Innocence

Chapter Thirty Six

Over time Sophia had been aware of her brother's quidditch practice timetable, which therefore meant that she had a good idea about when she'd be able to run into his captain. While having been a student studying at Ilvermorny for almost a year, she was, however, still clueless as to where the other three houses had their common rooms. Because of this, she figured the best plan would be to make out like she was heading to the library to do some homework early the morning following her conversation with David and cut across the school fields, which would enable her to 'accidently' bump into John as he made his way to set up practice.

She was confident that she could pull off her plan without a hitch, but ran into a problem almost as soon as she stepped through the mirror leading to the rest of the school.

"Daniel?" She said, blinking in surprise. She managed to recover herself enough in order to begin walking again so that she wouldn't mess up the plan by being late, which in turn caused the other boy to have to start walking quickly in order to talk to her.

"Hey, Sophia... Where are you going?" He asked, confused.

"What? Oh. Just the library." Sophia replied bluntly. "What are you doing here?"

"I woke up early and decided to see if David was around. I wanted to try and convince him that everything was alright and that everything could carry on even after the latest development in the situation. He spoke to me last night, you see. He was very upset about the turn that this... Underground operation have taken. You would know all about that now though, I'm sure."

Sophia nodded shortly. "Why are you following me now, then?" She asked more bluntly than she had meant to. She elaborated in a gentler tone when she saw Daniel flinch slightly at her words. "I just mean, you said you came to our common room looking for David, but now you're following me."

"Well I can always talk to him later. I just want a bit of company is all. And after all, I thought that maybe we were getting along a bit better..." Daniel trailed off as he gave Sophia an uncertain look. Sophia didn't say anything and kept her face neutral. "Anyway, I've been wanting to talk to you recently. I want to know if I can be of any more help to you."

Sophia was about to dismiss him straight away but then thought for a second. "I mean I guess you were quite helpful before Easter. I'm coming to realise that I haven't been seeing you as someone who is as useful as you actually are." By this point in the conversation, Sophia had reached a point in their journey where she had to make a split second decision. Hesitating only slightly, she suddenly turned right to walk out of a set of double doors leading to the back lawns of the school.

Daniel paused for a second, looking back at the path that lead towards the library before jogging to catch up with her. "I thought you said that you were going to the library?"

"You said you wanted to help, didn't you?" Sophia asked. Daniel didn't answer the question or ask any more of his own, but continued walking silently at the girl's side with a small smile on his face.

Sophia sped up her walking slightly to catch up with John once she spotted his figure walking away from them, carrying the trunk full of quidditch balls.

"Hey!" She called out to him, breaking into a run which caught Daniel off guard. "I need to talk to you."

John turned to see who it was and scoffed when his eyes fell on Sophia, but then his expression grew darker when he spotted Daniel behind her. "What do you want? Can't you see I'm busy?"

"I don't care if you're busy. It's become clear to me recently that we need to talk about your tendency to mess with my family." Sophia said bluntly.

John shook his head in disbelief. "What would you know about any of that, kid? Far less than you seem to believe, I assure you." He began to walk away, but Sophia jogged around him, blocking his path.

"No, you will listen to what I have to say. You told me my parents had gone when they hadn't, the morning after the assembly. You bully my brother, and you try and make him do bad things. You've even succeeded in forcing him to do some stuff that he regrets."

John rolled his eyes. "I haven't forced your brother to do anything. He's a kid and all. If he was to keep his position, then he should step up to the mark."

"This has nothing to do with quidditch!"

John laughed. "I know that! It is about so much more than that. Now get out of my way, you are wasting my time."

"No!" Sophia cried, becoming more upset.

John finally snapped. "If you won't shut up then I'll make you!" He lunged forward, pulling his fist back. Sophia winced away, but watched in horror as the quidditch captain seemed to change his mind at the last second and pivot, turning to face Daniel.

Frozen on the spot, Sophia was unable to do anything but watch as John's fist connected to Daniel's face with a sickening crunch. Stumbling backwards, Daniel clutched his face in both hands, blood pouring from between his fingers. The boy attempted to stem the blood flow with one hand, while using his other to unsuccessfully try and grab his wand from his robes, the piece of wood slipping from his wet grasp. All the while, John was advancing towards him again.

Snapping back to her senses, Sophia screamed out for the older boy to stop, just as Daniel was struck for a second time, closely followed by a third. By this time, Daniel was on the floor, curled up into a ball. Blows rained down on him from above, and Sophia lurched forward, flinging herself onto John's back and grabbing one of his arms, trying to pull it back and screaming at him the entire time.

Wrapped up in the situation, Sophia hadn't noticed the sound of running footsteps until she found herself surrounded by a few more people. She half glanced to the side to find Adam's eyes locked on hers, and a second later he began to help pull his captain from Daniel's shaking form. Out of breath and sweating, the brother and sister managed to push away the body of someone almost twice their size. They stood so that their bodies were between John and Daniel.

"What on Earth were you doing?" Adam cried, to Sophia's surprise. She was glad he helped to stop Daniel from being killed but she was surprised that he so blatantly stood up to his captain.

"It's scum like him that should be put into the ground!" John cried, sounding almost pathetic by this point.

"No. You've just created the worst possible situation for yourself, how can you not see that?" Adam asked, shaking his head. "You will be sorry for this."

"What do you know?" John screamed as he jaggedly stood up. He made to move as if to have another go at Daniel, but Adam surprised everyone there by pulling out his wand and pointing it at John.

Sophia thought John would laugh at her brother. After all, the situation did seem a bit ridiculous: a Second year threatening a Seventh year with a wand. However, much to her surprise, John seemed to visibly shrink away from the sight of Adam stood there defiantly, and turned away in defeat.

"What now?" Sophia whispered, shaking.

Adam took a deep breath. "Take your friend to the hospital wing."

"What are you going to do? Quit the team?"

Adam scrunched his face up in disgust. "No way. I'm not going to let that idiot ruin the best thing in my life. Anyway, I have a feeling that his days of messing with me are drawing to an end."

Sophia nodded silently before turning to look at her friend, scared of what she might find.

Daniel was unconscious on the floor, covered in his own blood.

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Comment and tell me what you think. I quite like this chapter, reading it back again.