Like many bad ideas, it started out of spite.
Regulus Black has decided to enroll in Muggle Studies, much to his parents disapproval at his waste of an elective, to prove to Sirius he could pass the class if he tried. How hard could it be, it's not like they were complicated creatures.
The professor was only a few years older than they were. Some of the older students remembered Charity, though she had already graduated by the time Regulus started his first year.
But he hated every second of it.
"Right, well the term seemed to have slipped by!" Professor Burbage replied cheerfully. She was wearing a simple, brown paisley skirt, a polo shit and a sweater vest. Always Muggle clothes, and hideous ones at that. Did Muggles always wear dull mud colored clothes ?
The class gave a half-hearted mumble. It seems like even the students who wanted to be here didn't look too excited.
"Now our last assignment for term is a bit of an experiment. I might have mentioned before, but music is a bit of a passion of mine, and if I could inspire you to fall in love with Muggle music, than this class will have been worthwhile! I want you to perform a small musical number with your assigned partners, and incorporate explanations about Muggle culture in the number. It doesn't have to be long, maybe fifteen minutes or so. Here are your groups."
Regulus frowned. It appears he was to be paired with Max Brown from Ravenclaw, and Victoria Abbott from Hufflepuff. Figures he would be pulling the weight of this assignment.
"Now, I'll give you a moment to discuss amongst yourselves," Professor Burbage twittered excitedly. "I can't wait to see what you come up with."
Max was fairly easy going, tall and handsome. He was black, and incredibly stylish. He carried himself with an air of insouciance Regulus tried to imitate, but never could, even though the Browns weren't even a prominent family. Abbott was a quiet girl, short and blonde and hardly ever spoke more than necessary. Regulus wondered if the girl ever spoke at all.
"Well, we better get this over with," Regulus began. "Anyone have any ideas?"
"We could cover a rock song," Max suggested. "Change the lyrics to something about trains, or whatever, easy."
"We'd get an E at best," Regulus countered. He wanted an O, nothing but the best for a Black.
"We could cover a song that has aspects of Muggle culture in the lyrics," added Max. "There's plenty of those and most of them are half-baked, but they'll do."
"How about Hair?" Victoria asked.
"What about hair?" Regulus asked back.
"No, I mean Hair the musical. It's all about social issues. It's about a group of young people in New York living together, protesting the Vietnam War and social injustices in American society."
"Do they do anything else?" Max asked skeptically.
"They also sing about taking drugs, and taboo sex practices, but we could cut that out." Victoria added nervously.
That's it. Stick it to Burbage, stick it to Sirius, the professors, the whole bloody school, all while pretending it's a class assignment.
"No, we should keep it. Keep it as intact as we can." Regulus insisted. "How did you hear of this anyway, Vicky?"
Victoria blushed. "I heard one of the songs at a record store when I was on Oxford Circus. Sometimes I stop by Muggle London with my friends."
"Yes, yes, that's great. Do you have a record? Could you send it to me?" Regulus asked.
Victoria nodded, and promised she would give it to him at supper.
"This sounds like a disaster," muttered Max.
When he had returned to the Common Room later that night, Regulus slid the record out of its paper sleeve and placed it on the ancient Victrola.
"New music?" asked Mulciber.
"Something like that," Regulus laughed.
As the opening notes to Aquarius started to play, his housemates frowned, listening in distaste to the Muggle music. He continued to play the record, allowing it to play some of the more obscene and transgressive lyrics and the discordant notes of the electric guitar. Some even got up to leave.
"Ugh, what is this trash?" asked Rosier, looking up from a rather deep conversation with Snape.
Dramatically, Regulus lifted the needle.
"This," he answered, "Is how we win the war."
"None of us are in the war, if you hadn't noticed," Snape replied sarcastically.
"No Severus, I mean the culture war. How can we get people to understand us unless they see for themselves the degeneracy, the hypocrisy, the selfishness of Muggles. This musical encapsulates everything that's wrong with them, and by performing it, we'll be throwing it in their faces. And they won't be able to argue back, because it was written by Muggles. It's perfect. And can you imagine the look on Burbage's face when she sees this filth? Oh it'll be brilliant," he chuckled.
"You're going to say those things? To a professor?" Mulciber asked, laughing at the audacity.
"We're going to do more than say it, we'll perform it! And then what'll those Mudbloods think about being so smug." Regulus continued.
"Can I join?" Mulciber asked. "Seems like it might be fun."
"Of course! More the merrier. Evan, Severus, are you interested?"
"Absolutely not," replied Snape, not even bothering to give Regulus the slightest bit of attention.
"I'm in," Rosier responded. "If Mulciber's joining I'll have a go at it. C'mon Severus, you've lived with the Muggles, you could act as our consultant."
"That's true! We don't even know what we're going to wear. What do bohemians wear?" Regulus asked rhetorically.
Snape frowned. "Jeans."
"See? That's why we need you. You don't even need to perform, we need someone to maintain the charms on the instruments so they play be themselves, also I'm doing this to embarrass my brother, so the more the merrier."
The moment he said the magic words 'my brother', he knew he had Snape. His eyes flashed with anger, and he asked when would they start.
All that was left was to get the rest of a cast together. Well, Max was going to play Hud, Victoria would play Sheila, and in spite of everything, Regulus found himself drawn to Claude Bukowski - though he had no idea why. Perhaps it was his ambivalence, or maybe he just had the best songs.
"Evan, do you want to play Berger? He's a self-described psychedelic teddy bear with homoerotic tendencies." Regulus asked.
Rosier blushed. While he wasn't exactly out of the closet, if one in their social circle could be, it wasn't really much of a secret. And Regulus knew he fancied him, it was too easy. Rosier chuckled nervously, "Well boarding school education must have been good for something after all. Sure, why not?"
"Mulciber, do you want to play Woof?" Asked Regulus.
"Is he the one with the song about sodomy?" He asked plainly.
"Yes, but there's more to his character."
"That's fine, I'll do it." He replied. "It'll be fun watching the audience squirm."
Regulus nodded. "Now we need three female characters." He thought for a moment. "Does Chiara Zambini sing?"
Chiara Zambini was a girl in Regulus's year. Devastatingly beautiful, with coffee colored skin and tight black ringlets, and piercing dark brown eyes. She was a man eater, known to prey on the weakest and wealthiest boys in school. If he played her game, maybe she'd play his.
"So you're saying you'll go on a date with me if I perform in your stupid play?" She asked skeptically. She looked at the record, reading the song titles.
"Yes, you'd be one of the principle leads, Dionne. You'd sing the title song, Aquarius, as well as many other solos."
She looked at the record. "I'm not singing the song about how much I like white boys. It's demeaning."
"But it's critical to the play! It shows how they're purposely crossing the taboos of Muggle culture by showing interracial relationships, and we'd highlight the ridiculousness of Muggle taboos that they're so caught up on something as trivial as race."
"How's that any different from our preoccupation with Blood purity?" Chiara smirked.
"That's completely different and you're equivocating on the subject." Regulus frowned.
Chiara sighed. "Fine, I'll join your play, but I won't sing the song about White Boys."
"We've has to cut out quite a few songs already. I think it will be fine." Regulus agreed.
"Anyone else in the play?" Chiara asked.
"Ibrahim Shafiq, Niobe Flint, and I somehow convinced Alecto Carrow."
Chiara cackled. "Really? Even scary little Alecto? Merlin, this is going to be a train-wreck."
Regulus grinned mischievously, "Well, we've got two weeks to rehearse, and we've already fine tuned the spells on the instruments and the lighting effects. And none of it really matters. All we have to do is shock the professors, and the blood traitors. Give them a show they'll never forget."