Author's Note: Hello friends! Professor-riddikulus and I decided that we needed to escape from our political realities, so we thought - who better to run against the orange beast at the helm than James Potter and Sirius Black?! We are writing this story together and it is going to be pretty bloody amazing.

AUs include: American (ick), Muggle, Presidential (TBD)

Disclaimer: not ours

"I know that, after four years, this has started to seem normal. That we've almost forgotten what it feels like to live in a country that is united by common cause, that respects decency and diversity, that believes in progress and purpose. For too long, this nation has been divided by hatred and bigotry, but a new moment of possibility is upon us. Your voices have been heard, your resistance, respected, and it is your energy that will guide this campaign at every turn."

"American democracy only continues to survive because of the belief of the people, your belief in a better future for yourselves and your families - and though the past four years have been trying," he cocked his eyebrow which drew a few laughs from the audience, "you never stopped believing. In November, we will prove what this country truly values. We must unite, strengthened by common goals of justice, liberty and opportunity for all, and show the world we can be better."

The noise from the crowd was absolutely deafening, thousands of voices echoed off the walls, filling the convention hall with a single wall of sound. From his place at the podium, James could see hundreds of blue and white signs staring back at him POTTER/BLACK 2020 - James turned and grinned as Sirius walked out onto the stage, looking pleased with himself in the suit Remus had forced him into. James dropped an arm over Sirius' shoulder when he reached him - Sirius said something James couldn't quite hear, but he laughed anyway, and they both waved out at the faces that stretched until they faded into blinding lights.

This had all been coordinated down to the second, Remus had made them practice it over and over again, so when James felt a hand on his back, he wasn't surprised. He turned and smiled down at his mom, wrapped an arm around her shoulder, and dropped a kiss to the side of her head. His father reached out and patted James' arm, and James smiled winningly at him.

James felt Sirius shift a bit under his arm and he turned and smiled at Sirius' uncle, Alphard, who was beaming at the crowd, his shining silver hair and slightly stiffer posture the only thing that differentiated him from his nephew. James caught Sirius' eye but had to turn away quickly; the barely concealed joy in Sirius' face was about to overflow at any moment. Remus had warned him - Sirius really liked balloons.

Tens of thousands of patriotic balloons dropped from the ceiling, Sirius surged forward and James gripped his shoulder even harder - Remus had threatened him with death if Sirius broke away from the group and did anything even remotely ridiculous during the balloon drop like he had at his 2010 victory in California. James caught Remus' eye in the wing, smirked, and made sure Remus was watching as he deliberately dropped his hand from Sirius' shoulder. The instant James' hand fell, Sirius darted forward, kicking the nearest balloon gleefully back towards the crowd. Remus was staring daggers at James, but James ignored this, laughed, and batted a falling red balloon towards Sirius, now halfway across the stage.

After a long minute or two of this, their families moved towards the wings, and James stepped forward, grabbed Sirius' hand. He raised their clasped hands in victory and grinned again at the crowd, before turning on his heel and dragging Sirius off the stage. Remus was red-faced and livid now, but James just smiled winningly at him, turning one final time to wave to the crowd before disappearing backstage.

"Wow, fantastic fucking speech Potter, too bad you let that maniac off his leash and now that's all anyone will be talking about!"

"I did give a great speech, didn't I? And Sirius… he got away! I didn't 'let him off his leash'."

"Yeah that's what it looked like. And you," he said, rounding on Sirius, "What the actual hell?"

Sirius shrugged, "I just really like balloons. I don't see what the problem is?"

"Luckily for you two losers we are supposed to be partying now, so I am going to go deal with the media and then disappear into a large glass of bourbon. Please don't give me any other fires to put out tonight."

James smirked, "Please, you know we're winners. You wouldn't be running my campaign if you thought I was a loser. But, you're right - I have a bottle of scotch with my name on it back in the bus."

Sirius grinned, "Join us when you're done with the talking heads. We're going to go get hammered."

"Please just get hammered in private, away from cameras, and windows...and any other sentient beings."

"Okay, dad, christ, we'll be 'good'."

James dropped his arm over Sirius' shoulder again, they turned, and strutted away. Remus saw them laugh about something - he took a deep breath to steady himself, to keep from killing them both immediately. Instead of wringing their necks, Remus turned and went backstage where the media was gathered to ask questions of the surrogates, and moved silently from one camera to another, checking their progress. Mercifully, everything seemed to be going pretty well, they even managed to spin Sirius' strange fascination with balloons as a hilarious outburst of democratic enthusiasm. And, he smiled a bit smugly to himself, his speech had been perfect. Maybe things were going to work out after all, even with the two complete spazzes that he was trying to put in the White House. Someone handed him a water bottle and Remus sat down for the first time in what felt like several months.

He caught sight of a shock of red hair before he heard her, "Hey, nice job with those idiots."

"Well," Remus sighed, smiling, "you know firsthand my experience with idiots."

"Excuse me," Lily plopped down into the seat next to him, snatched the water bottle out of his hand and took a sip, "I'm no idiot. I'm the smartest person you know, Lupin. And I never once kicked a balloon."

She was wearing a smart navy blue pantsuit and had clearly just come from schmoozing with some of the delegates, she had that tired, I've-been-nice-to-people-who-annoy-me look that Remus remembered all too clearly from her campaign in Wisconsin. Unfortunately for her, that was pretty much her job now that she was the young darling of the party, having unseated Paul Ryan a mere two years before. Everyone at the convention wanted to shake her hand, ask her how she did it - Remus tried hard not to be annoyed that she was more popular than James.

"Honestly, I do not know what the hell James sees in him-"

Lily laughed, "Bitch, I do! He's fucking gorgeous." She fanned herself dramatically and Remus shot a glare at her.

"I mean he's handsome, sure, but looks do not keep a presidential campaign afloat Lils. Honestly, this campaign is making our race against Ryan look like a piece of cake. "

Lily rolled her eyes, "That's because I was your candidate and I'm the most impressive candidate this country has seen in years." Remus groaned and she smiled, patted his thigh, "Seriously, though, they looked great up there. And your speech was brilliant."

"It was pretty good, huh? Although I think there was one paragraph..."

Lily glared at him, "Shut up, Remus. It was fucking amazing and you know it."

"Just trying to be humble. Someone should be."

She snorted, "Why be humble when you're this good at what you do? If you want humble, maybe focus on your candidates? Make sure they don't get 'too big for their britches' or whatever you say?"

"If you come for Georgia right now I swear."

"Oh, relax, I'm not 'comin' fer Georgia'. I'm congratulating you. I'm sure it wasn't easy to train them." She quirked an amused eyebrow at him.

Remus put his head on her shoulder, "You have no idea, I was sure James was going to mess up all that beautiful alliteration I wrote. I don't know why I'm not running your presidential campaign. Why did I agree to this again?"

"Because you know they have a shot at winning and you love the glory? You can run my campaign in 8 years."

"Assuming I'm not dead. He's actually a really good one, if he wins, it could really be somethin'."

Lily chuckled, "You're sliding back into your accent, Lupin. Better get to bed."

"You're right, I'm going to sleep while I can. Don't you party all night you wild animal."

Lily stood up, "Yeah, no, I'm leaving right now. I'm so over this. I've been chatting with these people all day and I'm tired of pretending to be nice."

He hugged her briefly and gathered his things from backstage, trying to keep together the details of the itinerary for tomorrow as he did so. Bus. Banners. Interns. Making sure there was a large extra-caramel latté waiting for James in the car. He handed his copies of the speech off to Peter, who was transcribing them for the website.

"Peter? Hey did you get the socks?"

Peter pulled a pair of green socks with little smiling corn cobs on them and gave Remus a confused look, "I don't understand this."

"You don't have to understand," said Remus, taking them and shoving them into his bag, "you know I surely don't. It's his thing." Peter rolled his eyes, but Remus didn't have time to rehash the James Potter sock story again.

It was another hour before people stopped talking to him and he finally made it back to his hotel room. Remus fell back onto his bed, pulled out his phone, and tapped off a series of warning messages to his candidates:

Sirius Black, do not stay up all night. I will be there to get you at 5:30am whether you are alive or not. Don't think I wouldn't prop your corpse up on the trail.

James, great job tonight. The car leaves at 6:00am. Please make sure that you're wearing the white shirt I gave you yesterday. Don't be late!

The hotel bed was less comfortable than Remus would have liked, but somehow he fell asleep almost instantly.