Coffee was bad...

Chapter Three - Green natives

... And no-one, repeat, no-one, knew this better than Nymphadora Tonks.

The cup slid from her fingers and fell to the floor, splashing the scalding liquid over her trainers. Bugger. That was so typical - she couldn't even go half an hour without doing something unbelievably stupid.

'Honey? What... do you need anything?' Andromeda asked. Ted turned the TV off and sat forward, exchanging a worried glance with his wife.

'No... no, I'm fine.' Tonks sighed with relief. She really was fine. Perhaps it wasn't guaranteed to have an effect on her, after all, she had waited half an hour... still, it wasn't a risk she wanted to take. She rose to her feet. 'Sorry mum... I'll have to pass on tonight.'

'Okay, sweetie... as long as you're alright.'

'Hopefully I will be. Mind if I use your fireplace?' After her father nodded, Tonks stepped into the vast hearth and threw a handful of Floo Powder at her feet. 'Hogwarts, the dungeons.'

Hopefully Snape wouldn't have gone to bed yet.

He hadn't. He was stood against his desk when she staggered out of his fireplace, coughing ash up out of her lungs.

'Evening Nymphadora.' He said calmly.

'I drank coffee.'

'Surprise, surprise. Don't worry, I anticipated your stupidity and saved you some of the Draught.' Snape said, holding out a glass to her.

'God... thanks, Sev.' She had no idea why she had called him Sev. It just seemed easier to say than Snape or Snivellus (a bad habit encouraged by Sirius). 'I don't know what I'd do without you.'

'Probably suffer from another serious migraine before lapsing into painful unconsciousness and eventual death.'

'Thanks.'

Grimacing at the immediate headache, Tonks downed the glass and set it back down on the nearest desk. 'I was worried you'd be asleep.'

'No, I knew you'd end up drinking coffee after I strictly ordered you not to. Plus I've got a lot of work to do for tomorrow's classes... and the Headmaster wants to see me about something to do with Aurors...'

'Yeah, Ratchet's moving four of us in here.'

'Oh God no. Why?' Snape asked, scribbling on what appeared to be some unlucky student's Potions essay in red ink.

'Um... I'd have thought that was obvious. Anyway, she's allocated one to each house, to keep a close eye on the dorms. And you'll never guess which lucky bunny got Slytherin,' she added bitterly. Snape grinned... wait... had she just made him smile? Weird... 'We start tomorrow.'

'Well I wouldn't worry so much - the Slytherins hold you in rather high favour at the moment.'

'With my darling cousin in the house? Bloody hell - why!' Tonks exclaimed, sitting on one of the desks and watching him scrawl on another unfortunate essay. She couldn't quite suppress a grin at the memories of her own Potions essays - always coming back with crude and sarcastic comments scribbled in the margins.

'In their eyes, you risked your life to save theirs. Slytherins can be rather dramatic at times. Something amusing about my marking, Nymphadora?' He added, raising an eyebrow.

'Just remembering the essays I did that you used to mark. You were a bloody evil git, you know that?' She chuckled.

'I was truthful. Your essays were astoundingly bad.' Snape shrugged.

Tonks grinned and hopped off the desk, turning and heading back to the fireplace. 'Don't mind if I borrow some Floo Powder, do you? I need to go grab my stuff before Ratchet drags me out of bed at three a.m. for briefing.'

'Not at all.' Snape replied without looking up. Tonks took a handful of the itchy powder and threw it at her feet.

'Engleford tower block, flat eighty three.' Warm green flames shot up around her and, for the third time that evening, she was thrown into the complex maze of fireplaces, eventually falling onto her own sitting room carpet. Sighing, she brushed her clothes off and went to pack her things for Hogwarts.

She laughed. The sentence was one she hadn't said to herself since her own days at the school... it sounded somehow strange when said now.

'Morning dear.' The talking clock on the mantle piece was the only magical piece of furniture in the flat, and was a little out of synch. The time on its hands was right, sure, bearing the time eleven p.m., but the sleepy voice that greeted her was far out.

'Its evening.' Tonks corrected it out of habit and crossed the flat to her bedroom - messy as always. She carefully selected her older clothes and holier jeans; if tonight was any preview to what was to come she would be ruining a lot of garments. It was bad enough being the clumsiest person in the vicinity, but being the clumsiest person in the vicinity supposed to fight Death Eaters was a whole lot worse.

Once she had finished artfully throwing her belongings into the trunk at the end of her bed, she collapsed onto the soft mattress and sighed heavily, hoping that Ratchet wasn't planning on briefing her too early in the morning. She really needed a good night's sleep.

'Wakey, wakey!'

Why, in the name of all things magic, had she bought that damned clock? Not only did it tell the time and greet her when she fell out of the fireplace, but it also served as an echoing, annoyingly-loud alarm for when Ratchet's head appeared in the fire.

'Tonks? Tonks, get your lazy arse out of bed!'

'Yeah, yeah...' Tumbling off the side of the bed, Tonks crawled to the door and out into the living room, weary with fatigue.

'Morning sunshine.' Ratchet grinned. 'Time for your morning briefing, so up and at 'em.'

'I hate you.' Tonks yawned, getting to her feet and stretching. 'I really, really, really hate you. First you put me in with the Slytherins, then you wake me up at... what time is it?'

'Half past ten a.m.' the clock put in helpfully. Tonks' mouth dropped open and she woke up fully.

'What!'

'Exactly - the others are here and waiting for you, so hurry up.' Ratchet's head popped out of the fire and Tonks turned back to her bedroom, purposefully banging her head on the doorframe as she went. Unsubtle. Again. God, couldn't she think before she spoke just once!

Dressing quickly, she grabbed her trunk and Flood to the HQ, where Shacklebolt, Hestia and Moody were sat on the hard metal chairs in the briefing room.

'Sorry guys.' Tonks grimaced, sitting beside Shackles. 'Didn't notice the time...'

'Right, now that you're all here...' Ratchet stood in front of them. 'You're whole purpose for the next few weeks is student safety. And teachers, obviously,' she added as an afterthought, 'but they're adults and qualified wizards, so they don't need as much help as the children do.

'Just remember to keep your eyes and ears open at all times. While the sprogs are in lessons, you four will be patrolling the corridors around them, when they are in their common rooms so are you, and when they are eating in the Great Hall you're checking the school grounds.

'I don't want any moaning about overwork, because you four could save the lives of hundreds of students - don't look at me like that, Tonks, I'm not being over dramatic - so I want you're full attention on this. You do not leave the school unless they do. On Hogsmeade trips they only take one year at a time, so two of you will accompany them. Clear?' she barked, finally.

'Yeah.' The Auror's echoed.

'Good... good luck and try not to get yourselves killed. That includes you, Mad-Eye. Now bugger off.'

'Gee, we love you too.' Kingsley grinned, before grabbing his bag and dissaparating. Tonks took the handle of her own trunk and followed, appearing beside him in the vast entrance hall.

'Aah - you're here.'

The teachers were waiting for them, accompanied by Hagrid the games keeper and Argus Filch, the unpleasant caretaker. McGonagall addressed them.

'I assume Miss Ratchet has informed you of your houses? I am the Head of Gryffindor; Severus Snape is the Head of Slytherin; Celina Sprout is the Head of Hufflepuff and Natasha Sinistra is the Head of Ravenclaw. The Head of your house will show you where you will be staying.'

Patting Tonks on the back sympathetically, Kingsley strolled off toward McGonagall. The other teachers dispersed, leaving only she and Snape.

'Great. Back in school,' she commented to break the silence.

'I'm sure the children aren't going to like this any more than you are.' Snape smirked, sweeping toward the dungeons. Hexing her trunk into feather-weight mode, she followed.

'Tell me I don't have to sleep anywhere near the sprogs... not that I'm going to get much sleeping done with Ratchet's new defence schemes. I swear - she's out for world domination.' Tonks snorted, tripping down the steps and steadying herself on the wall.

'No, you don't have to sleep near the... sprogs.'

'But then again, how good can it get, sleeping in the dungeons... remind me again - why do you do it?'

'Trust me; I have tried to get out of it. But it is only apt for a Potions Master to sleep near the Potions classrooms. Although the redcaps get rather nasty down here.' Tonks froze in her tracks.

'Tell me you didn't just say what I think you did.' She said.

'What?'

'Redcaps... redcaps... I'll bloody kill Ratchet!' She snarled, marching after him and, to his amusement, sliding on the wet floor. The only thing stopping her falling flat onto her arse was a metal bracket on the wall, and even that didn't seem too sturdy - no doubt weakened by rust.

'They aren't so bad if you know how to deal with them.'

'I don't know how to deal with them!'

'Oh... well never mind, they get bored of drinking your blood while you sleep after a while.'

That was it. Vanishing her case, Tonks turned around and marched back the way they had come. If Mina Ratchet thought she was going to spend her nights having her blood sucked, she had another sodding thing coming. In the form of a very frustrated young Metamorphmagus with a wand.

'Nymphadora!' Snape appeared in front of her, black eyes glittering mirthfully. 'I was joking - redcaps avoid humans at the best of times, and they only eat pondweed.'

'A joke? You call that a joke!' Tonks said in a strangled voice. 'But... you... I... that...' She eventually gave up trying to find words and settled with following him back into the dungeons.

Wait a minute... Snape made a joke. Severus Snape made a joke. A joke. A joke that would actually have been funny had she not been scared stupid. What was the world coming to...?

'It's Tonks.' She said suddenly, realising what he had been calling her for the passed few hours.

'What?'

'It's Tonks. I hate Nymphadora.'

'Oh. Well I'm hardly going to walk around school calling you Tonks, am I? Second names are for students... and people who don't want to be called by their surname.' Snape added.

Tonks rolled her eyes and almost crashed into him when he came to a sudden halt. 'Ow... what have we stopped for?'

'This is it.'

She glanced from him to the thick, vault-like, black door facing them. 'Brilliant - I'm going to be sleeping in a safe.'

'Stop whining. Velirimortis.' The door swung open but Tonks didn't move; she was staring at Snape with an incredulous expression.

'Tell me you don't expect me to remember what you just said.'

'What's wrong with it? It's one of the most valuable Potion herbs there is-' He broke off, taking her point. 'Fine, what do you want the password to be?'

'Uh...' she grinned. 'EnDienda. That's something I won't forget in a while.'

'And no-one else would guess it either.' Snape nodded. 'Impressive for someone with such a little mind.'

'My mind's bigger than yours.'

'You don't even know what Velirimortis is.'

'Neither do you.' She retorted lamely.

'What? Of course I do.'

'Liar - I think you're making it up.'

'This is extremely childish.'

'This is extremely childish.' Tonks mimicked, crossing her arms to copy his own pose. Snape arched an eyebrow at her, which she also imitated perfectly, and turned away, robes sweeping behind him. 'I win!'

'Excuse me?'

'You backed out, I win.' She grinned and entered her new quarters, slamming the door behind her before Snape could contradict her happy little tirade.

The room could have been worse. It was typically decorated in the Slytherin colours, but it had a king-sized bed, decent bathroom and a fantastic fake view of the lake. Of course, the lake was somewhere above them, so it couldn't be real, but someone had magicked up a brilliant mimic.

Magicking her trunk back, she sat on the end of the bed and grinned around at her new room. Things may not be so bad after all...

Then again, it wasn't as though she was going to get to spend much time in here with all the patrolling she had to do. In fact, she'd be lucky to get any sleep at all.

Someone had pinned a small calendar of Hogsmeade trips to the stone wall, telling her that the next one was at the weekend. She hated being in Hogsmeade on patrol - everyone else got to go in and out of the warm shops, spending their money on chocolate or warm drinks, while she and the other unfortunate Aurors were forced to stand out in the snow or rain freezing their bits off.

'Nymphadora?'

Screaming, Tonks backed into her trunk and fell, landing on her back on the cold stone floor. 'Hey Al...' Wincing, she heaved herself back up and faced the fireplace she hadn't noticed, which now contained the old Headmaster's head.

'Just checking in, Nymphadora, sorry to have startled you.' He smiled, blue-eyes twinkling. 'And how are you finding your new temporary home?'

'The natives are all gits.' Tonks grinned.

'I'll pretend I didn't hear that.' Dumbledore chuckled. 'I don't suppose you could do me a favour, could you? I understand that you're going to have your work cut out for you, patrolling the corridors and such, but would it be at all possible for you and your fellow Aurors to check in on Hagrid every now and then? He doesn't live in the castle, and I do worry about him...'

'Sure, no problem.'

'Thankyou. Will you be attending dinner tonight?' He asked.

'Can't. We're under strict instructions that while you're all eating we're supposed to be patrolling the grounds.' Tonks said regretfully. If there was one thing she missed about life as a student at Hogwarts it was the food.

'I'm sure that you can make dinner on the first night. No-one's going to tell Miss Ratchet...' Dumbledore smiled mischievously and for a second he looked like a cheeky young boy.

'Well when you put it that way...'

'Good, good. You and the other Aurors will be sat at the teacher's table at the front - we've added four chairs for you.'

His head vanished and Tonks chuckled. Of course Dumbledore would break Ratchet's rules to make things easier on them - she couldn't believe she hadn't thought of that. Well, even if she had to patrol the corridors and watch over Slytherins all day, at least she had dinner that afternoon to look forward to.

Speaking of watching over Slytherins all day, she was supposed to be in their common room at the moment, watching over them before they went down for breakfast. Great. God knew what they were going to say to that.

Well, it wasn't what they were going to say that worried her so much as what they were going to do...