1976

James Potter would never qualify as an average wizard.

Growing up, he had always displayed the most spectacular manifestations of accidental magic (turning all the stairs of the Potter Manor into slides, for example). He had been blessed with a silver tongue since birth and had mastered the art of sweet talking his way out of trouble by the time he was four. This was the point in his life when he discovered his passion for troublemaking or as his four year old self called it: "funmaking". Also, he had a flair for the dramatics.

James Potter was everything a pureblood from a lineage such as his was expected to be; smart, talented, handsome, confident, charming, and of course, rich. That is not to say he wasn't infinitely flawed; he was also arrogant, cocky, proud, spoiled, insolent, and vain. In any case, most people were willing to oversee this flaws as long as they had the chance to associate with the Grand James Potter.

Still, all this qualities and flaws weren't what defined James. They were attributes and adjectives that fitted him perfectly, but James was so much more than what met the eye.

James Potter would never qualify as an average wizard and never in his whole life had this bothered him in the slightest, he had even revered in it. He loved the rush, the fun, and the challenge that the expectations placed on him brought.

He enjoyed life and he loved every single day of his chaotic life.

But as any other teenager, James had bad days too. He had days when he would feel as if his walls were crushing him, when he felt so overwhelmed by his insignificant existence that he wanted to scream and cry, when his rage was so consuming that he wanted to trash his room and rip his hair out. Whenever he felt like that, he came here, to the roof of the Astronomy tower. After all, there had never been anything that fresh air and a friend by his side couldn't fix.

Until today.

Today James Potter sat in the top of the Astronomy Tower more alone than ever wished for the first time in his life just to be normal.

*.*.*

September 1971

Some like to tell their story starting by the day they met, some like to go even further backwards and talk about their upbringing and their expectations for their Hogwarts careers, others prefer to skip all the foundations and launch straight into the action that were their last years of school and of adulthood. But we'll start this story in a seemingly random day, a day so crazy that it can only be described as the day the Marauders were formed.

James and Sirius were walking through one of the most populated Hogwarts corridors- No, they're strutting, thought Severus. As if they owned the place. They were just two first years for crying out loud! No one was allowed to be considered cool as a first year.

Those two idiots had the whole castle mesmerized. They had hit it off in the train and they were sorted into the same house, after that they had proceed to, in lack of better words, take over Hogwarts.

They were funny and shameless. They had silver tongues and sharp wits. The had already lost points for doing stupid little pranks to the Slytherins (throwing dung bombs to their cauldrons, a tripping hex here and there) but in contrast, they stood up for Peter Pettigrew who was a little plump kid with a stutter, the exact definition of the victim the Slytherins and other mean kids loved to taunt and bully (Sirius and James might had too, had Peter not been a Gryffindor). Their fellow first years considered them cool, and their upper-class considered them cute, two little troublemakers with golden hearts.

Anyway, as they reached the Great Hall with the intention of having breakfast, they noticed they were late again because almost all the spots at the Gryffindor table were taken and most of the food was gone. James nudged Sirius in the ribs pointing at the two seats near the staff table. They sat down and saluted almost everyone. Almost.

"All the good food is gone!" cried an undignified Sirius.

"Well we would have been here earlier if someone hadn't been so reluctant to wake up" growled James, he was not a morning person.

"Are you going to eat that?" Sirius said to the sandy-haired boy at his left who he realized, was his roommate Remus Lupin.

"You don't even greet me and you're asking to eat my food?" asked the boy with a raised eyebrow.

"Only if you're not eating it." responded Sirius cheerfully.

Lupin glared at them; clearly they represented a threat to his food. Needless to say, Lupin was also not a morning person.

Before Black could try to steal food from Remus again, a little voice from James' right called their attention "I… I... sa-ve… saved… you some" It was their little roommate whom they have rescued from the Slytherins' claws yesterday.

"Peter" James remembered "er... thank you, you didn't have to" James and Sirius looked at each other -I'm hungry, he has food- Sirius shrugged.

"Thanks" chorused both boys before wolfing down their respective breakfasts.

"Lets go, we'll be late if we get lost again" said James rising from his spot. They had taken four steps before turning hesitantly.

"Oi Peter are you coming or what?" decided James in the end.

The boy didn't need to be told twice, he left the remains of his breakfast and quickly followed the other two boys with a huge grin adorning his round face. Little Remus Lupin sat alone finishing his breakfast. He had time, had asked a prefect to help him get to classes. I'll get friends too, soon. He thought with a pang of jealousy.

Thanks to the prefect, what was his name again? Remus had been the first to arrive to the potions class. He took a seat at the front but not on the first row; nobody liked sitting on the first row.

Gradually, the classroom began to fill; Potter, Black andPettigrew came in last laughing at some joke. They got another chair for Peter and seated at the back which Remus thought was strange, the back was usually the harder place to sit; everyone wanted to sit there. It seemed as if the places had been saved specially for them (it actually made sense: there hadn't been a place for Peter).

Professor Slughorn gave them the instructions and said something about a reward for the best potion; he wasn't really paying attention.

Remus tried to concentrate on his work and ignore them but he couldn't stop his mind from wandering. Peter had seemed like a good kid, timid but a good kid. They had talked and laughed through the feast, seated together for the first week and Remus thought he had found a friend, his first friend. But he had been abandoned in favour of two better prospects.

He couldn't blame Peter, not really, because he had tried; he kept asking, talking and talking, and what is your favourite sweet? Which Quidditch team do you support? Want to play some Exploding Snap? Well it was more of a Wha-what… is you…your fav-our… favour-it… zoo-it? but Remus just listened and give small, most times one-worded answers. He supposed Peter had gotten tired of it. He hadn't wanted to appear cutting. He just wasn't chatty by nature and he hadn't wanted to appear fake by forcing a long answer. And now he had lost his first prospect at a friend.

He turned his head to look at them unconsciously; Sirius was doing the potion, Peter was talking, with or to whom, he didn't know, and James entertained himself by throwing random ingredients at Snape's potion while he wasn't looking. He found it weird that Peter loved to talk so much, people usually got annoyed at his stutter though James and Sirius didn't seem to mind, or maybe they were just ignoring him.

He looked down at his own work. It looked ready to explode, only Snape's potion looked worst... How was that even possible? Remus wanted to laugh -wait a second. They had only had about two weeks of classes and Snape was already one of Slughorn's favourites, he couldn't have messed up that badly. But the really suspicious thing was that he had messed up even more then Remus and nobody was worse at potions than Remus.

Remus turned around again and observed James, carefully this time; he concluded that the things he was throwing at Snape's cauldron weren't random. In fact, he picked them, measured them, and waited for the best chance to throw them; he knew exactly what he was doing. Snape was getting desperate, he didn't know what he was doing wrong and the redhead at his side -Lisa?- Was trying to calm him down. Remus took a look at the ingredients James had lined up, ready for throwing and realized his plan. It would explode but only until it had driven Snape crazy.

Remus couldn't let it happen, but he also couldn't exactly tell the teacher. He had no proof of his theory, James would definitely be mad, and Sirius too by extension, and who knew how they would retaliate? He would probably be classified as a telltale and all his chances at getting friends would be gone, besides it wasn't like Snape would even appreciate it, he would probably just sneer at him and tell him he didn't need his help. But still, Remus couldn't let it happen.

He got an idea. One of those ideas that seem genius at first but are, when considered in hindsight, actually very stupid ideas. He could try and fix Snape's potion without him noticing. Plus, if James realized Remus knew, he might even stop trying, hopefully, he didn't look the sort to give up.

He measured and mixed, creating his "antidote", he grabbed it and stood up from his seat (everyone was distracted either working or chatting, even Slughorn was talking to a couple of Slytherins). He walked casually past Snape's table and poured his antidote in. He returned to his seat feeling accomplished, when Snape's cauldron started bubbling.

Oh, oh. He should have remembered that he was terrible at potions.

BAMM! Snape needed to buy a new cauldron.

BAMM! Oh he would need to buy a need cauldron too.

BAMM! BAMM! BAMM! BAMM! BAMM! Apparently, antidotes in the making were extremely flammable, who knew?

Everyone was covered in green slimy stuff from the head to the toes.

James and Sirius were rolling on the floor (as much as the sticky stuff allowed them) laughing. Some people panicked and started screaming that it burned, but Professor Slughorn was splattered too. He called for order and sent everybody to wash up before dealing with Snape.

"I'm sorry Mr. Snape but I will have to take five points from Slytherin." Slughorn sounded genuinely sorry but Snape didn't care

"It wasn't my fault! Someone sabotaged me!" he cried undignified "It was Potter! ...Or… or one of his friends!" he pointed an accusatory finger at James who was still laughing on the floor with Sirius, Peter had now joined them.

"That's enough. You should make yourself responsible for your mistakes; I saw you talking with Miss Evans, you were distracted and now see how it ended. I'm sure you will be more careful in the future Mr. Snape" Snape glared at everyone before storming off, Lisa Evans went after him.

"And you boys, you should get going if you don't want to lose more classes than necessary, I will alert your teachers of the... er... inconvenience" He ushered the four boys to the hallway and closed the door, probably to try and clean his beloved classroom.

The boys looked at each other and Remus found himself laughing manically. He shouldn't laugh. It hadn't been nice, not at all. Snape was so mad and it wasn't fair for him, but he was so red! He looked ready to explode! He had tried to help but it had turned out so wrong, how had he forgotten he was absolute rubbish at Potions? It was so silly. Remus couldn't contain himself.

James spoke.

"That was brilliant! You're brilliant! I wouldn't have been able to explode it like that! Slughorn actually took points from Slytherin! And Snivellus' face! It was so red! It was beautiful! Absolutely brilliant! Just how did you do that?" the three boys stared expectantly at him.

"I... I... I only... I...um...It... It was an accident" Remus stuttered pathetically, god he hated stuttering. He only stuttered when he was nervous. They kept staring, oh no, why had he said that? They made him nervous. Well it was the truth, but he had most definitely lost his best and maybe only chance to make friends. He would have to live alone for the rest of his life.

Then, James busted out laughing, followed by Sirius' bark of a laugh and a little nervous chuckle by Peter.

"You heard him? Hahaha... He...hahaha...he is brilliant by accident!" James managed to say trying to subside his laugh. Remus wasn't sure what that mean so he only gave a hesitant smile.

He finally succeeded in subsiding his laughter long enough to extend his hand and say.

"James Potter, I know we already met but I hadn't introduced myself properly."

It was as if Remus was seeing him for the first time, everything on him radiated charm and confidence, he had a smile on his face, his whole face; his mouth, his cheeks, his eyes. He had the presence that appeared to say "I'm here and you should be happy about it!" As if he was arrogant but had the right to.

No one has the right to be arrogant, thought Remus mustering his courage. And he spoke.

"Remus Lupin" He said and took James' hand

Black introduced himself too "I'm Sirius but you already know that" he shrugged. Sirius was the very definition of pureblood, Remus thought. He was slightly leaning back into nothing, with the natural grace of a pureblood, his hands on his pockets, his hair so lustrous, Remus had only seen girls with hair like that, and his eyes seemed to mock the air. "And he is Peter" he said pointing his thumb at Peter.

"Yes I know." The following two seconds of uncomfortable silence, at least for Remus, were thankfully ended by Sirius.

"We need to get rid of this… stuff… " he said eyeing the slime on his arms.

"I don't know, it's funny" James had formed a ball with the stuff and was currently playing with it like it was clay.

"Lets go, we have to clean it before Transfiguration" Sirius said, dragging James by the uniform.

Peter and Remus followed, unsure of what to do. When they got to the Gryffindor Tower, the shower was occupied by Dean Fawley, their other roommate. They didn't want to smear their beds with slime so they sat on the floor to wait.

"I hate waiting, we should do something." James was the first to spoke.

"I second the motion!" exclaimed Sirius

"But we're covered in slime." Remus complained.

"Well yes, it's disgusting, does anyone knows of something we could do without having to spread the slime?" James asked

"We… cou-ld… p… play Ex..plo…ding S…snap" suggested Peter.

Sirius made a face "We'll spread the slime in everything eventually."

They were silent for a minute before Remus had an idea. This time it was one of those simple ideas that end up being the best ones, the ones that end up leading to the discovery of something incredible.

"I brought some of my records and we could find a record-player" he suggested.

James and Sirius weren't very enthusiastic about the idea.

"Music is not exactly fun" James tried to let Remus down easily but Sirius snorted, "If by that you mean brain melting boring then yes"

What?

"I'm sorry if you like it but it's just something for old people" said an apologetic James.

"What?! But… but… music is for everyone! Specially for kids and teenagers, I meand just look at The Who! Or The Rolling Stones! The Beatles?! You don't like them?" Remus couldn't believe it! Who didn't like music?

"What does a beetle has to do with music?" Sirius frowned

"Not a beetle, The Beatles… you don't know them?" the shook their heads except for Peter who was now looking at James and Sirius as if they had grown a third eye.

"What's so especial about them?" Sirius sounded angry now; he wasn't fond of being out of the joke.

"You… you don't know The Beatles" Remus got up and opened his trunk muttering to himself all the while

James and Sirius shared a look "What is he going to do?" Sirius whispered and James shrugged

"They don't know…" he was going through his stuff "no, no, no... they're not ready… to soon… their heads would explode...they would die from the awe…yes, this one"

Remus got out a big blue square with many little faces on it, he was smiling like a madman. Then his face fell again.

"I don't have a record player" His face had the typical expression of someone who realizes that the quill they been for two hours was in their hand the whole time.

"I ha-ve… one" said Peter "but… but it… does…doesn't… wo-rk… he-re, I didn… didn't.. be…lie..ve my pa-re-nts… but I… I… tri… tri-ed, a-and… magi…magi-cal one-s do-don't wo-rk… with… m-mug-gle re-cord-s." He explained.

Well damn.

Remus sat down on the floor again, now annoyed. He was grumbling and he didn't even notice James and Sirius staring awkwardly at him; right now he didn't even care if they thought he was weird. How was he supposed to survive without his music? He didn't even know wizarding music, and by the sound of it, wizards weren't musical geniuses.

"We could make it work" James spoke with a glassy look in his eyes, like he was looking at the possibilities.

"Explain" demanded Sirius, anxious for one of James' plans.

"We could fix Peter's muggle record player." James started "It'd actually be quite simple, we would only have to figure out what is magic interfering with, and just take it out…" James got thoughtful at the last phase "or we could replace it with something compatible with magic…humm… we would need to examine the inside, do you reckon it works like a magical player? I once saw my dad repair his."

Sirius looked exited at the idea of disarming something but Remus beat him to it.

"I know how muggle players work! Peter can we use it?" He had the same look in his eyes that said he was conceiving a great idea (a slightly insane but brilliant look), Sirius thought he quite enjoyed this side of their new friend.

Peter jumped at the opportunity "Of cour-se!" he went to fetch it from his trunk and the made space for it on the floor, Sirius flicked his wands and the green slime disappeared from the floor and from their hands.

"What the... why didn't you just… Why don't you...? Oh forget it." Neither James nor Peter commented on it so Remus let it go. We have more important things to do. A little bit of slime in their robes wasn't going to stop them.

Five minutes latter, when Dean came out of the bathroom, tiny metal pieces were splattered all over the floor and the four boys were examining each a different one while muttering to each other.

"Er… guys the bathroom's free" he indicated but they ignored him except for Sirius who gave him a dismissing hand gesture. Dean shrugged and got down to the common room to wait for someone to accompany him to Transfiguration.

"Do you think it's the batteries?" Remus would say

"If we try to power it by magic it still doesn't work, I think the problem are the cables, magic players don't have any…" James would argue

It turned out not to be as easy as expected. Time passed and they didn't even notice.

"Ok just one more time…" James motioned for Peter to turn the player on.

For a second nothing happened, not even the funny interference sound at the beginning of a record, but then the player shot up red sparks from the compartment that had once been designated for batteries and the most beautiful sound they had ever heard filled their ears.

A Hard Day's Night started playing.

They were all transfixed, Remus and Peter couldn't believe they had done it, and James and Sirius couldn't believe their ears.

There was no way to describe it, it was nothing like wizarding music, it wasn't boring at all, it was upbeat, and bold, and funny. It was so happy.

Sirius fell in love.

They were broken from the enchantment by a Fifth year, who opened their door.

"You should hide, McGonagall's searching for you" he said to Remus and looked at the player.

"Is that…? How did you make it work?" he crossed the room and got to his knees to touch the player, he appeared to be in some sort of trance but Peter smacked his hand "We've try, but it looked so complicated…I've missed muggle music so much. I…can I borrow it?" He was still dazed.

"Um… well it's Peter's" James answered

Benjy Remus-couldn't-remember-his-last-name, turned to Peter "Can I- no wait! Take it to the common room!" and he was gone as fast as he came.

The four boys looked at each other and a silent agreement passed between them, why not? With the outmost care in the world, they carried the player to the common room and placed it in one of the lower tables.

Benjy came from the fifth year boy's dormitories with a record on his hand and a friend trailing behind him.

"Can you put this one on?" Benjy asked.

"Is it true?" His companion doubted.

Sirius smirked and turned it on letting A Hard Day's Night flow through the common room.

The unknown boy's eyes widened. It also caught up the attention of the whole common room. It was amazing how fast news travelled, everyone started going through their stuff in search of records they had brought out of sentimentalism or other odd reasons. Soon every house was informed and raided; Hufflepuffs proved to be a gold mine. People started requesting songs and begging them to please, let them play just that one song. And soon, a party was in full swing.

The Gryffindor common room was over crowded when McGonagall came in. She was sure there hadn't been that many Gryffindors just yesterday. No one was paying attention at her, it looked like and improvised party had broken off for no apparent reason. She called for attention but the students ignored her. One does not simply ignore Minerva McGonagall. It is an unbreakable rule every first year learns on his or her first day.

She sent out red sparks from the tip of her wand and her voice was magically amplified.

"WHAT IS GOING ON IN HERE?" she shrieked

Everyone jumped, spilled their drink, ducked, went for the floor, screamed, had a heart attack, or peed on their pants. It was a large crowd.

Someone had the presence of mind to remember that fidgeting with muggle devices was borderline illegal and stopped the music; the older ones got the message and tried to hide the player with their bodies. They must protect it at all costs.

"Everyone will return to their respective common rooms. Gryffindors, clean all this mess before going to your dormitories; this is no time for improvised parties!" They obeyed and soon she could recognize her Lions without so many people in the room.

She spotted them trying to sneak upstairs with a big thing on their arms.

"Potter, Black, Lupin, Pettigrew, I can see you; you are not escaping that easily." In Remus ears her voice sounded as terrible as any evil witch from a muggle bed-time story's voice.

"Where were you for the last ten hours? Nobody saw you after Potions class… and what is that thing you are carrying?" she eyed the player.

"It's Peter's record player, it was broken and we were trying to fix it" James replied easily.

"We haven't have much luck" Sirius replied swiftly, his annoyance sounded so believable Remus wanted to protest; they had made it work!.

"Is that true Mr. Pettigrew?" She turned to Peter.

"The… they… off… off…offe…offere…off…offered, I… I… re…. re… reeea… reaaa-lly….appp…. appp…."

"Yes thank you Mr. Pettigrew" McGonagall was impatient; it would probably take hours before Peter finished his sentence.

How weird, his stutter hadn't been nearly that bad and Remus had thought it had improved through the day… oh. Peter was faking. Or at least exaggerating, Remus was impressed; he had underestimated him. He looked at James and Sirius and saw they were thinking along the same lines. McGonagall called his attention though before he could share a look with them.

"Mr. Lupin?" She didn't elaborate, she just stared at him and it was pretty obvious what she was asking him.

"I… It's true Professor… James saw his father fix his once, I read an article on how they worked, and Sirius wand work is great." Remus tried to sound convincible, he hadn't lied after all, and he was really only omitting the word muggle.

It was curious how Remus, always so mindful, hadn't even considered the trouble they would be in for altering a muggle device with magic, in Hogwarts grounds.

"Unfortunately in your haste to help your friend, you have forgotten to attend five of your six classes today. Mr. Potter, Mr Black: I believe you know what that means, perhaps you could enlighten your friends." She opened the portrait before turning to them "Friday, eight o'clock, my office." And without further add, she exited the common room.

Detention

Remus thought he should be upset but he found out he couldn't care less. He was still covered in green sticky slime, he hadn't eaten since breakfast, he had broken rules he wasn't aware of, he had broken rules he was aware of, he was given detention, and he couldn't care less.

"Don't worry mate we'll find a way out of it" said James "and if we don't we'll find a way to make it bearable, maybe even fun." continued Sirius

"Thank... you" answered Peter.

"At least, we'll serve it together." finished Remus, smiling. And his smile was mirrored in three faces.

He had found friends, more importantly he had stuck with them, and even more importantly they had stuck with him.

"Listen guys I'll talk to McGonagall, it's the less I can do. I'm a prefect; I can't let you go, but maybe I can convince her to let me supervise your detention" Benjy winked at them.

Yes, life was good.

I was so tempted to write "WHAT THE DEVIL IS GOING ON IN HERE?!"

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