The RED Era - 4
JAMES: Playing for Albus was like playing for a beet. No emotion. He just stared at us the way a random person would stare at a pebble.
REMUS: We started off strong with “Starlight”, then followed up with “Sad Beautiful Tragic” and “Better Man” to show off our ballads. We make some people cry with “Forever Winter”. Then we go in with “Come Back… Be Here” and “Everything Has Changed”. And we round it all out with “All Too Well”.
ALBUS DUMBLEDORE (Record Producer, Gillyweed Records): I’ve been doing this for a long, long time. I’ve managed a few bands and artists with some hit singles, but I’ve never managed a star.
And that’s what they were. I knew it even then. Stars. All of them.
JAMES: When we were done, he looked at us and asked us how fast we could finish this album.
SIRIUS: I said we could have it done whenever he needed.
ALBUS: So I said, “Welcome to Gillyweed, boys. Finish this as soon as possible so we can release it in the fall.”
REMUS: It is very much a fall album. He had given us the rest of the summer.
PETER: We screamed like a bunch of little assholes the whole ride home. Even Reg.
REGULUS: It was a dream come true. It was everything I had been working for and it made me feel like maybe the pain was for a reason. Yeah, Barty hurt me, but it made me write really good music. That’s all I needed.
That night, the Potters took us out to a very nice dinner. It is one of my favorite memories because for the first time in my entire life, it felt like I had a family. Like I finally knew who I was and who I was meant to be.
Then, like the eighteen year old boy I was, I got smashed with my friends at a local pub after dinner. And then I wrote a song about it.
[laughs]
You’re going to hear that a lot. “I wrote a song about it”. Because I write about fucking everything, man.
PETER: After dinner, we went to this greasy little pub. I obviously could not be involved with Kelly, which was a complete bummer, but I wasn’t going to mope about it. I was in a band.
That’s when I met Caroline. Oh, Caroline. We had some fun together.
SIRIUS: What did I do after dinner? I joined my pals at the pub and then went home with my boyfriend to celebrate. I’d go into much further detail but he’ll kill me.
REMUS: We went to get drinks and I spent time with my friends and boyfriend. That’s all. Please ignore Sirius if he says anything else.
JAMES: I was happy. I really was. We got what we were working for.
But I was also so fucking sad. All I wanted to do is be with Lily. I wanted to hold her, to kiss her. I wanted to talk to her.
As I nursed whatever the hell I was drinking, I decided it would be a fantastic idea to call her up and tell her about what had happened. We were the same now. Both musicians signed to labels with albums coming out. We were on the same page again. So we could be together.
LILY: It’s about two in the bloody morning when the phone starts ringing. Gideon’s asleep in bed next to me and I don’t want to wake him, so I answer the phone whispering.
It’s James. I can tell he’s absolutely sloshed, and he’s kind of crying. I said hi and he said, “Lily. Lils. I did it.”
And I asked what he meant and he said he got a record deal and that we were the same and that meant we could be together again.
It broke my heart, honestly. Because I cared for James so much. I never broke up with him because he didn’t have a record deal. We grew apart. Yes, he was still my friend, and yes, I still loved him. But… not like that.
I used to wish I could have stayed with him because he’s practically perfect. But as stupid as it sounds, it wasn’t him. It was me.
And I had to tell him that. It killed me.
And then he asked why I was whispering.
JAMES: Halfway through her speech that was shredding my soul, I realized she was whispering. And then I heard mumbling. A man’s mumbling.
She was with someone else. Like I meant nothing to her.
LILY: Was I serious with Gideon? Not really, no. We were just hooking up at the time. And even though I did nothing wrong, I felt bad. I didn’t want him to think I moved on like he was nothing. Because at one point, he was everything.
I was just having sex.
JAMES: I wasn’t upset with Lily per se. I felt… replaceable. Lily deserved to do whatever she wanted. But it felt like she didn’t care.
I took a notebook from a random table, grabbed a pen and a Dirty Shirley and wrote “Nothing New”.