Greetings all! This is a little something I cooked up in English, whilst thinking about the Cold War and my latest fandom obsession, Remus/Sirius. Remius? I don't know what it's usually known as. But I digress. This is an AU fic, maintaining the general plot of the Marauder story. And I've tried to be as true to the period as possible - any slang used has been consulted in my lovely, shiny and new slang dictionary. I have not read the Communist Manifesto, but it's not too essential to the plot. And yes, this is slash.
At the moment, the rating is "T", but this is liable to change.

Disclaimer: The events presented in this work of fanfiction are based upon real events that happened in America in the mentioned time period, however the location and particulars are imagined by myself. None of the character names or place names belong to me - they are the sole property of J. K. Rowling.

1. Happenings

In the summer of 1945, before he started at high school, three things happened to James Potter.

The first happened on the sixth of August. He had slept in on most days of the holidays, as fifteen-year-olds tend to do over the summer break. He got up around midday, made himself a sandwich and then turned on the wireless. The States had just bombed a city in Japan, called Hiroshima, with a nuclear weapon. It had only just happened, but already reports of immense destruction and high death rates were being broadcast. James came from a staunch left-wing family, and his first feelings were those of anger and pity. But then he decided that he needed to do something.

The second thing that happened was that James Potter went, for the first time in his life, to the Hogsmeade Municipal Library. Like most fifteen-year-old boys, all he really wanted to read were comics. But now he wanted to understand politics. He wanted to know why. Such wanton acts of destruction were beyond his comprehension. Sure, in his comic books, people got shot all the time. But a whole city. The mind boggled. While at the library, James came upon one book that he hadn't been looking for, "the Communist Manifesto". And another first – James borrowed the book. He read it. He was interested in it.

But perhaps more significant than these things was the third thing that happened. The world now cowered beneath the threat of nuclear warfare, Communism was on the rise as a new and alternative ideology, and James Potter was in love.

Lily Evans and her parents had just moved in to the house next door, and Lily was beautiful. She was tall – taller than James by a bit – and she had the most striking red hair. From the moment she gave James the finger for staring at her over the fence, he knew that she was the one for him.

These three things that happened didn't just affect James, obviously. There were naturally going to be run-on effects for his three best friends.

Sirius Black, James's best friend, had been equally shocked by Hiroshima. And his parents were right-wingers. He had borrowed the Manifesto after James had read it, and then gave it back to James to return to the Library because he didn't think that he could stand the shame of being seen in there. And he conceded that Lily Evans was indeed quite pretty, but he did not fall hopelessly in love with her when she gave him the finger for staring at her over James's fence.

Remus Lupin was not quite James's best friend, but he got on well with Sirius so James let him hang around with them. He actually rather liked him, in the kind of way that you like an antique clock – with admiration and interest. Remus was appalled by Hiroshima, and had already prepared an article for the school newspaper, for which he was sure to be appointed to the editorial team the moment he started high school. He wasn't at all interested in James's discovery of the Manifesto – he had read it when he was eleven – nor was he impressed by the fact that James had actually been insidethe Library. And he politely introduced himself to Lily Evans, who didn't give him the finger, but shook his hand.

Peter Pettigrew was not quite James's best friend either, but he was easy to be around so the three good friends didn't mind when he had attached himself to them back in middle school. He disapproved of Hiroshima, but he was pleased that it seemed to have finally ended the war. He wasn't interested in reading the Manifesto, but he was happy enough to have the others give him a summary. And he couldn't look over James's fence at Lily Evans, because he was too short, but James assured him that she was very beautiful indeed.

And on the first of September, the four friends started at Hogwarts, the local high school. James was delighted that Lily would be starting there too, and he refused to acknowledge that he only knew this because Remus had asked her.

But a blossoming relationship with Lily wasn't the first thing on James's mind. James wanted to focus his high school career not on romance or, heaven forbid, the pursuit of academic excellence, but on the making of mischief.

At middle school, he and Sirius had left their mark by letting off a stink bomb they'd made in science during an air raid drill towards the end of their last term there. They'd forgotten their nose plugs, but it didn't matter – the reaction was well worth the discomfort. Peter had laughed 'till he'd cried... or maybe those were just the noxious fumes making him weep. Remus had given them a disapproving speech, but he was smiling despite the smell.

So on their arrival at high school, they christened their three-year stay with turf across the top of the locker banks in the corridors. No-one knew where they'd gotten the turf from, or how they'd gotten it above the lockers. Peter laughed 'till he cried. Remus had given them a disapproving speech, but he'd planted some small flowers in the turf atop his locker before it had been removed by the janitor.

On their second day at Hogwarts, the second of September, the war had been declared to be over. So to celebrate, on their third day there, they drew the words "WAR - 1.9.'39 to 2.9.'45. R.I.P." in stolen chalk on the front steps of the school. Of course, their sentiments were not exactly in line with their words. But what did that matter, as long as it stirred up some trouble? Peter laughed 'till he cried. Remus had been reading the newspaper when they told him what they'd done; he simply nodded and kept reading.

If there was one thing (apart from all of his subjects at school) that Remus Lupin was good at, it was keeping his feelings to himself. So when the stink bomb went off in the air raid shelter, he told James and Sirius that it was very silly of them. He tried his utmost not to laugh at the looks on everyone's faces. And when they turfed the locker banks, he acted like it was an act of flagrant vandalism. Secretly, however, he thought it rather brightened the place up. He even planted some flowers above his locker.

And when they decorated the Hogwarts steps with their puzzling slogan, he tried to act like he wasn't interested, like it was just another prank, but he was actually quite scared. He was scared at how people would interpret the innocent joke, how they might lash out at James and Sirius. And he was scared by how America might now act towards the increasingly-Communist Russia, now that they no longer had any reason to be allies. For the one thing that Remus Lupin had been keeping to himself for longer than any other was his family's history: they were Russian immigrants. And no-one in Hogsmeade liked immigrants. Remus was as good as born and bred in America - they came when he was only one - and his parents pretended that they were too.

So with incredible foresight, before any anti-Russian furore could kick up, he decided that he had to tell his three closest friends his biggest secret.

"Remus, put down your newspaper," James demanded. "We've just written in chalk - stolen chalk - all over the school steps, and you haven't lectured us yet."

Remus looked up. "You've both been out of line, you should be very ashamed of yourselves, et cetera, what else do you want?"

Sirius frowned. "This isn't right."

Peter kept laughing.

"What's not right?" James asked.

"He's not himself. What's eating you?"

Remus smiled slightly, not looking up. "A dragon. It's massive and green and scaly, and..."

"Slow down!" James cried. "Get your head out of the clouds, boy! Sirius here seems to think something's bothering you, and I take him veryseriously. So. What is it?"

Remus paused to think for a moment. "How would you react if I told you that I'm not from around here?"

"Not from Hogsmeade?" Peter mumbled offhandedly.

"Not from America," Remus said softly.

"From where, then?" Sirius asked.

"Russia." It was barely audible.

"That's FANTASTIC!" James exclaimed. "No wonder you'd already read the Manifesto! Oh, man. That is GREAT."

Sirius looked slightly more concerned. "You haven't told anyone else, have you?"

"No, I haven't."

He looked relieved. "I won't, either."

James nodded. "I see your angle. Not everyone would take it as well as us. I'll keep it quiet, then."

"Me too," said Peter, finally having gotten over his fit of giggles.

"You're the best sort of friends I could hope for," Remus said, putting his newspaper down.

Sirius grinned. "I always knew there was something funny about you, Lupin! Lupin... is that even your real name? Or is it Lupinski?"

"It's Lupin."

"How about Lupinovabovovitz?"

"No, it's just Lupin."

"Gosh darn you. How about John? Your middle name can't be John, can it? I bet it's Josef. It is, isn't it?"

"I'm pretty sure it's just John."

"Nonsense, your name is Remuski Josef Lupinovabovovitz," Sirius said in his posh accent. It was sometimes easy to forget that he too wasn't from Hogsmeade, and indeed, wasn't entirely from America. The story went that his Bostonian mother had run away from her restrictive family to England, fallen for a young aristocrat, fallen pregnant and fallen straight into another restrictive family. After the second child, Regulus, was born, they moved back to America, to Hogsmeade, but not before England had taken its toll on young Sirius's accent.

"We can be immigrants together, Comrade Josef," he said, sitting down next to Remus and picking up the newspaper.

Remus began to protest, but all Sirius did was take out the sports section and fold it into a paper hat.

In their third week of high school, James and Sirius began to circulate somewhat nasty cartoons of their least favourite teachers. They would sit in classrooms at lunch painstakingly drawing their caricatures. Peter would laugh 'till he cried all over some of their paper and they forced him to go and sit in a corner. And Remus? Remus sat quietly by the ebullient cartoonists, picked up their finished drawings and added captions.

And like any good team of troublemakers, they soon garnered their fair share of enemies. But more than any of the teachers, they were despised the most by a boy in their own grade, Severus Snape. Severus was rude and arrogant, and they took an almost instant dislike to him. James hated him for his politics and his advances on Lily. Sirius hated him for his greasy hair and frankly stupid-looking nose. Peter hated him because James and Sirius hated him. But Severus overlooked all of this, because of the four of them, he disliked Remus the most.

Remus didn't hate him. Remus, in fact, couldn't have cared less about him. But Severus was no idiot, he saw the way James, Peter and especially Sirius looked out for him. They were all strong boys - what Peter lacked in height he made up for in width - but Remus, the youngest of them, was feeble and skinny, and looked ill every other day. And Severus wasn't one to miss an easy target, nor, it seemed, were a lot of other boys in their grade.

The protruding foot, rightly placed for someone engrossed in a book to trip over, was bad enough, but the verbal taunts were what Remus came to fear the most. And so towards the end of their first year at Hogwarts, Sirius and James decided that something had to be done. Up until then, their pranking had been mostly generalised, apart from the occasional cartoon poking fun at a teacher. But they decided that they now needed a status change, from the strange kids who got in trouble a lot to a force to be reckoned with - and the best way to do that was to eliminate the competition.

Remus wasn't entirely sure what they were doing half the time, but slowly, the other kids began to leave him alone. It was tantamount to a minor miracle. Well, all the religious people in the town probably would have proclaimed it a miracle. Peter did - and he was the world's most unobservant Christian (but a Christian nonetheless).

Eventually, James and Sirius got their wish. Feared by students and the banes in the lives of teachers, they became a force to be reckoned with. Remus didn't waste time by pointing out to them that it really ought to be "a force with which to be reckoned", but Sirius told him to shut up and enjoy the idiom and the power which it was associated with.

"With which it is associated."

"Shut the hell up."

Their second year passed mostly without incident. Well, that is, if you ignored most of the pranks that they pulled. Peter even started to become a more active participant, rather than just laughing on the sidelines.

In the summer break before their third and final year at Hogwarts high, three things happened to James Potter, now a far more sophisticated seventeen-year-old.

The persecution of Communists in America was blossoming, and James was afraid for the political ideology that he held so dear. So he decided that he needed to do something. He needed to form one of the subversive organisations he heard about on the wireless so often.

So the second thing that happened was James's belated second visit to the Hogsmeade Municipal Library. He picked up "the Communist Manifesto" again and read it at the Library, and this time he took notes.

But once again the third thing that happened rather outstripped these two things. Because James Potter had asked Lily Evans out on a date. And she'd said yes.

Sirius agreed with James that some sort of subversive organisation needed to be formed. He too re-read the Manifesto. This time, he even went to the Library himself, seeing as James had told him that borrowing it was far too suspicious. And he was very pleased for James. Maybe, just maybe, he thought, James would shut up about Lily now that she'd finally caved in. How wrong he was.

Peter was all for the forming of a subversive organisation - it sounded like fun. He also went and read the Manifesto at the Library. Well, he skim-read it, at least. And now that he actually knew what Lily looked like, he too was pleased for James, if not a little jealous.

Remus was mildly cautious about forming a subversive organisation - the word subversive, being bandied about by James and Sirius, didn't exactly help. But he agreed nonetheless. While his parents were hiding all their Russian and generally left-wing books in the basement, he smuggled the Manifesto into his bedroom and re-read it by candlelight at night.

Remus would have been very excited about James's impending date with Lily - Lily was a very nice girl and James was lucky to finally have his wishes fulfilled - but he was rather distracted by something that had happened within the confines of his own heart, an unusual event in itself. For one day in the holidays, he had been at Sirius's house, sitting on Sirius's excessive four-poster bed, flipping through a pin-up magazine.

"I'll never be able to get with any of these pin-up girls," he joked, "because James and I are like an old married couple, so Peter says."

"But James has Lily," Remus pointed out.

"True," Sirius conceded. "Well I'll just have to marry you then."

Remus blushed. "Sirius! No church would marry two heretics like us, let alone two men!"

Sirius scoffed. "You're only saying that because you don't want to admit just how madly in love with me you are."

"I am not!" Remus protested.

"You are so!" Sirius grabbed him and wrestled him onto his back. "Admit it!"

"I'm not!"

"You Russian boys," Sirius said with mock-exasperation, "you're all so stubborn."

"You don't know any other Russian boys," Remus pointed-out.

"Oh, shut up," Sirius said, his accent more pronounced than ever. He planted a kiss on Remus's cheek, before sitting up and going nonchalantly back to the pin-ups.

It was a moment before Remus righted himself, and he was amazed that Sirius could just go back to what he was doing so easily. Remus couldn't. He wasn't sure he ever could.

So the next day, when James told him about his date with Lily, all he could really do was wonder why he had reacted the way he did to a simple kiss on the cheek. Sirius would have brushed his teeth at least once since then - but Remus couldn't bring himself to wash his face.

What did you think? I'd be greatly honoured if you left me a review - considering how epic-massive this fandom is, I'm expecting at least ONE person who doesn't have me (and Lacrima) on alert already. :)

GO GO GO!

- Legs