chapter one
( march 5, 1999 )

layout ib rxmione

The first thing Charity notices when she walks inside the ministry is the smell of grief in the air. It pummels her and she finds herself choking on it. It has been almost two years since the war, but the ministry seems to still be collecting itself from the shambles. She still is too, not that she acknowledges it or is willing to deal with the pain, but she knows it's there, shoved deep down. Being in a building with so much of it makes her sick.

She swallows her lack of pride and keeps walking, the gray pantsuit and red heels make her feel confident, despite her mind not being entirely at ease. She hopes she isn't the only woman in the courtroom, terrified of the stares she'll get. She has been the only woman in the room before. The courtroom is on the tenth floor and she has to go down the stairs on the ninth floor to get there, due to the lack of elevator, despite there being a whole new department added to the floor.

She isn't late, which is a hell of a good thing. The man who hired her, Collin Huntington, isn't even in the room yet. There are a good amount of them in the room. One of them is a red-haired man who drinks his coffee and leans back in his seat. Another is a woman who wears a black and white dress and is reading the prophet. Charity feels she needs to busy herself, so she escapes to the hall to make her coffee, before going to sit next to the man, finding herself looking at her hands. They're in a meeting room with ugly beige carpet to discuss the mock trial before going into the courtroom.

He looks up at her and smiles. It's bright and it makes her smile back, an instinctive feeling sprouting from her chest. It's overwhelming, she notices the realization of the day. The warmth of the coffee in her hand is doing its best to ground her.

"Hey," He says, brown eyes brightly incandescent with the yellow light of the courtroom. "Percy Weasley." he holds out his hand for her to take, and panic sears itself behind her forehead, her palm sweaty as she takes his. He doesn't seem to notice, but she quickly pulls her hand away and slides it into the pocket of her pants.

"Charity March. Pleasure." Before more formalities can be exchanged, two people walk through the door. The first is Huntington, who looks firm, and a younger man just behind him.

"Good morning," Huntington speaks first as he sits down at the head of the table, his suit jacket s sickly shade of navy with red pinstripes. Charity's first thought is the look of disgust that would be on Crystelle's face if she saw this. "I'm Collin Huntington, which all of you should know. Let us introduce ourselves and then discuss today."

The man who walked in behind Huntington is the first to introduce himself. He is around the age of Charity and he's got the spark in him that Charity saw die too many times already. Her brother had the spark before he turned 18 with a dead boyfriend. It made her sick to her stomach, the fear of watching the glint fade from this boy's baby blues. His name is Otis Vos, a Slytherin half-blood. The ambitious were destined for success in this field.

Next was the woman, who folds her paper and smiles at Huntington with nerves plastered behind her teeth. She's a beautiful woman, no doubt about that. She's bright too, a Hufflepuff pureblood, but she gets cut off by Huntington before she can finish introducing herself. Huntington, Charity decided, was the killer of sparks. Her name is Melanie Talbot and she has anger in her eyes when she turns to Charity, whose hands shake as she begins speaking.

"I'm Charity March, I'm a Ravenclaw pureblood. Left school in '94." She hates the taste of her class on her tongue, bitter with the feeling of their blood status being still a norm. It shouldn't matter. But it does, even three years after what happened.

"And you?" Huntington asks Percy, his eyebrows furrowing.

"Percy Weasley. Gryffindor Pureblood. Left school '94 too." Charity swears she hears Huntington mumble "blood traitors" under his breath, and she wants to scream, but she doesn't and continues listening to introductions. She and Melanie are the only women, and Charity is getting stared down. She's close to tears when one of the men in the back winks at her.

The introductions finish and Huntington speaks, his face firm and unchanging. It's hard not to be intimidated by him. He doesn't have much personality, Charity realizes after a speech going over things everyone already knew, but he's a scary man. She knows the treacherousness of a man who can take everything from you with only a few words.

"In that courtroom, it will be exactly like a trial. The only thing is that the stakes are both higher and lower. The only life you'll be changing is your own. This mock trial is your chance to earn a spot on my team. If you don't, you'll be stuck doing paperwork only. Understand?" Everyone in the room was at a terrifying consensus before everyone filed into the dark courtroom.

***

Charity was coaxed here, she swears. She hasn't ever liked bars, but Crystelle loves them, her favorite place to just hang out. She usually looks for a man she can sleep with and never call, but tonight she just brings their drinks to the table, (A vodka martini for Charity and a cosmopolitan with a shot of tequila on the side for Crystelle), lacking the scan of the room. Charity is wearing one of Crystelle's dresses, it's short and breasty and the gold and sequins makes Charity feel like a glass of champagne. Not the glass of champagne that would carry a ring and an expectation, but the kind that gets emptied quickly by a single woman at a wedding. Her hair is still pinned back from the morning, and she gratefully takes her drink and watches Crystelle sit before her.

"How was your day?" Crystelle asks, after doing her shot.

"It was really good actually," Charity says, pushing her hair from her face. "The results for associates are gonna be up tomorrow, Huntington promised us."

"What was it like?" Crystelle leans back in her seat, playing with the ring on her middle finger.

"It was really interesting. There were two separate trials, two of us on each law team, the other four on the jury, and then vice versa. Our trial was the fictitious trial of Sirius Black."

"Who'd you work with?"

"Percy Weasley."

"Head Boy Percy Weasley?" Crystelle scoffs, running a hand through her hair. "I'm so sorry."

"He's different." Charity thought back to his high five when they won their case, and then their coffee break between trials. They didn't say much, Charity could tell he was hiding something. He had that look in his eye, the one that Charity knew too well, her eyes dappled in the same heavy grief. "He's—I don't know."

"You're at a loss for words, March, what's up with that? You got a thing for deadbeat Weasley?

"Don't be mean, Crystelle. He's smart. He knows what he's doing and he's not the same guy he was."

"So, you're telling me that Percy Weasley is a changed man?" Crystelle looks almost amused. "I respect your opinions and I think you're a fucking genius but I think you're very wrong right now"

"He's lacking his head boy complex, I promise you," Charity says, taking a drink from her glass. "Did you hear that his ex-girlfriend died in the war? She was an Auror. Killed By Bellatrix lestrange."

"How'd you learn this?" Crystelle asks.

"It's four years to the day. It was in the prophet."

"Poor kid," Crystelle says, her lips in a tight line.

"Have an open mind, Crystelle." This is a tall ask. Charity knows her best friend better than anyone, and even in her beautiful vigor and kindness, she is stuck in her ideals. Especially when it is about people, she kept her opinions strict and fierce. She has good hair and an iffy moral compass and doesn't trust people. Charity tends to trust people too hard and too fast, causing her downfall multiple times. She dated too many horrible men for too many horrible weeks and foggy nights finished with a cigarette. She adores the way that Crystelle can just be with someone without needing to go all in. Charity hopes her envy didn't show too bad.

"Do you know who you're speaking to?"

"That was an error on my part."

"See, fucking genius. And you're hot too."

"You flatter me." Charity begins picking at the glitter on her skirt, feeling on edge as the room begins to get louder. She finishes her drink quickly, itching for the feeling of a cigarette in her hand.

"Do we need to get you home?" Charity nods and Crystelle smiles, a soft smile that makes Charity feel warm as they leave the bar. Charity lights a cigarette with the snap of her fingers, feeling Crystelle take one for herself.

"Thank you," Charity says, blowing a puff of smoke from her lips. "You're the best friend a girl could ask for."

"And you're going mad. Bloody bonkers." They go into Charity's apartment and Charity thinks that Crystelle is the insane one when she helps Charity inside and then kisses her cheek as she leaves.

"I love you, you know," Crystelle said. "You're the best person I know, really."

Charity went to bed, and for fleeting moments, she believed it.