A/N: I really have no idea where this idea came from, but I decided to go with it. I'm not British, so I've never watched BBC before, I'm not a huge Beatles expert, and I wasn't alive when John Lennon died, so some of this may be wrong/inaccurate. I tried to check most of my facts, so hopefully it's right.
Takes place December 8, 1980. There is a bit of slash, but it's more implied than anything.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:
Remus dropped his bag in shock when he entered the flat he shared with Sirius. The only source of light was coming from the Muggle television in the living room whilst the volume murmured at a low level. He could hear quiet sobs coming from the sofa. The channel, he dimly realized, was BBC. If Sirius was watching the news, and crying, it must mean…
Remus rushed over to the sofa, tripping over his shoes as he stepped out of them. He carelessly lowered himself next to Sirius, who was curled up in a ball in the corner of the sofa, equipped with a handful of used tissues. Remus was far too worried to wrinkle his nose in disgust.
"Sirius? What is it?" Remus asked hurriedly. "What happened? Was it anyone we know?"
Swallowing hard, Sirius only raised a shaky finger to point at the television screen. In large, bold letters, across the bottom, it read: "John Lennon Assassinated". There was video footage running in a loop, and reporters were speaking in the background, but their voices were only buzzing to Remus, as the volume wasn't turned up high enough for them to be anything else.
"John Lennon is dead," Sirius said in a small voice. "It's all over."
If Remus was normal, he would laugh. If he was normal, he would berate Sirius for getting so worked up over the death of someone that Sirius had never once met. If he was normal, he would shake his head and humor Sirius.
But, considering that Remus was not normal, he felt like crying himself.
It wasn't that he had any specific emotional attachment to John Lennon. He had never caught Beatlesmania. He had never tacked posters to the walls of their dormitory or listened to records endlessly or proposed to invent a religion regarding The Beatles as gods. He had watched Sirius and James and Peter do it all whilst smiling faintly in the background, asking Sirius if he owned any other records. The Beatles hadn't meant the world to him.
But they had meant the world to Sirius.
Yes, they were already broken up by the time that Sirius had become obsessed. But the Wizarding world was always a little behind the times, wasn't it? That hadn't made Sirius love John Lennon and Paul McCartney and George Harrison and Ringo Starr any less. If possible, it had just made him love them more.
The Beatles, to Remus, weren't just The Beatles, although they weren't gods and weren't angels and weren't musical icons to be forever worshiped. They were other things; more important things.
The Beatles were Sirius. The Beatles were sunny afternoons on the Hogwarts grounds, sitting between Sirius's legs and holding a guitar. The Beatles were Sirius's hands guiding Remus's over the strings, to coaxing out notes and chords that, strung together, became a Beatles' song. The Beatles were staring up at the ceiling after consuming a bottle of Firewhiskey, listening to the same song over and over again until you could sing the lyrics in your sleep. The Beatles were smiling at Sirius whilst he compared the Marauders to The Beatles, complete with a list and hand gestures. The Beatles were James serenading Lily atop a table in the Gryffindor common room at three in the morning. The Beatles were "I Want to Hold Your Hand" whispered against the curve of Remus's neck by Sirius's slick, swollen lips. The Beatles were James and Lily and Peter and Remus and Sirius, together and happy.
And now John Lennon was dead.
Remus had heard Sirius say it so many times: "The Beatles will get back together. You just wait and see." Because, according to Sirius, a group so great, so influential, so perfect, could not stay apart. "After all, we got through our Yoko Ono just fine, didn't we? She became more of a Linda after a while," Sirius had said, referring to the former Lily Evans; now Lily Potter. And if Sirius could actually be friends with Lily, anything could happen, right?
Remus knew that Sirius had still held the hope of The Beatles getting back together. It might've been childish or silly or foolish to care about a band getting back together in the midst of everything that was happening—the war, deaths, Voldemort rising—but it didn't matter to Sirius. Sirius cared about The Beatles. He cared about all of them, even Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best. In Sirius's mind, despite Voldemort, despite The Beatles' differences, despite everything, The Beatles were meant to reunite.
In five shots, all of Sirius's hope was gone.
That's why Remus didn't laugh or berate or humor. Because—even if he didn't want to—he shared Sirius's hopes, as Sirius was a part of him, too. And that meant that, along with Sirius, he had lost one of those final, precious slivers of hope; one of those pieces of light that kept you going regardless of everything else in the world.
"The Beatles are all over, Moony," Sirius whispered, still curled up against the arm of the sofa, his eyes red. "They're never going to get back together. John Lennon is dead."
"He is, Padfoot," Remus said quietly. "He is."
Remus and Sirius spent the night lying on the sofa, fingers entwined and eyes fixed on the television screen whilst reporters spoke on mute. Sirius's old Beatles' records played in the background as their minds drifted away from BBC and back to happier times. To happier times spent during sun dappled afternoons, with calloused hands strumming "Love Me Do" and hope still present in young, naïve hearts.