Chapter Text
- Chapter Three -
The Correct Version of Events
The Ministry lift pinged open, revealing the second floor. Adjusting her gloves, Andromeda stepped out of the lift and made her way along the darkly tiled corridor to the Auror Department. She opened the door to a room bustling with activity. Approaching a nearby desk, she tapped on the shoulder of the Auror sat there.
‘Excuse me, I am looking for Office 9b.’
The Auror grunted and pointed to her right at a large wooden door.
‘Thank you.’
She headed towards it and once through it, entered into a long corridor with office doors all along it. Eventually, she reached 9b and knocked.
‘Afternoon, Ms Black.’ Tonks greeted jovially, opening the door. ‘Come in. Sorry for the short notice. They pushed forward interviews.’
He gestured she enter and she smiled perfectly, brushing lightly against him as she passed. The scent of mahogany and cinnamon tickled her nose.
‘No matter. Mr Ollivander is always very accommodating.’
‘Did you manage to find the office okay?’ Tonks asked, following her inside. ‘I always say they should signpost it.’
‘Your colleague was most helpful.’
‘Who was it?’
‘As he only communicated in grunts, it was difficult to ascertain his name.’
‘Sounds like Scrimgeour.’ Tonks said, laughing. ‘He’s rude to everyone so don’t take it personally.’
‘In that case, he should choose a desk further away from the door.’
Tonks grinned. ‘I’ll be sure to tell him that. Anyway, have a seat, Ms Black.’
Andromeda obliged, seating herself on the wooden chair on the nearer side of the desk. She waited patiently as Tonks moved around the desk to sit behind it. He pulled various pieces of parchment towards himself and then a thin metal-looking object, which he unscrewed to reveal a quill like nib.
‘It’s a fountain pen.’ Tonks supplied, noting her curious expression before she managed to disguise it. ‘Like a quill but it stores its own ink.’
‘I see.’ Her curiosity discovered, Andromeda leaned forwards to look at it better. ‘I must confess don’t know a Charm that replenishes ink constantly.’
She straightened hastily as he chuckled far too warmly.
‘It’s made by Muggles.’ Tonks unscrewed the bottom half of the fountain pen to reveal a small vial of ink inside. ‘No charms involved. Just an ink cartridge.’
‘I imagine that must be quite practical.’
‘You’ve no idea.’ He replaced the bottom half and turned to a plain piece of parchment. ‘Why wizards insist on using quills is beyond me.’
She watched him write her name across the top of the parchment and tried to refrain from noticing his fine handwriting. The summons for her interview had been in print, which had suited her image of Tonks far better. To see him write in a script so fluid implied him to be more accomplished than she wanted him to be.
‘So, Ms Black, I’ve got the statement you gave at the time, but I’d like you to give me a run down of what you remember of Julian Adams’ death first. Then I’ll ask you some questions.’
He smiled gently, expectantly.
‘We were playing Ravenclaw for the final match of the Quidditch season. I was a Chaser and the Slytherin captain. We were winning, but only just. I had just thrown the Quaffle to another Chaser – Priscilla Clearwater, I believe – when I heard screams from the crowd.’
Bellatrix was screaming at her. The rain was so thick it felt like it was hitting her. Her shoulder ached from the weight pushing her downwards. She slipped.
‘I did not even know his name until afterwards.’ she said quietly, readjusting her gloves so that the embroidery was perfectly straight. ‘I turned to see him falling. They said a rogue Bludger had hit his skull. They said the impact would have killed him, that he was dead as he fell.’
‘Several statements I read through recall your playing as being clumsy that day.’ Tonks said, rifling through his pieces of parchment. ‘Would you agree?’
‘I was nervous.’ Andromeda replied, looking at Tonks.
‘The captain of the Slytherin team was nervous?’
‘I was nervous.’ she repeated. ‘Captains are capable of a range of emotions like any other Quidditch player.’
Tonks’ lips twitched as he made note. ‘Can you remember why you might’ve been nervous?’
‘It was my first year captaining the Slytherin team and we were in the final.’ Andromeda said, smiling politely. ‘Two of my team were also reserve players. Our chances of winning were significantly reduced.’
‘There were a number of reserves playing that match. A bit unusual for a final. Can you remember why you’d had to sub in your reserves?’
Andromeda tilted her head, warming her polite smile a little. ‘There had been a party the night before. Blatherwick and Harper – er, that is William Blatherwick and Clementine Harper – were unfit to play the next day. I believe some of the Ravenclaw team were in attendance. Perhaps they faired the same fate.’
‘The night before the final? At a Slytherin party?’
‘It was Litha.’ she said, watching Tonks take note. ‘One can hardly ask the sun to wait for the Quidditch final before commencing the summer solstice.’
‘But why were members of the Ravenclaw team there?’
‘It was not a party exclusively for Slytherins.’ Now Andromeda looked away from Tonks. ‘It was for students of a certain heritage.’
‘Purebloods?’
‘Certain purebloods.’ Andromeda amended, keeping her gaze on her gloved hands. ‘From… politically aligning families.’
He nodded curtly, making note. ‘Can you remember who from the Ravenclaw team was at the party?’
She paused for a moment. ‘I think it was both of the Ravenclaw Beaters – Daniel Aubrey and Christopher Parkinson – and their Seeker, Elodie – no, forgive me, Eloise Travers. Oh, yes, and their reserve Beater Elias Rowle. He actually played in the match with Parkinson, if I recall.’
‘What can you tell me about Elias Rowle?’
He was laughing, his arm slung around a fourth year’s shoulder, his hand lazily groping at the girl’s breasts.
‘Really I should be thanking you for this, Andromeda. You gave me a taste for scared little virgins.’
‘He is a distant relation on my Mother’s side.’ Andromeda said, keeping her expression politely neutral. ‘He ran off with the Rowle family jewels, it was quite the scandal – only a few days after… after the match.’
‘Do you remember any particulars about when he disappeared?’
Andromeda allowed herself an amused smile. ‘He was known to be quite – to be quite the womaniser amongst my peers. A popular theory was that had he run away to escape the angry fathers of the girls he had jilted. As well as the girls themselves, of course.’
‘Yes, your sister’s statement mentions you argued with him at the party.’ Tonks said casually but he was watching her closely. ‘What did you argue about?’
A genuine frown nearly escaped Andromeda.
The broom cupboard was dark. She was surprisingly aware of her body.
‘You gave me a taste for scared little virgins.’
‘An argument might be a generous description.’ She coaxed her amused expression back across her face. ‘He’d had a run in with another Ravenclaw before the party – with a Muggle-born student in his dormitory. He spent the whole evening talking about it. It was quite a dampener to the party mood.’
‘So, what happened?’
‘Well, I say run-in quite literally. From what I gathered, the boy had accidentally brushed against him.’ She sighed. ‘He had managed to trap a poor girl into listening to him, she looked so bored of it, and I was losing my patience by then. I told him to move on from this menial offence and he did not take kindly to it.’
Tonks finished writing his sentence and contemplated what he had written before saying, ‘Your sister called it a ‘lovers tiff,’ I believe. She said you were angry he was speaking to another girl.’
A laugh bubbled out of her. ‘If by lovers, you mean I once performed fellatio on him to get my sister out of detention, then yes, it was a lovers tiff.’
The evident shock in Tonks’ expression nearly made her laugh again. His cheeks even tinged a little pink. Her comment had thrown him as much as she had expected.
‘Was that too crass for you, Superintendent?’ she asked, leaning back in her chair to smile at him. ‘My apologies.’
He raised his eyes to look at her defiantly. The air crackled between their gazes. The nervous swallow he did before speaking, slightly undermined the effect. She tried not to show her amusement. ‘So, were you angry at him for speaking with another girl?’
‘No, I can’t say that I was.’
Tonks made note. ‘And then finally, Ms Black, what can you tell me about Letitia Fawley?’
Andromeda could not stop herself bristling at Tonks’ question.
‘She was my dearest friend in the world and she took her own life to save herself from having to marry Rabastan Lestrange.’ Andromeda said, her voice cold. ‘I’ll thank you not to taint her memory by pulling her into this investigation.’
‘My apologies, Ms Black. I have to cover all bases.’ She had to concede, Tonks did look apologetic. ‘Two deaths and one disappearance so close together, questions get raised. There’s only a record of her death, no cause of death included.’
‘It was a derivative of the Draught of Living Death.’ Emotion threatened to escape her. ‘They say it is simply as if one falls asleep. They say it is painless.’
‘I’m – I’m sorry for your loss.’
‘Lettie was born clever and destined to be free.’ Andromeda fought to keep her voice steady. She looked defiantly at Tonks. ‘She freed herself before she was caged for the rest of her life.’
There was a pause.
‘Thank you, Ms Black. I think that concludes this interview.’ Tonks rose from his seat. ‘If you head through to my desk in the main Auror office, I’ll be with you in about ten minutes with your statement. It’s on the third row from the entrance, right next to the wall.’
Andromeda stood silently and left.
Tonks’ desk was a cacophony of odd bits of parchment and newspaper cuttings, all gathered in a crescent shape around the space cleared in the middle, which had a singular fountain pen lying in it. A half-eaten bowl of cereal sat precariously one of the taller stacks of parchment and Andromeda eyed it wearily from the swivel chair while she waited for Tonks to be finished writing up her statement.
‘Sorry that took so long.’ Tonks apologised, reaching the desk. ‘Here, have a read through.’
She silently accepted the parchment he held out and read carefully. He had remembered her words well but had removed any sentiment, only regurgitating the facts. She noticed he had also removed some of the comments around her ‘lovers tiff’ with Elias Rowle.
‘This looks in order.’
‘Great.’ He gestured to the fountain pen on the desk. ‘If you just sign your name underneath.’
Andromeda unscrewed the fountain pen as she had seen Tonks do in office 9b to reveal the nib and wrote her signature with a flourish. The Muggle way of writing was surprisingly comfortable.
‘I can get you some if you like.’ Tonks said with a grin as he took the signed parchment from her.
She shook her head. ‘I have enough quills, but thank you.’
‘Fine, continue with your life of inconvenience.’ he said, chuckling and accepting the fountain pen back. ‘Cheers.’
‘Oh and, Superintendent,’ she began, as she stood up from his desk chair. ‘I also wanted to apologise for being so emotional towards some of your questions. I fear I betrayed more feeling than I normally care to show.’
Tonks regarded her with an expression no one had ever fixed her with before. The softness of his smile, the slight crease of his brows, they contradicted one another. She did not know what to make of it.
‘Well, if that’s everything, Superintendent…’
He blinked and his expression was back to a more readable, professional smile. ‘Yes, that’s everything. Thank you, Ms Black. We’ll be in touch if there’s any follow-up questions.’