Innocence

Chapter Thirty Two

Sophia was almost certain that the entire school knew of Percival Graves' arrival the second he stepped onto school grounds. If they didn't, she knew that him kicking the doors open and shouting at the top of his lungs would do the job.

Percival was striding down the hallways, one hand dragging Adam along behind him by his collar, while Credence and Sophia were jogging in order to try and keep up with the man.

"Father please stop it! Let's talk about this, okay?" Adam begged with tears in his eyes.

"Don't you dare call me that! No son of mine acts the way that you have!"

"Please stop!" Adam begged. "You're hurting me."

Percival came to an abrupt stop and pushed Adam against the wall. "Good." He seethed. "It might just knock some bloody sense into you."

"Percival!" Credence shouted sharpy, giving his husband a look to make it clear that he had gone too far.

Percival glanced guiltily at Credence before sucking in a breath through gritted teeth and pushing Adam through the door of an empty classroom. Credence and Sophia followed them into the room cautiously, closing the door behind them.

Adam ran to the opposite side of the room as soon as as his Father let go of him.

"What do you want me to do?" He cried.

"Well for starters I would like you explain what on Earth you were thinking, not going to your lessons like that?"

"Father you have to understand, I had no choice."

"Don't lie like that to me, Adam. I would've hoped that your Dad and I raised the two of you better than that. I would've hoped that we had raised you knowing that you always have a choice. Why didn't you choose to do the right thing?"

"The right thing? Father, you have no idea what I have been through this year."

A deadly silence fell over the room as Percival stared steely at his son and firmly placed his hands in his pockets. 

"Turn out your bag." He said calmly.

"What?" Adam took a step back, perplexed.

"I said. Turn. Out. Your. Bag!" Percival cried, lunging forward to rip the rucksack from Adam's shoulders, before tipping the entire contents on to the floor. "And your pockets." He added as an afterthought. Adam began to scoff but stopped abruptly and did as he was commanded when he saw the intimidating gaze Percival held over him.

Percival started rifling through the contents and, to Sophia's horror, Credence stepped out from the shadows to carefully pick through the mass himself. There were a tense few minutes as the two children stood frozen to the spot. Credence had just about finished packing everything away again before Percival suddenly reached around him and snatched a piece of parchment from a large pile.

"What is this?" He asked, turning it in his hands and quickly scanning it with his eyes. "Adam..." He said after a brief pause. "What is this?"

Adam whimpered, which surprised Sophia as she doubted she'd ever witnessed her brother do something like that before.

"Look, Father, before you jump to any conclusions-"

"Why is there an anti No-Maj essay in your bag?" Percival roared.

Sophia gasped at this. Never had she considered for a second that Adam would be one of those students that Professor Thrain had been complaining about to her for so long. Never would she have dared to think that his actions could have contributed to the woman crying. After all, up until that point she had managed to explain away Adam's skipping of lessons as a whole array of different possible explanations that had nothing to do with No-Majes. She'd just assumed he was bored of the subject or had maybe opted to catch up on some other homework instead. Or maybe he even missed a lesson or two due to being in the hospital wing after a slightly rougher quidditch practice.

But writing anti No-Maj essays for his homework? There was no way that Sophia could believably explain that one away.

"Father, please let me explain!" Adam tried again in desperation. "I was threatened to be kicked off the quidditch team. You know how hard I've worked to get to where I am with that sport, and I was just going along with it until I could think of a way around it."

Percival didn't respond. He just glared at Adam one last time before storming out of the room. Credence filled the silence.

"I'm not condoning what you did." He began, walking over to put a hand on his son's shoulder. "I'm just saying that I can understand why you made the choices you did. But your Father will not think of it in that way. Adam... Sometimes we have to sacrifice the things we love for the greater good-" He paused suddenly at his words, and shuddered as if what he had said scared him. "- And that means that maybe quidditch isn't worth doing the things you did."

Adam was very close to crying now. "He hates me, doesn't he?"

"No! We could never hate either of you." Credence explained, wrapping his arms around the boy's shoulders. "You just have to understand that he hates the situation he's been put in now. Just the other day he was talking about trying to implement a zero tolerance policy. Now he's upset because it would mean excluding you. Potentially even expelling you. Adam... He's just conflicted. He wanted to do the right thing by the school, but he wants to do the right thing by you more. However..." He said, pulling away to look Adam in the eye. "What you did was wrong. And I'm afraid you're going to have to work hard for the foreseeable future to earn our trust back again."

Adam nodded slightly, and Credence waited for his reply. When it never came, Credence sighed and turned to walk out the door, only nodding in Sophia's direction as he passed her. There was a tense few seconds as the two children alone in the room looked at one another, Adam barely able to lift his gaze from the floor and Sophia glaring daggers. Eventually, she too turned and left the room, having not spoken a word the entire time and too angry to do so.

As the door closed behind her, she was vaguely aware of Thumble's sleek outline slipping between her legs and through the crack in the door.

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Happy Valentine's Day! My gift to you is this chapter.

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