Revenge
Remus fumes over his math homework, which is spread out over the carpet of Lilys dorm. She’s sitting on her bed, staring at her own textbook, but she’s paying it about as much attention as Remus is giving his homework. Her shoulders are shaking with mirth, silent laughter causing her to wheeze a little bit, like she’s unable to get a proper breath in.
“He just… he just… he winked at me again. Lily, he winked at me twice. After I’d already thrown his stupid paper away. I mean… how dense do you have to be to not get a hint like that? I mean, at that point is it even a hint? I don’t… I can’t… I can’t even process the absolute audacity.”
“Remus, stop, please, I can’t-I can’t breath!”
“I don’t know what you’re even laughing at, this isn’t funny!”
“Oh, but it’s so, so funny!”
“Lily, I think he’s worse then your fan-boy.”
“Honestly, you might be right.”
“I mean, come on. It was… I don’t think I’ve ever been so mad in my life.”
“Please tell me you memorized his number or something, please.”
“Why the hell would I have done that?”
“So I can text him and congratulate him for being able to get this much of a rise out of you.”
“You’re not funny.”
“But I am, my dear Remus, but I am.”
“Not right now you’re not.”
“Don’t tell me you’re not at least a little bit flattered.”
“Why would I be flattered?”
“You said yourself that he was hot, didn’t you?”
“Sure, but that only makes him more of a dick.”
“How so?”
“He just… he… I don’t know how to explain it. He’s just infuriating and I hate him and I don’t think I’ve ever hated anyone as much as I do him, right now.”
Lily is still laughing, like she’s never heard a story as humorous as this one.
“Well, tell me, how are you getting your revenge on him, then?”
“I’m not—” Lily shoots him a look, one that says Cut the shit, Remus, we both know you hold grudges like no other and Remus does, in fact, cut the shit. “I haven’t… come up with anything good yet.” He mutters, only slightly ashamed of himself.
For a moment, Lily doesn’t say anything. She stares off at her TV, once again playing the Walking Dead, lost in thought. Remus doesn’t interrupt her train of thought. Usually, when Lily gets deep in thought like this, the result is either deeply hilarious, or deeply genius, and Remus doesn’t want to get in the way of either of those outcomes. Finally, she speaks.
“You could cut the strings on his guitar.”
“That shit’s expensive, Lily, I’m not trying to get sued.”
“Alright, alright.”
Once again, she loses herself to her thoughts, and when her eyes glint and a grin spreads across her cheeks, Remus knows she’s come up with something good.
“Does the band enter through a back door?”
“Well I’ve never seen them go in through the front, and I’m always there before them, so I assume so…” Remus has no idea where this is going, but he can’t wait for wherever they end up.
“Perfect. Here’s the plan;”
Remus leans forward eagerly.
“You’re going to print out a sign saying that there won’t be any live music, as the sound system is malfunctioning. You’re going to put this on the door right before people start to arrive, and then the band is going to have to perform to an empty cafe.” Lily splays her arms out beside her in a grandiose gesture, grin wide. Remus feels a grin of his own spreading on his face.
“Lily, you are an absolute genius.”
“Thank you, thank you.” Lily says, bowing a little bit. “Now, are we gonna finish this homework or not?”
“I was thinking or not. I’m shit at maths.”
“I’ll text you the number of a good tutor later. For now, though, my degree is on the line, and as fun as all that was, I really, really need to focus.”
Remus spends all together too much time designing a sign. Realistically, he knows that it doesn’t need to look all that good. If a small cafe were having technical difficulties, they likely wouldn’t want to spend time they could be spent fixing their problems designing an intricate sign announcing their problems to the world. Still, Remus is nervous, and anxious about getting caught, so he stalls actually going through with the plan by attempting to perfect it. He manages to convince himself to stop working it, just making a generic looking announcement. No one would think it took more then five minutes to put together. He spent an hour trying to figure out what to do with it.
He prints out the sign in the library, wondering if he should go through with this. It’s incredibly petty, he knows that. He’s incredibly petty. But then he remembers that stupid wink that Sirius gave him after he’d thrown his number away, and is once again reminded why he’s doing this. The prick deserves to be taken down a peg. Maybe it’ll shrink his inflated ego to look out over an empty room rather then his groupies. I mean, really, who has groupies in a college band?
He holds onto that paper in his bag for a solid two days before actually putting it up. Then, not wanting to seem suspicious, he takes up residence at a table outside a neighboring, probably rival, coffee shop to wait for the chaos to ensue. Well, maybe not chaos exactly, but a disappointed Sirius will be more then enough.
Remus’ heart is beating far too quickly given the childish nature of this prank. It’s nothing he would even get in trouble for, really. It’s barely even a prank. But still, he can’t focus properly on his reading while he waits. And watches. Several people turn to leave upon reading the sign. Some go in any way, but most of those that do emerge moments later clutching to-go cups.
Remus hears the band arrive, even from the back of the building. That’s how loud they are. Sirius in particular is the loudest, laughing boisterously and making stupid jokes. Remus swears he hears a “your mom” joke somewhere in there, and no one seems to be laughing at it except Sirius himself. Remus can’t stop his eyes rolling. Of course the idiot laughs at his own bad joke.
There’s a momentary silence that Remus assumes is the band taking in the sight of their audience, or lack thereof. He hears no talking, and no more jokes, “your mom” or otherwise. He grins. Oh, the money he would pay to see the look on that mans face.
Then Remus realizes he doesn’t need money. He just needs to get off his arse. And really, how suspicious would it be of him to walk in? He’s already there every day, and he’s made it pretty clear to Sirius that he’s not there for the music. If anything, his absence is more suspicious then his presence would be. He’ll be fine to go in, get a drink, and soak up the results of Lily’s genius.
When Remus enters the building, the band is setting up, muttering amongst themselves while they do so. Remus, out of the corner of his eyes, can see Sirius trying to catch his eye. Probably to send him another god awful wink. Remus refuses to acknowledge his existence, taking his usual spot at the bar and ordering a drink. Tea, not coffee. Coffee has a bit too much caffeine for his tastes, and tends to just make him jittery and anxious. It’s only a last resort, reserved for when he needs to pull on all nighter to finish an assignment or cram for a test his not confident he’ll pass.
The band starts playing, not bothering to introduce themselves, which is a first. It’s new material, Remus thinks, which is a bit odd for them to bring out with so small an audience. But maybe he’s wrong. After all, he never really pays their music all that much attention.
He turns to his homework, finally able to get some work done now that there’s no screaming crowd singing along to the music and cheering after every single song. The music isn’t actually all that bad, in this setting, in the calm of the coffee shop that Remus had missed so dearly. He manages to get so deep into his work that he doesn’t even notice when the band finishes, not until the stool beside him is being pulled out, scraping against the tile floor beneath it.
Remus doesn’t have to look to know who it is. And he doesn’t. Look, that is.
“That was clever, what you did there.”
Remus can’t stop himself from looking over then, expecting Sirius to be glaring. But no, he’s smirking that stupid smirk of his, expression as playful as his tone.
“I don’t know what you mean.” Is Remus’ reply, trying to save face. He turns back to his book as though that’s the end of it.
“Of course, of course. Forget I said anything.” Out of the corner of his eye, Remus sees Sirius’ grin widen. “In that case, whoever did it is clever. I don’t think this place has been so empty since our first gig here.”
“You don’t seem too bothered.”
Sirius shrugs. “They’ll be back. Plus, I enjoy playing to a smaller audience occasionally. More intimate that way.” Remus doesn’t miss the emphasis he puts on the word intimate. “You can pretend you’re playing for just one person that way.” He winks then, because of course he does, and then he pulls a slip of paper from his pocket—the man came prepared—and slides it across the bar to Remus. Remus crumples it up and drops it into his forgotten mug of tea. Then he collects his things, stands, and leaves without so much as another glance towards Sirius.
He leaves the cafe at least three times more aggravated then he was when he set about on this quest for revenge.