A Million Miles Away

Chapter 15: February Part 2

I was sitting across from a rather made-up senior partner at one of the Ministry Bar Authorized practices for Magical Civil Suits that Albus had given me during his lunch break. Everything about her was perfectly well-groomed and pointedly pink. HeatherCawthorne sat next to me in one of her leather armchairs in front of her large oak desk, her legs crossed delicately in front of the other. She was sipping on her coffee from a light pink mug (which matched her manicured nails) that read 'Girl Boss' on the side.

She was reasonably nice and warm, though the heater in her office and the pink feather pen were a bit juxtaposing upon surveillance of the rest of her office. She placed her coffee cup down on the edge of her desk and lightly cleared her throat, carefully wiping a smudge of lipstick off the rim of her mug.

"Now, Lily," she smiled softly, "tell me a bit about your case. And please, don't hold back on my accord, nothing you say will offend me."

I nodded and glanced at the clock above her framed degree. 12:45, just 15 minutes into my lunch break, I had plenty of time.

I sighed, "well," I paused, "where should I start?"

"Why not from the beginning?"

I nodded, swallowing my nerves, "okay"

It took me the better part of a half-hour to make it through to the end, constantly having to remind myself that the external actors in this case didn't really matter. All Heather needed to know was what had happened between Adam and me and for some reason, I kept dancing around the topic until she finally forced the information out of me with a rather brash "what's your claim against him?"

Maybe I was just being too sensitive, maybe I really could have just summed it up to the last five minutes of what I said and left it at that. I sat in the armchair beside her, watching as she wrote meticulous notes down on a carbon copy notepad. She'd stop every so often to clarify a detail before continuing again.

I played with the hem of my dress, which I had quickly pulled on over my shorts and sports bra from practice this morning on my way to my appointment with Heather. Albus highly recommended her, and said she was very persuasive and argumentative on behalf of her clients. I trusted Albus's opinion, which was why I had made these appointments for a legal consultation with the five attorneys he most recommended during my lunch breaks this week.

I had decided to see Heather first, hoping it would be a soft start in this type of consultation and it was at first. But after having told her my side of the story, she now set out to uncover weaknesses in my claim.

"Did you file any type of criminal action within the Ministry?"

"No, I-"

"Did you alert any authorities about what happened?" She didn't look up from her notepad once, scribbling furiously.

"Like Aurors? No, but I told my Captain about-"

"Did you request a SANE exam?"

I scrunched my eyebrows, "a what?"

"A SANE exam? Done by a nurse to collect evidence that may be on your body from the sexual assault?"

"Oh... No, I didn't."

"Do you personally have any items that might contain physical evidence?" I was silent for a moment and I guess she sensed my confusion, "Torn clothes from the incident? Articles of clothing that may still have his DNA? Photos documenting injuries?"

I bit my lip, "no, I have the underwear still but I've washed them since then."

She gave a quick nod, "try to find them please, put them in a bag so we can have our investigative team look to see if there are any traces of DNA still on them."