AN: Sorry for any ooc-ness. I like Tonks a lot and sometimes find fanfiction tends to put her in a weird light. Here's my take.

Tonks counted her heartbeats. She was crouched behind a great oak in a patch of prickly bushes, her thighs burning, the rubber soles of her Doc Martens sinking into the muddy ground beneath her. She took stock of the situation like she would with any of the training exercises she'd been passing with flying colours all year: Two men with wands in hand ten feet ahead at two o'clock with their backs turned. On the ground at their feet was a middle-aged witch, huddled in an undignified heap and sobbing.

"I don't know anything, I swear! Please!"

There was a murmured spell, a painful scream and more sobs. Tonks reached fifty heartbeats since she had crept into her hiding place. If Kingsley could see her now, he'd replace her Barely Acceptable in Stealth and Tracking with an Outstanding, she was sure of it. She fingered her readied wand and took a breath. Now was the time to act.

Leaping from her hiding place, Tonks took aim with a stunning spell. Too slow. She had just enough time to dive behind a tree to avoid the returned stun. Crap. Without thinking, she readied another hex and leaned out just long enough to send it before hiding again.

"Get her out of here," barked one of the men. "I'll take care of this."

She'd missed again. Cursing, she weighed her options. There was no way she was letting them escape with that poor woman. She leaned out again.

"Expelliarmus!"

That one hit its mark, and the wand of the man that had grabbed their prisoner flew into the bushes to Tonks' left.

"Crucio!"

Tonks blocked it. Barely. She ducked behind the tree again, swallowing. She'd been crucioed before, of course, training as Mad-Eye Moody's esteemed apprentice had some… consequences, but it had only been once and only for a second. That had been enough to convince her to avoid the experience at any cost. Her resolve steeled.

This time when she leaned out, she sent a stun at the unarmed wizard and hit him square in the chest. She'd already hid again before she saw him fall, but she heard the thump. Maybe it wasn't honorable to attack an unarmed man, but now wasn't the time to be worrying about dueling chivalry.

"Crucio! Crucio!" The other man's curses bounced harmlessly off the tree that served as her cover; he was getting desperate.

These were not Death Eaters, Tonks deduced. One trainee Auror wouldn't stand much of a chance against two hardened Death Eater veterans. These were common criminals, probably after the woman's purse. Criminals were getting bolder and she was more anxious than ever to finally don her red robes.

She aimed another stun, but her opponent wasn't where she was expecting. He'd moved to his fallen companion and was heaving him up. He intended to disapparate them both, she realized, lifting her wand again.

And again, too slow. The wizard's spell hit an overhanging branch of the tree above her and she had to dive roll out of the way to avoid it landing on her head. The branch landed with a crack, and the criminals disapparated with a second one. Tonks cursed.

There was no time to regret letting them escape, at least they hadn't taken the sobbing woman with them. Tonks rushed to her side, trying to remember her first-aid spells.

"Are you alright?" she asked, but the woman was in shock. Tonks thought she heard a 'Thank you' mixed in with the blubbering, but she couldn't be sure. Otherwise there was nothing Tonks could see that was physically wrong.

"I'm going to take you to the hospital, alright?" Tonks pressed. She'd left her father behind back at the campsite they'd set up for their annual father/daughter weekend, but he'd understand. He'd heard the screaming same as she had, and it was only when she'd put on her newly practiced Auror Voice that he'd conceded to staying behind and letting her deal with it.

The woman nodded dumbly, allowing herself to be helped to her feet.

"Alright, I'm going to side-along apparate you. Are you ready?"

Tonks took the sniffling nod as confirmation and turned in place.

Tonks was glad to pass the woman off on the hospital staff but stuck around to hear word. She sent word to her father that she was okay, and another message to the Auror's office to inform them what had happened.

After this had been done and she was able to sit and breathe, she acknowledged to herself that she had just survived her first real firefight, alone.

The other people sitting in the waiting room were staring, she realized. Probably the combination of purple spiked hair, heavy laced up boots and being covered in dirt, leaves and burrs. She grinned at a little boy that was watching her wide eyed, and she transformed her nose into an imitation of a beak and back again. The boy's mother hushed his awed proclamations.

She got an owl from her father first, predictably. The Auror's office was overrun, but she knew they would probably send someone shortly. At least she hoped they would send someone along, since she wasn't entirely clear on what she should be doing from here.

Her father's message informed her he had packed up their campsite to go home and let his wife know what had happened. Tonks sighed, disappointed. She'd been looking forward to their camping weekend for weeks.

An orderly eventually came out to inform Tonks that the woman had been crucioed, but would recover in full health.

For nearly an hour after that she waited and went over every second of the fight, picking out all her mistakes and filing them away in her memory. She'd lost track of where her opponent had been standing like a rookie. She wouldn't let that happen again.

She heard her mentor enter the room before she saw him with the characteristic thunk of his wooden leg. She jumped out of her chair at the sound. It had been nearly a year since she'd laid eyes on him, not since before he'd gone off to teach constant vigilance to the new generation and left her under Kingsley's careful watch.

"Wotcher Mad-Eye," she grinned like she'd seen him just yesterday. She didn't comment on how godawful he looked, even for him. Being locked in a trunk for nine months apparently took its toll on a person, she supposed.

Moody settled both his eyes on her, magical and otherwise. "Tonks," he said. "Got your message. Give me a rundown of the situation."

Straight to business, just like usual. She was glad to see his year of hell hadn't changed her favourite teacher too much. She launched into her assessment of the event, from when she'd first heard the woman's screams, including full descriptions of the two wizards and an explanation of everything she could have done better. Just like she'd done with her training exercises. Moody listened with the same impartial and grumpy expression she knew and loved while he lead her down the stark hospital hallway.

She'd thought she would feel different after experiencing the real thing. Maybe shocked, or over excited. Even scared. Mostly she felt calm. She felt there was work to be done.

Her mentor was watching the path ahead of them with his normal eye, but though she couldn't see it from the side she was on, she knew his magical one was trained on her. He grunted when she finished her story.

"The woman's name is Hellaworth. She's a well known collector of powerful magical artifacts," he said.

"Attempted robbery then?"

"Maybe."

He stopped in front of a room at the end of the well-sterilized and mostly empty hallway. Tonks took silent stock of her surroundings out of habit and noticed a very brief but approving smile cross Mad-Eye's gnarled face when he saw her do so.

"Is this her room?"

"No," said Mad-Eye. "A friend of mine is here. Thought I'd pay him a visit while we wait. Damn healers always insist the shock wear off before the witness is questioned."

Tonks snorted. "Damn healers," she echoed.

Without thinking she followed Mad-Eye into the room. "You'll have to tell me how you convinced them to let you back to work so soon sometime," she said.

"Why shouldn't they?" he asked, before he turned to the room's occupant. "Lupin."

The man was buttoning his cuffs. From his haggard look, Tonks could tell he was changing back from a hospital gown.

"Moody. I wasn't expecting you." The wizards shook hands, but Lupin's eyes turned to Tonks. Only then did it occur to her that perhaps walking into a stranger's hospital room might be… awkward.

"I was in the area, thought I would check in," Mad-Eye, in typical form, did not register his student's discomfort, or at least didn't acknowledge it.

Tonks advantage of being temporarily forgotten while they exchanged pleasantries to take inventory of the stranger: Mid-thirties, maybe older. Thin, probably from being sick. Clothes, old, mended multiple times, but clean and presentable. Posture, straight. Wand in his pocket before he had even finished with his cufflinks. She'd peg him as a duelist if it weren't for the slight shakiness of his legs and hands.

"That's Nymphadora Tonks," Mad-Eye motioned with a jerk of his chin. "Tonks, Remus Lupin."

Tonks broke her investigation to grin and offer her hand enthusiastically. "Wotcher, Remus," she said. Remus Lupin was a familiar sounded name. She started through her internal archive to find it.

"A pleasure, Nymphadora." He shook her hand with a surprisingly firm handshake for a man that had just climbed out of a hospital bed.

"Just Tonks." The correction was automatic. "What are you in for?"

His uncomfortable glance toward Moody made her realize the tactlessness of her question.

"Nothing of importance. A chronic illness."

"Lupin's an old friend," said Moody, interrupting. "Tonks is my apprentice. She'll be an Auror before the summer's done. She got herself in a scuffle this afternoon."

Inwardly Tonks beamed at the rarely given praise, but noted Lupin was looking at her with the mild surprise she'd grown used to. People didn't expect a hooligan to be an Auror candidate.

The cogs in her head finally clicked and she remembered where she'd heard Lupin's name. Suddenly the hospital bed and the reluctance to name the illness made sense.

She was saved from saying anything inappropriate by a knock on the door and an orderly sticking her head into the room. "Mrs. Hellaworth is ready to see you now," she said. "If you still wish to speak with her."

"We should attend to this," said Mad-Eye. "Lupin."

"So long, Mad-Eye," Remus Lupin answered. "Nice to meet you Nymphadora."

"Just Tonks," she reiterated. Some people took longer than others to get the hang of it.

The orderly began to fuss over "Mr. Lupin" as Mad-Eye ushered her out of the room. To her pride and pleasure, he led her along toward the victim's room rather than sending her away with a "we'll take it from here."

"I didn't know you had friends, Mad-Eye," Tonks teased.

He gave her a stern look, but the effect was rather lost while his magical eye, the threatening one, was looking behind him back toward Lupin's room. "Sometimes it helps to have friends, Tonks."

She considered this for a brief moment. Probably another of what he thought were subtle lessons in vigilance.

"Are all of your friends werewolves?"

"Just Lupin," he answered, unfazed. It had been expected she would realize.

The only werewolf Tonks knew much of anything about was the vicious Fenrir Greyback, who had been the subject of one of the grizzliest lectures of her training. She hadn't expected a werewolf to be calm, reserved and polite, as Lupin had been in their brief and unremarkable encounter. Theoretically, of course, she knew a werewolf was just a person twenty-eight days of the month, but the images of children torn to bits were hard to shake. Greyback had been a monster and a pedophile before he'd been a wolf, though. Lupin was a professor. Nonetheless, it was a strange friend for Moody to have and she made a mental note to research the matter further.

"You've got that look on your face again, Tonks," Mad-Eye said.

"Which look is that?" she asked. "I've got a lot of them. More than most people."

"The one you always get right before you butt into somebody else's business," he replied.

"Are you saying I've made my nose too large?"

"Lupin's got a file in the Auror office. You can find it if you look," he said. "I can vouch for him though."

"I trust you," she said. "But I'm going to look anyway."

"Good. I'll make an Auror out of you yet."

The interview with the still visibly shaken Mrs. Hellaworth yielded nothing useful. She'd never seen the men before they'd abducted her out of her home and the only thing they'd asked about was a cursed chalice that she had never heard of before. Mad-Eye assigned another Auror to follow up on the case and ordered Tonks back to her training.

Lupin's file in the Auror's office was fascinating, but ultimately unfulfilling. She was particularly interested in his connection to her infamous cousin, the fugitive Sirius Black. It contained nothing that explained his friendship with Moody, however, except both files, Moody's and Lupin's, contained a vague reference to the Order of the Phoenix. This required additional research.

When she asked for the files related to the Order of the Phoenix in the archives, she was given a single thin file. "You're lucky," the clerk told her. "This file was just released to be available to trainees yesterday."

Tonks laughed and agreed about her good luck, but she knew it was no coincidence. Mad-Eye was apparently leading her on a trail. The message was clear though; he wanted her to be aware of the Order's existence. Introducing her to Remus Lupin had probably been intentional as well. The file itself wasn't very useful beyond informing her that the Order of the Phoenix had been a resistance group operating during the First War. She recognized man of the names of suspected members, including that of her cousin and the ill-fated Potters, but most were deceased. She asked for the files on those members, but the clerk told her they were classified with a shrug.

In light of recent events, it wasn't much of a leap to assume the Order was being re-established. She was still on the fence about the whole thing. She really did want to believe Harry Potter and Dumbledore, but she hadn't made up her mind fully. The thought of joining the Order, though, lit a fire in her belly that even her Auror training had never ignited before beyond a warm glow. If Potter was right, and He was back, being an Auror wasn't going to help people the way being a member of the Order could.

The problem lay with where to go from there. Clearly her mentor couldn't openly talk to her about it. Constant vigilance didn't allow for that kind of carelessness.

Tonks fingered her wand, staring at the thin and unsatisfying file again, sitting on the floor between rows of files in the archive room. The clerk was beginning to get annoyed; he wanted to close up the stacks for the night. The words yielded no further answers on her tenth read-through than they had on the third, or even the first, so she gathered her things into her safety-pinned messenger bag and handed back the file.

"Thanks," she said cheerfully.

"Find what you want?"

"Not yet."