Disclaimer: These characters belong to J.K. Rowling. No copyright infringement is meant.
Rating: PG-13/T
Spoilers/Timeline:
Written after HPB. Starts immediately after GoF.
A/N: Do read and review. This is another one of my writing exercises, just to get myself in shape for a longer story with some semblance of an original plot. I'm just exploring Nyphadora's psyche; excuse me while I frolic in her pink world a while.

Chapter 1: Meetings and Impressions

Amid introductions, she mentally profiles him. Casting aside the vague memories she has of him from her childhood, she takes in the carefully worn clothes, the patched elbows on the tweed coat, the careful, minute darning that adorns his pocket seams. Poor, but of a decent sort. Friends with Sirius. She makes a mental note to quiz her long-lost cousin on him later.

The meeting starts. Her mind fills with the convoluted chess game that the Order is playing with Voldemort, and her eyes cloud over with thoughts of the new dark rising.

She thinks nothing more of him.

-----

She drenches him the next time they meet. Her tardiness to the meeting not aided by the pouring London rain, she arrives, soaked to the skin, and just – only just – manages to not knock over the umbrella stand. She congratulates herself even as she trips over her own feet entering the kitchen. Desperately turning on her heel, she manages to fall into him, her mackintosh sloughing off litres onto those carefully worn clothes.

He ignores her whispered, flustered apologies as he helps her to her feet. "Are you alright, Miss Tonks?" he asks in a low voice, his eyes checking her over for injury. "Yes," she says, flopping into the empty, hard-backed wooden chair beside him. He gestures with his wand. "A drying charm, with your permission?" She nods assent, and notes, even as the meeting continues, that he has managed a subtle warming charm along with the drying. It is a trick she has heard about, but never bothered to learn.

As she listens to Charlie's reports from Romania, she wonders when the last time someone addressed her so gracefully. Charlie concludes his discussion on tracing contraband dragon heartstring through smuggling syndicates, and Moody steps up and starts outlining emergency evacuation plans for the wizarding community.

She wraps her Auror's mind around the flight of thousands of wizards without ministry support, and the incident slips from her mind.

-----

She was worried. The Order was taking up more of her time than she imagined, but she would not give up a single minute of it. This first week she was inducted, they had meetings every other day, but tiring as it may have been, she would not have missed a single one of them for anything. No, not even a Weird Sisters concert.

For not a single one was superfluous. Not in the least.

Prior to her recruitment by Moody, an inkling of the deeper sickness that ailed the society she had vowed upon Merlin's name to protect had already pervaded her sixth sense. Something is rotten in the state of England, she had thought to herself when the Aurors were called in to investigate the Tri-Wizard death. The vague whisperings of Voldemort's return left her cold, but all suggestions to investigate the matter further were turned down "by order of the Minister of Magic himself."

She realised now, that rot had taken hold from within as well.

"Fudge is now refusing to grant me an audience," Dumbledore had said grimly. "He is also slowly consolidating his political base by creating new posts and promoting wizards whose political views parallel his own." Working two steps ahead, she caught Shacklebolt's eye. He gave her a small nod. Our jobs just became more important and more dangerous. Guess we have to tread even more carefully now. Dumbledore's countenance in the meetings always contrasted starkly with the mental image she had of him from her time in Hogwarts.

The disparity frightens her more than she would like to admit.

-----

At the fifth meeting, she realises that an informal seating pattern has developed among the Order members during meetings. An exceptional five minutes early for the meeting, she idly sketches pseudo-psychological theories as to why Snape sits beside McGonagall, why Sirius never sits down, why Arthur always switches his chair to a hard-backed one. Why the Aurors play musical chairs with the section of the kitchen they have claimed their own. Why she always found the only available seat next to Lupin when she arrived, always invariably late.

Her speculations end when Dumbledore walks in. Her eyes widen when she realises the Department of Mysteries that Dumbledore is speaking of guarding is her Department of Mysteries, in her London, and all that is happening is happening on her watch.

As she turns her attention toward her old headmaster who is outlining plans to stand guard, she absently takes note that Lupin never turns up for this particular meeting.

-----

# mackintosh – not the computer, but a raincoat in Britain.