Hermione Jane Granger

What's your timetable for the week? I know you told me before but I didn't write it down and now I've forgotten. (And don't worry, Healer Deverill says that it's probably not related to the curse or the trauma, it's not a sign that my memory's gone off or that there's any long-term impact on my recall skills. Just that I've got a lot of things to think about and I still get tired easily, and memory's one of the things that's impacted when one's overtired.)

Anyway, I talked to Professor Slughorn and to Master Gimlet and I'm going back into the field this week. Well, tomorrow, most likely. The thing is that the process has been going all right without me--I mean, Pansy and the others are all doing fine--but I reviewed some of the field notes from the most recent sites and they're not at all precise enough. Plus the production rates are slightly lower than my notes from before the attack on Fradswell.

So I think if I get back to it, we can put everything back on track and I can collect better observations. Also Master Gimlet and I think we can detect a slight migration in the potion, based on the recovery times listed by the field teams, and I've got to figure out which process is being short-cut, or altered, or whatever it is, before it has an adverse effect.

But I wanted to let you know, and to make sure I'm around the next time you've got a free evening, or day, or anything.

I'll be glad when this business is over and I can move on to something else. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's getting tired of making the same potion over and over, but being away from it for a few days really made me start thinking about all the other projects we I have to take on.

How about you? I expect you're already tired of mixing drinks and serving wretched Death Eaters and their mates.

Have to make this short (Draco's filming with one hand and holding the broom with the other but it's still a little wobbly up here):

Bellatrix has the village surrounded with more of those partially-transformed werewolves. She had them herd everyone out of their homes and into the central square. The families are all lined up, oldest to youngest. Two of the werewolves are holding up a man between them, he's got a grey scraggly beard and honestly he looks shaggier than they are.

Hydra's with her.

Bellatrix pointed her wand at the man, and now she's speaking to everyone. Her journal's floating beside her and she's got a Dictaquill recording her speech.

Are you about done upstairs? I've finished in the kitchen and there's definitely nothing here. Well, apart from the profusion of pink.

Anyway, I'm getting hungry. And tired. It was a lovely day, but we probably shouldn't have spent so long at the shore before looking for the house.

It's worse than we thought. Subject 2A was dead this morning when I came in. The body was cold. Subjects 3A and 4A are barely hanging on, it looks like. I've put them back in stasis to try to keep them alive while we figure out what's happening.

I knew one of us should have stayed here overnight. I'm sorry. I should have been here instead of breaking plates and cups and bowls and things.

We reconstructed the letter, we think. Draco and Mr Snape and a little help from Sirius. Anything in brackets was something we decided from context, but there are places we just couldn't make out what it said.

Father,

I don't know if [you'll] ever come back, but if you do, I [will] be gone. I [made] a mistake and tried to make Tom (?) love me. But he'll never love [me] the way I love him. I [ ] him about the baby and he [laughed]. LAUGHED. I thought if I [shifted the] (Mr Snape thinks it's lifted) spell, he would remember something of the way [we fell] (? (Sirius thinks it's felt.). But it wasn't [right?]. He doesn't love me.

But you never loved me, either.

You've always wanted the [Grant] line to continue. It will, but it won't be pure. If it's a boy, I'm naming him [Tom Marvolo], to honour our ancestors, but all I'll tell him is about a [muggle] father who had [grateful], and [king], and [winsome]. And he's going to know love.

Don't try to find me. Not that you will.

Mercre (still not sure about that?)

We're still working on it but that's at least enough to figure out what the letter was about. I've never heard of anyone named Mercre, though. Maybe it was Mercure? But that doesn't make any better sense.

Draco and I went to Little Hangleton on Tuesday. We're only just reporting about it now because--well, we didn't find much.

We went to the village first, and tested our identities. No one gave us a second glance. But then again, there weren't many people there. What was that odd wizard's name, Draco? I couldn't quite catch whether he said 'Bernard' or 'Herman' and I really didn't want to ask him to say it again. He was so strange. But anyway, he told us that there weren't any important magical artefacts anywhere in the region, so he thought we'd be wasting our time, but he mentioned that there used to be a big house up on the hill, but it wasn't there anymore.

That sounded like someone had set up a Fidelius, so we went to look. We saw the graveyard from your memory, Harry, but right next to it there was a large crater. Like someone had set off a humongous explosion. Which must be why the house isn't there anymore.

And then not too far away there was this shack. It was sort of off in the woods, but not in a clearing the way you'd expect, it was all tangled up in the trees. Someone had been there and torn up the floorboards, so if there had been anything valuable there, it's gone.

It was all filthy and simply covered in grimy dust. Whoever lived there must have been really poor. It looked like no one had cooked a proper meal in years even before they all left or died or whatever. There were three beds, though, so we looked under and around them just to be sure that the robbers hadn't missed anything. On one of them there was a handkerchief embroidered with the initials T.R., and then someone had added (in much, much worse embroidery), M.R. Does anyone know who M.R. was? We think T.R. must have been Tom Riddle but why anyone would have added M.R. above Voldemort's initials is a mystery.

Oh, and we did find a letter, it's really hard to read now, all faded and the parchment's falling apart, but it was pinned inside a cupboard. It looked like no one had ever moved it because the pin was all rusty and nothing in the cupboard had been disturbed in decades.

Anyway, we've been deciphering the letter for a while, all of us here at Grimmauld. Only not tonight because they're celebrating Tonks's birthday, so it's just me and Draco working on it right now, and we realised we hadn't actually reported to everyone else yet.

Good luck! I hope everything goes well today.

Please let me know if you need help with anything or if my showing myself would be helpful. (And tell Mrs Longbottom and Sirius and and Auror Brodie that I said so, in case you're busy.)