Chapter 2
Remus delivers one final, hard punch into the bag, Frank, who was holding the bag for Remus, huffs, slipping backwards a bit, but Remus ignores him and walks away to get a drink of water.
He doesn’t have another fight lined up for another few months, but he’s still training hard, way harder than is expected of him, especially considering how well his last fight went. Thinking back he almost feels bad for the kid, Barty Crouch, or something. He doesn’t feel bad about knocking him out, he wouldn’t get far in his career if he felt bad for every person he hurt, but he does feel bad that Crouch got stuck fighting him.
Remus remembers when Frank told him about the match up, he’d almost thought it was a joke. Barty had a few amateur fights under his belt and he’d compete in wrestling, before he got recruited into the Hogwarts promotion. It was his first professional fight, he should’ve been fighting either a shitter or someone new, someone he could win against to build his confidence a little. He shouldn’t have been up against Remus who’d only lost twice in the three years he’d been fighting in Hogwarts.
The entire camp before the fight, Remus was expecting Barty to pull out, although he’d hoped he wouldn’t—the fight was for a lot of money. When Barty hadn’t pulled out and Remus had seen how confident he seemed at weigh-ins, he’d questioned if he had underestimated the kid, but the fight had proven that Crouch was in over his head. He was better than Remus expected, he lasted until the second round where Remus knocked him out, but he needed more experience and training. And maybe to move down a weight class. Still, he had a lot of potential, hopefully the loss against Remus wouldn’t mess with his head too much.
After meeting Barty’s little friend, Remus had the sneaking suspicion that Barty was only fighting Remus because someone had pulled some strings, convinced that the best thing for his career was to fight a well established fighter. It would make sense, Remus was rapidly making a name for himself, he was sure that in a year, maybe less, he might even have a shot at the Hogwarts middleweight championship. If Barty had won against him it would have been amazing for his career and one of the most impressive professional debuts in a long time, but he hadn’t and he ended up in hospital.
It wasn’t that he hated Barty Crouch, but as someone who’d grown up with nothing, he hated people who used their money to get further in life. He especially hated people who used their money to threaten others.
Fucking Regulus Black.
Who did the kid think he was? Remus had spoken to Peter about it later, Peter’s mum was a name partner in a big law firm that dealt with corporate law and while Peter hadn’t even started law school yet, he knew a lot about the businesses Pettigrew and Potter dealt with. Black was not one of them, but they were big enough that Peter had heard about the family.
Regulus Arcturus Black was set to inherit the large chain of hotels his family had all across the world, as well as the rest of his family’s fortune, which was speculated to be one of the largest private fortunes in the world. Apparently it came as a surprise to the world when Regulus Black enrolled in Oxford medical school instead of either getting a degree related to business or starting to work for his family immediately. Remus wanted to scoff when Peter had said he thought it meant Regulus might be more decent than his family, had they met the same Regulus Black?
It was a pity though, he was pretty, a sharp, angular face, cutting grey eyes, too clean-cut to be Remus’ usual type, but Remus doubted anyone could claim they didn’t find Regulus Black attractive. If only he had a better personality. As it stood, Remus hated the guy. But then again, he wasn’t exactly planning on dating him, he didn’t have time for that, he could just hook up with him, no chance of feelings getting involved.
“Crouch is fighting the next fight night,” Frank says, approaching Remus.
Remus whistles, “Jesus, I thought he’d be out for longer, it looked like a pretty bad concussion.”
Frank frowns. “It was,” he looks troubled, “Crouch Sr was kind of a big deal for a while, showed a lot of promise, almost won a Durmstrung championship, but he didn’t. Stopped fighting shortly after even though people were saying he’d make it to the UFC eventually.”
Remus’ eyebrows shoot up. “Okay…”
“It’s my job to research your opponents.” Frank says defensively. Remus waits for him to continue. “I don’t know, I just feel bad for the kid, his dad’s still got some pull and it’s pretty obvious he got him to fight you so he’d be co-main for the event and now he’s got a concussion that should take weeks to heal, but he’s probably already training for the next fight…”
Frank has always had a big heart, it’s how Remus started training under him. He’d been a poor kid who had to drop out of kickboxing because he couldn’t afford it anymore. Frank had somehow found him and offered to start training him in MMA, free of charge under the condition Remus did some work for him. It was a great deal, that Remus had taken eagerly, he could train at Gryffindor, Frank's gym, everyday in exchange for teaching a few kid classes every week.
When Remus graduated high school, Frank insisted on paying him so he could go to university. Initially it'd made sense, Remus was planning on focussing on school and cutting back on classes anyway, but then he realised fighting was too important to him to ever give up and he started training harder than he had before. Frank still insisted on paying him though and he also insisted that Remus stay in school to finish his literature degree. While he liked his degree and he didn't hate studying, he couldn't wait to graduate in a few months and focus on training. Currently his schedule was packed, he got up before the sun rose every morning to train, went to class, studied, trained again, maybe taught a class, then went to sleep and repeated it all the next day. It was exhausting.
“I’m sure he’s okay…” Remus says about Barty, completely unconvinced and knowing that once Frank has his mind set on helping a person, he won’t stop.
“I’m thinking you can fight in welter.” Frank says suddenly, and Remus looks at him shocked. He had not expected that.
“What, like, welterweight and middleweight?”
“Yeah. We’ll set it up after the next fight, see how it goes.”
“Um, why?” Remus is thrown off by Franks’ casualness. Moving between weight classes isn’t exactly normal and he’s always fought at middleweight.
“Unless you want to go up,” Frank says doubtfully, purposely obtuse, “I mean your tall, probably won’t be much smaller than the other guys, but you know that doesn’t matter and you’ve always been lanky, I don’t think it’d be hard for you to make weight, putting on muscle however… Besides, we usually only cut ten pounds of water weight anyway, we could probably safely increase it to fifteen.”
“Gee, thanks Frank,” Remus rolls his eyes, “Just what a guy wants to hear, that he’s too skinny.”
“Not what—”
“Not the point though,” Remus cuts Frank off, “why the fuck would I want to fight in two weight classes?”
Frank grins at him. “I have a plan, maybe a bit crazy, but I think it’s doable.”
“And what’s the plan?” Remus says when Frank doesn’t elaborate, truthfully he thinks he’s starting to see what Frank is planning, but it’s crazy, surely not…?
“We both know you’ve got a good chance at challenging Maxime for middleweight champion next year and winning— don’t look at me like that, you know that’s where this has been going. It’s just, winning might not be enough to get noticed by the UFC, you’ve got a good record, but you’re quiet, intense, it’s a good thing and you know I love you, but you’re not the biggest personality so they might not… What I’m saying is you can make welter, I know you can, and I know you can win in it, and well, double champ, they have to notice that.”
Remus has to physically close his mouth. “You really think…”
“I do.” Frank says firmly.
Remus nods, his thoughts are racing, but he’s never doubted Frank. Technically Frank's not his manager, that’s Kingsley and Pete, usually this is something for them to consider as well, but he trusts Frank, he trusts Frank with nearly everything. “Alright then.”
A sheepish look crosses Frank’s face and Remus just knows that all this has something to do with Barty Crouch.
“You’ll need a new sparring partner…” Franks says.
“Don’t tell me all this was because you want to recruit Crouch Jr.” Remus groans.
“No, no, of course not, I’ve been thinking about it for months,” Frank assures him, “But you know me.”
“Crouch is a middleweight too.” Remus points out.
Frank snorts, “You and I both know he’d be better at welter. Besides, we’ll start you with someone else, he’s probably not quite good enough yet.”
“You’re too good of a person, mate.” Remus tells Frank.
It’s only later, after training and after finishing an assignment that Remus realises that if Frank succeeds in getting Barty to join Gryfindor then Remus will be seeing his bratty best friend again. Regulus Black. Regulus Arcturus Black. What a pretentious wanker.
Still, Remus couldn’t pretend there wasn’t a little part of him that was itching to put Regulus in his place, to hold him down and see him come apart under Remus’ hands. Remus tried to shove the image out of his mind, but when he fell asleep he dreamt of inky black curls and fingers adorned with rings.