Disclaimer: I don't own anything! I'm not talented. J.k. Rowling is. So if talent is what you're looking for sorry but you're in the wrong place. Go read J.k. Rowling's story. I can assure you it is much better than this. But you can still read this if you want.

A.N.: Howdy all! I'm finally done. Wheww! It took awhile but here it is. So anyway, your questions should begin to be answered in this chapter. I'm not promising anything cause this story is only just getting started but you will find out all about the music stuff here. But anyway ya here it is. Enjoy and please review!! REVIEW PLEASE!! I LOVE GETTING REVIEWS!! Ok sorry had a little break down there. Lol! But seriously if you don't review this, I will hunt you down!! Peace out!

Chapter 2

"Hey! Hey! Alright stop!" Sirius shouted to be heard over the music. James stopped drumming and Remus let the last chord he had strummed ring to a silence. They both looked at him knowing why he had called an abrupt end to the song.

Peter did not notice the others looking at him as he kept steadily playing the bass part of the new song Sirius had just written. The problem wasn't that he kept playing so much as it was he kept playing the wrong notes. And he couldn't keep up with the melody line that Remus played on guitar or the drum beat the James supplied. Evidently absorbed by the sheet of music set in front of him, Sirius doubted whether he could even read it.

"Wormtail!" he shouted into the short boy's ear. "You can stop now!"

Peter gave a little jump and scowled as Sirius grinned down on him. James and Remus too failed at the attempt to hide their smiles. Ever since they had started their band, needlessly to say called the Marauders, in fourth year, Peter had been a shameful addition to the otherwise talented band. Though they would never say it to him, he was only added to the band out of pity, for before they had inducted him he was quite friendless and unpopular.

Three boring days after their quite eventful night, the boys were gathered in the private heads common room. This room was shared by both Lily and James as they were the head boy and girl. It was a large circular room almost exact in likeness to the one that belonged to the rest of the Gryffindors, except for one difference. Unlike the regular common room this one held a large stage, consuming half the room, while the usual furniture of red and gold couches were pushed far to one side of the room so they took up as little space as possible. There were a few chairs and couches that still remained in a position suitable to sit on in front of the stage or the handsomely carven fireplace, but most were piled against the wall of the room leaving free area to move about the rather crowded room. The stage itself was crowded with countless amps, five guitars, two bass guitars, a drum kit, and many other things such as jack boxes, distortion pedals, music stands, microphones, and not to mention all sorts of cord running everywhere, connecting everything to everything else. It was almost chaotic, but the members of the band insisted that it was completely organized.

The morning after the full moon, Remus had returned to his friends demanding to know what had happened. He knew that he had blacked out and he remembered little of the night. He knew that if he had no memory of what had taken place then it almost certainly wouldn't be good. After a lot of pleading, Sirius and James had broken down and regretfully told him what his memory did not. Remus did not take the news of his attack well. He blamed himself for nearly causing the death of not only the girl but also Sirius and James. He spent the whole day being utterly ashamed and disgusted with himself and hardly talked to anyone, answering any questions with only a simple yes or no. That night when he failed to come down from his dormitory, James and Sirius began to worry. They went in search of him and found that he was sitting silently on his bed, a packed trunk beside him.

"What do you think you are doing?" demanded Sirius when he realized what Remus was thinking.

"I can't stay," he replied. "Dumbledore trusted me and look what almost happened. I could have killed you both!" Sirius could tell his friend was close to tears and it tore at his heart to see Remus that way.

"Don't be ridiculous," said James sensibly. "You're not going anywhere. You never hurt anyone and you belong here."

"Don't try to stop me," Remus replied a slight and reluctant anger rising in his normally calm voice. He brushed his sandy hair away from his handsome face. He avoided making eye contact with either of them because he knew they would never let him leave. But he knew he had to do what he must.

"What do you think Dumbledore will do when he finds out you're gone?" questioned Sirius. "Do you really think he will just left you leave? Do you think he doesn't care about you? Do you think we don't care about you?"

Remus knew he was hurting them but he just couldn't stay. If he had killed them he would have never been able to live with himself. He would never be able to forgive himself. It would be pain far beyond that which was eating at him as he took his first steps toward the door. "Don't you think I know Dumbledore cares? Don't you think I know you guys care? Don't you think I care too?" he shouted at them. "That is why I have to go! I care about you too much!" He walked quickly across the room without looking at either of them.

"Remus Lupin," said Sirius as his friend's hand was on the knob and he was prepared to leave the room, "don't you move a step further or I swear I will tie you to that bed and turn all you belongings into giant man eating spiders."

Remus stopped in his trek and smiled slightly. Behind his back James and Sirius knew they had prevailed and smiled too. He knew in his heart that he could never leave them. They were all he had. Where else would he go?

"Do you want help unpacking?" James asked with a smile as Remus turned back to look at them.

Sirius' questions of who the girl by the lake had been were answered by Remus the same day he had nearly left.

"Her name is Riley," Remus told him when Sirius had pointed her out to him in their charms class. She had shown up in the classroom just after them and was accompanied by none other than Lily Evans and another girl that he was quite sure was names Summer. "She is the one you having been causing all this fuss about? She had been in all of our classes this year. I think she transferred from somewhere else but I don't know where. She talks with a sort of accent. I don't think she's from England."

"She's been here since the start of the year!" Sirius proclaimed. "When were you planning on saying something?"

"When were you planning on noticing?" Remus shot back in return. "She's a Gryffindor too."

"Oh," said Sirius defeated.

He spent that class, while actually that whole day staring at her. Damn she was gorgeous. The moon light did her beauty no justice. Her hair fell beautifully and soft around her face and stopped just passed her perfect shoulders. Her cheeks still held a slight pink blush to them that enhanced the splendor of her amazingly constructed face. Her eyes, which had been closed before, were however, the real loveliness of her face. They were deep and hazel like honey and the powerful green of a pine tree fused together to form one color whose magnificence was never before seen in the eyes of any. But their color was only half their brilliance. The held an intensity unlike Sirius had ever seen before. They were fierce and cool yet warm and perhaps even sad. They seemed to house so many emotions that he could not pick out any one in particular. But they were powerful and beautiful and caught his glace each time he looked at her face. Her lips were charming and luscious and Sirius often found himself drifting away from the boring drowning of his teachers and imagining himself kissing those gorgeous lips.

"Why have you all stopped?" Peter questioned as if they had been the problem and not he.

"Well sorry to tell you Petey, but it kind of hard to make the song sound good if the bass player can't play," Sirius said bluntly but truthfully.

Peter looked around at the others as if looking for someone who would defend him, but all he got was an amused smile from James and a nod of agreement from Remus. Sirius felt bad for him but he was indeed very tired of Peter ruining the songs he wrote and making a mess of them each time the Marauders performed in front of the school. Sirius, James, and Remus would always make playful jokes to disguise the poor performance of their so called bass player but ever did their annoyance with him grow.

"Are you saying I'm a bad bass player?" Peter questioned with offense.

"No I'm saying you're a horrible bass player," Sirius corrected and Peter's face fell. "You couldn't play music if Voldemort came and put the Imperius curse on you and ordered you to."

"No, he probably would be able to then, but you never know," disagreed James with a smile.

"Well what do you know? You have got to be the worst drummer at Hogwarts. We only keep you because those stupid giggly girls think you're so cute." Sirius laughed at his friend.

"Hey what can I say?" James laughed too.

"Well I have to agree with Sirius about James, but don't you think you are being a bit harsh on Peter?" Remus questioned. Sirius knew he was only saying it to be kind to Peter.

"No," Sirius replied simply. He knew he was being an asshole but he thought it a crime to hear his songs destroyed so violently by the likes of a bass player who thought that a guitar was a type of vegetable until Sirius had shoved one in his hands.

"Are you kicking me out of the band?" Peter asked, his face had gone quite pale and Sirius knew he had indeed gone too far.

"Well, no," he replied, finally taking pity on the poor boy. "Well at least not until we can find a replacement." Remus frowned at Sirius as he added the last bit. Sirius shrugged and Remus shook his head.

"Peter, don't listen to Sirius," Remus said calmly. "You know he's full of-"

"I am not!" exclaimed Sirius.

Peter shook his head. He uttered a loud sniff before looking up at them. Sirius was sure that he had started to cry, but when he spoke he was angry rather than upset. "No Sirius is right, I am terrible! And you know what? I don't care! I don't care about your stupid band! I don't even know why I agreed to join in the first place!"

He roughly threw the bass he held into its stand at which point Sirius had roared, "Be careful, with that! It's worth more than you've got!" to the further scowls of Remus. He stormed from the room without a second look back at them even as Remus called, "Peter, wait. He didn't mean it."

"That boy has got quite a temper," Sirius smirked after Peter was out of earshot.

"You are horrible sometimes, Sirius Black," Remus shot back at him. "We all know he's awful but did you really have to be so cruel?"

"Don't worry. He'll forgive us," Sirius replied. "He always does. I mean who else does he have?"

Remus scowled again but said, "I guess you're right. He won't be angry for long."

"But what do we do in the meantime?" questioned James. "We don't have a bass player anymore."

Sirius picked up the guitar that he had found beside Riley three nights before and threw himself into one of the red colored chairs. He plucked a few tuneless notes and replied, "That is a slight problem, isn't it?"

"I suppose we could ask around," suggested Remus.

"I guess there is bound to be someone who can decently play bass guitar somewhere in this school," James put in.

"Yeah, but it might be some Hufflepuff loser like Nathan McDonald," said Sirius with a mock look of disgust. "Or worse, Snivellus."

"Can you imagine old Snivelly with a guitar?" laughed James. "The great greasy git would probably think it was broomstick and try to ride it."

The remainder of the band broke into laughs at the thought of Snape trying to ride a guitar like a broom. Sirius thought that if they did indeed tell him that one of their guitars was the latest racing broom it would make for a great prank. He could imagine that thick idiot trying to push off at the start of a Quidditch match and then cursing the guitar into oblivion when it refused to lift into the air.

As Sirius laughed he quietly started to strum the chords to one of him favorite songs by a muggle band called the Hives. The song itself was called Walk Idiot Walk. The song didn't sound great played on acoustic guitar because it was mostly power cord driven and it needed distortion to get the right effect, but he didn't really care at the moment. He often spent time just sitting quietly playing whatever came to him mind. That was actually one of his favorite things to do. When he was alone with a guitar he suddenly got really creative and all sorts of lyrics come pouring out of his head. It was his favorite way to write songs because he could just think and play and be reflective and inspired.

Suddenly though something popped into his head and he stopped halfway through the chorus of the song. He accidentally hit a stray note and the chord he played sounded flat and wrong with the rest of the song.

"What's wrong?" questioned James, but then he too fell quiet as the same realization that had just hit Sirius entered his mind. Remus on the other hand had been waiting for the other two to notice since Sirius had begun to play. All three boys smiled because they knew they had found the answer to their problem.

"Yes," shouted Sirius, the bass notes to the song flowing steadily from Lily's dormitory penetrating his ears. "The day we would ask Snivellus to join the band would be the last day on earth. But now it looks as though that day is still a long way off."

"Shall we go meet our new bass player?" laughed James.

"I think so," replied Remus.

The three Marauders raced up the short flight of stairs, that thankfully did not turn into a slide at their first step, which led to the head girl's dormitory. Sirius, the first to reach the door, pounded heavily upon it and pushed it open without waiting for a response.

Inside were three girls. One of course was Lily. The other, he noticed, was the girl who he had seen with Riley named Summer. And last, much to the delight of Sirius, was Riley herself. She turned to face them and her face broke into a slight smile. Sirius followed the suite when he saw that it was she who held the bass guitar. Right behind him James and Remus were also beaming happily at their discovery as well.

"James Potter!" shrieked Lily at the sight of him. "What on earth do you think you are doing? You're not allowed up here!"

James' face fell a little then, for he had only just gotten Lily to stop hating him as she had since the very first day they had met. He indeed had fallen in love with her on that day and still loved her very dearly. Until the start of seventh year, though, she had avoided even talking to him because she loathed him so much, much to the misery of James. But now she was beginning to show signs that perhaps James stood a chance to win her over. They had most definitely become at the least friends and she had stopped yelling insults at him each time she saw him in the common room. Sirius was quite sure she had fallen as deeply in love with James as he had with her and it was only a matter of time before they were happily married and having little messy haired babies.

"What are you smiling at, Sirius Black?" she then shot at him.

"I believe I am smiling at the new Marauders bass player," he smirked in reply before returning his focus on Riley.

"Yes," James agreed, "I trust that it was your superb talent we heard coming from here a few minutes ago."

"Yeah, the Hives," she replied simply. "Great song."

"So..." Sirius prodded.

"Yes..." she replied.

"Are you going to join or not?" he questioned hardly containing his anxiousness.

"Well if you tell me where you got that guitar," she smiled, a gleam of amusement in her eye.

Sirius looked down at the guitar he still clutched in his hand. He had forgotten to put it down in his haste to dash up the stairs and find the producer of the song. He knew it belonged to her but what was he going to tell her about how he had come by it?

"Um...this guitar?" he motioned to the one in his hand.

"Yes," she replied.

"I found it," he replied not quite truthfully.

"Where did you find it?" she further questioned with a smile at how uneasy he looked.

"Outside," he replied again shortly, not wishing to reveal more than he had to.

"Are you sure?" she questioned.

"Yes, but I can see that this fine instrument clearly belongs to you so take it and that will be the end of it," he said quickly with out taking a breath.

"Thank you," she replied as she took it from him and propped it up against Lily's bed.

Sirius looked at her slightly amazed. She wasn't wearing the traditional Hogwarts uniform, but a pair of faded and artistically ripped jeans and a fitted hoodie with the name Billy Talent scribbled across the front. Her hair was pinned messily at the back of her head and many stray strands fell about her face. Also he noticed many streaks of black present in the deep chestnut color that he had somehow missed even after his time spent staring at her. About her waist was a belt embroidered with many metal studs and spikes and about her wrist a band to match it. The bass guitar she held in hand had stickers baring the words NOFX and Ramones and Rancid and many other punk bands. It took Sirius a moment to digest her change in appearance. She looked so looked so hot and so unlike any other girl at Hogwarts. Hardly anyone but himself and James and Remus ever wore anything but their Hogwarts uniforms. It was a real shock to see her dressed like that; so cool and hardcore. He was in love with her already. She looked as if she had been born a Marauder.

He found it sort of odd that of all people, she would be friends with Lily and Summer. He knew they were both over achievers, not so unlike himself but in the bad way. Both girls had perfect attendance records, both had been prefects, they studied practically non-stop throughout their time at Hogwarts and they were constantly fussing over their grades. She looked so different compared to them in their perfectly manicured uniforms and neatly done hair. Sirius was unsure of why she had chosen them as friends when she was so obviously Marauderish and unlike them.

"I would kindly ask you to stop starring at my cousin, Sirius," Lily said in the Professor McGonagall like voice which she had mastered incredibly quickly in there first year and usually reserved for telling James off.

"Your cousin?" he questioned slightly confused.

"Yeah," Riley herself replied. "Just started here this year. I used to go to this boring all witches school in Canada, but thank god I transferred here this year. I swear I was about to jump off a bridge if had to stay there any longer."

"Canada?" questioned Remus, who had been quite silent throughout the entire conversation so far. "You're from Canada?"

"Yeah," she replied. "My dad was an Auror. He worked for the ministry here though. I was actually born here in England, but dad was sent to Canada six years ago. Something about Voldemort and his supporters, you know, all that good stuff. But anyway I've lived there for the last six years. In Toronto. I was fun but I always wanted to come back home."

"Why did you come back then if your dad was there on ministry orders?" asked James, a look of interest and curiousness present in his eye. He dreamed of becoming and Auror after he left Hogwarts. He was always interested in hearing more about what it was like to be one and what it was like to be out there fighting against Voldemort."

She didn't answer immediately. "Because Lily and her parents are the only family me and my sister have left now, I suppose." She hung her head. She didn't want anyone to see her eyes, because she knew there, she was exposed. There they could see her weakness. She didn't want anyone to see her weakness. She didn't want to have a weakness. She looked up quickly and formed her face back into the smile she always wore, the smile she knew she could hide behind. She forced the pain from her eyes and fierceness back into them. But she didn't move fast enough.

Sirius caught her eye and held her gaze for a moment. For a moment he didn't see her beauty, he saw her pain. He saw her exposed and naked, unmasked. Her eyes hid a secret, deeper and darker than his own, and in that moment she let him glimpse that secret. She had been hurt, perhaps worse than he. He could see it. It was buried, buried deep past her exterior. No one could ever see it, but he did. In that moment he could feel her pain, unlike his own, yet not totally different. Inside she was scared. She was scared by a danger no one else knew, no one else could ever know. She was weak, weak like a child, yet masked by a guise of strength. But Sirius could see her. He could see her because he knew what her life was like, what real pain was like, what it was like to have no one.

She blinked and when he looked again it was gone. Everything he had seen, everything he had found, was gone. There was nothing now, nothing but a slight fierceness that masked those secrets. Her face was again formed into that smile that could melt his heart. Her moment of weakness had passed and she was strong again. Disguised, hidden, everything was hidden, everything about her was hidden.

The room fell silent for a moment and everybody knew James had touched on a bad subject. Sirius looked at the ground for a moment wondering what he had just seen and remembering his own hurt. Beside him he heard James mutter," Sorry, I didn't know." Sirius then smiled, for he recalled the night three days passed when his best friend uttered those same words to him. James did indeed have a thing for saying the wrong thing.

"Don't worry about it." Sirius looked up again and could see that Riley was wearing a look of slight sympathy toward James. "You didn't know," she said wishing he would stop looking at the ground. She didn't want him to be sad for her. Her loss was her own pain to bear and he didn't need to be sorry for her.

Sirius could see that nobody else was going to speak, so he being the great tension breaker that he was said, "So how about it, Riley? Going to join the band? We're the best Hogwarts has to offer."

She smiled at him, pretending to contemplate her answer. "Okay, I'll join," she informed them, to the great joy of all three Marauder boys.

"Great!" erupted Sirius, whose heart jumped at this opportunity to spend a lot more quality time with Riley.

"Splendid," said James, also quite glad as he saw this as a possibility to see a lot more of Lily as well.

"When do we start?" she questioned.

"Right now," supplied Remus. "Down stairs, in the common room."

Riley followed the boys down the stairs and into the adapted rehearsal room. She smiled at the set up, for it was the perfect place to just come and hang out and jam without the possibility of having either Professor McGonagall of Filch come and yell at her to stop disturbing the peace and quite. She had already had the unfortunate opportunity of encountering both in the month she had been at Hogwarts. Filch had nearly confiscated one of her guitars believing it to be a cleverly disguised stink bomb timed to go off at any given moment. She had been dearly grateful to the aid of the head master on that matter as he spent the better part of an hour convincing Filch that it as indeed a muggle instrument.

Sirius quickly grabbed a jack for Riley to plug her bass into an amp and James tossed her Peter's sheet of music for the song they had been practicing before their rehearsal had been called to an abrupt stop. She read it through quickly, her eyes moving steadily across the page and her foot drumming on the floor as if she were keeping the beat of it.

"Who wrote this?" she questioned when she had finished.

"Sirius," Remus replied, using an electronic tuner to make sure his guitar was tuned just right.

"Yeah, Padfoot writes all our songs," said James.

"What's a Padfoot?" asked Riley looking slightly confused.

"Oh, it's Sirius' nickname," answered James.

"Messed up name," she said. "Does he have weird feet or something?"

"Something like that," smiled Remus.

"So what do you think of the song?" questioned Sirius, hoping to steer the conversation away from his feet.

"It's great," she replied truthfully. "But it needs something."

"What?" asked Sirius, wondering if he had left out a line or something.

"Well two things," she smiled. "First a title and second, how about another singer?"

"A duet?" said Sirius, James, and Remus at the same time. Everyone looked at Sirius, as he was and always had been the singer. No one had ever suggested a duet before because no one but him had even the slightest vocal talent.

"Um, why?" asked Sirius.

"Well don't you think it would be totally different and creative to have two have two people sing it?" she questioned, a twinkle in her eye suggested she knew exactly what she was talking about. "Not your average rock song. Like Broken by Seether and Amy Lee. Would make the song about twenty times more original."

"Well who else would sing it?" questioned Sirius, with a smile back at James and Remus. "Have you ever heard them sing? If you haven't you're one of the lucky ones. Ever wonder why dinosaurs are extinct? They had the unfortunate displeasure of hearing James one morning in the shower."

"Well how about, um let's say, me," she replied sarcastically.

"You," said Sirius for lack of anything else to say.

"Yeah," she said. "I'll sing the verses cause they are short and you can take the choruses and the bridge. That way no one will think I'm trying to replace you. And when you're not singing play the chords on acoustic guitar. It will give the song a bit of a soft edge. A nice effect."

She smiled with a slightly devilish look to her. "We'll try it," he agreed because her smile made his heart melt like butter on a hot stove. "But only because you're so pretty."

She gave him a look as if he were pathetic but it quickly formed into a smile. "I think you're pretty too," she smirked and he replied, "I know."

She threw a gold pillow at his head and he grabbed it quickly out of the air before it made contact. "Sorry, love," he said. "Quidditch reflexes. Nothing hits me."

He threw the pillow back at her and she snatched it even more gracefully than he. "Sorry, love. Keeper reflexes. Nothing gets passed me." She smirked at him and he thought the look made her all the more beautiful.

"Alright, you two, break it up," James ordered, startlingly almost McGonagall like. "We still need to practice."

"Yeah," agreed Remus. "You are acting like children."

"You two should lighten up a little," retorted Sirius. "You work too hard."

"We work too hard?" said James with a smile. "You're the one who called this practice."

"Oh," said Sirius knowing he had been defeated, "well everyone back to work then."

He hopped up on the stage and took his usual place, center stage, behind a microphone, all attention focused on him. He loved to be in the spot light. That was why he had wanted to start the band in the first place. Not to mention why he spent so much time thinking up and performing the most extreme pranks and practical jokes that Hogwarts had ever seen. He gripped his own acoustic guitar in hand and strummed lightly the first few chords.

"Alright, one, two, three, four, go!" James counted one measure and each count was accompanied by a tap on the snare drum. As soon as he said go nothing could be heard over the music, amps turned as loud as they could go drum beat steady but creatively complex, as the intro to the yet untitled song sounded through the private common room and into the dormitories below.

The song sounded perfect, unlike it had with Peter on bass. Not one note of the intro was flat or sharp or behind. Sirius could have shouted with joy. The distortion driven song was softened slightly by the subtle touch of acoustic strumming that Riley had suggested, but still it sounded edgy and hard. Sirius was amazed at how right she had been. He guessed that she had been both playing and writing music for a long time to be able to pull suggestions like that out of thin air and have them work so perfectly.

As the intro came to and end he was almost sad because he had been so used to having to go over intros over and over again so Peter could catch on. And now they had to go through it once. Only once! Never in as long as he could remember had they gone through an intro only once before making it sound perfect. When the verse began though, all his attachment to the intro vanished with a beat on the high hat symbol.

"Darkness is all around.

I am lost and never will be found.

I am left out in the cold,

The pain that plagues me is getting really old

My heart is breaking, I'm held and bound.

Can't you see what you have done to me?

Alone!"

Sirius was awed by her talent. God she could sing. He was about ready to jump in front of her and demand that she sing the whole song and announce his resignation from the band just so he could keep on hearing her voice. But that was before he realized that then she would probably think he was crazy and would that ruin his chance to ever go out with her. But her voice was amazing. It was soft and pleasant yet held a hardcore edge like a mixture of Celine Dion and Tim Armstrong from Rancid. No, she was like Brodie Armstrong, but better, about one thousand times better. Actually he was quite sure that Brodie herself would be so impressed with Riley that she would induct her into the Distillers faster than you could say distillers. He only just managed to shake himself from the spell of her voice as she came to the last line.

"...Alone!" His own edgy and intensely passionate voice blended with hers on the last note and they held it together for a full measure before he finally broke away and took the lead of the song.

"You tore my heart out. Why did I love you?

And you left me with nothing!

All I have left are your scars so new,

Cause you've beat me and broken me.

You hurt me and kicked me and left me to die

And I may be alone but I'm still Alive!"

Most songs that Sirius wrote were passionate and powerful, but this song was particularly strong. He had written it the night after the full moon attack. He didn't know why but he had the inspiration to write about his feelings, his hurt, his pain, his parents, his life. All his angst of the passed ten years flooded back to him and he had to write it out. He had to turn his story into a song.

Remus and James had come to the conclusion that the song came out of a bad break-up. Though they were quite wrong, it was indeed a very good guess considering that the day he had written it, his girlfriend, Angalie, had made a very public scene in the Great Hall dumping him half way through dinner. Sirius as usually had pretty much ignored her and put on a very clever face he used to win the sympathy of the many other girls present in the hall that night. In fact most of the girls present that night were thrilled to see the break-up because they knew that one of them would be the next girl envied by the whole school as Sirius Black's girlfriend.

The rest of the song played out with perfection. Not a spoiled note or off key chord met the ears of Summer and Lily, who enthusiastically applauded the first release of the newest favorite song of every girl in Hogwarts, as was every Marauders song until it was replaced with the next. James and Remus too looked quite ecstatic with the out come of the song. And Sirius and Riley beamed with satisfaction.

"See, I was right," Riley smiled, her head sloping ever so slightly to the side, cockiness present in all her features.

"Actually it was my song, and that was why it is so good," he protested but knew he was wasting his time and breath because her additions to the song were what had really made it amazing.

"Sorry, Sirius, you're beat," laughed James as he could see the fancy in his best friend's eye. "Just admit defeat. She's right"

"Hey whose side are you on anyway?" he questioned with mock offense.

"Whichever side had the best chance of winning," replied James with a smirk, "and I think that's Riley's side."

"Okay, okay," Sirius shouted throwing both hands into the air in exaggerated annoyance. "You win! Your ideas were wonderful! Because of you we will be informed shortly that our Grammy is coming with the morning post! And our life time achievement award for writing the best damn song the world had ever seen! Are you happy?"

"Yes," she replied simply with a smile.

"Well, I think it's almost time for dinner," said Remus glancing quickly at his watch. "How about ditching practice and getting something to eat?"

"Sounds good," agreed James, sticking his drum sticks into his back pocket and ruffling up his hair.

"Must you do that James," Lily said with exasperation but also with a smile at him.

"What?" he questioned looking openly confused.

"Mess up your hair like that," she smiled wider. "You look like a hobo. Use a brush."

"Ah, you like it Evans, don't you," James replied as he wrapped his arm around her.

"Sorry, Potter, but I don't," she replied failing to hide her smile as she ducked underneath his arm.

"Don't lie," he smirked and the two left the room.

Remus, Sirius, Riley, and her friend Summer all exchanged amused smiles as the couple left the room. Sirius could see that they all knew what he did. He had debated whether he should tell either about the others feelings but decided watching them figure it out for themselves was much more fun.

The three remaining band members replaced their instruments in stands and followed their friends out of the room and down the stairs that led to the main Gryffindor common room. Sirius smiled widely as he walked with Riley beside him. The Marauders had a new bass player, Lily and James were finally realizing their love, and he had the most beautiful girl in the whole school at his side. What more could he ask for? Well maybe hot fudge sundae and a bottle of fire whiskey, but hey he could live without those things. He was content. He was happy.

A.N.: Not bad if I do say so myself. Well actually I think it is pretty bad. But I don't really care what I think. I want to know what you think. SO REVIEW!!! NOW!! I'M WAITING! GO! Okay I'm done. Good day. I said good day!