Beginning
Remus Lupin grew up around music.
His father did too. So did his mother.
His grandfather too. So did his grandmother.
And, as you might be able to guess, so it continued; generations and generations of rich, privileged, people, in their big houses in London with their insane wealth, learning singing and piano and the violin and the flute and so on before they knew how to tie their shoes.
So Remus Lupin, too, grew up around music.
His father did the violin; so he knows some of that, just not in a way that he could say is good.
His mother played the piano; so he knows some of that. Not in a way that made him worth listening to over any other pianist, though.
He can sing well, not outstandingly, like his grandmother, but well.
He knows the basics to the flute. He’s not particularly good at all, though.
He also knows the basics to basically everything included in classical music, really.
Despite all this, Remus Lupin never really did grow to love any of the instruments, to his father’s dismay.
And, initially, he tried. Remus tried to get just as much as a glimmer of love for anything; anything musical at all.
But he couldn’t. He grew less and less interested in the legacy he’d been born to follow.
His father grew less and less interested, too, and more and more desperate, after a while.
Which led him to his very last option; the very last thing Lyall could muster up getting Remus to try.
It was, as mentioned, a last option; but certainly not the worst. The only reason Lyall had held it from him was because he simply didn’t think he, Remus, with his lanky legs and constant growing spurts, was capable of it.
Dancing.
Ballet.
Oh, it sounds strange just thinking it; Remus John Lupin and ballet. But if you’d only seen him, you’d know.
Remus did not dance any leading parts, he didn’t join any big performances nor did he even dance with a group, but he danced. He took private lessons and he danced at least five times a week.
And he was great.
Better than great. He was wonderful; amazing and gracious and animalistic and just a little bit dangerous.
He knew it. He knew it from the second he’d taken his first lesson, coming out of the dancing room with big, wide, eyes, as his teacher had called him a natural. It was the one thing he was confident in. It is, the one thing he is confident in.
It was the one thing his father was desperate for him not to loose.
This was a fact he quickly began to abuse.
Remus decided very early on that he did not like his father. He discovered even earlier that his father did not like him, either.
He would demand him to play instruments for hours at a time, during his younger years, before the dancing, and insist on Remus’s favourite subject to be maths, but that was really about it.
About it as a whole.
Other than that, he didn’t speak to Remus more than necessary.
His mother did, but she…
Anyway. Remus and Lyall Lupin does not like each other. Everyone knows it; the servants, the businessmen that come over, everyone.
And, well, Remus has always been known to be stubborn.
Fine, he’d thought, one day, when his father had left the dinner table twenty minutes before Remus yet again, not saying as much as a word to him, despite the fact that Remus had tried to strike up a small conversation. I’ll just make him hate me even more, then.
And that he did.
He did not focus on his studies anymore; least of all maths. If he did focus at all, it was in English, or whenever anyone spoke of literature or history in any of his subjects. But his father didn’t need to know that.
Soon, getting horrendous grades wasn’t enough either. He started getting expelled. He started hanging around the nastiest groups of people he could pick out, the people Lyall would least of all approve of, and he started picking fights.
Sometimes he picked fights with his so called friends, sometimes other kids he found annoying or unnecessarily cruel.
He couldn’t really let go of his kind nature, another thing he’d grown up known for, and truly bully anyone innocent, though.
He hung around parties and girls and mean boys with fun substances that had new names every time during the school breaks once he turned thirteen.
He tried to drop reading too; though that proved to be a bit too difficult, and he ended up rereading his favourite book just a week after promising himself to drop it. He’d always loved reading; and preferred it over music for that short while when he hadn’t had ballet yet.
He always threatened with dropping the dancing, ruining the Lupin family’s grand reputation of being wonderfully musical, but he never did have any plans on doing so. He hated, hates still, that his father likes his passion for dancing as much as he does. But he can never leave it. Never ballet.
It was how he threatened him, really. All the sneaking and the drugs and the alcohol and the parties and the schools that he’d been to that were far too many by the time he turned fourteen. All of it came back to the dancing; his father’s irrational fear that Remus would one day stop dancing.
And it worked. It worked just fine. He would roll his eyes and go to dancing practices, pretending he was bored and not immensely excited to, simply because before and during those practices was the only time his father paid any attention to him, letting him look angry and disappointed and ashamed in the exact way Remus wanted him to. It worked. It worked every time his father scolded him from coming home so late, ”you’re only fifteen, Remus, get it together”, it worked every time he was kicked from yet another school, ”I’ll have to send you somewhere, if you keep this up”. Empty promises, empty threats, empty arguments, and empty conversations; that was all that floated between Lyall and Remus, these days.
It worked.
If Remus felt lonely, switching schools and only making friends with crackheads, no one had to know, because it worked. The motive he’d always had.
His father took his childhood, his love for his father. He took his pride in his literary works, and his hobby for reading that Remus had once found so clever; he took his passion for anything other than music. He took everything. So Remus took something from him, too.
But when he saw his father’s furrowed brows, his disappointed face, and when Remus would feel his traitorous stomach sinking slightly, he wasn’t sure what he’d taken, yet.
Then he met Aaron.
And all of a sudden, the thoughts he’d had for the past year of parties and pissing off his father didn’t matter anymore; because Aaron was from northern Britain, only visiting, standing in a corner of a party, looking out of place and uncomfortable.
They clicked immediately, once Remus walked up to him.
Remus found him to be his best friend, soon.
They spent the whole of Remus’s fourteenth summer together.
Then, that one last day before Aaron would leave to take the train and go home to his farm in the north, he’d kissed Remus.
Remus had found he didn’t mind, not at all. He’d found that he could snog Aaron again and it would be fine and that Aaron was really just another way to piss off his father, too, so it really didn’t matter if he stopped going to parties that summer.
The following breaks from getting expelled from schools and from pouring his heart into dancing practices, he would take the train to Aaron’s house; where they’d speak and act like lads but snog anytime they got bored.
He’d go home anytime he was expected to preform for a small, strange, crowd his father had gathered for reasons or parties or business meetings Remus couldn’t care for, or if he had to practice very urgently, or similar. It was a bit of a hassle, but it didn’t bother him too much.
It was great, perfect even.
Until one day.
One summer, the one of which he is fifteen years old, not yet knowing and not yet caring for what school he’ll be at until fall when he’ll inevitably be expelled and go home again.
He’s at Aaron’s house, and he is surprised when Aaron’s mother tells him he has post.
He frowns once he gets his hands on the letter addressed to him, realising it’s from his father.
Usually, Remus would know beforehand the dates or weeks he was expected to be home for; he’d never get letters or similar; which is why he’s so confused about it.
He reads it through, right there in the hall, too curious to wait with opening it until he gets to Aaron’s room, with more than a few hitched breaths, hands shaking pathetically.
Dear Remus Lupin,
I invited an instructor from Scotland’s Royal Music and Dance Academy to your latest ballet performance here, as an indirect audition of sorts. After some thinking, they have informed me that you are welcome to begin their ballet dancing course at their boarding school this coming semester.
I have already booked the train tickets and made sure all of your things are packed.
Sincerely, Lyall Lupin.
He runs up the stairs from where he had been glued to the ground in the hall, barging into Aaron’s room.
“That bastard!” he practically shouts, startling Aaron out of his peaceful state where he’d been laying and reading on the bed.
“Geez Louise, Rem,” he huffs, holding a hand to his chest to show how scared he’d been.
Remus purely throws the letter onto Aaron’s book, before starting to pace around the room, grumbling to himself.
Aaron reads the letter meanwhile, gasping audibly, and as Remus turns to look at him again he sees nothing but an expression of pure shock on his face.
“Bloody hell, Remus,” he breathes.
“He didn’t even tell me they’d be there, he just— urgh!” Remus exclaims frustratedly.
“Who the hell cares?” Aaron laughs, making Remus whip his head towards him again. Aaron is smiling.
“You got into the Royal Dance Academy, Rem, that’s absolutely nuts!” he exclaims.
“Don’t you get it? He’s only doing this for himself! That— that—“ Remus splutters.
Aaron gets up, and stabilises Remus by putting his hands on his shoulders. Since Aaron is a bit taller than Remus, he has to look down at him a bit. His blonde, curly, hair falls into his eyes slightly. He smiles at him softly, in that way he always does, dimples showing.
“Hey, hey, calm down, Remus,” he soothes.
“I’m not going,” Remus splutters. “I’m not doing anything for that motherfucker.”
Aaron’s smile dims, his face falling a bit. His chipped tooth peeking out as he worries his lower lip.
“Don’t do it for him, then,” he says plainly, after a moment of staring.
Remus peeks up at that, calming down in his wrath slightly.
“…I think you should go with me into town tomorrow, and make a call, telling him you accept,” Aaron nods.
Remus immediately shakes his head, he splutters, wanting to start rambling and defending his decision to not do so, despite the fact that the thought of going to the school makes his chest practically hurt with longing.
Aaron interrupts him before he can say anything, though.
Remus doesn’t need to tell him about that; about how he wants to go, really. Aaron already knows, he realises.
“He has already taken so much from you, Remus. Don’t let him take this too,” he says softly.
And that’s what does it for him.
————
He made the call the next day, and a week after receiving the letter he’s on the train back to London, where his father and a small amount of butlers are waiting for him, with his small amount of possessions packed into two big bags.
He walks up to them and crosses his arms, glaring up at his father’s ridiculously tall frame. He’s wearing a suit, like he’d just got out of a job meeting to meet Remus here, but despite that he looks as fresh and put together as always. His thick brimmed black glasses sit straight on his nose, his hair is perfectly combed as always, and his face is as always clear from freckles. Remus always used to get jealous of the fact that he’d gotten his mother’s, not only freckles, but also tendency to stay pale year around and only gain more freckles from the sun instead of having completely clear skin and a stunning suntan like his dad.
His father nods formally at him in a greeting, gaze hard.
Remus rolls his eyes at him back, clicking his tongue.
“Your next train will be departing in twenty minutes, I suggest you get going as soon as possible,” he says, probably more to the butlers than to him.
They stare at each other in silence for a moment. Or, Lyall stares, Remus glares.
“…Remus,” his father starts, looking something akin unsure for a brief moment.
Remus raises his eyebrows in a way he hopes is nonchalantly.
“…don’t mess this up,” Lyall eventually settles on.
Remus sighs.
“I won’t,” he grumbles.
He is almost shocked to find himself really feeling like it might be true, this time.
Lyall looses the uncertain look, then, and nods at him approvingly with his signature stoic look instead.
“Get going,” he says commandingly, waving the butlers and Remus away, and that’s that.
Remus follows the butlers in silence to his next platform, imagining different scenarios and different images of the school and how it will be arriving there, not yet having any idea what awaits him.