chapter nine
Lily had no clue how she got herself into the mess that was The 1971.
Lily knew it legally started when she signed a contract that made her their official manager. However, she knew she had been involved with the band members long before the band was even an idea. Lily put up with the group's aggravating pranks and jokes for seven years in boarding school, despite her protests against them.
Lily, a sixth year at the time, had been making her prefect rounds in school. She was drained from the previous school day, so all she wanted to do was go back to her dorm and sleep. Lily usually made her rounds with Remus, but he was absent from their shift that night. At the moment, Lily didn't have the energy to find him and question him, but she would certainly get answers to her questions the following day. The only reason that she knew as to why he would skip their rounds was because James, Peter, and Sirius had planned a prank.
Lily didn't particularly hate the group that consisted of James, Peter, Sirius, and Remus. She actually considered them friends, especially Remus, in a public setting. However, when they would fool around and prank people, Lily pretended she had never laid eyes on the group.
Just when Lily was nearly done with her shift, she heard yelling and what sounded like a stampede. Of course this would happen at the end of her rounds instead of the beginning.
"What the actual fuck," Lily mumbled as she turned to investigate. She began to walk towards to source of the ruckus, but was pulled around the corner of the hallway by someone. Lily instinctively started screaming and thrashing after being grabbed.
"Lily! Calm down, it's just me!" The person said as Lily finally got a good look at her presumed kidnapper. She was met with Sirius Black and Remus Lupin, both looking like they had just ran a marathon.
"I'm going to kill you one day," Lily groaned. "Honestly, what were you thinking whole trying to sneak up on me?"
Sirius and Remus exchanged a glance, which almost made Lily want to start throwing punches. The two had recently started dating and she had observed that ever since, they had been communicating nonverbally. It didn't upset her, in fact she was extremely happy for the two. Lily was only annoyed by their new language because in some scenarios, like the one they were currently in, Sirius and Remus wouldn't say a word and would just resort to shared looks.
"Are you two just going to stand there like idiots or are you going to explain the yelling I hear coming from down the hall that I assume you having something to do with?" Lily questioned while she crossed her arms.
"Okay, so, we may need you to fend off Snape and his army of followers so we can get back to our dorm," Sirius said as he smiled. Lily just stared at them in disbelief.
"Are you serious? You really think I'm going to help you with the aftermath of an idiotic prank?" Lily asked.
"I'm always-" Sirius said before being cut off by Remus, who elbowed him in the ribs.
"Please Lily, we can explain in the common room. Just one tiny favor," Remus pleaded.
Lily huffed in defeat, "Fine, one small favor tonight. That's it though! Don't expect anything else from me while running from your awful pranks."
Sirius cheered and Remus tugged on Sirius' sleeve due to the sound of the yelling approaching.
"Thank you so much Lily, we owe you!" Sirius called out as the pair started running towards their dorm. Lily watched the two for a moment before taking a deep breath and walking around the corner. She knew she wasn't a good actor or in any means a good liar, so why did she agree to this?
"Lily!" Someone said from behind Lily. She slowly turned around to see Severus Snape.
The two had a history together, which Lily decided to ignore, but at one point, the prude was obsessed with Lily. Lily didn't know exactly why or when, but she didn't want to find out.
"What do you need? My prefect rounds are now over, so please make this quick," Lily asked while observing the people behind him. She saw that a majority had bleached hair and she knew they usually didn't, so it seems like this is what Remus was up to.
"Have you seen Sirius and his little lap dog? They put bleach in the whole dorms shampoo," Snape explained with a nasty look on his face.
"Lap dog? Remus does have a name, you know. Plus I think it's the other way around, Sirius is more like Remus' dog but," Lily said as she simply just tried to waste time so that Sirius and Remus could get back to their dorm.
"Just answer the question," Snape snapped back, obviously displeased.
"I don't appreciate your attitude, but whatever. I haven't seen them tonight, sorry," Lily lied.
Snape seemed pleased enough by that and began to walk past Lily. Lily simply remained in place until the crowd was past her. The whole time, she was wondering how the group of idiots were going to hide from Snape until the end of term.
It felt as if Lily hasn't stopped managing James, Peter, Sirius, and Remus ever since their school days. Even on her off days, she always had to do something for them.
Lily found herself having a rare free day, where she didn't have to deal with the band or any aspects of it. She decided to stay at her apartment and invited Mary MacDonald, who just so happened to be the manager of The Lovefools.
Lily had actually met Mary before either of the bands existed. They shared a number of classes at Hogwarts, and Lily had always been blown away by Mary since they first met. Of course, she used to be amazed by her grades and such, but now it's grown into something more. Lily was definitely fond of Mary, that was for sure. She just had no clue if Mary felt the same about her.
Despite Lily's complicated feelings, the two were actually pretty great friends considering they were a part of so called 'rival' bands.
"So, what's up with your band?" Mary asked, trying to make simple conversation. Lily shifted her gaze over to her.
"Probably the same as yours," Lily said with a small laugh. "It seems that they can't get enough of each other based on what Rita Skeeter says."
Mary laughed before she spoke, "Tell me about it. If I have to answer one more email about James and Regulus, I think I might explode."
"Always the men," Lily joked.
"No, seriously! When was the last time any of the female members of either band caused as much drama as James and Regulus?" Mary pointed out.
"Never, thank god. Marlene is the only girl in the band and the least problematic. I mean, James obviously just got called out by Rita, Peter took Sirius' side of whatever the hell that break up was, and Sirius had a cheating scandal with Remus," Lily explained.
"What do you mean Sirius cheated on Remus?" Mary gave her a weird look before Lily slowly realized it was not a commonly known fact.
"Holy shit, did Remus never tell you?" Lily said in shock, her hand covering her mouth.
Mary shook her head, "Was he supposed to?"
"I don't think so," Lily said, regret filling her voice.
"It's okay, our secret. He won't ever find out that I know," Mary reassured. She seemed to notice the shift in Lily's tone.
"Thanks," Lily smiled. Until her slip up, Lily thought everything had been going fine. Then, her phone started buzzing continuously.
"Oh my god, what is happening?" Lily said as she reached for her phone. She checked her notifications to see many texts from various people.
1971 groupie chatie
prongs: WHAT THE FUCK SIRIUS
wormy: IM TOO STUNNED TO SPEAK RIGHTNOW
no nickname marlene: guys can we Please go one day.
Lily had no clue what they were referencing, so she decided to look on Twitter. She quickly found that an article about Sirius and Remus had been published around twenty minutes previous to her finding it by the one and only Rita Skeeter.
Could the members of The 1971 seriously not go a few days without being in the headlines?
After reading the entire thing, Lily decided not to reply to any texts yet because it seemed that she would have to reply to some emails about the situation first.
"It looks like the men we know just keep getting more problematic. Typical behavior on their part," Mary commented as she looked at her phone. Lily could only assume she was doing the same thing as her, since she was Remus' manager.
"Tell me about it," Lily replied as she got a new text from Sirius himself.
sirius black: hiii lily we're on our way to ur place!!
Lily groaned after reading his text. Mary curiously peeked over her shoulder to see what she was upset about.
"Who is we?" Mary asked once she had read the text.
"I could only guess that it's going to be Remus," Lily said.
"I guess that works out since I need to talk to him too," Mary remarked. Lily simply nodded before she replied to Sirius.
lily evans: hurry ur ass here with remus
im gnna kill u both
sirius black: Okay wow
well we're actually already here
we didn't want to walk in before u replied so i just said i was on yhe way...
lily evans: bitch that makes no sense
come up ill let u in ig..
sirius black: THANK YOU LILYBETH
lily evans: alright never call me that again!
"He is the most complexing individual I have ever met," Lily mumbled while showing the texts to Mary, which lead Mary to laugh.
"Imagine he's just been sitting on a bench and just staring through your window," Mary said with a grin.
"Oh god, I hope not," Lily replied as she laughed.
A quick knock came from the door shortly after Sirius' last text and Lily went to go open the door. Upon opening the door, she was met with a frantic looking Sirius and Remus.
"Lily! You'll never believe what we found out," Sirius exclaimed as he rushed past Lily with Remus. Lily noticed that the two were holding hands, but she decided not to bring it up.
"Oh boy, I'm so excited," Lily said with sarcasm in her voice while she shut the door and made her way back into her living room. Sirius turned back and shot her a look in response to her sarcasm.
"He's being genuine, trust me. I had the same reaction as you," Remus commented.
"What's Mary doing here?"
"You could've asked me rather than Lily, Remus," Mary said.
"There's no time for explaining, you both have to sit down and listen," Sirius announced while he ushered Lily and Mary to sit down.
"Alright then," Mary said as she sat down.
Lily sat down next to Mary and took a deep breath, "Okay, so what is your big discovery?"
"There's someone in our private Twitter accounts that keeps leaking our tweets to Rita Skeeter," Remus explained. Lily raised an eyebrow, unsure of what he meant.
"The pictures in the articles were only posted on my private twitter account. No one could've just found them on any other social media. The person would have to be following my private twitter account," Sirius added onto Remus' explanation.
"I'm starting to see you point, but why would one instance make you question this?" Mary asked curiously.
"You both remember how tweets got leaked on the night of The 1971's album release, right?" Remus asked and waited for their responses. Lily and Mary both nodded. "Well, whoever did that also did this."
Lily finally put the pieces into place from what Sirius and Remus were saying, "So, you guys want to catch the person with our help?"
Sirius and Remus looked at each other and they seemed to be having a nonverbal conversation. Lily watched the two and felt the familiarity in the sight. She recognized what they were doing, as she had seen it many times throughout their school years and the years they dated. She hadn't seen the two like this since before they broke up.
Sirius turned back to look at Lily and Mary, "We probably need more than your help with catching the guy. We really don't have a plan and we have no clue where to even begin. That's why we came here."
"Well, you came to the right people. You're lucky we're the best managers in the business," Mary joked while she gave them a grin.
"Thank you guys so much," Remus said with a smile on his face.
"No problem. We don't have much time to set this plan into action before Rita Skeeter strikes again, so let's get to planning," Lily stated as she pulled her phone out. The rest of the group let out a small cheer and got to work.
Lily took screenshots of Sirius' and Remus' private account followers and laid the phone on the coffee table that separated them from herself and Mary.
"Alright, first act of business. We need to see similar followers," Lily remarked as she observed the followers.
"You two follow us, but I'm not sure if you're that big of a threat," Remus noted.
"The only similarities I'm seeing are James and Peter," Mary said as she looked at the lists.
"It can't be James or Peter, that's ridiculous," Sirius said in disbelief. He looked almost horrified by even the thought that it could be either of his best friends.
"Maybe we should come back to this after we set up your profiles," Lily commented as she noticed Sirius' slight change in emotion after seeing the names. Sirius and Remus both gave her a confused look.
"What do you mean set up profiles?" Remus questioned.
"I think Lily wants you guys to make it seem like you two are together," Mary suggested while she looked to Lily for approval.
Lily nodded, "I mean, you're not going to catch the mole if you don't have any drama to give them?"
"So, you're asking us to fake date?" Sirius asked.
"No, of course not. I just need you two to make it seem like you are. Change your profile picture to a picture of the two of you together, follow each other, post each other, and anything else like that," Lily explained to the two.
"If we post each other, won't that make us look like we're dating?" Sirius asked.
"Just don't confirm or deny dating rumors," Mary added.
"Yikes. I'm not sure if anyone would willingly want to see my private twitter," Remus said awkwardly. Lily knew he probably didn't want Sirius to see everything he had tweeted about him.
"I agree," Sirius commented.
"Do you two not want to catch the mole in your private accounts then?" Lily questioned, a serious look on her face.
The pair shook their heads.
"Then I wouldn't complain. If you don't want the other person seeing all of your tweets, then you should probably delete them. The ones you don't want the other to see are perfect tweets for Rita Skeeter to use," Lily said.
"Oh shit, you're right," Sirius said.
"If no one has any other problems, it looks like we have a solid plan then," Mary announced.
"Based on what you've said, it sounds like we have a lot of work ahead of us," Remus joked.
"That's exactly why it's time to get to work, everyone," Lily said.
There goes Lily's day off.
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