Innocence

Chapter Twenty Five

Sophia existed in this withdrawn state of living, relying on only David and very rarely Daniel and Adam for support.

However, Sophia almost instantly snapped out of her self pitying routine one Thursday evening when she came to an abrupt halt, shocked into stillness by what she saw. David, who had been walking slightly behind her but hadn't been looking where he was going, was also brought to a halt as he walked right into her bag. He had begun to ask her what the matter was when he, too, saw what she was looking at.

"Oh no..." He said, glancing around to check that no one else was in the hallway with them.

On the wall was a very crudely drawn picture of a cartoon No-Maj, curled up on the floor with a wizard stood over him, wand pointing straight at his head.

David reached around Sophia and pulled the paper off of the wall, scrunching it into a ball before throwing it in the bin.

"This issue is getting worse." He said, sniffing. He started walking away again before seemingly changing his mind and turning back to the bin, reaching out to grab the poster as he spoke again. "Maybe we should send it to your Father-"

"No." Sophia cut in, sounding far harsher than she had meant to. David was stood frozen, his fingers hovering over the paper. Pulling his arm back, he turned to look at her again.

"Why not?" He asked.

"I want to, I really do." Sophia explained, speaking more softly this time. "But I can't."

"Why not?" David asked again, sounding angrier this time.

Sophia scrambled around inside of her head, desperate to try and come up with an answer that wouldn't upset David, but would get him to drop the topic.

"My Father has asked me to not get involved in the situation anymore." She said at last, hoping that she sounded convincing enough.

David narrowed his eyes. "But surely he was grateful that we stayed up on Halloween to help him, right?"

"Yes, of course he was."

"Then why would he not want that sort of thing to continue?."

"He thinks that it will be too dangerous."

David finally stepped back from the bin. "Alright. I don't understand why that would be the case, and I don't understand why he wouldn't want help if it meant that all of this was cleared up quicker, but I don't want your Father to be angry with you, either."

Sophia smiled at her friend, hating herself. She hated how she was lying to him, and lying about her Father. She knew that her Father would most likely be very angry if he knew what she had been saying about him.

The last thing she ever wanted to do was make it out to look like her Father wasn't doing everything that he could do to get his work done.

But what choice did she have?

- - - - -

Over the last three weeks before the Christmas holidays, Sophia and David went about their days, constantly keeping an eye out for anymore posters. Whenever they found one, they would take it down and throw it away.

There were a few times when the hallway would be completely empty, usually when it was very early or very late at night, in which case it was very easy to deal with and would only take them a second. Most of the time, however, they would come across posters when the hallway was full of students and staff, hurrying between lessons and meals. In these instances, they would have to ignore it, and circle back around when the hallway was empty once more, leading them more than once to being late to lessons and getting shouted at for tardiness. Once or twice they were threatened with detention.

However, there were very rare instances in which they would see a poster and be unable to do anything about it, as Professor Blackrose would appear from the shadows, and lock eyes with Sophia. Sophia would feel as if he were daring her to step out of line, and realise that she wouldn't be able to do anything because, knowing her luck, even if they waited before taking the poster down, Blackrose would later check to see if it were still up and know it had been them. Every time this happened, Sophia would have to urgently apologise to David and insist on pulling them away from the scene. She managed to convince him not to go back himself with an explanation that her Father had gone so far as to ask Blackrose to make sure that they weren't getting involved.

There were multiple different posters that they would come across. While all of them were anti No-Maj in nature, there was a wide variety of them. Sometimes they would come across one which would be a carbon copy of another they had taken down the week previously, but most of the time they would be new designs, set out in some grotesque way to spread the idea that wizards were better than non-magical people.

Students around them noticed the posters as well, especially as they became more frequent in existence. What started out as taking a handful down a day turned into taking down dozens just in the time it took to walk between two lessons. Most people laughed when they saw them, but an atmosphere of unease soon fell over the student body.

If there had been anyone else daring to take the posters down as well, David and Sophia were unaware of them. Sophia thought this was a good thing, seeing as they, themselves, also hadn't been yet caught taking them down. It gave her hope in thinking that there might be other people in the shadows helping them out with their mission.

Though Sophia's hope for such a thing did lag after the first week, when David had pointed out a group of laughing fifth years, crowded around and looking at something. Sneaking closer, Sophia found that one of them was holding a crumpled poster, which was what they were all finding so funny. She realised with horror that it had been one of the posters that she had taken down only a few moments before and thrown in the bin.

"They must be taking them out of the bins to goggle over." Sophia whispered bitterly to David. Her friend physically deflated at the words.

"Well that settles it then, we need to collect as many as we can during the day and then burn what we collect once we get back to the common room."

Sophia nodded in agreement. Soon, the two of them were leaving textbooks, parchment and school equipment behind in their dorms just so that they could fit more posters into their bags. They managed to muddle through and borrow and share vital things off of other people in their lessons, so threats of detention weren't much of an issue.

In the evenings they would camp out beside the less popular fireplace in the common room and burn the stacks of paper, using their bodies to shield what they were doing from prying eyes as best as they could until the smouldering pile was unrecognisable. However, more than once Sophia caught Jasper shooting them worrying glances.

By the time it was the night before the Christmas holidays, Sophia and David were shattered.

- - - - - - - - - -

Whoops. This chapter is a day late purely because I thought that yesterday was Thursday. The time between Christmas and New year just doesn't seem to exist.

Anyway, hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.

Follow, vote and comment if you want to. It would be much appreciated.