(A/N: Harry's thoughts will be in italics.)

Harry found himself back in his own room at Grimauld Place. The first signs of morning light from a window were just beginning to fill the every corner. He looked around and found Ron and himself sound asleep in their respective beds.

"Why would Tonks have a memory of this?" He wondered.

The door knob began to turn. Creeek. Someone was trying to push open the door as mutely as possible. He couldn't see who it was until a spot of pink hair crept in. She moved painfully slow but eventually managed to slip in all the way.

Tonks tip-toed to edge of the beds with both hands held up against her chest, making her to look like a squirrel in slow motion. She craned her neck as though she were peeking over a hedge into the neighbor's yard, then fell back on her heals with a slight huff. She appeared to be disappointed to find them still asleep. After a quick survey of the room, Tonks set about searching for something. Harry noticed now that she was wearing her Auror's robes.

Once in a while she would stop her search and check to see that they were still sleeping, which made her look all the more like a foraging squirrel. It was while she was looking back at them over her shoulder that she stepped forward. Looking back while going forward is never a good combination. Especially if your name happens to be Nymphadora Tonks.

"Umph!" She grunted before tipping forward and tumbling head over heals on an ottoman. Bang! Her foot hit a book shelf on the way down. The books crashed into a pedestal that supported a bust...

Crash!

...which came down on a desk...

Thump.

...rolled over the edge and whacked a swivel chair...

Whack

...that went sailing into a wall...

Swish. Slam.

...which had crossed swords and a shield on it...

Crash.

...which hit a broom, that hit a vase, that eventually found the top of her head like a bulls eye.

"Ah-how-ch!" She said, clutching the boo-boo.

For a moment, the sleeping Harry's head shot up and saw the damage. Then it hit the pillow again. "Morning, Tonks." He said half asleep. Harry, the one watching, wondered when he had become such a heavy sleeper. Ron was no better. He just snorted and rolled over.

"Did I wake you?" She asked still wincing from the pain. There was no answer. "Harry?"

"Seamus wasn't kidding when he said I could sleep through a hurricane."

Harry turned his attention back to Tonks as she pulled herself up and began straightening out the wreckage behind her. "Haven't seen my wand have you?" She turned back around and gawked at what she saw. "Cor blimey." Her face paled.

Harry followed her gaze which landed on his near-naked sleeping counter part, who must have kicked off the covers and rolled on to his stomach. He was mortified and tried dumbly to block her view. Too bad he was less than a shadow to her. Besides, all this had already happened days ago. She didn't look away for what seemed to Harry like an eternity. It couldn't have been more than a few seconds.

"Tonks!" He screamed through gritted teeth. Finally she snapped out of it and looked down then back at the pedestal in her hand. She puffed out her checks with a look that said, "Whoa!" then shook her head.

"Take mine." Harry heard his own deep groggy voice behind him.

"What?" She was caught off guard.

"z'on nuh table." Both Harry and Tonks needed a moment to figure out what the other Harry mumbled into his pillow. They looked at the table and saw his wand lying there.

"I don't remember any of this." He thought. To the best of his knowledge he still had his own wand in the days she had been missing.

"Thanks." Tonks whimpered, snatching up the wand, then promptly rushed out of the room.

Harry just stood there thinking, "When the hell did this happen?" Before he knew it he was swept away in flash of light. Now he was down stairs in the kitchen. Mrs. Weasley was preparing breakfast while Mr. Weasley was milling around with a piece of toast in one hand and important looking files in the other. Tonks walked in.

"Was that you, dear?" Mrs. Weasley asked.

"How'd you guess?" Tonks replied with a weak lopsided grin. She was still rubbing her head gently. Mrs. Weasley looked up from her pots and pans.

"Goodness! You didn't hurt yourself did you?"

"Ah." She dismissed the thought. "I'm alright. Just a little... phased." Only Tonks and Harry knew that she wasn't talking about the bump on her head. Mrs. Weasley thought nothing of it and went back her task.

"Fit for duty ay?" Mr. Weasley said handing Tonks the file. "Or if you'd like you can just sit this one out." He began to tug it out of her hand again jokingly.

"No! No!" Tonks dropped the hand that was nursing her owchie so that she could clamp down on the file. "I can do it really." She had taken his mock threat quite seriously.

"Do what?" Harry thought

"Oh, Arthur, will you stop teasing... Ah! Tonks, how many times must I tell you not to morph like that when I'm not looking?"

"Sorry, Molly." The metamorph was now in the guise of a shifty looking brown haired man in his forties. Turning her attention back to Mr. Weasley she said, "I can do it see."

"Yes I see but hearing is another thing." He was right. Her voice was unmistakably feminine.

"I won't have to say much. Just grunt."

"Oh really?"

"Urgh." She grunted while nodding then snatched his toast and took a rough bite. "Toast good. Urgh."

"Lets discuss this when we get to the Ministry. And morph back will you, before anyone else sees."

"Sorry."

Another flash of light and Harry was in a hall at the Ministry of Magic. "Now we're getting somewhere." Tonks was coming out of the little witches room when Kingsley Shacklebolt and Mr. Weasley came through a pair of double doors at the other end and were walking this way.

"She's not ready." Arthur was saying. Tonks had apparently heard this because she froze and withdrew back into the washroom.

"Then when will she be ready?" Shacklebolt replied. "When all the boogie men are dead and the world is a safe and happy place again?" The red-haired man looked away and huffed at the other man's sarcasm. "She's an auror, Arthur."

"I know that, Kingsley."

"Just like any other."

"I know."

"Do you?" Mr. Weasley stopped just after passing through Harry.

"It would be a difficult assignment for any other auror."

"She's the only one who can do the job."

"Couldn't you have made a polyjuice potion?"

"Come on, you know we didn't have time for that. Besides that's not what I meant. Even if we had a department full of metamorphs I would give her this assignment without a second thought."

From his point of view, Harry could see the shadow of Nymphadora Tonks spying from behind the door. No doubt she could see the openly skeptical look on her old friends face.

"Alright, Kingsley." Arthur folded his hands before him and spoke formally. "The Ministry has ordered me to turn the case over to your department in spite of the muggle element involved. I trust their judgment as well as yours. And I trust I don't need to remind you of the importance of this mission. Stay close to her at all times just in case well... she is a bit clumsy. I know she doesn't mean to be. She just can't help it. And remember Tonks is rather impulsive. If there's trouble she'll go charging in without..."

"Thinking?"

"Backup." He started walking away but Kingsley couldn't leave well enough alone. He wanted to get in one last shot.

"Oh, Arthur?" Weasley turned around. "How old was Charlie when you finally let the poor lad take the twelve kilos of safety gear off his broom? Twelve? Thirteen?"

"Don't exaggerate." He started to walk off again but mumbling added, "It was nine kilos and he was eleven."

When the coast was clear Tonks emerged. She looked hurt and a little angry. Harry walked up and stood as close to her as he wanted. It's not like she would mind the invasion of personal space. Only this close could he see a stubborn tear fighting as hard to get out as she was fighting to keep it down. He understood her perfectly. She felt betrayed. Mr. Weasley made it sound like she couldn't tie her own shoe laces. That's gotta sting.

"Frozen bag in the face."

In a final flash of light Harry was once again sitting on the couch at Grimmauld Place. This time it was, well, this time. He marked the page and closed the book. There was more of course but he came back just for a minute. Glancing down at his side he saw a discarded blanket and a slight dent in the cushions where Tonks had been.

"Tonks?" He looked around. "Tonks?" He ran to the kitchen. "Tonks!" Then the yard. No sign of her.

"Oops."

(A/N: Am I the only one who perceives Tonks as being playful in the books? In every fan fiction I've read she's always so serious. I guess that's why I like the Honks pairing. She's older but acts younger and he's younger but acts older.

Mr. Weasley is a little OOC. He's not usually so cautious but this mission is a big deal. As for the Charlie thing, what parent doesn't want to keep the training wheels on forever?

How's my British slang coming along? In my other fic I came close to calling the television a "boob tube" without realizing that it meant "tube top" in the UK. That would have taken on a whole new meaning. "My salvation came in the form of the boob tube." Ha ha ha!)