The Marauders and Sirius Black's Mixtape

A Note from Pengiwen

First of all, I just want to apologize up front for anything that comes after this note.

It's been over a decade fighting with this fool of a dog about whether or not I was ever going to give up and let him tell the story his own way.

I have repeatedly told him, "No, Sirius, because you are incredibly biased in all this, and there's a lot of stuff you don't know about that the readers need to know to get the full story." (I was of course thinking of things like Regulus's true story and the stuff that goes on with other characters that Sirius isn't involved in.)

"But you've got it all wrong - and what's more is you're leaving out the best parts!" Sirius complained. "What's with all these fade to black cut off scenes and hyphenated sentences interrupting me all the damn time? It's simply not fair that you never let me finish the Christmas song or let the readers see what a great time Remus and I had in the Trophy Room Passageway..."

He doesn't care I want to keep things PG (or at least PG-13) around here.

Which is why I haven't let him do his own talking before now. But he hasn't shut up, so that gives you an idea of what I have been dealing with for the last ten years from him.

But when I said I thought about making a book just for the music that connects to the story, Sirius threw an ever-loving fit.

"COME ON! You have got to be kidding me. I was born to write a book about music! It would be CRIMINAL to keep me from being the one who tells the readers about the songs I play and sing - especially seeing as it is MY music that you are writing about!"

"But you'll be rude," I said, "And I want to keep it --"

"CLEAN -- I KNOW! But I can be clean. Honest. Cross my heart. And really - it's only FAIR you give me a chance. Just one ickle bitty chance! And look, it's a side thing so who's really going to read a whole book about a playlist anyways? Nobody, that's who! So really -- It's a safe way to let me have it my way for once."

"I don't know, Sirius," I said.

But you know what he did? He turned his sad Snuffles eyes on me and -- here we are.

So, it's with great trepidation that I'm letting him have a go at it. But be forewarned, I may have to step in and stop him if it gets too "fresh".

Secondly, there are a few songs that I should like to introduce that Sirius hasn't heard that simply belong to these stories and shouldn't be left out just because Sirius Black doesn't know them. So you'll see a chapter that's called "The Full Shebang" (Sirius insisted that is what we called it) and dated.

"The Full Shebang" is just an overall list of every song that is in or is planned to be added in the series, and will include songs that were not from the timeline of the books that capture the feeling or message of the story. Those songs will be in bold italics on the list, and were added by me, not Sirius, so don't blame him if you don't like them. (The date on the title and in a note up top will reflect the last time that the full list was updated.)

"The Full Shebang" is where I recommend you start if you don't want to listen to Sirius blather on and on and on (and on and on...) (...and on...) about music and singers and what have you. I know some of you will want to just get right to the point and not have to sit through a whole lot of details and meandering nonsense that may or may not even be true. (I'm literally looking at notes for Sirius's long winded chapter on Queen right now and I'm just saying - you know the real story about his run-in with Freddie Mercury already so don't let him tell you some load of crap, alright?)

Third, and this is really important, I told Sirius that whatever he wants to talk about musically is fine so he's going to be assuming that you are at least caught up with the current Marauders book, and that if you're not you enjoy spoilers. Let me repeat that another way:

IF YOU HAVE NOT READ YEARS 1-7 AND THE CURRENT ONGOING VOLUME OF ORDER OF THE PHOENIX DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER THAN "THE FULL SHEBANG"! THERE WILL BE SPOILERS GALORE.

Again, though, some of the spoilers might be false since Sirius is a bit of a fibber.

I think that covers everything I have to say.

Again, I'm sorry for unleashing Padfoot on you, and I hope you will all forgive me for this.

Good luck.

Lots of love,
Hannah