Swan Lake - Larry Stylinson Ballet AU

Act XII - Battement

Hello! Sorry for the wait, I had a lot of writing work so I had to take a little break from these books. I hope that you'll enjoy this chapter, however.

Please leave comments, I've missed you all because I've been inactive. Also, if you have any questions, just ask.

With love, Lucy.

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"True love corrupts innocence, but not only in a sexual way."

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Louis sat at his desk by the front of the room, scribbling away the answers to the equations as easily as if he were writing his own name. The only time he stopped working was when he pushed his fringe away from his face to pin it back with a pink butterfly clip that a girl had given to him the day before.

His mouth and nose were pushed forward in concentration, a crease almost forming between his brows, and then he smiled, obviously thinking about something completely unrelated to his work, despite the fact that he enjoyed it. Niall watched him from the other side of the room where he'd been banished to after chattering too much.

There seemed to be something about Louis that had changed since he'd began ballet lessons. He'd finally done what he'd wanted to do for as long as he could remember-and that was to dance-but he was also uncovering parts of himself that Niall didn't think even Louis himself understood. He had always been known as a happy person, had loved the world without being loved in return, but that had never fazed his view of it. He'd smiled through a lot of his sorrow; of course, he'd cried a few too many times on the way, but he'd overall been truly happy in nature.

However, something was breaking the long train of joy. Harry was that something. Because of Harry, Louis Tomlinson had learnt how it truly felt to be loved with a person's whole heart, but from that, he'd realised that he could be hated by it, too.

There was a time in the past when good and evil were the same person with no distinction from one or the other, when both hatred and love looked at him though the same pair of blue eyes. There was a time when gentle touches and hard scratches came from the same pair of hands, and when the confessions of love were spoken when Louis' body was bruised and bleeding. Louis' Mother had given up her whole heart for him, just as Harry had, but unlike his, her heart was cold and infested with hatred.

It was this was slowly changing Louis from the innocent child who knew no harm to the one that understood it. Through a better love, he was realising cruel obsession was the only thing in his Mother's heart, and that, in the end, he was unloved by Mother.

'Harry's love is Louis' awakening. It's destroying his innocence.' Niall thought to himself, 'True love is corrupting him.'

"Hey, Goldilocks, don't stare." Shawn said, slapping his hand on Niall's arm so suddenly that the boy jumped in surprise. He turned to the desk behind him-or rather, to his right, as he leant not against the chair but the wall-and frowned with uncertainty. Shawn sat there, leaning over the table, his hand still on Niall's arm. Sitting to his left was one of his closer friends-a german girl named 'Clara Stahlbaum', whose father was in prison, and by the scary scowl that was constantly on her face, Niall was certain that she'd one day end up there, too. In a way, she was quite pretty, with forest green eyes and messy black hair and a sharp face, and she was prouder and calmer than the rest of Shawn's friends. She had a turned-up nose that she'd look down to stare at whoever addressed her, and she didn't smile often, but perhaps that she saved them for her closest friends only. She sat here now, even, looking down her nose to the phone hidden from sight as she texted one of her loved ones. Niall wondered who it was.

"Goldilocks, you're staring at Baum, now." Shawn said, shaking Niall, and it was only then that Niall realised how long he'd been watching Clara. It was also then that he realised how many times before that he'd also looked at her like this.