Do We Have To?
Sirius
It was a Saturday night (bleeding into Sunday morning, but let’s be honest, none of them can really tell the difference anymore) and Sirius Black was, as Sirius Black often is, absolutely fucking done. They had performed every night for the past 6 days in a row, and over the last two weeks they had been in seven different cities, had twelve different shows, played over 200 old songs, recorded two new songs, and been on three different talk shows. It’s not that he didn’t appreciate this insane life he had built - of course he did, it was everything he had ever dreamed of, and - most importantly - it was a far cry from managing the family firm, as he had spent most of his childhood assuming he would. That said, on weeks like this, it could be, well, a bit much. So it went without saying that he was more than a little excited for their first real day off in almost three weeks. He planned to spend it sleeping, resting his aching voice, and (and this is a secret he will take to his grave) doing some embroidery. Yes okay, shut the fuck up, he’s aware that it doesn’t exactly fit the punk rocker image he’s curated for himself, but it helps him relax.
So when James set down his pint and said “Right lads, we’d better get to bed, we’ve got an early start tomorrow.” Sirius was not best pleased.
“What?” he spluttered, “No we absolutely fucking don’t? Tomorrow is our day off. It is isn’t it?” he said, frantically checking his phone calendar “Please tell me tomorrow is our day off.”
“Well it mostly is, we’re not performing or anything, but we have that interview thing, remember?”
“No I do not remember! Are you taking the mick? I literally spoke to Dorcas about our schedule this morning, she would’ve told me!”
Dorcas was their God. The very long-suffering, and unbelievably patient manager of The Marauders, the same age as them, and yet she sometimes had the air of a mother hen herding around her troop of mildly uncooperative chicks. She had been with them since they had started the band six years ago, just about 18 and a little crazy, she had taken a chance on them, thrown away her job at a big production company to solo manage a band that didn’t have a single song out. The rest, as they say, is history, and she had been their messiah through the whole thing.
“Oh Cas didn’t organise it, I told her she had to take a break” explained Marlene “you know what she’s like, she never would if we didn’t make her - so she might not know about it - she’s not coming with us, I told her she had to sleep - she looks knackered”
“And what about me?! You care more about that girl than you do about the rest of us put together!” exclaimed Sirius, looking absolutely horrified, “You didn’t think I needed to sleep? How am I supposed to stay the pretty one if you never let me get my beauty sleep?”
Peter and James rolled their eyes in perfect unison. Marlene gasped in mock horror.
“I think you’ll find the tabloids say I’m the pretty one” she retorted.
“Shut it Marls, it’s not funny when you say it, you actually are the pretty one” muttered Sirius, ruffling her hair affectionately “anyway, Prongs, what is this interview thing I’m being forced to do against my will?”
“Oh stop moaning,” responded James “it’s not even that early, we’ll only need to be up by seven and-”
“I’m sorry what?! Seven, like, in the morning? No. No. Absolutely not, I’m not doing that. That’s - hold on - that’s five hours from now! No way, you couldn’t pay me enough. No.” interrupted Sirius, folding his arms like a petulant toddler. Sometimes he really didn’t do anything to dispel the “Spoilt Diva” rumours that surrounded him as lead singer.
“Come on Pads, it’ll be fun! It’s nothing serious, it’s just a podcast - so you don’t even need to do hair and makeup, and-”
“Don’t need to do hair and makeup..” huffed Sirius “what utter bollocks, I always do hair and makeup”
“And” said James, gallantly ignoring Sirius’ complaints, “I’ve listened to a few episodes, and the hosts sound awesome. Here look,” he pulled out his phone and pulled up and instagram page with the username @The_Queer_Spotlight “They seem really cool, they’re all about like, uplifting up and coming queer artists, and talking about injustice in the entertainment industry and what it’s like being queer in the spotlight, I think this would be a really good thing for us to do, like actually good, not just good for us, and anyway they have a pretty small audience so you don’t need to worry about it being perfect.”
“Plus you can sleep on the bus” added Peter “they record in Cardiff, that’s why we have to be up so early, so that gives you like, three hours to sleep on the way.”
“I’m not getting out of this am I?” sighed Sirius. The other three grinned at him.
“Oh bloody hell, fine. How come we’re doing this anyway? Cas gets thirty emails a week from tiny podcasts looking for their break - why have we agreed to this one?”
“Actually that’s my fault..” said Marlene, somewhat apologetically, “I’m doing a favour for Mary, apparently the host is like her best friend from school, I never met her, but she does sound sweet if Mary’s word is anything to go by.”
“What Mary as in, your ex Mary? Why are we doing favours for your ex? Exes are for ignoring in public and then thirst trapping on your private story, not doing favours for, what is wrong with you?” asked Sirius.
“Leaving aside your quite frankly disturbing attitude towards your past relationships,” sighed Peter “She’s a lesbian. What do you expect her to do, not be best friends with her exes?”
Sirius cocked an eyebrow at Marlene.
“He’s actually not wrong,” she sighed. And with that, amid a chorus of laughter and accusations of homophobia, they dragged themselves off to their hotel rooms, and went to sleep.
Remus
Lily put down her chopsticks, swallowed the last of her black bean tofu, and pulled out her trusty notebook.
“Right then,” she said, “we’ve been procrastinating long enough, and we’re recording in like eight hours. Let’s get planning.” Remus rolled his eyes, finished off his crispy beef, and set down his fork (he never got the hang of chopsticks, blame it on his stubborn Welsh genes).
“Alright, yeah fine, let’s do it”.
Remus and Lily’s Saturday Night Chinese had been an essential tradition since they had started living together in their first year of uni, and though they hadn’t been undergraduates for two years, they were still yet to miss one.
“Okay!” Lily squealed, bouncing a little in her chair “Let’s do it! So, I was thinking we start by asking them some like, bog standard interviewy stuff, like about the music more than about them, just to get them comfortable talking to us, and then we’ll gently ease them into talking about some more personal stuff, about queerness with their level of success, and what that’s been like for them, okay?”
“Sounds awesome,” Remus said with a smile. It always made him happy to see his best friend so in her element, and this sort of thing - working out how to play an interview - was so much more her forte than his, that he tended to just let her do her thing, he knew he wasn’t much help with people, he knew was never good at making people like him or trust him, not like Lily was.
“God I’m just so excited” she said, half to herself “I bet they’ve got so many cool life experiences, it must be tough..”.
Remus scoffed. “Sure,” he said under his breath, “so tough.”
“Something you’d like to share with the class Remus?” questioned Lily, “Aren’t you excited?”
“No no, of course I am, this is huge for us, I know that.” he replied half heartedly.
“But you’re not excited about, like, meeting The Marauders? I thought you’d be hyped?” Lily said, a little less bouncily.
“I just.. I just don’t think they’ll be my kind of people is all.” Remus responded, standing up and starting to load the dishwasher, “I mean come on, you’ve done your research right? They’re a bunch of Kensington trust fund babies, they might be cool on stage, but I’d bet money they turn out to be entitled bastards in real life. They met at boarding school Lily. Boarding school. Have you ever met someone who went to boarding school who didn’t turn out to be a total wanker?”
Lily rolled her eyes at him, “Letting your prejudice show a bit there Rem? Okay, fine, I don’t know what they’re gonna be like, but neither do you - so how about you quit judging, and we do our job?”
“Lily!” Remus gasped, in mock offense, “What’s happened to you - we're supposed to be The Bitchy Duo, you’re meant to judge people with me, not tell me off for it!”
“Okay, how about this?” Lily countered “IF they turn out to be awful we can have a proper bitch session afterwards and slag them all off for the rest of the day, but only if you promise me you’ll go into this with an open mind.”
Remus huffed.
“Come on Remus, this could be such a big deal for us, a band like The Marauders? This could be our big break! I know a thousand podcasts bigger than us that would kill for a chance to have The Marauders on, and Mary is calling in a massive favour for me here - let’s make the most of it, yeah?”
“Alright,” Remus let out a ridiculously dramatic sigh, but he was smiling through it “I’ll play nice I s’pose”
“Yess thank you!” Lily shrieked, swooping in to kiss Remus on the cheek,
“Oi, get off me you slag” he muttered lovingly, batting her away with a chuckle. They continued to clear up dinner in comfortable silence, until Lily interrupted it:
“You want to know what I think?”
“Not especially, but I think you’re about to tell me what you think,” Remus replied
“Prat.” shot back Lily “I think you don’t want to do this because you fancy one of the band and you're nervous.”
“Excuse me?” sputtered Remus
“I think you fancy James Potter!” she teased.
Remus spat out the beer he was drinking.
“James Potter? I do not fancy James Potter! Ugh as if!” he laughed, doing his best Cher Horowitz impression.
“I think you do! I mean come on” she giggled “he is SO your type: tall, tan, dreamy, athletic, musician, dark curls for you to twist your fingers in while you-”
“LILY! You disgust me!” he shrieked, going bright red at the mere insinuation. People tended to assume that Lily was the prude in their friendship from the Little Miss Perfect persona she had built up, but Remus was liable to turn scarlet at even the implication of anything bordering on the sexual. “Anyway, you're the one gushing about his dreamy curls, sounds more like you fancy him, hmm?” he said, nudging her hip with his.
“Oh no. Absolutely not, you know full well I’m sworn off men for the foreseeable future - Sev has well and truly put me off them,” both Remus and Lily let out a noise of disgust and shivered a little at the mention of Lily's ex-situationship,
“But…” she said brightly, changing the subject away from the bad memories tied to Severus, “Marlene McKinnon on the other hand, I would not be opposed if she wants to stick around after the interview if you know what I mean..” Lily giggled.
“Ew, Lils, no - who’s being unprofessional now?” berated Remus.
“Yeah yeah, whatever - anyway back to you - I am convinced you fancy James Potter, and I think we should do something about it.” said Lily “I reckon I can ask him if he’s single pretty naturally while we’re talking about dating with fame and-”
“Lily no! There are so many things wrong with that sentence. First of all, I do not fancy James Potter, I am really not just saying that, I don’t. Second of all, there is no way in hell I am letting you try to set me up with people we’re interviewing, that is a recipe for disaster, and third of all, and I know I said I wouldn’t bring this up again but you have forced my hand, I don’t date entitled pricks chasing fame with Daddy’s money.”
“Bloody hell Rem, point taken, I won’t try anything, I promise” and then with a slightly softer tone, “but you have got to get over Grant somehow.”
Ah. Grant. Remus had been really hoping the conversation would not veer in this direction. Grant Chapman had been Remus’ first true love. They had met in their first year of uni, and (as repressed queer teenagers are so apt to do) they had fallen head over heels for each other right away, and spent three years living the dream, but when they left uni, and Grant had to go back to London and Remus had stayed in Cardiff, their bubble popped, and they had struggled to make long distance work. They struggled for almost two years, and about six months ago, Grant had come all the way to Cardiff to tell Remus in person that he thought it was time to call it quits. It had torn him to pieces, and other than a couple of one night stands, he had refused to engage on dating since.
“Nope, nuh-uh, we are so not talking about this, it’s two am, I do not have the time or the energy to start a Lily-mandated therapy session now.”
“Fair enough - promise me we’ll talk about it properly another time though?”
“Fine. But right now, my back is starting to tell me that if I make it stay up any longer it’s going to be a real bitch tomorrow, so I reckon it’s bedtime.”
“Alright lovely, let’s get some shut eye - we’re meeting the band here at 10, so breakfast/planning meeting at 9, I'll make waffles?”
“Sounds good. Night Mrs Lupin,” he grinned, blowing Lily a kiss,
“Night Mr Evans” she smiled, completing her half of their nighttime ritual.
And with that, Remus and Lily shuffled off to their bedrooms, just across the hall from one another, and drifted off to sleep.