The Violin Teacher by stardust
Chapter Notes: I want to apologize for taking so very long to update. This chapter gave me no end of trouble, as I think I totally lost my direction and all inspiration with it. It's only a stubborn resistance to leaving something unfinished that induces me to update at all. Please just take the rest of the story for what it's worth, paltry as the effort is. :)
And I should be better paced to finish now - just a few finishing touches and I’ll have the third part up. Thanks for reading. :)
The girl had raw talent, and no person who heard her ever doubted it. To the untrained ear, her playing was magic; she plied her bow with such passion and dexterity that it dazzled most into believing there could be no fault in her music.
To the trained professional she was a rising star of promise. Patrons of the art looked upon her with kind indulgence and a touch of grasping interest, for here was a young woman upon whom Fate had smiled benignly. She would soon come to her own, and whosoever had some claim to her success would share in her prestige.
It was Lupin who would influence her most, little though either knew it at the time. Lessons started the very day he made her acquaintance, and in the following months he was privileged with the hearing of her innermost musical voice. When she was with him she was unguarded, for perhaps she felt that there was no selfish ambition in his desire to help her. She gave him a glimpse of her soul, and in it he recognized a shadow of his old dream.
Hermione wanted nothing more than to win the respect of the world. Early on, he saw her thirst to prove herself in her furious pursuit for perfection. It forged a connection between them; he understood her always afterwards. It was true that they came from different spheres entirely - but it mattered none. For this was the same ambition that had driven him through all his younger days.
Lupin saw also how she was self-conscious about her deficiencies and admired the focus with which she strove to overcome them. She saw so much to admire in others, she said, that she felt insignificant and insecure among them. And so he determined to try to ease her into finesse - gradually, if he could, teach her to blend form and intuition until it came as naturally as the very desire to play.
It was summer when her tutelage commenced. Her method, then, was suchlike to the pomp and blare of the red September sky - resplendent and untamed, yet with the quiet haziness of an unsure talent. The feelings beaming forth from her center were golden, gleaming - but she would stifle her strength to conform to subjective standards of perfection. In those long, balmy afternoons, Lupin taught her first to let those carefully bridled emotions amble free.
In tranquil autumn, she implored him to help her improve in a more practical field. Her fingering, her strokes - she knew how to do it, but she wanted to know how it was really done. So as the days grew shorter and the nights frosted over, he taught her how use technique to sustain the passion now glowing inside of her, just as kindling is used at the hearth to sustain a flame.
Hermione was a most diligent student, and practiced hours alone with as much focus as she did when she was under scrutiny. By the time the New Year bounded in with its glistening snow-white vanguard, gracefulness abounded where awkwardness had once tormented her.
She was exultant and let her newfound intelligence consume her perspective. Lupin’s emerging concern was that Hermione would begin to lose sight of the artistry that had once been her finest capability. In her conquest over technical imperfections, she failed to appreciate the especial charm of heartfelt and heart-driven delivery.
She was all polish and precision - she dazzled like the snow on the ground, reflecting back the sunlike glory of all the celebrated players whom she revered - but underneath she was frozen. Lupin regretted the change.
And so, as the gentle dawn of springtime woke the hibernating peoples from their stupor, he challenged her to broaden her repertoire and write her own music. In composition, he hoped, she could let her spirit soar in such a way that was impossible when she was playing pieces of other men’s genius.
It was a beautiful time for such creative undertakings; that April was remembered for its bountiful harvest of petals and birds nests. May was uncommonly gentle with its feathery foliage and rainbows of uncommon luster.
Hermione was never one to disappoint - she set herself to her task valorously and for one tiring evening beleaguered him for advice. She then withdrew, curtaining herself from the world for a period to better focus on what lived in her. When she returned, she came with a proud smile and a new-begotten song; a fresh melody and entirely her own. And she poured herself into the playing with all the same ardor that she had first impressed him with.
And so, quietly, on one of the first lazy afternoons of summer, her first solo concert was played. It seemed as though her talent was all abloom, and the moment was right to set her free.
To Hermione, her music lessons doubled as a study of human experience. She liked to observe Mr. Lupin as they practiced. Not for any dubious purposes - she was only curious about his state because it was so out of the ordinary.
She liked to note the smallest aspects of his life alongside the bigger ones - like what thrifty methods he employed to conserve his resources, or what trinkets, seemingly out of place, he kept on display: what souvenirs of his past were important enough to be held on to. Without realizing it, Lupin made himself a very interesting muse.
There was a single skylight carved into the slanted rooftop panel. The stratospheric condominium across from him eclipsed the morning light and obstructed his view of the sky. But when the western light flooded the backside of Grand Avenue, he could sit in the faded velvet armchair kept below the casement and soak in the gentle rays.
When the afternoon faded into evening, this same window afforded him a fine view of the night sky. From his bed he could watch for hours for shooting stars, and the moonlight pooled about his headboard and illuminated the little nightstand he kept. There was always a book there, and beside it a photograph. Four smiling faces, confident and carefree; a moment of the past that was painful to remember, but too precious to be forgotten.
Hermione was a perceptive girl, sensitive to emotion and quick to pick up on little things. One look at the crepe-draped frame and she read the story of friendship and loss that lurked just behind the young face of her tutor. A diploma, kept well-dusted and hung above the mirror, was a reminder of achievement, of worth. A photograph box engraved with someone else’s initials, filled with rolls of negatives dating some twenty years prior; an album of sketches, depicting the ragged and the hopeful - a flower in a gutter, a child singing in confinement. Relics of a personal cataclysm and illustrations of a beautiful, appreciative nature.
He was lonely and she saw it. He had been born into a world still capable of icy discrimination, and some early tragedy had deprived him of what friends he had found in it. But instead of languishing alone in the cellars - and attics - that were grudgingly given, he found the glimmers of light in the proverbial darkness. He lived from candle to candle and found vent for every other moment through his instrument. Hermione felt alike to him because she poured out her ineffable emotions with music, too.
She would never forget the controversy that surrounded her decision to tutor under him. Family and friends made protest - cautioned her not to mix with the cast-off and diseased. She wondered why they could not just let her alone; it was uncomfortable enough without all their fuss.
When she had broached the subject to Lupin, there was a flicker of something like doubt in his eyes - not insecurity, but a shadow of uncertainty - and a barely perceptible change in demeanor. The magnified weight of their talk was electric, and she reeled under the importance of it and fumbled with her words. Lupin was businesslike and had already begun to detach. But Hermione was already too invested to let misconception turn her head.
Hermione understood him and did not get scared away. “It’s just prejudice, isn’t it?” she would say, and settle herself a little more decidedly in her seat. He was a good teacher, after all, and it would be evidence only of evil in her own heart to perpetuate any calumnies against him.
He was grateful for this show of compassion, all the more because it came from someone so made for beauty and light, so unfit for the shadow that was constantly about him.
Yet gratefully as he acknowledged her kindness, he had learned never to rely too much on the understanding of outsiders. It was unfair to her trap her with expectations and weigh her down with his dependence. He never thanked her without indicating that she was free. She functioned under no obligation to him - emotional or otherwise.
He left the door open for her but she never stepped towards it.