Tonks stared at herself in the mirror. "Kingsley, are you sure I look 13?"

Kingsley looked over his shoulder, grinning. "I suppose. You know, you look kind of cute."

Tonks poked out her tongue. Sighing, she turned back to the mirror. Shoulder length brown hair, a sampling of freckles over her nose, hazel eyes…she certainly looked normal. Bloody ministry assignments.

"Remind me again why I'm doing this?" she muttered.

Kingsley stood, rolling his eyes. "Because Sirius Black is on the loose, and is going after Harry Potter. We need someone at Hogwarts, Tonks, in case he gets past the dementors again!" He sighed. "And you're obviously going to manage this better than someone who has to take pollyjuice every hour."

Tonks bit her lip. "You're right. As usual."

Of course when Sirius Black had broken out of Azkaban, Fudge had instantly said he was going after potter. And that someone within Hogwarts would be necessary. And she was always the logical choice for this sort of thing, even though this was her first year out of training. Her metamorphing skills were handy for jobs like this. It was a good thing she'd been trained personally for the last year by Mad-eye. At least she was prepared.

Tonks looked at her 13 year old reflection again. Of course, she'd had to change more than her hair to make her look 13… she glanced at her much flatter chest, scowling. She definitely wasn't happy about that. Kingsley stood behind her, a reassuring hand on her shoulder. He grinned seeing that she now only reached his chest. She scowled even more. She hated being short. Again.

And of course she wouldn't be in Hufflepuff this time. No, she'd have to be a Gryffindor- all brawn and no brains, from her experience. Kingsley had complained when she'd said this though- he was a Gryffindor. So maybe some of them had brains. But not many.

She shook her head. She thought about the small things too much. Like how she could make friends with Harry in the first place. Kingsley, acting in as her "godfather" was only worried about the fact that she swore too much, and was having trouble getting her stop. They had been arguing all morning- could she take her weird sisters t-shirts, could she still wear her Hogwarts graduation band, would she have to dumb down for class, would she have to treat the teachers like she didn't know them. They had spent the past week fine tuning her story, and telling people who needed to know. Mainly Arthur Weasley, as he would be taking Harry to the train station, and so would hopefully introduce them. Kingsley didn't seem to realize you actually had to have things in common to be friends. She wasn't sure how much she would like Harry, to be honest. He sounded like a bit of an air head.

Kinglsey cleared his throat, bringing her out of her thoughts. "It's after 10. We should go now if you're going to meet the Weasleys…"

"Right." She pulled her trunk to the front door; sure it hadn't been this heavy when she went to school. Sighing, Kingsley took it from her, and carried it to the car. They couldn't apparate into Kings cross, as there were so many muggles around. Needless to say, Tonks was extremely glad Kingsley could drive her car. A 13 year old driving would raise quite a few questions…

She watched out the window as Kingsley pulled smoothly out onto the road. It was a half hour drive from her small flat to the station- plenty of time for quizzing.

"So… let's go over your story once more. Who are you?"

Tonks twirled a strand of brown hair around her finger. "I'm Ellie Gray. I'm 13, and I was homeschooled for the last two years."

"And why are you starting school now?"

"My parents were killed in a car crash in May. And you don't love me enough to teach me." She made a face.

"Remind me why my parents have to be dead again? Cant they just have better paying jobs?"

"It's called pulling for the sympathy vote. In case they can't stand you. Which, lets face it, is quite possible." He grinned.

"That's a low blow."

"Yeah, well, you have to level with the kid some how. Fudge's words, not mine!" He said as Tonks opened her mouth to protest.

"Well that's going to make for a fun introduction, isn't it? Hi Harry, I'm Ellie, and my parents are dead too! So we have to be best friends!" she rolled her eyes. "Fudge is crap at making up decent cover stories. And you expect me to be able to keep it up for the whole year?"

"You have to. Besides, you want to show Fudge you know what you're doing. If you weren't a metamorphmagus, he would be giving this assignment to a higher level auror."

"Lucky me."

"Indeed." They drove in silence for a few blocks. Then Tonks groaned.

"Merlin, I'm fucked."

"Tonks, please, for the love of Merlin, don't swear like a pirate in front of the kids. They're still innocent."

"You reckon?"

"I know."

"Ahh. Never such innocence, never before or since, as changed itself to past-"

"And don't quote muggle poetry to them. A), it's wasted on them, and B)… it's just creepy."

Tonks laughed. "Thanks."

"And you're not fucked. You'll be fine once you get in. just be yourself. Except not."

Tonks rolled her eyes. "helpful." She said dryly.

They pulled up outside the station, and got out of the car.

"Right. On with the show!" Tonks said, grinning. Together with Kinglsey, she wheeled her trolley to the barrier between platform nine and ten. Casually, looking bored, she leaned against the barrier, and fell through.

The scarlet steam train stood majestically before her, and she couldn't help but smile wider. She was excited to be going back. It felt natural as she pushed her trolley through the crowd, looking for the small crowd of red heads. Only it wasn't Charlie she was looking for this time. It felt strange to be looking for his youngest brother, that was for sure.

"Arthur!"

Kinglsey grabbed her arm, turning her round, where she saw a tall, balding man waving them over. He winked at her.

Alright. Lets do this. Look depressed… your parents are supposed to be dead… act shy…

"Kingsley! Its great to see you! Ah, so this must be Ellie?"

Tonks smiled shyly, looking at the large group of people clustered around him.

"Well, you're 13, aren't you? You'll be in Ron's year-" he pointed to a tall, gangly redhead boy who grinned, waving.

"- with his friends Hermione and Harry." A girl with bushy, brown hair smiled, as did a boy with dark, untidy hair and glasses, whom she recognized immediately as harry Potter.

"Percy, Fred, George, and Ginny are at Hogwarts as well." Arthur said, pointing them out.

"Wotcher." Tonks said, grinning.

"Do you want to find a compartment with us?" Hermione asked kindly.

"Yeah, that'd be great." Tonks said sincerely.

"Cool." Ron said, grabbing his trolley and falling into step beside her as the four of them walked down to the nearest door on the train.

She turned and waved at Kingsley. "Bye!"

"Good luck!" he called. She was going to need it.

"How come you didn't come to Hogwarts before?" Harry asked.

"I was homeschooled by my parents."

"So is Kinglsey your Dad then?" Ron asked. Tonks raised an eyebrow at him. Did they even look anything alike?

"No. he's my godfather."

"oh. That makes sense. So are your parents at work or something?"

Tonks looked down at her scuffed chucks, shaking her head. "They're… dead."

"Oh." There was an awkward silence

"Sorry." Hermione said quietly.

"It's ok. You didn't know." She gave a small smile and glanced at the train. "Should we get on here?"

"Sure." Harry went on first, then turned to help Tonks get hers up. "Sorry about that. Subtlety's not Ron's strong point."

She grinned. "I can tell."

He grinned back. Maybe he wasn't such an air head after all.

A/N: so this is my new chaptered fic, hopefully itll turn out to get more than two chapters, because I have this one planned out! Although I said that about the last one too…

Anyway, please review! And we'll be seeing Remus in the next chapter, I promise! This is more of an introduction chapter, Tonks meeting the kiddies ect. Hopefully the next chapter will be up in a few days!