Footnote
Regulus -
Love. They write songs, poems, and stories advocating all the good sides of it, convincing people that it’s worth the other songs, poems and stories that show you how devastating love is. You look for a song about love and you’re guaranteed more breakup songs than love songs.
I scribble out another line of shitty lyrics. Sitting in this chair, in this studio, it all feels like a lie, a mirage, that’ll fade with the heat of summer. It’s not the first time that I’ve had to confront the idea that maybe I’m not meant to be here: I’m not as talented as they all think I am and my parents are still pulling strings somewhere and that’s why I managed to get into Hogwarts on a full scholarship, just like Sirius did.
The difference between Sirius and me, he’s in a band with a record label and is only going to school because he feels like it. He already has everything he could possibly want, he even has me with him now: he has a perfect boyfriend who is in the band with him; he has James Fucking Potter, the brother he always wanted; he is ridiculously talented and knows it; he has enough confidence for all four of his bandmates but they’re all confident in their abilities.
I have none of it. Except the scholarship. But maybe I don’t even have that and if I can’t write this fucking song I definitely won’t.
Love. It’s fucking ridiculous and pointless. Loving someone sucks, it makes you hate their existence even if you feel like you can’t breathe when they walk away, with his stupid fucking head bowed as you watch your friendship wash away with the rain.
“Stop being pretentious and just accept what you have Regulus,” Sirius had chided when I ranted to him about everything.
I remember it vividly, even if I was drunk at the time. James Potter and his stupid, hot face, dancing with Lily and smiling that smile I thought he reserved for me, I can picture it as if it was yesterday.
“I’ll stop being pretentious and loathing our friendship,” I murmur as I strum a chord on the guitar. I laugh as if I don’t feel like my heart is shattering all over again and turn to a new page and write down the lyric. “You taught me a lesson that love isn’t precious?” I sing quietly surprised that it fits.
Sirius, once he found Remus, always tried to convince me that love was something that should be treasured and when he introduced me to James, I found out where he got that memo from. James who is a romantic, scoffed at my rants about love being stupid, and I began to believe him, until he broke my heart.
“It’s not like the novels, no pride and prejudice at all.” I blink back the memory of one of our arguments:
“Love is ridiculous!” I shouted at James who was laughing on the sofa.
“Pride and Prejudice begs to differ!” he yelled right back after he stopped laughing. “From a place of hate, love still prevailed,” he sighed wistfully.
“And ruined a bunch of relationships in the process,” I snapped back.
He frowned at me. “You, Reggie, are one great big pessimist and you clearly need to spend more time with me,” he remarked with full sincerity on his features.
“You, the optimist of all optimists? Yeah, I’ll pass,” I snarked back even if a smirk was tugging on my lips and James was back to grinning like a fool up at me.
“So, I’ll just take a footnote in your life,” I whisper blinking back tears. “You can take my body, every line I would write for you. But a footnote will do.” I wipe the lone tear on my cheek.
I’m leaving tomorrow but it feels like I’m being left. I’m going to school, Sirius too but later in the year, after The Marauders finish their summer tour of England.
“A footnote will do,” I say as I scribble down the scrap of a song in my notebook, content with the start of something.
Five years later
James –
“I’m proud of him, my baby brother, his first concert,” Sirius comments as the whole group of us stand in the VIP section of the concert hall.
“Not his first concert Pads,” Peter reminds Sirius who shoves the smaller blonde playfully.
The Marauders had missed the first show due to a meet-and-greet which Dorcas, inconveniently and completely accidentally, scheduled for the exact same time that Regulus was playing. I was not convinced knowing Regulus’s tight friendship with our PR manager but I didn’t mention anything.
It’s been five years since I’ve seen Regulus in person. I’ve missed him and his snarky comments and mean smirk and his softer side that he kept hidden and protected. The last time I saw him, it didn’t end well but I have spent the last five years ignoring it all and focusing on the before.
“You alright Potter?” Lily asks, nudging me gently. Seven years I have known Lily and she still calls me by my last name, along with her best friend Marlene McKinnon.
I nod. “Doing just fine Lils,” I answer.
She gives me a doubtful look.
I shrug. “I’m just here to support my bandmate’s little brother, my best-friend’s brother,” I state the words that I’ve had on loop in my head since Sirius announced that he convinced Regulus to let us all come to this concert.
“No, you’re here to support Regulus, the guy who’s heart you broke even though you loved him right back because you were scared of breaking his heart later on down the line,” Remus retorts earning a snort from Lily.
“Fuck off, both of you. I made mistakes but it all made sense at the time,” I say, hoping that they believe me more than I do.
“Shut up you three!” Sirius calls over. “The show is starting!”
I am unbelievably happy for Sirius and how far he’s come, from hating his whole family to healing his relationship with his brother and now, here, supporting Regulus and acting like the proud big brother that Regulus wanted from him.
Regulus walks onto the stage and the crowd, larger than I anticipated, erupts into applause. But I zone them out. Because all I can think about is him. His black, silk, shirt is unbuttoned and tucked into green, tailored trousers showing off his tattooed shoulders and arms. Rings glint on his fingers as he waves to the crowds and smile, but he’s nervous. Black, glittery eyeliner rims his eyes which he closes for a second before picking up his guitar and pulling up the stool.
“Okay, so, we are going to start with a song, my first real song, that is slower, gentler,” Regulus speaks into the microphone. “No less bitter than some of my other songs.”
And his fans laugh. His fans. Because Regulus has fans who know his songs because Regulus has songs.
He begins strumming some chords, just him with no accompanying band, not yet.
“You said at the party that I was too drunk
I told you I liked you, you said, ‘Sober up’” he sings into the microphone, looking out over the crowd who have fallen silent at his beautiful, mellow, voice.
“But why would I lie? It's so clear I'm in love
With you,” his eyes close and he looks down at the microphone, he may be in a hall full of hundreds of people but he’s singing to himself, for himself, about me.
“A tense conversation, you like someone else
I say, "If I waited, could that maybe help?"
You told me that patience won't change how you felt
For me,” he looks up on the last line, a natural performer, looking out over the crowd who have their torches on and are swaying along with his guitar and a smile creeps onto his face. He glances over at us and nods at Sirius, his eyes glancing over me.
He looks back at the crowd. “So I'll stop being pretentious and loathing our friendship
You taught me a lesson, that love isn't precious
It's not like the novels, no Pride and Prejudice at all.”
And it feels unfair that he’s singing about moments that we had, debates we had, that were ‘our thing’ and that it is in one of his songs that people listen to, about us, about me. And the crowd joins in, singing about me. I remind myself that I’ve written countless songs about my feelings for Regulus, including details and things that would only mean something to him and that they are some of our hit songs, but it feels weird being on the other end.
“So I’ll just take a footnote in your life
You could take my body every line
I would write for you
But a footnote will do.” He’s back, singing for himself, but looking out at the crowd this time, off into the distance. This time, when he looks over at our group, he zeroes in on me, “a footnote will do.”
And I feel like throwing up.
I turn and walk off backstage.
I thought I could face up to it all, but seeing him again, hearing that song and knowing that he wrote it because of what I did, what I said, what I got him to believe. And I hate myself for it.
His mesmerising voice fades as I head to the VIP backstage suite.
I hate this and a part of me wants to hate him for writing a song that is so perfect and so brilliant and so fucking true. Because I did that. I put him in a place to write a song that is heart-breaking to listen to.
“What the fuck James!” Remus’s voice rises to scold but then he must see my face and he quietens.
“I did that Remus,” I murmur as I sink onto the floor.
He nods as he joins me on the floor. “You made a mistake James, it happens. But then you made more mistakes by leaving it five years. People do stuff, change and grow and shit, in five years and, if they’re an aspiring artist, write songs when you break their heart with a shitty explanation,” he explains simply.
“You’re shit at peptalks,” I remark, picking at the rug I’m sitting on.
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t giving you a peptalk. I was telling you the sad, bitter and painful reality of fucking up,” he responds with a small smile offered to me. “You remember the whole album that Sirius wrote when we went on a break two years ago?” he asks, shaking his head, still in disbelief.
I roll my eyes at the memory and nod. “Like yesterday,” I reply, having had to listen to all ten songs and talk Sirius down from writing any more.
“Well, he wrote that after a week. Reg is related to him, it makes sense that he’d write songs during these five years, about how much you fucked up. It’s how the two of them get out their emotions,” he points out easily.
I nod because he’s right, he typically is, and I just have to suck it up, no matter how much it hurts.
I mutter some excuse to Sirius about feeling ill when he glares at me for an answer when Remus and I walk back.
Regulus is on a different song and his backup band is on stage, all familiar faces from when Regulus introduced us to his mates.
“Man, oh, man, you're my best friend, I scream it to the nothingness
There ain't nothing that I need
Well, hot and heavy pumpkin pie, chocolate candy, Jesus Christ
Ain't nothing please me more than you,” he sings and winks at the bass guitarist, whom I recognise as Evan Rosier.
The atmosphere is completely changed from the first song, it’s alive and palpable and Regulus is dancing around the stage, soaking in the energy. He made this music and wrote these songs and now he’s here performing it and enjoying it.
The Regulus I knew scoffed at performing, he wanted music to be his. I want to know how he got from there to the man I watch on stage now. I want to know him, I realise, because I don’t really, not anymore, I gave that up.
“Oh, home, let me come home
Home is wherever I'm with you,” he croons into the microphone, pointing out at the crowd who revel in the attention.
This song is easier to just watch and enjoy, dance around with Sirius and my friends, my people. This song isn’t about how I broke Regulus’s heart and mistakes that I have tried to forget for five years.
Still, a part of me wants to know what inspired this song, why Regulus wrote it. I want to know everything about him, it reminds me so much of when we first met and I was fascinated by him, because I still am and probably always will.
Mary and Lily mouth the lyrics to each other and my heart warms looking at the pair of them being happy together, it may have taken a little while for them to admit their feeling for each other, but they did in the end and now they’re one of the most stable couples I know.
“That song was something that me and my friends wrote back in school,” Regulus announces as the song ends. “Those same friends are currently my band and I couldn’t be more grateful for that. And you might think that they are salty that I am more successful than them,” the crowd laughs, “and you’d be right, they are all very salty.” Evan, Barty and Pandora all shake their heads and laugh with the crowd. “I am, of course, joking,” Regulus amends. “They are a trio of very talented musicians who make their own music and I sing with them, if they manage to book a gig.”
Evidently, an inside joke because the band is genuinely laughing at that and Barty whispers something to Evan who shakes his head with a fond smile. Even now, I distinctly remember Barty and Evan dancing around their feelings and messing around with other people and being a mess. If I had to guess, I’d think that they are actually together now.
Regulus looks over his shoulder and smiles at them, his eyes flicking over our group as he turns back to the crowd. “As many of you will know, my brother and his mates have a band, a pretty successful band, who are here tonight. Of course, they are not stage ready, so forgive them for looking like death itself,” Regulus announces as he gestures at us and makes a face at Sirius who flips his brother off right back.
“Go for it boys!” Marlene yells from behind us as we walk onto the stage. Behind us, Marlene, Mary, Lily and Dorcas all laugh, waving at us and cheering as if they haven’t seen us perform ever before. Our girls, insane, but ours.
It’s a smaller venue than I’ve gotten used to, but I like it, more intimate, I’ve missed the shows like this. We wave, our practiced wave, as we walk onto stage with an applause following us. Sirius pulls Regulus into a hug and Remus follows; Peter and Regulus perform their handshake from five years ago, and I’m reminded of how much those two hit it off and how long it’s been since we’ve all seen each other; I offer Regulus a small smile when he turns to me and he nods at me and I walk over to stand next to Peter and Remus ignoring Sirius who is probably giving me a side-eye.
“I take it that you all probably know who these idiots are,” Regulus says into the microphone, causing a cacophony of yells to erupt from the crowd.
Beside me, Peter laughs and I smile at him and he smiles right back.
“Like I said, pretty popular,” Regulus jokes again.
The Marauders, a hit rock-pop band with a shit-ton of albums released in a short span of time. The Marauders, a boy band with an openly gay couple. The Marauders, a group who came from nowhere and now have an almost cultish following. We’ve been called a lot but ‘pretty popular’ is a uniquely Regulus comment.
He grins at Sirius who just shakes his head in disbelief at his younger brother. Regulus turns back to the microphone. “So, what do you say, we ask them to play a song for us?” Regulus asks the crowd.
Just as he predicted, the crowd erupts in response, the answer clear: The Marauders are going to play at Regulus Black’s concert.
Peter turns to me and states, very simply, “You’re so dark.”
I want to say no. I wrote that song with using Regulus as inspiration, years ago when I couldn’t get him out of my head; I still can’t but still, it was written about him. But, a part of me does want to, to get my back on Regulus: two people can write songs about the other person.
It’s not an amazing song, certainly not our best, but Peter likes that he gets a verse in it, a rare occasion, and he loves playing it.
I sigh, ready to nod but then Sirius suggests an ultimately worse song, well, worse for me, but one of our better songs, “fireside,” he states simply.
Another song that I wrote about my struggle getting over Regulus. I wrote it when I realised what I was actually feeling and realised my mistake but it was too late. It took me a while to share it with Sirius but he loved it, the lyrics, the melody, everything, except the meaning but he didn’t actually call me out on it. Sirius was always ‘in the know’ when it came to Regulus and I: despite my apprehension for talking to Sirius, he was the first one I told when I worked through everything I was feeling.
The way Sirius is looking at me, tells me that he knows exactly what he’s doing. I nod at him and Remus just rolls his eyes.
Sirius goes over to Regulus to tell him the song that we’ve decided on and, as Regulus informs the crowd, stage management staff set us up with mics and any additional guitars we need.
Regulus passes his microphone to me with a small nod as he walks off to the side of the stage.
“Hello!” I call out to the crowd. “I thought we’d introduce ourselves, again, and then we’d play a song for you. The reason for that is that none of us are warmed up and we’re still remembering how to play these instruments,” I explain and the crowd laughs. “I’m James Potter and I’m the main songwriter for our band, and I wrote the song we’re going to play. I’m on vocals and guitar.” Applause greets my introduction and I wave-on to Sirius.
“I am Sirius Black,” he introduces himself. “The guy who you paid to see? He’s my baby brother. I’m on the back-up guitar and bass and keyboard.”
“Yeah, basically, Sirius and I play whatever we need that James and Remus don’t do,” Peter says into the microphone. “I’m Peter, the best one,” he says and the crowd laughs.
Remus rolls his eyes. “And I’m the one who carries the band,” he says from back on the drumkit. “It’s a pleasure to play for you tonight, I am Remus Lupin, and we are The Marauders.”
And that’s our signal to start playing.
Remus starts with the drums, and Sirius follows with a hook on the guitar before I come in with the lyrics.
“I can't explain but I want to try
There's this image of you and I
And it goes dancing by in the morning and in the night time,” I sing into the microphone and, immediately, the crowd joins in. One of our first songs and always a crowd pleaser, I smile, feeling the energy off of the crowd. I love music, and I love making music, but performing live is a different kind of experience, the energy, the music, the people.
“I'm not sure if I should show you what I've found
Has it gone for good?
Or is it coming back around?
Isn't it hard to make up your mind?
When you're losing and your fuse is fireside,” the chorus, echoing thoughts and questions I asked myself, tormented myself with in the days after everything went down. Seeing Regulus again, has made this song so much more personal and dredged up all the feelings that forced me to write it.
Sirius takes the third verse, his voice smoother than mine and sweeter. “There's all those places we used to go
And I suspect you already know
But that place on memory lane you liked still looks the same,
but something about it's changed.”
I glance at Regulus who’s looking at me with curiosity, the way that he used to look at me when we first met, as if I am something he needs to figure out.
The chorus comes and goes and he’s still looking at me as I sing the final verse before the final chorus, “And I thought I was yours forever
And maybe I was mistaken
But I just cannot manage to make it through the day without thinking of you lately,” every word painfully true, painfully meant, and painfully sung right to Regulus.
A blink is the only reaction I get as I turn back to sing the final chorus to the crowd.
Regulus –
Love. It’s such a fickle thing. Often, it lasts far longer than you want it to, longer than you need it to, and longer than you think it does. Always, it turns up at awkward times, in awkward places, with awkward people.
James ‘love is precious’ Potter is a spectacular case of everything wrong with love. He broke me last time and now has the fucking balls to turn up to me concert and sing a song he wrote about me, professing his love for me and I’m on the brink of swooning.
He has new tattoos and a nose piercing. He’s always been ridiculously attractive and now he’s singing me songs as well, I might as well be dead at this point because this is both my hell and heaven.
He waves to the crowd as they applaud the band and The Marauders bow and leave the stage, being the nice, respectful guys that they are, and taking the mics and extra guitars off stage with them.
I walk up to the mic and clap them off. “The Marauders, ladies, gentlemen, and non-binary folk!”
The fucking Marauders. And fucking James Potter. This was the reason I made Dorcas book them something the day of my first concert.
Choruses of: “you were fucking brilliant” and “well done mate” and “that’s my little brother bitch!” greet me as I walk into the backstage area. I hug everyone who comes up to me but the person that I want to see, I can’t seem to find.
Remus is the one to notice. “He went out for a smoke,” he says to me and I nod heading to the balcony and find James, not smoking, but hanging his head in between his hands and breathing shakily.
I turn to go back in because I don’t want to interrupt him, if he’s having a moment, but then he sees me and straightens up.
“Hi,” he says, his voice betraying his physical efforts to look fine.
I nod and walk over to lean against the railing nearby him. “Five years, no texts, no calls, not one visit, and the first thing you say to me is ‘hi’,” I find myself saying, despite having a plan for talking to James.
And despite my cold and mean tone, he smiles and chuckles slightly. “What do you want me to say Reg? Howdy?” he retorts, matching my snark with his, earning him a small smirk from me.
He always was hard to hate when it came to talking to him, face-to-face.
“You were good out there, today, you’re a talented performer,” he says, as if there isn’t a myriad of unspoken things between us.
“You’re alright as well,” I say and I want to hit myself for going along with it. “Fuck this,” I say as silence descends upon the unspokens. “We’re not doing the small talk and the acting like nothing happened. Five years. And nothing but us writing songs about each other and not actually talking. So, what happened? What changed?” I ask, searching James’s face for answers as to what that song was about, why he left while I was singing footnote, what he’s thinking now.
He doesn’t answer, at first, he nods and stares off at the skyline of the city. “I made a mistake,” he says. “That’s what happened. I pushed you away when I shouldn’t have.” He shrugs and doesn’t look at me. “I thought I was protecting you, I don’t know. You didn’t want love and I didn’t want to prove you right. I guess I did anyway.”
I don’t tell him that that sounds like bullshit, his face tells me that he knows, but he’s telling me what he feels. “What made you realise, your mistake?” I ask.
“You left, and I missed you. For some reason, it hurt when you actually left. I didn’t understand it, couldn’t get my head around it. Loving you seemed, ridiculous, stupid, and reckless. I could hurt you, you could hurt me, we might not work and we both want to be musicians, artists and I didn’t want the drama that could have happened. If we were together, it would be scrutinised and twisted and strained. I watched Remus and Sirius go through it and they almost didn’t make it,” he says, glancing at me with those hazel eyes that I fell for, so long ago.
“You were scared and it was too late,” I sum up and he nods. I laugh bitterly because it seems ridiculous. “Five years. Because you were scared.”
“Never stopped,” he says, a darkness flickering on his face.
We stand in silence for a moment, it all just settling around us: his fear, his pain, my pain, our pain, and our stupidity.
He turns to me. “I want to know you, again,” he remarks. “I liked knowing you, I loved knowing you and I want to love knowing you, wherever that leads, again. Screw being scared. I made a mistake, five years ago, and I spent those five years trying to forget it, ignore it. There’s a lot that I should have done during those five years that I didn’t, but I want to know you, now, as you are despite all that I did and didn’t do.” His sincerity, has always, weakened any resolve I never had against him, but he doesn’t need to know that.
“You can get to know me, screw being scared, and apologise for all your fuck ups,” I reply.
He smiles at me, a smirk that turns into his lopsided grin that he only ever wears for people he cares deeply about.
That night, five years ago, Lily came out to him as a lesbian. They were dancing to celebrate and he was smiling at her, not because he was flirting with her, but because he loves her. How he loves me, I’ll just have to figure out, and get to know him.
Love. I’ve written songs about the pain of it; lived a life worth a story experiencing the costs of love; and been devastated by it. But, with the boy who broke my heart, five years ago, maybe I can find out if love does live up to the songs and poems and stories preaching it’s good properties. And maybe, I’ll even write my next song about it.