched Sirius as he sang. He always seemed so at home in the lights. His parents wanted him to be a doctor or a lawyer, but Sirius Black was meant to be a rockstar.
“Trip down the road, walking you home
You kiss me at your door
Pullin' me close, beg me, “Stay over’”
Sirius hated that line the most. He and Remus got into endless fights over it, but Remus always shut him down with the simple sentence: “its not about you, so what does it matter?”
He knew Sirius would never admit to anything of the sort. Ever.
Remus sang this part, another insistence of James:
“But I'm over this roller-coaster
I'ma crawl outta the window now
Getting good at saying, "Gotta bounce"
Honestly, you always let me down
And I know we're not just hangin' out”
Sirius took the chorus back, Remus and James backing when they were supposed to.
“Nineteen, but you act twenty-five now
Knees weak, but you talk pretty fly, wow
Ripped jeans and a cup that you just downed
Take me where the music ain't too loud
Trade drinks, but you don't even know her
Save me 'til the party is over
Kiss me in the seat of your Rover”
“Real sweet, but I wish you were sober”
“I wish you were sober
Wish you were so, wish you were so, wish you were sober
I wish you were sober
I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish
I wish you were sober
I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish”
And now came the part that Remus was always deathly afraid of messing up. It required him to belt, and he had never really been the best vocalist.
“Oh, I wish you were sober!”
Sirius had a look in his eye, one that said he was up to something. James caught it, too, because he looked at Remus with a worried glance.
“I’m nineteen, but I look twenty-five now.
Not weak, thats a lie that you spread around
Dark jeans, blue eyes wanna make you drown
Can’t hear you, got my music drowning you out
Glass clinks, so what if I don’t know her?
Brush past you when the party is over
Brought me home, said I have no composure
Only time I want you is when I’m not sober.”
The song ended, and just as the curtain was dropping, Sirius yelled into the microphone: “We love you London!”
As soon as mics were off and the curtain was fully clothed, Remus all but threw his bass guitar to the side and pinned Sirius up on the wall by his shirt, a wild fury in his eyes. For such a lanky boy, he was freakishly strong.
“What the hell was that!?” He growled.
“I changed the words! You write shit about me, I’ll return the favor!” Sirius replied.
“You prat!” James exclaimed, “Nobody in the bloody world knew it was about you! The three of us were the only ones that knew!”
“Oh, keeping secrets, are we!?” Peter exclaimed, “Well I’ve got one too! I quit!”
“What!?” The other three whirled their heads around in unison.
“I got a better offer! From another band who doesn’t keep secrets!”
“Oh yeah? By who? The Beetles? Fleetwood Mac?” Sirius scoffed, “Give me a break. You’re nothing without us.”
“The Death Eaters!” Peter yelled.
“What!?” Came a fifth voice which belonged to a very angry Lily Evans.
“I’m done! I’m not doing secrets or petty songs or sleeping with managers anymore! I’m going somewhere I’m respected and valued.”
“Go ahead! See if we care!” Sirius barked.
Lily had replaced Peter promptly for the rest of the tour with a phenomenal drummer named Dorcas Meadowes, but after the US leg ended, The Mauraders didn’t record another album. “Mischief Managed" was their third album, but their first and last world tour.
June 6th, 1978 was the last time the original four Mauraders had been seen together.