nerds
It was another day at McKinley High, which meant another day of constant bullying and despair.
The only good thing to come from McKinley High was Flitwick, the Spanish teacher. He was always caring for the students, didn't assign much homework, made his classes decently interesting: what more could you ask for? If you were to ask Remus, it couldn't get much better than that. He always looked forward to his Spanish lessons, despite the fact he had no plan in ever using that language for something other than translating random sites that he can pirate movies on.
Yet, somehow, it managed to get even better.
You see, Remus was a huge theatre kid. He loved musicals, he loved the songs, and maybe sometimes he sung to them in the privacy of his own room. Who hasn't done that before? He had always pointed out the lack of arts at McKinley High to his parents, and although they didn't agree, he didn't have anyone else to complain to.
So based on that alone, nobody was prepared for the way he acted when it had spread across the school that the Glee Club was getting brought back to McKinley High.
"But how did they do it?" His mother, Hope, questioned from the counter in the kitchen.
"Do what?" Remus had asked, walking down the stairs with his backpack lazily hanging onto his shoulder for dear life.
"Something about that Glee Club coming back to your school." Lyall responded, taking a sip of his coffee, and not taking his eyes away from where he was watching a rerun of last night's soccer game that he had downloaded.
"Glee club?" Remus snorted, "I doubt that's true. They've been complaining about the lack of arts at that miserable school for years now, I don't think they would've only just done something about it."
"Whatever you say."
"Now, come on, breakfast is ready. And sort yourself out, you look like you haven't slept in a decade." Hope spoke up.
Since that conversation, he couldn't stop thinking about it. Sure, he turned down the idea at first, but isn't it fun just feeding into the idea? At least it gave him something to look forward to at this school.
Which lead him onto his next point.
His dad had been pestering him about joining a club at school for ages now, and what was he supposed to do about it? Join football? With his joints? Remus immediately despised the idea, and quickly cancelled out all clubs to do with sports.
He had no friends, no idea of what he wants to do after school, the only thing he had was a pathetic friendship with his headmaster, which was formed out of pity.
So, for the first time in years, he walked into school with a bright smile on his face ─ which earned him a few weird glances from the people who walked past him. But, who cares what they think? He's finally going to be able to join a club filled with people who had similar interests to him.
Now, it can't get any better than that. But, it could get worse.
Worse how? You may ask.
Well, just the sight of Sirius Black and James Potter walking towards him is enough to dampen his moods.
Black and Potter were the two most popular guys in school, which makes sense with them being on the football team, and they were horrible people.
People are struck whenever one of them even looks at you, some count it as a blessing, whereas Remus just saw it as a curse. He felt like everyone else was just seeing how attractive they were and assuming they were the best people and they would be their husbands.
Well, news flash people, they're probably misogynistic so don't get too involved in the fantasy world you've created where you're their housewife.
The worst part was, they weren't even that attractive.
Obviously, if you were to ask Remus to say that in real life, he wouldn't be able to look you in the eye and would avoid saying it directly ─ especially when talking about Sirius Black ─, but his point still stands.
Sure, maybe Black has that hair that, no matter what, looks perfect. Maybe Remus has sat in the bleachers pretending to do his homework yet in reality he was just admiring the way his hair still looked incredible despite the fact he was sweating and panting and- whatever. At least Potter wasn't that good looking. Not enough for Remus to care about his looks anyway.
Moving on, Remus was currently walking throughout the halls and towards the cafeteria.
He had just gotten out of chemistry, and he was dying to get something to eat.
The students were all running past, trying to get a spot that was relatively at the front of the line, which annoyed the fuck out of him.
"This is more like a zoo than a school!" Dumbledore had bellowed during the assembly on Tuesday, after going on a 15 minute rant about the misbehaviour that spread across the school.
"What else does he expect? He's a horrible principal and can't do anything." Lyall said, when Remus was retelling what Dumbledore had said, earning a hum of agreement from Hope.
Remus debated going to Dumbledore's office, just to sit in there and hopefully be allowed to eat lunch in there. That would be cool. He had only ever been allowed to do that once, and he had gotten kicked out of the office half way through because of a complaining mother. He wanted to get her back, like- trip her up or something, but he couldn't.
He could go to Pomfrey, she was the school counsellor, and she even let Remus call her Poppy on some days. But, he quickly dismissed the thought, remembering that she was off sick for the rest of the week. At least that meant she would be back soon.
Which left him with the only other option. The actual cafeteria.
He hadn't managed to sit in the cafeteria for the entire lunch period since he was a junior, simply waffling it down to get outside as quick as possible ─ sometimes even just eating it outside, to Hooch's dismay.
He entered the dounle glass doors that were still pushed open from the three kids that were running in front of him. Looking around, Remus took in his surroundings.
There were tables everywhere, all full of children. By the look of it, there was only one free table.
"Great. That means I can at least sit by myself. That's something." Remus thought to himself.
He gripped the strap of his backpack, that contained his lunch that his mother had made for him, and sped off towards the table. Taking one second to look around, he sat down and placed his backpack beside him, getting ready to unzip it and eat his food.
"Hey! What do you think you're doing?" A voice called from in front of the circular table.
Remus froze, the voice completely throwing him off guard. He thought this was a clear table, why are there people here? Nobody should be sat here. This was his table, he claimed it for the lunch period.
Well, he didn't claim it, and even if he did have an assigned table, nobody would pay attention to it.
"Get off of the table, freak." Another voice snarled, finally getting Remus out of his thoughts.
Looking up, he saw both Black and Potter stood in front of him, with Snape and Mulciber not far behind. He saw the furrow in Sirius' eyebrows, James' biting his lip as if he was stopping himself from saying something.
Sighing, he slung his backpack back over his shoulder, moving his legs from where they were planted under the table, and began walking away.
"Watch where you're sitting next time, Lima Loser." Black whispered, his voice deep where it was next to his ear. He finished his sentence with a harsh push on Remus' head, smirking at the crack that was produced.
Hissing in pain, Remus watched as Black went back towards his imbecile friends, and rubbed the back of his neck.
"What a bitch." Remus thought, holding onto his backpack and looking around for another clear table.
After searching for what seemed like hours, he finally came across a table, where a girl was sat by herself and working on posters. She was hunched over the desk, her ginger hair reflecting off of the sun as her tongue stuck out of her tongue in concentration.
Hesitating, Remus approached the table, sitting down but putting a fair amount of distance between the two.
"That's... a lot of signs." Remus said, observing the posters that were littered across the entirety of the table ─ almost as if they were acting as a protective shield.
"Are you in a lot of clubs?"
The girl didn't look up from where she was colouring in block letters with glitter gel pens before replying, "I'm in the environmental club, gardening club, gay club, speaking club, celibacy club, chemistry club and many more."
"Well, that's a lot."
"Yeah, well, I have to be a woman for the people if I ever want to be a star in the future."
"Oh, you want to be a star? In what way?"
The ginger girl looked up at Remus, almost as if he had said a thing that had changed the way her brain was wired ─ but, looking back, it seemed like she was explaining as if it was the most obvious thing ever.
"Star as in getting on Broadway. As in making it on the large stage and getting to perform every night to a large crowd. As in living my dream life in New York and getting driven by my own personal driver in a limo whenever I want to go somewhere."
"So... you like Broadway?" Remus asked, his eyebrow raised and feeling slightly taken aback by her passion for her future, like she already had it planned out.
"Oh, forget it." She huffed, rolling her eyes and going back to colouring in the block letters. Although, this time, it seemed more like scribbling.
"No- no! It's okay. I like Broadway too."
The girl looked back up at him, slowly dropping the glitter pen as if she had read his mind. And Remus felt uncomfortably vulnerable under her gaze, as if she had managed to figure out every single one of his secrets.
"What's your favourite musical?"
"Uh, Wicked?" He said, saying the first one that came to mind.
"Basic choice."
"West Side Story?"
"Another basic choice."
"Thank you?"
She raised an eyebrow at him, seemingly not impressed by his reply.
"If you truly are a theatre kid, you surely should've heard by now about the Glee Club making it's return to McKinley."
"That's real?"
"Why would it not be?"
This time, it was Remus' turn to pause, his heart starting to pound with excitement at the thought of being able to tell his father he finally had a club to join. And friends to make.
"My name's Lily. We can meet in the auditorium after school, there we can sing together and test our true compatiblies when it comes to music. And we can see who's the better singer."
The girl ─ well, Lily ─ packed up all of her signs and gathered them into her hands, not before making sure they were symmetrical. She didn't wait for him to reply before she already started making her way out of the cafeteria and towards the exit.
"You forgot your food!" Remus called after her, pointing out the red tray beside him that was still decently full of food, only two of the seperated compartments were empty.
Remus sighed, looking towards the table that the football team occupied and finding them all snickering and muttering between each other while pointing in his direction. Whatever that meant, they were all idiots anyway.
Trying to get the negative side of things out of his head, Remus finally started focusing on the positives; he would get to audition for glee club ─ at a push, he may even get in ─, he would find new friends if he gets into said glee club, and he finally had a new friend.
Lily.
She seemed nice enough. Somewhat full of herself, snd scarily passionate about what she liked, but at least she had some sort of future, and that's more than what Remus could say about himself.
The only thing he had to do was figure out when glee club auditions were, and try and get into the club.
And, sing that duet with Lily, of course.