Tonks jumped up from her seat, running around the side of her desk. "Really? Oh, yes, I would be delighted!" she shouted.
"Wonderful," said Kingsley, also smiling broadly. "Mad-Eye is having a meeting about the details in an hour." He lowered his voice, "Be sure to bring something to eat."
Tonks laughed as Kingsley walked away. She was going to be on Harry Potter's security detail! She had almost been positive she would be. She had put her name down long before anyone else, she was in the Order, and she was Kingsley and Mad-Eye's protege. Still, it was so great to be sure. She closed her eyes, and transformed her hair from the long, white-blond curls she had been sporting to very short, very violet hair. She looked in the small hand mirror she kept in the second drawer, amidst empty packages of Drooble's, binder clips, paper clips and multi-colored hanging file folders she could never be bothered to use. It really was a very violent shade of violet. Well, she'd wait and see how she liked it.
Harry Potter's security detail! Tonks didn't feel equal to sitting down and continuing work. She felt like running the length of the building several times. That wasn't very dignified, however. She decided she'd send an owl to her parents instead, telling them what had happened.
On her way back up, she stopped in at the Ministry dining hall, buying a small tureen of soup and brought it back to the Auror offices. Lunch was supposed to be in two hours, presumably they would go after Mad-Eye's presentation, but Tonks knew Kingsley's advice was worth following. Moody was very dedicated to security.
Barely able to contain herself enough to do the paperwork that needed doing on several closed cases, Tonks was more than relieved when she was called into the meeting room.
There were quite a lot of people in there. She wasn't surprised. Mad-Eye always had a reserve on the off-chance all of the first line would be wiped out. She had rolled her eyes at this on the first few missions she went on with Mad-Eye, but when he told her it had actually happened to him when guarding the Minister back when You-Know-Who was powerful, she understood a little better and at least tried to not let Moody see her roll her eyes, which was difficult in regards to that freaky eye of his.
"Settle down," said Moody and everyone fell quiet, turning to face the front.
Moody began to go over the plan. It was quite basic. Go to the Muggles' house (why the most important boy in England had to live with Muggles was anyone's guess. Tonks didn't care that they were Muggles, but the things she had heard about these ones made her wonder at Dumbledore's sanity. Of course, almost everything Dumbledore did made her wonder at his sanity.), bring him to the Weasleys' on brooms. Easy-peasy.
"We need to get them out of the house. They cannot know we are coming to get the Potter boy, and they especially cannot know we are taking him by magical means. Any suggestions?"
Doris suggested Confunding them while each one was out of the house, so they didn't return until they were gone. This was greeted with noncommital murmurs. It wasn't a bad plan, but without someone there to watch them, it would be difficult to be sure the spell stuck.
A very shabby-looking wizard, with graying blond hair spoke up from the back of the room. Tonks, who was sitting in the front, turned around.
"The Dursleys are very proud. If you know anything of the non-magical population, think of that. They are the most non-magical people you could think of."
Tonks thought. Her father was Muggle-born. She had been to visit his family of course. They cared about the oddest things. They had all kinds of strange appliances, things like coffee makers that plugged into the wall, and weird boxes called televisions. It was very strange. She had even watched one of the televisions with her grandfather. They had moving pictures like the papers, it was quite funny to see them talking. Tonks had laughed almost the whole time.
"How about they win some sort of competition?" she asked. "Perhaps that man could tell us what sort of competition they would be most likely to go to?" She turned around and raised her eyebrows at him, smiling.
He smiled back, though it was a tired kind of smile. She liked him. He was quiet and soft-spoken. Not like anyone else in this room. He had a sort of thoughtfulness about him.
"Perhaps...something to do with lawns."
"The All-England Best Suburban-Lawn Competition," said Tonks, grinning, turning back around to face Mad-Eye.
He looked at her with both eyes and smiled, twisting his face around in ten different directions. It was a startling face, but Tonks had come to love it as much as her father's.
"Well, Tonks, why don't you go write that letter? Be sure to send it by Muggle post."
She grinned. "Yes, sir." She jumped out of her seat and left the meeting room. She walked to her desk and sat down to write a letter. She was going to have to have it typed. She pulled her wand out of an inside pocket in her robes and conjured a typewriter and paper. She inserted the paper as her father had shown her to, many years ago, when she had stumbled into his office to show him a toad she had caught, something her mother had been less than thrilled to see.
She began typing the letter, trying to keep it as toneless and pompous as she could. She was pleased with the end result. She thought about bringing her cloak but decided against it - it had been unbearably hot this summer. Then she realized she needed Muggle clothes.
She went to the locker rooms and opened her locker. She had a Weird Sisters T-shirt and jeans that she kept for occasions just like these. She changed and walked back to her desk, folding the letter and almost sealing it by magic before remembering Muggles used envelopes. She wondered if she would need the typewriter to type the address, but couldn't think how to get the envelope in where the paper would go without smudging any ink, so decided to at least handwrite the address.
Tonks stopped at the front desk on the way out and spoke to Eric the security wizard.
"Eric, I'll need some Muggle money," she said.
"'Ow much?" he asked, looking bored, and tapping a register with his hand. It slid open, revealing foreign currencies, both wizard and Muggle.
"Dunno, I'm sending a letter by Muggle post. I don't suppose you know how much a stamp and envelope cost?"
Eric gave her a look that showed quite clearly how disdainful he was of working knowledge in the Muggle world. She didn't roll her eyes at him with great difficulty.
"Fine, just give me five pounds then." She handed over a Galleon. Eric handed her a fiver and her change in wizard money. She stuck the fiver and the letter in her back pocket and walked over to the fire places. She grabbed a bit of Floo powder sitting in small, ornately wrought brass pots situated next to each fireplace.
That shabby-robed wizard had been pretty good-looking, she thought, as she stepped out of the fireplace into her London flat. She made herself a properly large lunch, and tried not to think of his pleasantly quiet voice as she ate. It wouldn't do to have a crush on someone she was about to work with, although it would have been nice to know how he knew that Potter kid. Or even to know his name.
She was being silly. By the look of his graying hair and the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth he was quite a it older than she. Tonks finished her lunch, washed up, then went outside. She thought she knew where the post office was. She had to stand in line for almost an hour, it was most inconvenient.
It was almost time for everyone to go home by the time she got back to the office. She still had all those files to work on as well. Knowing it was going to be a long night, she went to the break room and made herself cup of tea. Kingsley and Mad-Eye were in there, along with the wizard that had taken up most of her thoughts that afternoon.
"Wotcher," she said brightly, pouring boiling water into a mug over a tea bag, and nodding at the gentlemen at table.
"Tonks, come over here a minute."
Tonks hurriedly added milk and sat down across from the wizard.
"Tonks, do you know Remus?" asked Kingsley.
"No, I don't believe we've met," she said, smiling at the man.
He smiled back, the same kind of tired smile. Tonks wondered what could make one person so tired.
"I'm Tonks," she supplied.
"Remus Lupin, it's a pleasure to meet you. I've been hearing nothing but your praises since I arrived at the office."
She grinned, blushing a little. "Well, I was trained by the best," she supplied, sipping her tea and burning herself quite badly, causing her face to flush an even deeper pink.
Skipping over her embarrassment, or perhaps unaware of it, Moody broke in. "Remus was a teacher at Hogwarts. Took the Defense classes the year before me," he said. "He knows the Potter boy well."
"I was wondering why you knew the Dursleys so well," said Tonks. "I was starting to think you used to go round for dinner or something."
Lupin's smile suddenly became a lot less tired. "I don't think they would invite my kind within a mile radius of their house."
"No, it doesn't sound as though they're too keen on wizards. Did they really lock up Harry Potter in a closet under the stairs? I'd think the entire wizarding community would have had a revolution if they'd known," she said.
"Yes, their treatment of Harry has been quite dastardly," said Lupin. " don't believe he has known much kindness before going to Hogwarts."
They all sat in silence and contemplated this.
"I don't know this is appropriate conversation for the Ministry these days," said Kingsley and he stood up. "I have a lot of work to get done tomorrow morning. Evening," he said, bowing and he left.
"Hang the Ministry," said Moody, but he stood up as well. "I'll see you all on Tuesday then," he said and left.
"I should be going as well," said Lupin, but he didn't stand immediately.
"Oh, no stay, please, if everyone leaves I might have to start filing."
Lupin laughed. "I suppose I could stay a moment."
Tonks asked him if he wanted a cup of tea and got up to make him one before he answered, sending her own mug of tea flying through the air as if by magic.
Lupin flicked his wand and the hot liquid splashed back into the cup before hitting the table, the mug settling gently back on the table.
Tonks laughed. "That was marvelous! You must show me how to do that, it would be the saving of me. I'm dead clumsy." She pointed her own wand at the kettle and it began steaming and whistling at once. She made Lupin a cup and sat back down across from him.
They started discussing the plan, and quickly moved on to Defense against the Dark Arts in general. It was fascinating. She knew quite a lot already, from her own training as an Auror and being mentored by Alistor and Kingsley, but Lupin seemed to know much more about Dark creatures than she did.
"Oh my," said Lupin, a faint chiming emitting from his robes. He pulled out a very battered fob watch and flicked it open. The clasp on it seemed to be broken, so it didn't snap closed."It's really quite late, I hadn't realized."
"What's the time?" she asked.
"Nearly half one. I must be going. It was lovely to meet you, Nymphadora."
She started. No one called her that. She certainly hadn't told him that was her name. Mad-Eye or Kingsley must have told him. "It's Tonks, actually," she said, blushing. For some reason she could not fathom, she had actually kind of liked the way her name sounded when he said it.
"My apologies. I shall see you on Tuesday."
She nodded at him and he bowed slightly then swept from the room. He had looked much less tired as he took his leave than he had when she had seen him at the meeting.
