1. Two Years Two years since the cottage. Mione has a desk at the Ministry and a caseload and a coat she never takes off...
2. The File The file is four inches thick and the only page that matters is a contract signed in 2014 by a man now dead.
3. The Manor The manor is colder inside than out and the housekeeper has been dead eleven years, so nobody offers you tea.
4. The Desk You are not clever. You are eighteen months of not saying anything, and the office is empty, and the rain i...
5. Which Clause The library is where the paperwork lives, and the couch is where she reads it, and eventually the paperwork...
6. The Contract The clause is in the third schedule, in her father's hand, and it is not about money.
7. The Bedroom Mione takes the file to bed with her the way other people take a novel, and by midnight she has read it fou...
8. The Week She does not decide. She opens the ballroom instead, which has been shut since 1909, and lights every chand...
9. One Hour She is wearing a Ministry nightdress and takes it off like it has personally offended her.
10. The Floor One dance and then the chandeliers are the only light and the floor is cold and neither of you cares.
11. The Registry The registry room is stone and cold and the clerk has done this four times this year and is bored of it.
12. Ending — The Second Name Mione signs her own name in the second line and hands the pen back without a word.
13. Ending — The Same Name You write Malfoid's name in the second line as well as the first, which the clerk allows and the Wizengamot...
14. Ending — The Trap You put your own name down and the contract closes over it like a door.