•NINE•

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Dedication to @SullenFairy for your really well thought out answer to what you think is wrong with Harry. I loved it honestly but again I neither agree nor disagree. You just have to wait and see 😏

(I read everyone's theories. They were just the first to comment x)

I realized I was supposed to be putting pictures on the sides 🤦‍♀️ if you get a moment just backtrack to the start and look at the pictures because there's a picture of Travis, Ava and Harry (or just wait till the end as I'll put the kids there lmao)

* * *

"Now hearing case #9834. Neighbors to the McGavin's filed a complaint of possible child abuse in the McGavin's homestead. The victim, Clement McGavin, has agreed to speak under oath. The defendants' lawyer, Mr. James Dunn. The plaintiff's lawyer, Mr Jared Kowalski."

"All rise for His Excellency, Judge Hemmings."

The head officer announced as the Judge's door opened. The entire court room stood up and the middle-aged blonde man walked in and sat at his chair.

"Be seated."

The whole courtroom settled down and the Judge looked over to the defendants side to see Louis not at the front table.

He was an observer today.

Louis sat in the first pew, watching the judge take the file from the head officer. His nerves were not playing nice from this position.

Louis has observed cases before, mostly cases that the child's lawyer would approach him for some advice and insight. Those were always his tense court cases because he wasn't in control over what was being said. One wrong word and this child could lose it all.

This particular case was hard for Louis to give his input on because he hadn't talked to Clement. With the asylum, he's talked to every single child and he knows their side of the story. That's where he bases his foundation and works his way up, looking for evidence in articles and talking to people who would know. Most of the cases through the precinct he was also able to talk to the child.

But he didn't know Clement.

He'd never even seen the boy, until he walked into the courtroom and Louis' heart dropped. He had fluffy blonde hair and his brown eyes that possibly once held a childlike sparkle, were red-rimmed and had bags underneath. He had scars running over his cheeks and his arms.

Louis was seconds away from vaulting over the separation and shouting that this child deserved better.

Clement walked over to the table where his parents and Mr. Dunn were sitting. Louis could only imagine how he's been told to lie to protect the family name or something.

"We shall be listening to testimonies from Mr. Brown and then we shall have Mr. McGavin speak afterwards. Mr. Brown, if you may."

Mr. Brown was the person who called the cops on the McGavin's, saying he suspected they were abusing and torturing their child. As the man walked to the podium and took the oath, Louis' eyes flickered to the back of Clement's head and frowned seeing he actually had patches of hair missing. He trailed down to the back of his neck and almost choked up seeing a dark circle.

He'd know a cigarette butt burn anywhere.

His attention shifted back to Mr. Brown who started narrating how him and his wife would hear glasses breaking and screams coming from the house, especially at night. He exposed that Mr. McGavin was a drunkard and he'd seen him stumbling into the house multiple times, at the wee hours of the morning.

Louis saw Clement tremble slightly and his heart ached for him. He was only 13, same age as Travis, and this world was just so cruel.

He gave into his emotions and leaned forward, slowly placing a hand on the boy's shoulder. Clement tensed slightly until he turned and stared into Louis' eyes. There wasn't a chance that the boy would recognize him but he smiled nonetheless. Louis mouthed a simple 'you got this' and Clement smiled back.

He leaned back as Clement was called to the podium. His shaky hands took the position of an oath taker and he repeated after the officer. Then he sat down in the seat and begun fiddling with his fingers.

"Clement?"

He looked up at the judge.

"I'm just going to ask you a few questions, and you can reply with as much information as you can. Ok?"

Clement gulped and his gaze turned, not to his parents, not to his lawyer, to Louis. Louis gave him an encouraging smile and slight nod and the boy turned to the judge nodding.

"Great. First, can you just tell the court a little bit about yourself."

The boy let out a sigh and turned to Louis. Louis smiled knowing he trusted him to act as though he was simply having a conversation with Louis.

"M-My name is Clement McGavin. I'm 13 and I like drawing and singing. I wanna be a musician one day. Um... I like the color purple but blue's cool too. And... oh! I used to have a pet turtle called Bruno!"

Louis gave him a thumbs up to which the boy responded with a large smile. How could all that happiness be killed off?

"What happened to Bruno?"

Clement immediately deflated. His gaze flickered to his parents and had Louis not known any better, they were glaring at the boy. Clement's gaze shifted back to Louis who nodded at him with a serious expression.

"H-he died?"

"How?"

"Um... I-um..."

"Clement..."

"They killed him."

He said with his eyes glazed over and it seemed as though he didn't want to turn to look at his parents. He was looking down and he was shaking.

"Who killed him?"

"M-Mummy and Daddy. Daddy kicked him to the wall and then Mummy... she... she drove a knife right through his shell. There was so much blood sir. I miss him so much."

Clement sobbed, the microphone amplifying his pain. Louis couldn't watch this anymore. He stood up, causing the judge to watch him. Louis confidently crossed the gate to the front and walked over to sit at the empty sit near Mr. Kowalski and the Browns. That movement caused Clement to look directly at him.

The judge didn't say anything, probably noting it was a tactic to get the child to calm down. It worked because Clement seemed to be entranced by Louis. Louis gave Judge Hemmings a slight nod and the judge continued to ask Clement questions.

But it was kind of clear what his judgment would be.

"Clement, have your parents ever hit you?"

Clement acted as though no one else was in the room. He nodded directly towards Louis. Louis nodded towards him and the boy took it as a sign to explain.

"My Dad comes homes after midnight, when I'm asleep. I don't know if Mummy still waits up for him. If I don't sleep, I can't concentrate in class. When he comes home drunk, he comes to my room and he starts shouting at me. I do my best with my grades but I always confuse my numbers. They look the same to me and I fail Maths. He doesn't like it when I fail Maths.

"He slaps me until I wake up and beats me until I'm crying. If he's smoking he will burn my skin. Mum will come in after and pull my hair and sometimes she'll have scissors and she'll cut it and make me eat it. It's the only thing I eat for days. I've missed a lot of school days. I'm behind in my schoolwork but I'm in too much pain to go to school. The daytime is the only time they're never home."

Clement didn't have any tears in his eyes as he narrated the story so monotone, as if he rehearsed it, waiting for the day he'd be able to get it out. The boy didn't have tears but Louis did. Clement was just another example of a reason why he won't stop until he helps all the kids in that asylum.

They all deserve better.

The judge glared towards the McGavin's who were glaring at Clement. Then he turned to the child and asked him his final questions.

"Two more questions. How long have you been out of school?"

"Almost a year."

"And what do you want to tell your parents now? In a place where they can't hurt you."

"I hate you."

Clement said with hatred for his parents burning his skin. Mr. McGavin stood up abruptly, causing his chair to squeak on the ground. Both the head officer and Louis stood up. The elder man huffed and sat down, the head officer watching him intensively. Louis walked over to the podium and set his hand out for Clement. The younger eagerly stood and took it, letting Louis take him to sit on the side of the Browns.

"My last question for the session, Mr and Mrs. Brown, are you willing to adopt Clement?"

Mrs. Brown had tears running down her cheeks and nodded feverishly towards the judge.

"Perfect. In the case of Clement McGavin, I pronounce him now a Brown. Adoption papers should be collected in 3 days. In the meantime, I would like Clement to stay with Professor Tomlinson, if that's ok with the man?"

Louis nodded with a smile, placing a reassuring hand on the younger boy's knee. Clement smiled and started playing with Louis' fingers.

"Lastly, I want the McGavin's arrested immediately! Court dismissed."

* * *

Louis walked into the asylum with Clement walking besides him, clutching his hand quite hard. Louis understood. The asylum was a scary place.

Before you think of him as inhumane, no, Louis was not about to leave Clement here. The boy would be staying at Louis' place until the adoption papers were processed.

Until then, he had another adoption to tend to.

Soft pitter patters sounded and Louis laughed as he caught Ava in a big hug.

"Hi Ava."

"Hi papa. I missed you so much."

"I missed you too baby. Say hi to Clement."

Ava turned her body to Clement. She was eye level with him as Louis held her in his arms. She put her right hand forward with a large smile.

"I'm Ava."

Clement slowly smiled and shook the girl's hand. Louis placed Ava on the reception and she immediately got into an animated description of how she arranged her colors in her small bag.

Clement related to everything the 7 year old was telling him and he excitedly explained how he arranged his own.

Louis smiled and left the two to talk as one of the nurses approached him with a clipboard.

"I just need you to sign here for his belongings and he's free to go."

Louis nodded, signing at the bottom of the page and handing it back to the man. The nurse was about to say something else when Travis skipped over to them and his face was radiant.

Louis loved that look.

"Mr. Louis! I'm ready! And I'm so excited!"

Louis ruffled his hair and turned back to the nurse who was trying to mask his glare. Really though, who hurt these nurses?

"Is that all?"

Louis asked. The man nodded his head and walked away. Louis rolled his eyes and led Travis over to where Ava and Clement were talking about their favorite colors to paint with. Clement turned to Travis and Travis smiled at the boy.

"M'Travis."

"Clement. Why do you have a bag?"

"I'm leaving. Getting adopted by my best friend and he's gonna be my big brother."

Clement nodded and they all turned to Louis. He rolled his eyes with a fond smile and lifted Ava off the reception desk and set her down on the ground.

"I'll be back tomorrow ok love?"

Ava nodded and smiled, hugging Louis really tight. Louis placed a kiss on her forehead than watched her hug Travis and Clement then skip off. Louis sighed and stood up, leading the boys out to his car. Travis offered the front seat to Clement who blushed and agreed, not wanting to sit alone but too scared to voice it out.

"Where's Alex?"

"Him and his parents are waiting for us at the Dominoes in town."

Travis nodded and then reached over to turn the radio on. Louis told him to hurry up and put his seat belt on which caused Travis to grumble and that made Clement laugh.

On the way, they jammed to Ariana Grande and Ed Sheeran. Louis' heart felt so full with love for these kids. The thought that in a few minutes, he'd have helped two kids in one day made him want to cry.

He'd have to call his mum when they got home.

When they walked into Dominoes, Travis ditched Louis and Clement and attacked Alex in a hug. Alex laughed and hugged back with as much enthusiasm.

"Mr. Tomlinson, glad to see you again."

"My pleasure Mrs. Jones."

"Have you brought us another son?"

"Oh yes please! Clem is so cool and funny and he knows Ariana Grande too!"

Louis laughed and shook his head, intertwining his left hand with Clement's right one.

"No. He's staying with me for a while as some adoption papers are signed and processed. Just came from court this morning actually."

Alex walked over to Louis gave him a hug. He whispered a 'thank you' and pulled away. Louis escorted them out to their car.

Louis helped Travis put on the emergency bracelet and gave him one final hug.

With a 'See you tomorrow Mr. Tomlinson', the Joneses were off. And so were Louis and Clement.

•~•~•

A very filler chapter. I apologize haha.

Anyway I don't think anyone's ready for how the next chapter is about to play out ;)

I hope you're all doing well and you're not stressed or sad. I love you guys for enjoying this book.

For your curious minds:

(This is how Travis looks)

(This is how Ava looks)

I can't really find a picture of 12 year old Lux because... well she's not 12 yet. But I'm sure you can sort of picture how she is now then age her a few years you know.

I suddenly hate myself because I've been making really fucking dumb mistakes and I never catch them when I'm editing and I'm so fucking sorry. I'm trying to give you really good stories. But thank you so much for those of you point them out. In all my books that is.

Sigh. I guess I'll see you in the next chapter. All the love x

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-Linda✌️

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