June 1st
For the second day in a row, Antonin didn't return home to explain himself. It was really beginning to get ridiculous how he stormed out of the house. Wasn't that supposed to be what Hermione did when life became upsetting? She longed to run as far away as she could. Only the understanding that she would forever be an enemy of the Resistance if Aberforth Dumbledore was murdered kept her firmly rooted in Hogsmeade. How could she be expected to start over with a new life if she had to worry about those arseholes as well as her husband?
She sat up for the second night trying to piece together what it was that Antonin told her in his fit of rage. He made very little sense. If she murdered his dreadful mistress, wouldn't she actually remember it? Sure, there were plenty of lives she ended over the years that were completely forgettable. It was part of her job after all to punish those who'd wronged the regime. Even sitting down to really think about her body count was impossible. But, the woman she hated above all others? The one that she resented because she knew how much her husband respected and likely even still loved? There was simply no way she could kill Andromeda Tonks and not remember she did so.
Of course, she hated to think about the gaps in her memory. They were frustrating and only seemed to be getting bigger and bigger. She couldn't even remember how much time had passed since she started experiencing them in the first place. Months? Years? What other important events was she forgetting?
The cause of her memory lapses was unknown. She had her suspicions, but that was all they were. Considering the hard life she'd lived since being pulled out of her broom cupboard, her mental issues could be any number of things. Maybe she was Crucioed too many times. After all, the Longbottoms eventually went mad after their intense bout of torture. Did the curse have the same effect if it was applied over the course of many years? If so, she wasn't surprised that a number of other Death Eaters seemed a bit barmier than they used to be. Or maybe she could blame physical damage for her problems. The first real episode she experienced was when she was still practically a newlywed. Antonin hadn't yet raised his hand to her outside of training, but there were plenty of other incidents over the years she was a Death Eater where she suffered damage to her head. She lost count the number of concussions she could boast of. There was always a possibility that the illegal potions she kept stashed away in her desk in the Ministry were to blame. Practically harmless if used sparingly, she'd been known to take too many of them when it suited her purposes to forget what she was doing. Perhaps her problems were due to a combination of all of those factors. It was possible she would never get to the bottom of the mystery.
In an attempt to forget the previous day when she made a rather dramatic exit, Hermione tried to make it another normal day at the office. There were still plenty of case files she could go over. In fact, if she calculated it all correctly, she would have enough work to keep her busy for the better part of a year if she insisted on studying every file. At least it kept her out of the interrogation rooms for a little while longer. If Draco was able to come through with even just the necessary ingredients to brew the polyjuice potion she required for her plan to work, she could be sure that she had enough to keep her mind occupied while it brewed.
No matter what she tried to do that morning, she couldn't get her mind off of anything other than the stupid dead bitch her husband was obsessed with. As much as Hermione tried to behave as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, she couldn't focus on anything but the argument she had with Antonin the day before. She hated the woman and was far from sorry that she was dead, but she wanted to know more, wanted to know what happened. Why was Antonin so convinced that she was the one responsible? She briefly considered asking Rabastan what he knew about the case. That thought was quickly squashed. He would be more apt to use her lack of knowledge against her than he would be to help solve the mystery.
When she finally couldn't stand it another moment, she made her excuses to go down to Level Ten's file room. It was a mark of how distracted her mind was that she didn't even think about how uncomfortable she usually was passing the Department of Mysteries. She descended the staircase to the courtrooms and Umbridge's dingy office. The witch smiled with the vacant expression of one still under the Imperius Curse. It was helpful that a chosen victim was usually able to function quite normally away from the influence of the one who cast the curse.
"Bring me everything about Andromeda Tonks née Black. Now."
Dolores Umbridge didn't need to be ordered about twice. She disappeared into the catacombs of filing cabinets. Several minutes later she returned with her arms full of parchments she placed on top of her desk. Hermione ordered her to leave the office for an hour and settled down behind the woman's desk to read.
The first official article of Andromeda's death was from the Daily Prophet. Even just a simple initial scan had Albert Runcorn's fingerprints all over it. He was a master at hiding the full truth all while telling a compelling story. Andromeda's body was found in a dark corner of Knockturn Alley with her throat slit and facedown in a puddle of her own blood. The official statement from the regime was that she was brutally murdered by some unknown Resistance member. They were always quick to blame crimes on them. Article after article proved this had been a major news story three years earlier. Everyone knew about Andromeda's murder, except apparently for the person who committed it. The story even made international news.
She thought back to the day when she was at Augustus' house. It was no wonder that he looked at her so strangely when she mentioned Andromeda moving into her house in her absence. Realizing that he must have known that she was confused, she felt humiliated. Every single time she revealed the worst of her shame to another person, she wanted to disappear forever. Her mind had always been the part of her she valued the most. Losing it was embarrassing. At least he didn't call her out on the delusion. He was just kind, even brewed her a cup of tea to…
Hints of strawberry. She berated herself for not realizing what Augustus was doing to her that day. Never once in their entire history had he ever slipped a potion into her tea without warning her first. She would never in a million years have suspected that he was using that as an opportunity to calm her down with the same potion her husband always used. Only Antonin betrayed her trust in such a manner. What did that mean? Were they working together?
Imagining her husband and her former lover working together on any project at all, let alone one involving her, was difficult to fathom. Neither of them had much use for the other. Their friendship long ago soured thanks to her presence. If they were somehow in partnership it would answer her question why Antonin didn't show up to Augustus' home in Cornwall until after he was summoned back to France. Coincidences did happen, but this all seemed rather convenient. She still wasn't sure how her husband was able to supposedly come to the house three times without her once even seeing him during her surveillance. Nothing was adding up. Once again she had only more questions than answers.
She pushed away the cleverly worded articles that didn't even hint at the actual truth. The real story would be found within the pages of the Ministry of Magic report filed at the scene. There was no reason to keep any secrets on the documents that only trusted members of the regime were able to access. No mention was made of the Resistance being responsible. The cause of death was determined to be as a result of a rare severing spell used to slice open her carotid artery. Magical residue around the wound proved that it wasn't something simple like a diffindo or even practically unknown like a sectumsempra. A note was added to mention that it was similar to a spell often used in interrogations by the Department of Intelligence.
Hermione couldn't deny the facts. Further notes declared that there were only a few known practitioners of the unusual curse. That came as no surprise to Hermione. After all, she was the one who invented that spell. With a little help from Antonin in perfecting it, she used it more times than she could count in the violent interrogations when an informant no longer served their purpose.
Clearly, Andromeda served her purpose. There was no reason to allow her to continue living. Hermione no longer doubted that Antonin's accusation was correct. She had ample reason and opportunity to kill his mistress. Just because she didn't remember the event didn't mean it didn't happen. She would have to retrieve her memories from that day. Why did she kill Andromeda beyond the simple fact that she loathed the ground she walked upon? There had to be some clue she was missing. Even in her line of work she didn't kill someone just for the hell of it. There was always a reason.