PAPER CONFINES.
34. / Silver Spoons

✶

       Nadya sat in her empty dormitory and did not sleep.

She wished there'd been an excess of Eddie's modified Living Death stoppered in her pillowcase or hidden in a cupboard, but everything they'd made was draining through pipes now. It was too risky to keep. Still—the point stood; she couldn't sleep. Reid and the investigator Dawlish hadn't said explicitly where the Knights were being accommodated before the trial, but it was safe to assume they were musing over evidence in their estates with all manner of professionals, their parents besides.

Nadya's own father was learned in muggle law, but that was useless now, and he wasn't here.

Still, she had bought presents in London that summer and didn't want them to go to waste, so wrapped them quite badly on the eve of Christmas Eve, half-bruised and sore from Knights who were notably absent. It did little to comfort her: their absence was their preparation, despite Reid's assurances.

Nadya reached solemnly toward a small box at the foot of her bed.

Amoret's gift. Somewhat sacramental an act, a promise—as Nadya wove indigo ribbon around the wrapping—that she would not lose hope. That promise had her mother's voice in it. It held her strong. Nadya scrawled in thick ink on the top side of a rattling box:

For when you come home x

The others she carried in one hand and a trouser pocket through the deserted corridors of Christmas Eve morning, restless and showing it. On her way out of the dungeons, she stumbled only upon a guilty Professor Slughorn, who stuttered his biddings of merriment and scurried off somewhere. She skipped on attending breakfast for cold pudding and overly rich cinnamon tea. Whatever first years eagerly remained at school over break could have the house elves scraps for themselves.

The door at Ravenclaw Tower asked a stupid riddle and let her in. Nadya refrained from telling it it was stupid because it was Christmas.

The walk from the dungeons gave her time to adjust to the light, but the initial assault on her vision from the high, arcing windows still had her shielding her eyes. After a moment of pause, she could appreciate the view. The common room was more beautiful at this time of year than any, star-strewn and glittering, the corner tree shedding over its tartan skirt but still magnificent. It was small, sincere magic like this that made Nadya feel unordinary. More than cauldron clouds and curses, it was ceramic swans wading the tree bowl, snowfall that didn't melt, tinsel glowing like light organs of fireflies—magic for no purpose than to be beautiful and celebratory.

Claude came down the stairs in the ugliest jumper she had ever seen. "Did Christmas come early?"

"Oh my god."

He had a crooked grin on his face and his hands in his pyjama pockets, lazing across the first sofa he found. Nadya appreciated that she couldn't decide whether his joke was worse than his outfit.

"Where's the rest of your house?" she asked resignedly, tucking Colette's gift under the tree.

"What's left of them, you mean? On the morning trip to Hogsmeade, I expect. Where's your—Colette?"

"Giggling to herself at successfully getting me in a room alone with you?" Nadya flopped onto an opposite sofa. "Probably."

Claude snorted. "Is that often a challenge for you? Spending time with a friend?"

Practically on instinct she went to protest the term, but groaned and tossed him something from her pocket to shut him up. Claude's eyes went wide as it flew but he caught it clumsily in both hands. His eyes lit up.

"How—" He was twirling the listening bug in his fingers as if to find a flaw in the light that would prove it was fake. "Are you a spy, Sidhu? How did you get this back?"

Nadya shrugged. "Give it back to your mother and don't ask questions. Or sell it and buy a new jumper with it; that one's hideous."

"I have enough gold for a thousand hideous jumpers, though I appreciate the gift, mystery of acquisition aside. Colette did say you had a speciality for them."

"That's what happens when you doubt her, Ozanich."

"I can't be blamed, can I? She's a tad partial when it comes to you."

Nadya narrowed her eyes. "Merry Christmas."

Petra strutted into the room, stretched with a noisy trill, and leapt onto Nadya's lap without much care for whether she was invited. Claude snorted again. He had an annoyingly contagious and very ugly laugh.

"You're feeding her too much," Nadya informed him.

"Or Banks was feeding her too little."

"If any words were going to make her magically appear to protest, those would be them. Please, continue."

"Hm, how about... something else she'd be interested in, instead of my insulting her abilities as a cat owner," he said, pulling a box from one of those Fidelius pockets he kept and sliding it across the coffee table. It was fairly large. Something wooden rattled inside.

Nadya leaned over Petra and picked it up, impressively poorly wrapped, with a confused frown etched on her face. "What is this?"

"That is a Christmas present, Sidhu. You just gave me one yourself, if you haven't forgotten."

Yes, but that was—well, she had only returned to him something that was already his, and half of the reason was to see if she could steal it off Reid at all. This was... had he gone to Hogsmeade for it? Paid real coin for it? She knew he had plenty to spare, but—

"I would hope we're at least beyond peace offerings, but if Colette had to mislead you into spending time with me, then, who knows. Still, call it a token of friendship and try not to be too offended."

"I'm not off—"

"Just open it."

Nadya's expression was distrusting, but she unravelled the gift and popped open the lid of the velvet box inside. She could see where the rattling had come from; it was a grand old chess set brimmed in gold, polished, the interior plush white and seating thirty-two ivory pieces when she unbound the catch.

She looked up at Claude with an expression too dumbfounded for gratitude, but he laughed lightly and leaned back. "You know, back when I told you off for your terrible plan—"

"My terrible plan that worked?" She asked numbly, and rolled a smooth pawn in her hand.

"Oh, please, it was terribly thought at the time and miraculous still that none of us died. Mind you, Azkaban is not certifiably off the table—and don't interrupt me; I was on my way to a flattering testimonial."

"I thought you didn't have a speech for me."

Claude looked professionally insulted. "That was a month ago."

"God, am I that charming?"

"The antithesis, Sidhu, and you're still interrupting me."

She frowned over the beautiful antique. She was, in truth, deflecting from overwhelming confusion at his kindness. He couldn't have expected her gift, so it wasn't transactional, and that made no sense at all.

"When I told you off that day in the Potions room, I... declined to mention the reasons I even thought you worth my lecture. Maybe I shouldn't have. "

"I mean, it was because of Colette, wasn't it?"

"Of course it was because of Colette," he said obviously, "And because of Banks, and because the Knights are terrible people who have done terrible things to you. And I've no idea the sort of person I would be if those things had been done to me. The truth is," he sighed, "I have known bad people in my life, and I just so happened to learn to protect myself before having to learn how to fight. Entirely by fortune—it could've easily gone the other way. But what really matters is that in time, I saw those people suffer justice. You haven't. Colette hasn't. And... truthfully, I don't think tomorrow is the day either."

Nadya dropped the pawn and clutched the box instead. She didn't know what else to do with her hands, and certainly not her eyes.

Claude continued, "I don't fault you for acting the way you do because of that... but, I get angry because Colette is one of my best friends and for her I have to be, and I lecture you because you're not a bad person but sometimes you treat people badly. I lectured you because Colette has faith in you and so does Banks. Merlin—it was annoying, actually—when I first met Amoret you were all she talked about: your whinging over wizard's chess and your endless courage despite having no reason for it. She was practically fanatical." He nodded at her new chess set. "Consider that a gift from both of us. Look—rumours do spread, Sidhu, and many more for you than the average person, but I didn't lie when I told you I don't listen. The Knights are uncreative, their stories bore me, and the first things I ever heard about you were from two people who, actually, love you quite a lot."

Oh.

Claude smiled faintly, apparently not expecting any response more than the look of surprise she was giving him. "In any case, I think that's all I wanted to say, otherwise I would have had to write it on my hand. Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas," Nadya said under her breath. She stared at her perfect chess set, the delighted pieces far more agreeable than her last. Her eyes were slightly wet. "...Thank you for this."

He tossed and caught the little bug in his hand. "Thank you for sparing me my mother's wrath."

She shut the lid on the silken upholstery and slid the box back on the table. Petra purred when Nadya's hand returned to pet her, her head nuzzled at her thigh. "I know I'll be in for it when I get home. Figure there's no use in both of us suffering."

"Because of the hearing?"

"God, no. This is just because I didn't come home for the holidays."

"You could tell her the reason you can't is because you're in legal trouble with the wizarding government."

"Brilliant, Ozanich, I'll write her now."

"Write your father while you're at it!" he suggested.

Nadya ignored him and studied her chess set with childlike fascination, poking at the fretwork while Claude shook his head at the bug again. "How did you get it?"

"Don't be nosey," she said, and then, very curtly, "A projection of Petra and a disillusionment charm."

He opened his mouth just as Colette came barrelling into the common room wearing a crooked smile, pink pyjama pants, and a jumper remarkably uglier than Claude's. Nadya assumed they were conspiring against her, but tragically, Colette was still beautiful.

"Merry Christmas!" she squealed, a large bag over her shoulder which she hurried to set down.

Nadya smiled and could not stop. "You look ridiculous."

Colette glanced down at her horrible jumper. "I brought you one as well."

"Oh, no."

Claude clapped his hands together. "Oh, yes, please."

Nadya helped her with the bag, a few little gifts going under the tree for Lillian and Priscilla and other people Nadya didn't care to know the names of, and then Colette was tugging out jars of tea and two separate boxes. Claude got to work on unwrapping his, Nadya thanked her for the tea, and Colette insisted she open her real present after marvelling at her new chess set.

"Claude, it's beautiful," she gasped, "wherever did you find it?"

"Secrets of the rich and handsome."

Nadya and Colette both stared at him.

"Fine. Secrets of rich, beautiful, intelligent women, also known as my mum. Honestly, I have no idea—you tell her to find the best of anything and she'll find it—though she might have mentioned Greece in her letter."

"Greece? Ah, wow..."

Nadya had the bizarre and instantaneous idea that Colette needed to see Greece. She had never been, and had no means of getting there but her father's money, scant in war, but there was Colette's joy and there was Nadya's sense in the face of it. Very little overlapped the two.

"Here," she said to swathe the mad notion. She handed Colette her gift.

Setting down her cane, Colette smiled, chin tucked in the thick, high neck of her jumper. Natural waves escaped her usual rolled curls, and there was lipstick smudged on her teeth.

Nadya thought, aptly: fuck.

"Thank you."

What was wrong with her today?—More than most days?

With a stupid, mushy brain, Nadya watched her untie the pink ribbon and tear the wrapping with newly painted nails. Colette shimmied the lid from the top of a white hat box Nadya thought she would find pretty, and gasped softly. She cradled the boxed bar of her favourite marigold soap like it was worth galleons.

"You found more! But you said it is not made in Europe!"

She smiled helplessly wide. "I figured if you pay them enough, some stupid Ministry apprentice with international Floo ingress will spare a few hours to go soap shopping for you."

"You—ugh—thank you. My gift is horrible. Look, Petra is scowling at it."

Nadya shushed her, and looked over to Claude's seat to see that he was inching very slowly away from the sofa with Petra at his heels, who, admittedly, did look impressively repulsed for a cat.

"Have somewhere to be, Ozanich?"

He smiled innocently. "I forgot something upstairs is all. Don't mind me."

Colette certainly didn't; she was far too busy staring religiously at a bar of soap. Spirit of the holiday, Nadya supposed, returning her attention from where Claude now crept up the stairs on uncomfortably long legs. "There's more in there, if you're finished ogling your soap."

"Putain, Nadya... you did not have to get me all of this."

Nadya rolled her eyes, but she was half-giddy and her mouth wouldn't straighten, the stupid thing. "Go on, then, or I'll add it to Zippel's pity pile instead."

"He prefers the smell of mint."

"Wonderful. I'll keep it in mind next time he's hospitalized."

Colette rummaged through the box with fingers that seemed almost always a shade trepidatious. Which of her arts was it a symptom of, Nadya wondered. Had that mindfulness been moulded by piano keys or broomstick grips or pastry brushes or restraining to touch her?

Luckily Colette wasn't looking at her when she visibly scowled at herself for the thought.

The second bar of soap did not garner the same lengthy affection of the first, and instead Colette breathed another thanks and pulled free the velvet coffer buried under endless pale tissue. She glanced up at Nadya, who raised her brows in expectation.

It was an undetectable extension charm, and Colette pulled her favourite pink peacoat free from the little box inch by inch. "Nadya..."

"I'm miserable with a needle. You wouldn't believe how long it took me to sew the sleeve back on, even with magic. I didn't know if—maybe—maybe you didn't want it anymore and that's why you left it, but I saw it in your closet and—"

"It was Nathalie's," she said carefully, "Thank you."

Nadya's eyes softened. "I didn't know that."

"Have you not noticed the sleeves are too short?" Colette laughed, tracing the hem where one of them had come undone. "My mother bought it for her in Paris. It is so expensive, this colour, and then of course Nathalie never wore it."

"I'm guessing it fit you then?"

"It was a bit too big, actually, and then it was a bit too small." She paused, her cheeks dimpled. "We had a room in the back of the manor that was called Madame Chapdelaine's. It was just a very large closet, really; we pretended it was a boutique, despite when Vivi and Nathalie were too old for it, and Luc would put on this horrible striped shirt from my father's closet and pretend to be a thief. He'd come and rob us, and then get tired of being a robber and be a clerk instead. For a long time, the coat was there. It was purely by chance but I—I brought it to Megève the last time we went, and... everything else in the closet was... gone." She sucked in a breath. "Thank you."

Nadya didn't know what to say. She felt the warmness of Colette's gratitude, and a fraction of her unutterable grief.

"Okay." Colette straightened her shoulders and handed Nadya a little box. "Now it is your turn."

Nadya's lips pursed to one side as she unravelled a delicate raffia ribbon and shimmied the lid off. Her heart stammered, and when she looked up at Colette her face revealed only the anticipation of whether she would like her gift or not. But Nadya was once more staring down at an intricate silver ring, and she started to laugh.

Colette's face fell. "What?"

Nadya's hands moved to her face, fingers dragging down cheeks that were still locked in a grin. "I'm sorry. It's perfect, Colette, it's just—it's a ring."

"Yes?"

"A bit presumptuous?"

"What—oh!" She flushed. "Oh. Mon dieu... I—it's because you wear so many of them. I didn't... merde."

"It's stunning," Nadya said, trying to keep the joke (and her composure) rather than think too hard about the symbolism of a thing like this. She eased it very casually on her index finger, stacked atop a yellow sapphire from some cousin she'd never met. Colette's ring was thin, delicate filigree, with the smallest garnet stone at its centre; a blood drop. "Where did you get it?"

"An antique shop," she answered, fiddling with her hair, "last year. I meant to give it to you then, but—"

But Nadya could barely look her in the eyes last year. She nodded. "Thank you."

"To clarify, I am not proposing."

From the stairs, Claude groaned loudly.

Nadya gawked as he crept back down, his shoulders slumped. "Have you just been standing there watching?"

"Not for any good reason, it seems."

Petra, to corroborate, wailed miserably.

"Fuck me," Nadya muttered, "I want Amoret back."

━━━━━

       The Ministry of Magic was a cathedral of bad blood and black tile. Nadya wore a dress to match, dim as the tribunal this funeral masqueraded as. She wondered how many muggle-borns had walked to cases like this alone, no purebloods to stand tall beside them, to shoulder the fall before even seeing the distance to the ground. She wondered what a centuries-old Wizengamot's supposed justice had looked like if hers was to be this. A cage less gilded than the chimneys lining the hall, she presumed.

Still, it was a magnificent veneer, a ceiling of ornate peacocks and boundless magic. Once upon a time Nadya had cared to learn the history—the Wizard's Council before the Ministry, the witch hunts, the statute of secrecy—but a husk of ethics upheld the wizarding world by the skin of its teeth, and history, it seemed, wasn't worth her studies. Grindelwald was at large despite it. The Knights thrived in the overgrown cradles of their forebears. Nadya had been hunted, humiliated and tortured, and Colette wore the scars to remember it.

What good was magnificence without change?

She trudged every corridor with defiant apathy. This beauty was fickle. She had seen many greater sights before knowing magic existed at all, and none in London.

Beside her, Colette's mouth was set in a harsh line. Ill-suited, it made her jaw appear tight and her soft eyes hard. Her hair was getting long enough to tie in a small bun, the strands too short to reach it pinned behind her jeweled ears. Nadya wanted to take her hand and reassure her, but this wasn't the place, and Claude and Reid had done enough gentle politicking with their attendants to maintain a certain courtesy. Let Colette be angry. She deserved more than the fill of it she'd had.

Reid's face was more tightly wound than anyone's, and still she pressed ahead with her head held high, locs down and adorned in more gold than Nadya had ever seen in them before. They matched a thin string around her neck, weaved through the cork of a bottle no bigger than a thimble, glittering with fine blue dust. It was nearly empty. Reid adjusted it so that it was perfectly centred on her chest, and carried on somehow taller because of it. Her silk skirt swayed with each quick step.

They entered the elevator and escaped the atrium's prying eyes. Another cage, its bars whisked shut, and the contraption launched them backward and down.

"Fuck me," Nadya cursed, grabbing the wall.

Reid's eyes flashed in a blaze to hers. The stress boiled off her now that they were alone.

"Sorry."

"Could do with a warning," Claude agreed quietly.

Colette was staring at the dark blur between the bars.

"Honestly," Reid said, "I don't want to hear a word out of any of you until this proceeding is finished. One wrong move could result in a very different judgement."

Nadya exhaled through puffed cheeks. A few months ago, she'd thought a summons to Dippet's office was the worst punishment she could face.

The elevator stopped at an abrupt halt and the caged door rattled open.

They were in the Ministry dungeons.

The corridor was like a long black jewel, shimmering in vaguest light, steel-glinted. It was a light that seemed to exist only to embolden what waited in the dark. Where it came from, Nadya did not know. She treaded after Reid, who had resumed strutting, and tried not to look as out of her depths as she felt.

And then there were the black incisor-heels of Rosier's nicest shoes, crossed at the ankles, another mysterious gleam to polish them. The rest of her figure revealed itself at the turn of a corner. Nadya restrained the urge to hold her breath; the Knights sat in a line across the bench outside courtroom nine, pretty and proper and—clement as Nadya's hands knew to make them—bruised.

Of all of them, Malfoy looked the worst. His eyes were ringed blue and restless, his white skin somehow even more sallow than usual. Malfoy might not have remembered what happened, but his body did. Nadya did. How she'd bit and ground her jaw, and looked at him now still tasting the pulp of skin in his blood, wondering what shape of her teeth had survived Colette's healing. How she would love to have branded him with them.

A part of her was giddy for the memory to return to him. It made her feel better for having to take a seat on the opposite bench and bare his glowering.

Reid whispered something to Colette and then sauntered to the courtroom door, cracking it open with a knock of her wand on the doorframe to announce herself. Someone must have beckoned her inside, because then she was slinking through the crack and they were alone with nothing but the Knights' company and a sentry posted at the other end of the hall.

Nadya wanted to ask Colette what Reid had whispered almost as much as she wanted to maintain the appearance of knowing exactly what was going on. The latter beat the former, and she remained silent, unnaturally demure in her black moire.

An aeon could have passed before there was any movement behind the door again, and Nadya half-expected a deliberation to be reached without even inviting the subjects of the trial into the room. It wasn't an impossible prospect; they were students despite being seventeen, and would not be witnesses to their own potential crimes. Still, she doubted they would be decreed as such. Stamping a criminal record on five children of the Sacred Twenty-Eight in one day did not align with the Ministry's aspirations. These were the students who would, if historical precedence had any say, inherit the seats of the very court that judged them today.

So the aeon passed. It was Edicus Gamp, Chief Warlock and one of Slughorn's dinner party attendees, who welcomed them in. Far be it from a warm one—he presided over the Wizengamot, and was remarkably less charming with an ugly cap and thick, plum robes.

Nadya thought her knees were going to buckle before she made it to her next seat, but Colette's hand brushed her back for a second so brief it could only look accidental to anyone else, and Nadya straightened. There was nothing accidental about it.

Courtroom nine was just as black as the dungeon corridors, but edged with painted wood and lit a glossy dark blue. Like an amphitheatre, the benches encircling the room rose higher and higher the nearer they were to the walls, making for a glaring, low centre where the seats of the accused waited. Luckily, the viewing benches were empty for the discretion of this trainwreck, and only the far half of the room was filled by the fifty members of the Wizengamot, Reid and the headmaster, and... Dumbledore, two spots distant from everyone else.

Nadya sat last in the seat she was lead to, rapidly more uncertain. Chains jingled from the armrests but did not bind her. The only thing missing was a massive overhead light to blind her into some dopey confession. At least the room's torches were dim.

Cozy.

But what was Dumbledore doing here? The hearing was supposedly a private affair, and yet he'd made his way from the frontlines of Grindelwald's siege on Austria to witness it. Something in the war must have shifted, though it wasn't yet written in the papers.

Gamp slammed his gavel on the lectern, and the trial began.

"Disciplinary hearing of the 22nd of December," he said in a clear voice, "defendants are as follows: Claude Ozanich, Colette Élise Chapdelaine, Nadya Jayashri Sidhu, followed by Augusta Rosier, Zenith Mulciber, Antonin Hedeon Dolohov, Abraxas Malfoy. These trials will be addressed respectively per the distinct charges either party faces. The trial of Theodore I Nott, as stated in yesterday's caucus, has been postponed to January 1st and—at present, bears no relevance to this trial. The victim, Alexander Zippel, is unable to attend by virtue of his current condition, but has been questioned abed and offers his contribution to the case in quill. Interrogators of the defendants are as follows: Edicus Gamp, Kenelm Dawlish, Honoria Carrow." He cleared his throat, one paper shuffled for another. "The Wizengamot will deliberate with the offered confessions. The defendants bear witness."

It was a stupidly ceremonious proceeding, but just what Reid had warned them of. They weren't there for any reason, it seemed, than to be observed like zoo animals while arguments were made for and against their behalf.

Gamp, as Chief Warlock and first interrogator, was the one to begin. "Charges against Accused Party A—and to clarify, that is Miss Sidhu, Miss Chapdelaine, and Mr Ozanich—are as follows: attempted theft of illicit potions, conspiracy, and assault of the second degree. Madam Carrow will now speak."

A tall, pallid woman on one of the lower benches stood. Her features were pinched and her eyelids were black. Nadya might've known her son, another Carrow, second year of her house, Sacred Twenty-Eight.

Carrow read from an unfurling scroll. "In our commencing deliberation we have concluded that intent was present in all crimes committed by Party A, successful or no. The Wizengamot takes into account that all individuals present are above the age of seventeen and will therefore be tried as adults."

An enchanted quill took notes of the hearing beside her, frenetic and crackling as it jotted every meticulous detail. All Nadya could do to keep herself present was to watch it move.

"It must also be noted," went on Carrow, "that all testimonies of the involved parties share unifying accounts of a half-forgotten assault. The council deduces an affect of the potion, with remnants of an altered Living Death found in two glasses in the ballroom where the initial assault transpired. They also, however, share unifying admissions of a previously established animosity, some more detailed than others. Of the witnesses gathered, we deduce this animosity to be both years-long, and incentive for the consequent assault."

Dawlish cleared his throat. Nadya prayed for kindness, a bitter wish swallowed too fast.

"As per Mr Dolohov's report, he was, at the start of term, hospitalized for traces of poison in a dish of gifted pastries, of which he, Miss Rosier, Mr Malfoy, and Mr Mulciber all conceded in their questioning to have been given by Miss Sidhu."

Her elbow slipped from her armrest, and the chains jolted.

Dolohov had confessed to the canelés? They all had? Nadya's stomach sank. They might not have remembered what Reid had taken from them, but they had offered something else to make up for it. Too shameful for Dolohov when it had happened, but now it served too good a purpose not to use—if Nadya was presented to the Wizengamot as a witch with a capacity for brewing poisons, this proceeding stood even farther from her favour than she thought. And what of Nott? God, what of Nott? He was to be tried separately for his possession of illicit potions, but if the court could be convinced that this was all Nadya's doing, then...

"Among the testimonies shared, the council notes the importance of a particular three," said Dawlish, and read from a list, "September 1943, report of Abraxas Malfoy: Miss Sidhu, in a game of wizard's chess, curses the pieces of Mr Malfoy so that he will be petrified upon his next game, resulting in hospitalization on October 4th, 1943, when Mr Malfoy next touches his knight and suffers a concussion. January 1944 —"

Nadya breathed out a curse, but she might not have been breathing at all and she wasn't sure her mouth had moved. Her eyes darted desperately to Reid. What she saw did not assuage her; fierce whispers in Dippet's ear, her nails in the fabric of her skirt.

All of Nadya's body froze in dawning realization, but she was alight. Her fury whipped over the injustice in a wave, incomprehensible, nauseating. Reid had told her not to tell Dawlish more than was necessary, but the Knights had told him exactly what he needed to hear.

"—Miss Sidhu burns Mr Mulciber with a blasting curse, for which he does not receive medical care—"

"—the scars of which are still present, if Mr Mulciber will stand—"

Mulciber stood, lifting a perfectly tailored sleeve to reveal an ugly, faded burn.

"—the council notes that repeat offenses—"

No, she wasn't breathing. Her eyes were wet and stuck on the fervent quill, drawing her transgressions as Dawlish recited them lifelessly. In his voice she heard a nightmare she'd never thought to dream: that their crimes would be made to look like hers, her resistance vilified, her suffering meaningless.

They had made her into this, and now they were punishing her for it.

"May 21st, 1943," Dawlish read.

Nadya felt everything turn a shade darker.

"Report of Augusta Rosier: an altercation in the Slytherin dormitories."

In her fist, she held blossoming fire. Frenzied and raw, it was the magic of a child who didn't know yet how to control it. They pushed her into the water, and her hand found a knife without understanding its shape.

"Miss Rosier describes entering her dormitory after dinner to find Miss Sidhu waiting at the foot of her bed with her wand pointed at the door. She recalls a spell being cast, the door clicking shut, and then falling. As can be found in the school's hospital records, Madame Codde can attest that Miss Rosier arrived later that night with two swollen eyes, a missing tooth, and fractured ribs. Miss Rosier claims to have been hesitant to name Miss Sidhu as her attacker, both out of sympathy for an injury suffered by one of her friends earlier that day, and for fear of a retaliatory assault. She says recent events have forced her hand."

A tear slipped hot down Nadya's cheek, and that was it. The flames went out with a drop. Everything just hissed, smoke on a dead log.

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair, it wasn't fair, it wasn't fair.

"Objection, your Honour," said Reid, in the corner of her eye, "Hearsay, relevance."

Nadya knew distantly that that should be followed by sustained or overruled, but Gamp, carefully, murmured only "continue."

It was a strange intermediate.

"Can it be proven by the plaintiff—or, I should say, the fellow accused—that Miss Sidhu was indeed responsible for this assault? Or shall we adjourn and reassess all leading events of the past six years to reach a verdict? The council stands for one purpose today; if another claim is to be made, let it be made independently."

"The hospital record stands," argued Carrow, on the opposite side of the room.

"And Mr Malfoy's storied game of wizard's chess? Mr Mulciber and his blasting curse? What evidence remains of those that points to the wand of my defendant?"

"Your defendant? Ms Banks, you are a resident guard and investigator in training—"

Dumbledore rose from his seat. "I regret to interrupt, dear council, but I must confess it is with no small effort that I've joined you here today, and with even less confidence that I observe this proceeding. However, in the unanimous rejection of my testimony as both a professor of the accused parties and former Chief Warlock, I take it upon myself, instead, to offer you this plea in person."

Nadya's head was buzzing. She no longer had any idea what was going on.

"Consider our current state of affairs: Grindelwald spurs contention between muggles and wizards that has spiralled to war." Still Nadya's gaze could not be torn from the quill, mimicking Dumbledore's inflection in its scrawl. "His words speak of terror. It is the promise of a world in which our treaties tear and our Ministry is threatened, and still in the discord we make time to fight amongst ourselves. Such cases of judgement could have been resolved at their root before culminating to this... It is no more a call for justice than a declaration of war is summons for peace. This contention of magical and muggle is so insidious—so polluting—that it has infiltrated even our schools and our children, under the veneer of self-preservation. The variance of blood." The quill stopped with his weary sigh. "We've all seen it before. Edicus, I beg you; this is much larger than assault among embittered youth. See reason in your deliberation, council, and see its consequences."

With that, he sat, and Reid followed.

Nadya looked down from the quill, but she could not look at Colette. Everything was the pitch. Everything was what she had done to make up for it, and where it had gotten her.

Dawlish had spoken true, despite the defense. Nadya's fists had been red for days, Rosier's ribs straddled under her weight, crushed as she pressed down—the flying tooth, the blood-spit, eyes swelling shut as Nadya wailed. Then the panting. In the aftermath, with nothing but her breath to fill the silence, she wrestled off Rosier and waited to feel better. She thought it would have sated something, but there was just the panting and a lower sound, strenuous—Rosier's choking wheeze beside her.

It had earned Nadya a month of peace. And now it had earned her this.

She finally looked away from the quill, right into Reid's unshakeable gaze. This time Nadya did not resist the urge to lose focus and let the details blur. In her face she let herself see Amoret, and her heart was steady.

Gamp lifted his gavel. "There will be no further defense. The vote of no confidence begins."

He struck the lectern again.

[ . . . ] just a reminderrrrrrrr! if you've made it this far, i would really appreciate a vote / comment. reads:votes ratio can be a little bit disheartening sometimes, and i can't express how motivating support is, but otherwise thank you for being here <3

every time i feel like we're kind of approaching the final stretch i'm like... no. there's more. hence my not even being able to fit this trial in one chapter. blame it on the christmas fluff. also will i be using a general lack of canon information on wizarding law to excuse courtroom inaccuracies? yes. don't squint too hard at this... these people tried expelling harry for self-defense and that's fifty years in the future 🤕

edit bc i forgot: the nadyacolette canelé scene from chapter six has been pretty much entirely rewritten because i realized the original one is super ooc and makes no sense for either of their backstories. the scene is now that nadya told half a lie to colette by insinuating she couldn't think of a gift for amoret (who was pretty much awol), they made the canelés together, nadya delivered them to the ravenclaw dormitory but secretly took some, poisoned them, and gave them to the knights. the fight between nadya and colette stayed relatively the same but it was pretty important to alter the scene of nadya intentionally sending colette in alone with the knights, which she would literally never do lol. kind of defeats the entire purpose of the year they weren't communicating. i am not very smart. reread if you want, or don't! just going through old chapters with hindsight and fixing things :) / word count. 6005

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