Just One Little Favour

Sixteen

Harry looks up at the clock on the classroom wall. Why isn't he surprised that the big hand has just ticked to the three, and there's still no sign of Joseph or Louis?

He's debating whether or not to scold Louis for being such an irresponsible adult, until he decides better of it when the sound of screams dance down the hallway.

The screams of Joseph splinter through the door, piercing the ears until they could potentially bleed. It gets louder and louder the closer to the room they get.

The door opens, to reveal a very tired looking Louis, with a sobbing Joe on his hip, kicking and screaming, kicking up a storm.

"D-d-dad-ddy!" Joe screams out, arms outstretched behind Louis to no one in the corridor. There's tears streaming down his blotchy red cheeks, eyelashes clustering with tears, snot dripping from his little nose.

"Joseph," Louis says on a sigh. "Give it a rest, love. He's not coming."

Joe begins flailing in Louis' arms, trying to pry himself out of his grasp. Louis goes to plop Joe down on the floor, but the boy charges for the door. Louis is quick to scoop him back up again.

"W-want dadd-y-y!"

Louis looks over to Harry who just sits at his desk watching the whole thing go down. He probably should help him, so he stands from where he sits.

"Is he okay?" Harry asks.

"Does he look okay to you?" Louis hisses back, voice loud in order to be heard over the boy's cries.

He rolls his eyes at Harry, and okay, he must be finding this hard but he doesn't have to be so rude to him. He's only trying to help.

Harry swallows the small lump forming in his throat. He puts the tone to Louis' voice as lack of sleep. He goes over to the pair, stroking back Joseph's hair who accidentally hits him on the arm from all his fighting to get out of Louis' grip.

"What's happened?" Harry asks.

"I'm not going to explain it here, not in front of his classmates, it's not fair on him to be humiliated more than he's already doing to himself." Louis protectively places a hand to the back of Joe's head.

He continues to scream and sob. Repeating himself over and over through broken sobs. "Daddy! I w-want d-add-y."

"The only thing I'll tell you now is that his dad showed up this morning." Louis looks at Joey. "We need to calm down, Skimbleshanks. It's time for Harry to teach you boring old maths."

Harry suppresses an eye roll, a small smile coming to play. He feels for this child, as well as this man in front of him. Joseph must be so confused on why his parents won't let him home, or why his father wasn't the one to take him to school if he showed up this morning. Harry wonders why his father did show up on their doorstep this morning, and why it's gotten Joseph in a right strop, and Louis to look like he's bitten into a sour lemon.

"Why not take him to the book corner and get him to calm down there for a bit?" Harry suggests.

Louis looks at his watch on his wrist, sighs heavily. "Yeah, alright, thanks. I guess Mummy will have to wait for me at the office, huh?" he says to Joe, kisses his hair covered temple.

They wander over to the book corner, Harry sits back down at his desk to see all of the pupil's eyes on Joseph. He doesn't want the kid to get unwanted eyes on him, so he claps his hands, attention going back to him.

"Who wants to have free play this morning as you've all been very good during our quiet reading this morning after register," Harry decides, and the kids all shuffle out of their chairs in order to go play games with their friends around the classroom.