Innocence

Chapter Thirty

The first couple of weeks back at school were a frantic mix of getting back into the habit of taking down and destroying posters and catching up on homework that they definitely should have completed over Christmas.

The first Thursday back, Sophia made sure to get up especially early in order to speak to Jasper in private.

"Want a quick word?" She spoke quietly in order for no one to overhear in case anyone happened to be awake in the dormitories downstairs.

Jasper seemed slightly shocked before nodding and motioning for Sophia into the corner of the room.

"My parents wanted to thank you for what you did. You risked a lot and my Father thinks that it could really end up helping him."

Jasper smiled softly. "I'm sorry I couldn't be of any more help. I had wanted to do something for a while but I'm afraid that Professor Blackrose would not have looked too kindly on that."

"I understand." Sophia said sincerely.

"In fact... He wouldn't look too kindly on any of the things that I did to help you." Jasper urged.

"Jasper." Sophia began. "You have nothing to worry about. We all understand that what you did has to remain a secret. We've all already agreed that we're not even going to communicate unless it's in person."

Jasper appeared to relax a little at her words. "Thank you." He said softly. "Have a good day, Miss Graves."

"You too, Jasper."

- - - - -

The only good development to the anti No-Maj situation that Sophia and David became aware of was the fact that other teachers appeared to begin to help out in taking posters down. They, obviously, didn't need to be as secretive as the two children needed to be as they were doing it, which was a good thing. The only downside to it was that it meant that the quantity of posters being put up and the frequency at which they were being put up had escalated to such a level that they were becoming an issue that more and more people were becoming aware of. No longer could Sophia and David deal with them all by themselves.

Coupled with this, it was becoming much harder to go about their every day school lives. Teachers had come close to discovering their lack of equipment and text books, and made their displeasure at even the idea of such an issue known.

"We can't go on for much longer like this." Sophia hissed at David, about two and half weeks into the term. "We have to come up with some new ideas. Our old ones aren't working anymore."

"Give me time to think about it." David replied. "We can hardly just stop what we're doing and just do nothing."

However, luckily for the two of them, by the beginning of the week following their conversation, they began to notice a large decrease in the number of posters that needed to be taken down.

Sophia and David discussed this late one night in the common room while they were sat by the fire, prompted by the fact that David had opened his bag and found only a few sheets needing to be burned, compared to the completely stuffed bag he was used to seeing only days beforehand.

"Maybe the teachers have stepped up their game and have managed to collect most of them for us." Sophia suggested.

"Maybe whoever was putting them up decided to stop." David said excitedly.

Sophia hummed, sounding uncertain. "I don't quite feel like that will be the case." She said. "Anyway, this settles it. We can go back to what we were doing before. Let's be normal school kids, and just collect the odd poster whenever we see one. We've collected so few today that we could've easily carried all of our other stuff."

"Alright, then." David agreed.

- - - - -

So the two of them managed to go on like this with very little issue for two whole days, before something else caused worry to grow between them.

It was after a lesson of No-Maj Studies that Sophia decided to stay behind and ask her teacher if she was alright. Sophia had a soft spot for Professor Thrain, as she was a kindly person who very rarely got angry with her classes, and was one of the teachers that Sophia and David saw helping to take down posters the most.

All through the lesson, while they were meant to be reading through and making notes on Chapter Seven of their books, Professor Thrain had set about marking another one of her classes' most recent homework. However, after glancing up at her a couple of times throughout the hour, Sophia found that the woman's face had grown paler and paler as time went on as she got further through her marking. So when the bell went for lunch, Sophia took longer than normal to pack her stuff away, making sure that she was the last student in the classroom.

While Sophia wanted to thank Professor Thrain for helping with taking down the posters, the agreement she had with her family and the threats from Professor Blackrose rang in the back of her mind. Unable to give away any indication that she had anything to do with combating the anti No-Maj situation herself, she resulted to merely asking if her teacher was alright.

"Sorry, Professor, I didn't mean to disturb you." Sophia said as Professor Thrain jumped a little when she cleared her throat, announcing her presence. "I was just wondering if you were alright. I don't mean to be rude, but you look slightly unwell."

Professor Thrain gave a nervous sort of laugh as a response. "Unwell, do I?" She asked. "No, my dear. I am merely..." She struggled to find the right word before sighing and lowering her voice. "Well I suppose there's no point in hiding anything from you, what with your Father being who he is. In all honesty, I'm slightly disturbed by some of the essays that I am marking here." She gestured to the pile of papers in front of her.

"Disturbed?" Sophia asked, shocked. "Why's that?"

"Let's just say that some of my seventh year students have expressed certain opinions in their writing which reflect the new attitude some people in the school have taken up recently."

"You mean... Anti No-Maj sentiments?" Sophia tried to ask as innocently as possible, knowing that she had to tread carefully around the subject.

"Precisely. I'm just hoping that it's some sort of daft joke. Maybe one of them has dared the others to do such a thing. However, I would've hoped that they would be smarter than to actually go along with it, seeing as they are sitting their exams in about six months."

Sophia tried to act as though she wasn't concerned by the information that her teacher had just shared with her, and resulted in turning and walking away as though the conversation were over. However, as she reached the door to the classroom and put her hand on the handle, she looked back and attempted to sound as nonchalant as she could. "You don't suppose this is something that my Father would want to know about, is it?"

Professor Thrain seemed slightly taken aback. "Well, I mean, I'm not sure..." She began.

"Just a thought." Sophia replied, smiling innocently as she left the room.

- - - - - - - - - -

I almost completely forgot that I had to publish a chapter today. But luckily I didn't, so here it is.

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