The Band? The Band!
“Okay, Remus says he’ll be here in twenty minutes and Pete should be here in five,” James said to Sirius from the sofa.
Sirius had slept at James’s and had been practically adopted by Euphemia. Is sweet and infuriating how affected Sirius gets by Effie’s attention and care. Sweet because he blushes and smiles shyly, stuttering ‘thank you’s with his eyes shining. Infuriating because he wouldn’t be like that if had a loving Mother.
Though Sirius hadn’t said anything about his leg or the reason behind it Potter had already figured it out, of course, and after a talk with his mum, they decided they couldn’t do much if Sirius didn’t come to them asking for help except have his back.
“Alright,” He answered dismissively, not bothering to lift his head, still staring at the ceiling. After a few seconds, he seemed to have a thought and spoke again, “Hey, how come you have his number?”
His voice was controlled and planned out and James couldn’t help but smile at the carefully concealed jealousy.
With the little he knew about Sirius’s home life, he could bet he wasn’t out or even comfortable with his sexuality. Part of James wondered if Sirius’ brother knew and if he was supportive.
There was no way of knowing.
There was no way of knowing what hurtful lies that horrible woman had fed Sirius, so the only thing James could do was show how accepting his family was in hopes Black felt comfortable enough to open up, even if a little.
James raised both his arms in surrender with a small smile playing on his lips.
“It’s only for band stuff, I swear,” From where James was sitting, he could see Sirus blink slowly as if he was weighing his words. “Maybe you should ask him to give you his number.”
It was a very amusing thing to watch, Sirius trying to hide his surprise.
“No point, what would I do with it? I don’t even have a phone.”
Okay, he didn’t acknowledge his feelings but didn’t deny it either, James thought to himself, doing his level best to show Sirius how different the Potters were from those weird Blacks.
“You don’t?” James raised his brows, surprised, deciding to go with it.
“Nah, Mother wouldn’t allow it,” He said waving his hand. James felt his shoulders tense at the mention of that awful woman and decided to change the subject from her, afraid he would cross some line.
“So your brother doesn’t have a phone?” James asked, his shoulders already losing tension.
“Of course not. Besides, Reg barely leaves the house, who would he talk to?” Sirius looked so fond when talking about his brother that it made James smile.
“Me, perhaps,” He saw Sirius’ head shoot up from the sofa he had been lazing around for the past 30 minutes.
“James Potter,” He said in a threatening tone.
“What? He is quite handsome,” James said smiling brightly, dodging a pillow smoothly.
“James, I swear to God, if you as much breath in his direction, I will cut your balls,” Sirius said, looking James in the eye, sounding so calm making James realised he would definitely live up to that threat.
“Oi, why are you gonna cut James’ balls off?” Peter said walking in the front door.
The Potters had the habit of leaving their front door unlocked and Peter was far too familiar with them to bother knocking.
“You never know who might come around, needing something,” Effie explained to Sirius when he asked earlier the day.
Peter didn’t bother to pretend he didn’t know every corner of that house. Years of friendship and being neighbors make you well aware of each other’s house.
“‘Cause he told me my baby brother’s handsome,” Sirius said, clearly thinking he would find an ally in Peter.
“Well, is he?” Peter asked James, plopping down on the armchair he had nominated as the most comfortable one, years ago.
“Pete!” Sirius exclaimed, rolling his eyes.
“He is quite fit” James answered, turning to Peter, “His eyes are the prettiest blue tone and his hair has little curls. He’s quite the sight.”
For some reason, James’s lips kept curling up into a smile, despite his best efforts to avoid it.
“His eyes and mine are literally the same,” Sirius pointed out, grumpily.
“No, yours are quite average” James waved his hand in a condescending way.
Sirius let an outraged sound and leaped towards James screaming “take that back” while Potter tried wrestling him.
Peter merely laughed at the scene, giving encouraging ‘oh’s and ‘no he didn’t!”s.
They settled down a few minutes later, grinning, agreeing to a tie.
There was a knock on the door and the three boys looked at it expectantly.
“Who is it?” James shouted.
“Who do you think?” Remus said from the other side.
“I dunno, could be plenty of people,” Peter piped in, “So, who is it?”
“The bloody Pope,”
“Don’t think the Pope would use such foul language,” Sirius pointed out dramatically. “Who are you, stranger?”
“Your mum,” Remus mumbled angrily.
“I don’t think so, she’s in her room, I believe,” James answered, teasing at the same time Sirius said, “Then there’s no way you’re getting in,”
“James, if you don’t let me in, I’m leaving,” Remus said and the three of them could almost see him putting all his weight on one leg and resting his arm on his hip.
“It’s open, Remus, come in,” Peter said at once and Sirius sat up, running a hand through his hair.
There was a beat where the taller boy most likely debated the chances of being a prank and how rude it was to just storm into someone’s house. He gave up quite quickly and opened the door.
He set his bag neatly next to the sofa and set down close to Sirius who smiled at him.
“Why is James’s hair a mess, more than usual?” He asked, leaning back.
“‘Cause I told Peter how Sirius’ brother’s eyes are much prettier than his and he took offense,” James smiled.
“I don’t even know why I’m not surprised,”
“Oi!” Sirius barked.
“Shut it,” Peter called, “now that we’re all here, we should talk about the serious stuff.”
“But we were, we were talking about me,” Sirius said earning a deep sigh from the other three. From the short period of time, they’d known each other Black managed to overuse that joke.
“We need a name for the band,” Peter said ignoring Black.
“No, before a name, we need a brand,” Sirius said and the three boys looked at him like he’s grown a third head. “Well, it’s a public voting competition, so we need to pick a target audience to appeal to, an aesthetic, and a name that matches it.”
“I have no clue where to start,” James said, honestly.
“Well, you’re lucky to have me. As soon as we got to put together as a band, I was thinking about these kinds of things. We’ll appeal to teens and kids, mainly girls. We’re four good-looking blokes that can sing, so, we’re the ladies' dreams.”
“Is it supposed to feel this crafted?” James asked.
“Well, no one reached anywhere without a plan,” Sirius said.
“Are we supposed to, like, be some kind of womanisers?” Remus asked, trying and failing to hide his discomfort.
“Oh, no! We don’t have to have contact with girls that way, we just gotta look like something they want. Think of it this way: when there’s a model that poses in lingerie in a magazine that is for men, she doesn’t have any contact with any of them, but she looks like something they want.”
“That sound oddly objectifying,” Peter said, disturbed.
“I guess, but whenever we’re on stage, it’s not us, we’re just a product they wanna see. That’s the way the industry works.” Sirius didn’t sound affected by it in any way, almost like he was used to being a product.
“But we’re not in the industry yet, we’re just in a reality show,” Remus pointed out.
“I know that, but if we’re good here, we could be good out there too,” Sirius said, almost pleadingly doing his best puppy eyes towards Remus.
“Okay, I’ll do all of the appealing to the female gaze thing but don’t expect me to go on stage and act like I’m the hottest man out there,” Remus agreed with a sigh.
“You don’t really need to act,” Sirius said under his breath but the room was quiet enough for all of them to hear it. Immediately his cheeks grew red and he closed his eyes, scolding himself.
“Right… hm…” James tried to fill the silence but he didn’t know what to do, his mouth in a
thin line, trying not to laugh.
“The name!” Peter said, suddenly.
“Yes, the name” Sirius sounded relieved to have anything to talk about.
“Any ideas?” Remus asked, attempting to hide the blush on his cheeks and the small, almost proud, smile.
“Needs to be something fun and slutty,” Sirius declared, “Like ‘The Heart’s Stealers’”
“That is so bad, it physically pains me,” Peter snorted earning a glare from Sirius.
“I dunno, I like the idea, just the execution is poor” James gave in, “Do you know any synonyms for stealers?”
Peter promptly grabbed his phone to look for it.
“Bandit, robber, raider, burglar, heister, punk” Remus listed from the top of his head, counting the words on his fingers.
“Yeah, great Remus, we’ll get off stage straight to prison,” Sirius said and Remus shrugged.
Peter read a list of twenty words until sighing in defeat.
“No, wait, what was that one before gangster?” Sirius asked.
“Marauder?” Pete read.
“‘The Heart’s Marauder’ doesn’t have a ring to it, I don’t even think that’s how you’re
supposed to use it,” James pointed out.
“No, it's definitely how you should use it but “The Marauders’ sounds nice,” Remus said. The three boys mouthed the words before looking at each other with identical grins.
“You’re a genius, Remus!” James beamed. Sirius gave Remus a side hug and Pete patted him on the back.
“Don’t you think we should have nicknames for each other?” Sirius asked, “‘The Marauders’ is too good of a name for us not to be as cool.”
“Pete kinda has a nickname that I used to call him when we were little,” James offered and Peter shook his head.
“What was it?” Remus asked, interested.
“Wormtail,”
“Why?”
“Cause we met when he had seen a rat at the playground and was determined to befriend it, so he asked me to help him,”
“Did you find it? The rat, I mean,”
“Of course not, it was too quick for us,”
“I like the nickname, we should stick to the animal themes, though” Sirius decided.
The four boys stayed a couple of seconds in silence, thinking, until Black smiled brightly, rearranging himself on the sofa.
He grabbed James’ hands, closed his eyes, and took deep breaths.
“Sirius, what are you doing?” James asked.
“Seeing what animal matches your soul, I did it with my brother years ago, he says is my hidden talent, now hush.”
He sat there for a couple of minutes, legs crossed, humming every once in a while.
“You’re gentle, powerful, full of life, energetic, and a leader. I shall say you’re a stag,”
“A stag?”
“Yeah, James, a stag, now think about a nickname relating to a stag,” Sirius snapped, mildly offended someone doubted his powers.
James dutifully turned to Peter and they started to debate on names.
Sirius turned to Remus, grabbing his hands and doing the same process.
“Interesting,” Sirius mumbled.
“What is?”
“You’re intelligent, cunning, curious, and loyal, but you’re guarded and long for someplace to belong,” He said, opening his eyes.
“What are you? A shrink?”
“No, but you’re a wolf,”
“Great, ‘cause my last name wasn’t enough,” Remus mumbled, and Sirius frowned for a few seconds until realising what Lupin meant in Latin.
“Remus’ is the easiest one, we’ll call him Wolfie,” Peter said and Sirius cackled.
“Absolutely not.” Remus hurried to answer.
“I think we should call him Moony” James said after a long moment of consideration.
“I like it,” Sirius declared and Remus seemed to think that approval was enough.
“What is your animal, Sirius?” Remus inquired.
“A black dog,” Remus opened his mouth to ask something but closed it after a second.
“Oh, I know one for James!” Peter said, suddenly.
“Say it last, and please make it better than Wolfie,” Remus said.
“James should be Prongs,”
“It suits him,” Sirius decided.
“You know Pete, you might be onto something because dogs have padded paws,” James said with a smile, “So Sirius should be PadPaw,”
“Ugh, I hate that! It sounds like a bad Twitter username,” Sirius protested.
“Thought you didn’t have a phone,” James pointed out.
“I don’t, but I’m not alienated,”
“Padfoot,” Remus said out of nowhere, “He should be Padfoot,”
“Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs,” Peter said, smiling.
“I like it, quite a lot” James beamed and began a loud conversation with Peter.
“Hey, Sirius?” Remus asked.
“Yeah?”
“How come you’re a black dog?”
“My brother picked it out when we discovered my power,” Sirius said with a nostalgic smile.
“And what is his animal?”
“Reggie is a black cat. Look to be very threatening, has some bad luck, could do you some harm but is overall very sweet,”
Remus was an only child so he never understood sibling dynamics or how one could love someone that much but by the way Sirius talked about his brother, it was as clear as day how much they loved each other.
“He sounds nice,” Remus offered as a response.
“Oh, no. Not you too,” Sirius rolled his eyes dramatically, falling into the sofa with a huff, his head almost resting on Remus’ shoulder.
The two of them stayed silent, watching James laugh loudly at something Peter said about someone they didn’t like.
Eventually, Sirius’ head fell a couple of centimetres and rested on Remus’s shoulder, comfortably. Lupin froze with the contact but calmed down once he saw how content Sirius was. Remus tilted his head slightly to lie on top of Sirius’.
“You know,” Sirius said quietly, looking up at Remus, their faces much closer than expected, “You don’t need to search for a pack,”
“Sorry?” Remus couldn’t help but ask, so lost in Sirius’s stormy blue eyes to form a thought.
“The wolf thing I told you about,” Sirius said, smiling softly, tilting his chin forward, slightly, making their mouths closer. Gently, he laid one hand on Remus’ thigh, giving it a light squeeze, “You’re a Marauder now.”
“Oh,” Was all Remus could manage to say.
“Yeah,” Sirius smiled, lowering his gaze to Remus’s lips only to let his head fall onto the other boy’s shoulder.