#see how i want to change her last name
oh my god this was rly long but I did it! idk maybe less happened than I thought it would but! oh and I made Mary and Hope asians, deal with it, tho I’m sorry if there’s been inconsistent hc oops it’s been so long since I read through the tumblr version fully anyway I’ll stop now & as always ty for reading ily <3<3<3
It was bound to be a long and raucous evening. With the speaker turned up to full, and boxes of reheated pizza piled on the coffee table surrounded by bottles of wine and beer, they filled the room full to the brim. Those who didn’t fit on the couches and armchairs spilled onto the floor, making a circle between them.
No one and everyone was holding court, the way they sprawled across the room. Remus curled up on the couch with Lily and Mary, who was telling all sorts of stories about James from before, making Lily laugh till her eyes watered. Where James and Sirius sat on the carpet in front of the sofa, Sirius was gleefully adding to the mix, head leaning back just enough to rest on Remus’ knee. Peter, the lucky bastard, bagged the comfortable armchair before anyone noticed, and Dorcas and Marlene were snuggled into a beanbag by its side.
“Marlene darling—” Mary stretched an arm to pass a fresh can of beer, “how’s the hockey been?”
“Please, you wouldn’t understand if I told you.”
“What! It’s not like we know nothing!”
“Look, I’d grab Pete if I wanted to talk hockey. Cheers—” She saluted at Peter’s laugh, “The rest of you are all clueless.”
“How’d you know I haven’t become a hockey player! I could have just secretly changed careers overnight. Heard it was the fad ‘round here.” She turned to wink at Lily and Remus.
“Oh yeah, wasn’t that a surprise.” Dorcas said, “you all need to stop keeping things from us. Can’t believe I hadn’t heard a word of it till I showed up myself.”
“Well I’m not complaining,” Sirius grinned, and James hummed in acquiesce. Remus couldn’t tell if it was about him, or Lily and James.
Lily was blushing nonetheless. “Oh enough about us. How’s the States been, Mary?”
“Yeah, how are the people of the New World? Are they really all obsessed with money and guns?”
“No but hear me out, they’re still all so weird.” Mary laughed easily, “And also, apparently I sound too Chinese for the white people and too British for the Asians. Nevermind they all grew up with American accents anyway.”
-
“Remus Lupin,” Mary leaned across the space Lily left empty as she stood, “how’s my favourite fake asian doing these days, hmm?”
Remus groaned, and jostled her head on his shoulders. “Not bad, I suppose.” he said simply, not knowing how to elaborate.
Mary stared at him a bit, then snorted. “See, there’s why you’re a fake asian.”
“So was I supposed to tell you about the new bubble tea store in town?”
“Exactly. You don’t even need a ‘how are you’ to start ranting about your parents and shitty new Chinese restaurants.” Mary waved a hand, hiding a forlorn smile that showed up every time she started to ‘talk asian’, “And obviously I want a nuanced analysis of that new bubble tea shop.”
Remus smiled back. He never expected to have real opinions about something like this, but at some point, between him and Mary, it became a coded dialogue about missing home. “They’re quite good. And not too obsessed with tea leaves to be crazy expensive. You should try the ice matcha.”
“Do they have good pearls?”
“Pretty good actually. Perfect texture, and melts just a bit on the outside—”
“Ugh,” Mary groaned, then started to giggle. “Yeah, I do like bubble tea. Oh Rem, how’s aunty Hope been doing?”
“Yeah, she’s good. Well, physically she’s the best she’s been since before, but there’s been other things bogging her down.”
“You know,” Mary looked up, matching his frown, “she could ask my parents anything, even though they’re not in the country, right?”
“Oh Mary. Thank you. But you know she’d never ask.”
“I’ll get my parents to call then.”
“Even then she won’t tell. Or say yes.”
Mary sighed, “you two. You’re the exact same. But anyhow it’ll be nice for them to catch up.”
‘Yeah… You should come ‘round some day.”
“Yea!” Mary breathed eagerly, “I really missed those massive veggie buns she used to make.”
“Yeah.” Remus said quietly.
For the next few moments, Mary watched him. Remus barely realised, he was looking ahead and unconsciously gnawing his lips again.
“Whatever it is, stop worrying.” Mary slapped him lightly on the arm.
“What—”
“Just enjoy the evening, yeah? And stop worrying so much about everything, you sooty stick.”
He replied with a light chuckle, “I’ll try,” and raised his beer in salute.
-
It would be very welcoming indeed, Remus thought, if his brain was just wired to let go. Which it should, tonight of all nights. It would be ideal indeed, if noise and friendship was just enough.
But there was no way to explain the nameless agitation that started and didn’t go away. Soon it manifested physically as a headache rising from behind his eyes, an audible static that came in waves and settled as a buzz between his ears. It wasn’t the beer, he barely had any, and he was nowhere as drunk as the rest of his friends. But he found that their conversation started to race ahead that he could barely follow. They flitted in and out, never too far from skating, of course. He felt strangely unsteady, floating as though in a dream, and all that noise. Remus was hearing himself being drowned out.
-
They started talking about program music at some point. Sirius was proudly showing some moves from the Bohemian Rhapsody remix he’d put together for the free skate, even pulling Remus up with him at some point. Dorcas jumped up, matching move for move with her jazz tracks. Then Lily and James would start arguing among the two of them again.
“Just choose something you both like and be done with it! What’s so complicated?”
“Oh no Marls, that was the wrong thing to say.”
“It’s got to make sense, you know?” Lily said urgently, “It can’t just be a random track out of your workout playlist, or whatever your coach chooses—”
“You two are just obsessing at this point—”
“Itneeds to resonate. I need to feel it in my soul.”
Marlene laughed.
“She’s right though.” James added, “And it needs to be right for the both of us, which you know, is easy if you’ve paired for years but we’ve just started, and—”
“And we’re fighting about everything, it’s so frustrating, neither of us were like this before!”
Mary and Remus, ‘the ones before’, shared a grin and a smirk.
“So is it a romance you want to tell?” Dorcas suggested.
“Obviously it’s a romance!” Lily gestured, “And an intense one at that. ‘Cause you know, with Remus, all our narratives have been mostly— platonic, and even if it’s a love story it’d be some innocent and pretty fairytale, because it’s, it’s Remus—”
Remus scoffed, “what’s that supposed to mean?”
“She says you’re cute!” Marlene called from across the floor.
“Yeah,” Sirius breathed into his shoulder, “and I’d agree.”
Remus whipped his head around, “how drunk are you?”
But Sirius’ eyes were stone cold sober, startlingly clear in the light and edges crinkled with a smile.
Remus felt something jump in his chest. He hurriedly looked back towards Lily.
“And there’s nothing wrong with that at all, Remus, I love you, and you know that. But I just— it’s been two years and I feel different. I want to show something different now, you know? James doesn’t get it—”
“What do you mean I don’t get it? I totally get it!”
“Then why has everything you’ve suggested been, oh I don’t know, playboy pretty girl—”
“That’s not— I mean, that’s not what I—”
“Playboy, Prongs?” Sirius had burst out laughing, “you? Really?”
James’ drink-flushed cheeks coloured even more, despite his dark skin, “That’s not what I was going for! I’ll have you know—”
“Then who did you want to be?” Peter snorted, “some loverboy Romeo?”
“Yes, exactly!”
The room burst into laughter. James frowned.
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Oh James,” Dorcas wiped her eyes, “I knew we should have gotten you into acting with us.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing,” Remus nudged James with his elbow, “you would have made a nice Romeo, that’s all.”
“If he could have taken it seriously for more than a second.” Peter said.
“I’m not Romeo,” James blurted. “I don’t want it to be Romeo, but you know, I don’t really want it to be me either—”
“But James it’s meant to be you, how else do you tell the story?”
“Just that! Tell a story. I mean, it would be a bit creepy to imagine myself in the story with— you know…” James trailed off.
Remus heard Sirius’ quiet laugh, and dared to look over.
“I think he wants to not-himself,” Sirius whispered with a smile in his voice, “so he can unabashedly obsess over Lily.”
“Yeah.” Remus smiled a little, “That’s the impression I got as well.”
-
“What about you, Remus?” Mary finally asked.
“Huh?”
“You. Your music?”
“Oh, I— don’t know yet.”
“Oh.” She said, looking at him curiously. She saw Remus squirm uncomfortably, and quickly added with a smile, “not that far behind these two, then. Have you got any ideas?”
“Yeah I’m,” Remus grimaced to himself, “mostly not sure.”
“Wait, you’ve chosen our waltz for the short right?” Lily turned to beamed at him, “Chopin’s 19?”
‘Our waltz’, Lily called it, because it had been the track for their senior debut, a couple of years ago now. The posh kids from Slytherin scoffed and laughed at how it’s “one of Chopin’s easiest waltz”, but the two of them had always been ridiculously proud of it.
“Yeah.” Remus squeezed a smile, “that’s what I told McGonagall. But I don’t know, I could still change it, if I’m not sure. And the free skate—” he exhaled frustratedly, “I— don’t even know what I want it to be. I just know what I don’t want it to be— sometimes.”
“And what’s that?”
“What everyone else is doing?” Remus said, with half a frown, half a pout.
His friends burst out laughing, though Remus didn’t feel the humour.
-
“Oh my god!” Dorcas clanked her bottle down, “Are we here for another round of complaining about the scoring system?”
“Yes! I swear—”
“The very idea of a panel for subjectively judging components and interpretation—”
“Like sure, it’s not the 6.0 system anymore, with anonymity and everything, but I swear to god sometimes it just feels like they can now cheat you and have nothing traced back to them—”
“I did a degree on this, if you suggest a human panel for judging anything in computer science they’ll just straight up laugh at you, but not here it seems!”
“At least we used to be able to tell straight away if a score is off. But now we have to just guess, meticulously compare every person’s jumps and scores to call them out.”
“And what the hell do you do with the ‘presentation mark’?”
“Exactly!”
“It’s so easily manipulated it’s crazy.”
“And honestly, sometimes I feel bad for the judges, everyone is always taking a shot at them”, Dorcas said, ever-so-compassionate, “but it amazes me how they’d came up with a system so easily questioned.”
“Oh no, not just questioned, their reputation is getting destroyed in all circles of sensible people. Honestly, how many scandals does it take for them to start fixing things?”
-
Marlene was at the stage of drunk where she looked ready to climb on the coffee table, and start an impromptu impassioned speech against capitalism. Mary was trying to get the troupe to start singing show tunes together, old-time-theatre-kids-style.
“Comeon,” she intoned, “We’ve got the wines and beers, and all the loud obnoxious young queers”
“Mary, you’re speaking in rhyme.”
“La vie boheme!!” She shouted as the only reply, raising her glass to the ceiling.
“Oh is that Rent? I loved that show!”
“Hell yea Jamesy! And oh my god look, it’s like us now! A bunch of young drunk bohemians in a room—”
“Yeah, not quite sure we’re there yet.”
“We are drunk, though. And we love that show. I love living queer hippie anti-establishment. I love theatre,” Mary mumbled, smiling dazedly and one arm around each of James and Lily, pulling them around with her words, “Oh you know what— this is exactly what you two should do for your skate! Dig out your theatre roots and go for one of the musicals—”
Lily chuckled noncommittally, “yeah sure.”
“No, I’m being serious! Oh shut up Sirius—” she immediately said, with a huff from Sirius, “god. A couple of months away and I’m already forgetting. How could I. Anyway, James, Lily, you listen— you know what I think? I think you should properly look at all the theatre classics, romantic, and as intense as you want them—”
“Hmm,” James turned his head to the ceiling, snorting a laugh.
“Listen up! This could be your Eureka moment.”
“Alright, yes! Listening!”
“I could help you fix up a medley. No, really, I was going to do some work with Hogwarts’ orchestra anyway.”
“That— would be wonderful.”
“Wouldn’t it?” Mary grinned, “so what do you think? The Phantom, Les Mis— though James I don’t really think you could pull a Marius— Christian from Moulin Rouge— maybe. Or some Sondheim? A Little—”
“Wait no—” Lily started, at the same time as James:
“No stop a second—”
They paused, surprised, and slowly turned to look at each other. They became even more astonished to find the same shade of epiphany in each other’s look.
“Blimey,” James breathed, “this is it, isn’t it?”
Lily said nothing in response. She looked back at Mary.
“You said— Moulin Rouge, right?”
“Yeah…” Mary thought again, “Oh. Oh— oh my god! Satine and Christian!”
“I don’t get it.”
“Shut up Pete!”
“That movie was so cheesy!”
“Shut up! This makes so much sense!” Mary was grinning like mad, “Oh god this is wonderful. I could— we could start tonight—” she made to stand up, only to stumble.
“Hey it’s fine, it’s fine!” James pulled her back down. He and Lily were staring at each other with such a look in their eyes. “Oh Mary! Thank you, I— can’t believe we just—”
“I told you,” Mary said happily, “your Eureka moment! And Lily— come on, Satine is so hot—”
-
No matter how much Remus wanted to knock his own brains out, he couldn’t concentrate at all after that. On anything. He suspected something ugly in him was envious of his friends, and the thought sent through him shocks of guilt and disgust at himself. The buzz between his ears was becoming a swirl, pounding under his skull as though almost starting to block his vision.
He screwed his eyes shut. Surely, he could slip away without them noticing? The way they were so wrapped up in their rapture.
He felt Sirius place a concerned hand on his knee, but he lightly pushed it off. “Sorry Pads I— I’ve got a headache. Might just go outside for a while.”
Carefully, he stood and made his way to the door. Mary stopped him with a questioning look.
“Headache. Will probably turn in early tonight.” He said apologetically. And Mary put her drink down to envelop him in a hug.
“Go on you. I’ll explain to everyone.”
“It’s so good to see you.” Remus said sincerely. Having gotten Mary’s answering smile, he picked up his rucksack, “come for lunch on Sunday, yeah?” He said, and slipped out the room to the front door.
-
Out in the cool night air, Remus looked up and tried to breathe deeply. Above him, a blanket of bright stars were silently moving through another night, along their assigned tracks, in perfectly coordinated harmony. He wondered why everything else must seem so ordered, so peaceful.
Lily and James would really make an insane pair as Satine and Christian, he thought, despite how his brain might refuse to process it.
He sighed, feeling too tired to stay and too restless to go home. So he headed to the rink.
-
ok look I’ll break my rule and put my ramble here instead of in the tags because my dudes please watch Tessa and Scott’s Moulin Rouge free skate because it’s maybe *the* most iconic program in recent history?? it’s unironically almost a religious experience. if I remember right that was the reason this monster was started, like one time I watched (and look I’m not lying when I say I literally watched this daily recently while writing this) and my brain just went ‘wait… jily?’ and yeah anyway have a good day <3
