Note: Written this because I've deemed myself too unwell to do anything truly worthwhile! I hope you enjoy it!

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

9: Deceiving Appearances

It could take years, getting to know new recruits at Auror Headquarters.

For one thing, everybody was always so busy. Busy writing up reports, busy planning raids, busy scouring Ministry records, busy tracking down the next person on the Ministry's never ending wanted list. It could take a month's worth of coffee breaks to find out where a colleague lived, if they were married or what they liked to do on their rare days off.

And for another thing, Kingsley didn't really see the point of getting to know anybody. Not for the first year at the very least.

It was tough, Auror training. Not something to be undertaken by the weak, faint hearted, lazy or sluggish. In Kingsley's experience most Auror cadets could be labelled with at least one of these fatal flaws and only a small handful of the new faces who appeared in the department's midst ever completed training and qualified as Aurors. There had been so many names and faces over the years, and Kingsley couldn't confess to remembering more than a few of them.

But Nymphadora Tonks had been entirely different.

Within a week of her arrival everybody in the Auror Department had known who she was.

Because she had an...unusual name, to put it politely, even for a witch. And because she looked like nobody else anybody had ever set eyes upon before, with her neon coloured hair and equally blinding clothes that made Dawlish comment that he hoped she either dropped out of training or miraculously qualified early, that way she'd be either gone or forced to wear Auror robes like everybody else and Dawlish wouldn't get a headache each morning merely from the sight of her.

And because she was related to a whole bunch of people the Aurors had thrown into Azkaban for one dark deed or another. Which was, of course, entirely irrelevant. But even Aurors liked to find curiosities to mindlessly chatter about in their lunch breaks.

And yet it had not been her name, appearance or even her relations that had made Tonks stick in Kingsley's mind, or made him bother to befriend her before he was even sure she would qualify.

That had all been down to the first time he had ever happened across her, or to put it more accurately: bumped into her.

It always made him laugh, looking back on it, that she hadn't been the one to bump into him, after all she was supposedly the notoriously clumsy one and he was far more careful.

But as it happened, upon their first meeting, Kingsley and Tonks had seemingly changed roles.

"We'd just raided a house just outside of Birmingham the previous evening," the Minister told Teddy, already smiling at the memory as the boy too smiled in anticipation. "And whilst there we had recovered a whole load of suspicious looking bottles and vials...Merlin knows what was in them! But that morning I volunteered to load it all up onto a trolley and drop it off downstairs to be looked at by the Magical Substances Regulatory Authority, because of course the Auror Department don't really concern themselves with dodgy potions and that sort of thing. I did it to get out of talking to Alastor...he was in a bad mood about something or other, so I decided to make myself scarce..."

As he wandered slowly down the corridor towards the lift, feeling rather pleased with himself for avoiding what would no doubt have been a Moody Rant of epic proportions, Kingsley found that in his determination to take his time over the simple task that he had volunteered for, his pace had grown so slow that the heavy trolley in front of him had slowed to a near halt. The Auror gave the trolley a firm push, wincing a little at the precarious rattling of the hastily stacked boxes of bottles whose position upon the trolley was precarious to say the least. He ought have been a bit more careful stacking them, truth be told, but he had been in too much of a hurry to get out of the office. He had heard Moody's voice drifting across the office and judging from how irate and loud it had sounded, Kingsley had estimated that the grizzled old Auror had been in an utterly foul mood and only a couple of cubicles away. Time had been running out!

He frowned down at the various bottles of strange looking substances and wondered vaguely if any of them looked familiar.

That greenish one there didn't. Neither did the one next to it, in fact that one looked revoltingly as if somebody had vomited in a bottle and then stuck a cork in the top for safe keeping...

The trolley had slowed to a crawl again, and as he moved on to gazing at the next potion which was a rather interesting shade of orange, Kingsley heard the sound of the lift doors sliding open just head of him.

He gave the trolley a firm push, preparing to make a mad dash for the lift before the doors slid shut again, and was just dragging his gaze away from the rattling boxes of potions to judge how far he had to run when his progress came to a sudden jolted halt at the appearance of a figure in his path.

Kingsley barely caught sight of a shock of pink hair before the trolley collided violently with it's victim, sending her crashing backwards towards the marble floor with a small shout of alarm. The top few boxes were jolted sideways and before he had time to blink, there came an almighty crash as boxes and potion bottles tumbled to the floor in a shower of smashing glass and leaking liquid.

"Merlin, I...I'm so sorry!" Kingsley exclaimed, launching himself around the trolley to inspect the damage, and that was the first time he ever truly set eyes upon her.

"I suppose I noticed her hair first." the Minister recalled, frowning a little in consideration. "Because of course I hadn't ever really come across anybody with bright pink hair before...which is quite funny actually because it wasn't really that bright...not for your mother, anyway. She'd toned it down several shades to what she considered dark...that's probably only one step removed from fluorescent as far you or I or any normal person is concerned..."

"What did you notice second?" Teddy asked with a grin, and Kingsley puffed his cheeks in amusement and recalled:

"That would've been the large splash of potion that was busy burning a sizeable hole through her jumper..."

At the sight of the faintly smoking liquid steadily disintegrating the material, the already flustered Kingsley came over feeling a little panicked.

"Here!" he cried, throwing himself down onto his knees at the young witch's side. "Quickly! You'd better...here, just..." Without thinking he reached to first grab hold of the pale, silvery coloured robes that she was wearing, hastily yanking them down off her shoulders, causing her to shout:

"What the bloody hell are you doing?!"

"Sorry, sorry! It's just...your jumper...!"

As she scrambled rather clumsily in an attempt to look down at herself, the witch's eyes widened at the sight of the steadily growing hole in her attire and muttered:

"Oh shit!"
"I'm so sorry!" Kingsley muttered again, grabbing her by the elbow and hauling her up into a sitting position. "I wasn't looking and...just...you'd better take it off before it...before it burns you!"

Shrugging her arms free from the robes, the young witch hastily reached to grab the hem of her jumper, yanking it up over her head.

For a split second Kingsley winced at the thought that he might cause further embarrassment for the pair of them by being confronted by this unfortunate stranger sprawled upon the floor in nothing but skinny jeans and a bra, only to feel immense relief to discover that she appeared to be wearing a vest top underneath.

Tossing the ruined jumper to one side, the witch reached to brush a hand across the vest in inspection, and upon finding the undergarment unscathed she let out a small sigh of relief.

"Bloody hell..." she breathed, looking up to eye the chaos of smashed bottles and boxes around her, and then she sighed again, reaching to rub a hand across her eyes.

"I should really have been looking where I was going." Kingsley observed regretfully as he shuffled back to get a better look at her. "Are you alright? That was quite a tumble, you're not hurt, are you?"

"Oh, I'll live!" she decided, removing the hand from her eyes so that she could wave it dismissively at him, and then she held it out to him, arching an eyebrow as she greeted: "Hi, by the way!"

"Hello..." he consented to mumbling, taking her hand to shake, and he felt a little reassured by her firm grip and supplied: "My name is Kingsley Shacklebolt, I'm with the Aurors."

"Tonks." she informed him in return, and as she let go of his hand and reached to slip her arms back into her discarded robes she added: "Just Tonks. And I suppose I'm with the Aurors too, now. In a manner of speaking."

"You're here for training?" he guessed, carefully setting about getting to his feet, trying his best to stay clear of any fragments of glass upon the floor, and as he stood back he watched her gaze down at her now rather dishevelled attire with a deep frown.
"Yes..." Tonks mumbled rather despairingly. "It's...it's my first day...I was just...they said I should report to the Head of Aurors' office..." she trailed off, face contorting as she observed: "Oh bloody hell, look at the state of me! What's...what's he going to think?!"

Kingsley eyed her guiltily.

She did look...well...a mess.

Her robes, which from the look of them had probably been brand new, had grown crumbled and a rather ugly blue stein had seeped into the fabric by her elbow. The nasty vomit-esque potion appeared to have disintegrated a large chunk out of the hem, and her vest was by no means the smart garment that the newly ruined striped jumper had been.

"I..." Kingsley began, wondering precisely what he meant to say. He'd replace the clothes? He'd fetch her some unspoilt ones from...Merlin knew where? He was dreadfully sorry? He'd go and admit to the Head of Aurors precisely what had just happened?

Tonks didn't wait to find out.

"It's alright," she told him kindly. "It's not your fault, it was an accident...I um...I'll just have to...um..." she looked to be at something of a loss at precisely what she would do, only for both of them to become distracted by the sound of brisk footsteps echoing up the corridor.

Kingsley turned around just in time to see Head of Aurors Rufus Scrimgeour striding his way up the corridor, and as the wizard came to an abrupt halt to eye the chaos before him, Kingsley felt instantly wretched.

"What in Merlin's name do you call this, Shacklebolt?!" the Head of Aurors inquired sourly, and Kingsley wondered if perhaps Moody's poor mood that morning was in some way contagious.

"It's nothing, it was an accident..." Kingsley murmured, daring a backwards glance to spot the look of mortification that had materialised upon Tonks' face at Scrimgeour's presence.

"Well stop standing around dawdling and send for Magical Maintenance to clear it up!" Scrimgeour snapped impatiently, smashed glass crunching under his boots as he took a few steps forward. "I've told Dawlish you're to go with him this morning! It's a two-man job and I won't have it botched, d'you here?! It's too important to..." he paused mid-sentence as his eyes came to rest upon the sprawled witch upon the floor, and as her face blossomed with colour almost as bright as her hair, the Head of Aurors gave a huff and inquired: "And who precisely might you be?"

With as much dignity as she could muster, which probably wasn't a whole lot if truth be told, Tonks straightened up a little and, giving her head a small toss informed her new employer:

"Nymphadora Tonks, Mr. Scrimgeour."

Scrimgeour gave another huff, reaching to shove his hands deep into the pockets of his robes.

"Ah yes. Nymphadora Tonks," he grunted, face contorting irritably. "What a mouthful..."

"It's character building, Mr. Scrimgeour." Tonks informed him, entirely unconcerned by his apparent dislike of her.

Scrimgeour didn't appear to be amused.

"I don't like characters in my department, Miss Tonks." he informed her icily. "The Aurors are a single, dedicated, uniformed and unified force!"

Despite her embarrassment, Tonks appeared to find this rather amusing.

"Oh I shouldn't worry about that, Mr. Scrimgeour." she assured him with a bright smile. "I think you'll find I can be as dull and uniformed as anybody...quite literally..."

Kingsley wasn't entirely sure what she meant by this, but perhaps Scrimgeour knew something about her that he didn't, for he gave an abrupt huff of amusement, only for it to vanish within a second as he demanded:

"Well?! Are you going to lie around down there all day?!" As Tonks hastily scrambled to her feet the Head of Aurors shook his head disapprovingly at the state of her and, glancing back at Kingsley muttered: "I don't know where we find these people, Shacklebolt, I really don't..." And with that he set off down the corridor again towards the lift.

As she hastily attempted to straighten her robes, Tonks spun around to stare after him, calling:

"They told me to report straight to you, Mr Scrimgeour!"

The Head of Aurors paused halfway down the corridor, and after a moment he turned on his heel and strode back towards them, coming to a halt so close to Tonks that they were toe to toe.

Kingsley found himself holding his breath a little and the Head of Aurors stared down his nose at this dishevelled, characterful, colourful new addition to his staff with a deep frown upon his face, his eyes piercing as if attempting to make her shuffle backwards a step.

Tonks didn't move a muscle.

Something in Scrimgeour's jaw twitched a little, a mixture of irritation and curiosity before he looked abruptly past her to Kingsley and instructed:

"Hand her over to Moody." And with that he gave a chuckle, turning on his heel and stomping off towards the lift, commenting: "He'll eat her for breakfast!"

Once Scrimgeour had disappeared into the lift and the doors had slid shut behind him, Tonks reached to bury her hands in her face with a heavy sigh.

"Oh bloody hell..." Kingsley heard her mutter, her stoicism apparently beginning to shatter, and the Auror admitted:

"You probably shouldn't have answered him back. Keep your mouth shut next time, it's easier that way..."

"Next time?!" she laughed, voice high in panic as her hands dropped back down to her sides. "You reckon there'll be a next time? I'm...I'm completely screwed!"

"I'm really sorry about all of this." Kingsley said, and though he was losing count of how many times he had apologised to her he felt as if any number of times would never really be enough, because he knew full well that first impressions meant a lot in a place like this.

"It's really not your fault." she insisted, reaching to run a hand over her hair in an attempt to flatten it. "Honestly, these things happen, don't they? So...don't worry about it! I'd probably have screwed it all up on my own given half a chance..."

"Of course I knew right there and then that she wouldn't screw anything up at all." the Minister told Teddy with a vague smile.

"How did you know that?" Teddy asked, only to glance over his shoulder at the sound of the office door being opened. A witch carrying a large stack of papers hurried into the room, hastily depositing the papers onto the Minister's desk before making a hasty exit. Kingsley all but ignored her, save for a brief glance and a nod as he explained:

"In those days Scrimgeour sent a recruit to see Alastor on their first day it was for one of two reasons. Usually it meant he'd decided they were a waste of space and he wanted rid of them...in which case sending them to spend an hour or two to be grilled and pretty much interrogated by Alastor would probably make them crack, leave there and then and never come back..."

"That's cruel."

"Or, once in a blue moon it meant Scrimgeour was impressed by somebody and sending them to Alastor made sure they'd get the best start to their career, teach the finest with the finest! And that was the case with your mother, I've no doubt about it. She made a good impression with the Head of Aurors that morning, even if she didn't realise it herself..."

"He likes you, I think." Kingsley said as he reached to retrieve a square of pink memo paper and a pencil from his pocket. At the look of disbelief upon Tonks' face, he insisted: "It's true, he does. I can tell."

"How?" she wondered, wandering after him and gingerly picking her jumper up from the floor as he went to use the nearest wall to lean against, scribbling a note to send off to Magical Maintenance.

"He might not like people answering him back, but he likes anybody who's sharp enough to do so." he explained as he wrote, frowning a little to make his writing legible.

"About my name? That wasn't sharp, that's just what my dad tells me when..."

"And most importantly you've got guts. You're not scared of him..."

"Are you kidding? He's bloody terrifying..."

"...or if you are, you don't show it. Which is, in practice, the same thing." Scribbling finished with a vague apology for the trouble he had caused, Kingsley turned back to face her with a grin. "We're all nervous at first, Tonks." he assured her, raising an eyebrow as he added: "Especially when some clumsy oath like me shows up and makes a mess of our first morning! But you keep that chin of yours up and your wits about you and not even the likes of Mad-Eye Moody is going to ruin your chances here." Tossing the paper into the air, causing it to fold itself into a little paper aeroplane that shot off up the corridor, he told her: "Talking of Alastor, I'd better take you to him. I...I suppose you've...you've heard of him, haven't you?"

"Of course I have."

"Right...well...whatever you've heard, all the crazy stories and all of that...?"

"Mm?"

"Just so you know, they're all true. Every single one of them. "

"Oh...right..."

As he led her up the corridor, pausing at the entrance to Auror Headquarters, Kingsley cast one last regretful look round at her and yet again told her:

"I really am sorry, Tonks. I um...I tell you what, I'll come and check up on you in a couple of hours when I get back...bring you a cup of coffee, make sure Mad-Eye isn't um..."

"Eating me for breakfast?"

"Exactly. He won't though, I'm sure."

And with that Tonks gave an exaggerated wink, leaning to elbow the Auror gently in the side as she suggested:

"You never know, Kingsley, maybe it'll be the other way around!" And with that she turned, took a deep, calming breath, before stepping through the doorway.

And at her unfathomable friendliness towards him and her apparently iron-clad will, Kingsley stepped in after her, spotting Moody across the room, ranting at Savage for Merlin knew what...

The Auror glanced at the witch beside him thoughtfully, cracking a smile with the thought that if anybody in this place might turn out to be a match for Alastor Moody, it was probably going to be Nymphadora Tonks...

"And she was!" the Minister chuckled, shaking his head at the memory. "Merlin, nobody could speak to Alastor like she did! Nobody dared...tease him or...or laugh at him, question him...she was quite something, your mother, she really was! And Merlin only knows how she managed it because she didn't have the best start with him, either. Thanks to my mishap Alastor took one look at her and said: And what've you come as, then?! This is the bloody Auror Department, girl, not the Experimental bloody Charms Unit! What sort of bloody half-arsed operation d'you think we're running here?! Poor girl, half the office turned to stare at her, she just stood there...didn't know what to say, of course. Fresh out of Hogwarts, she was, barely eighteen years old! I'd seen witches twice her age reduced to tears at less! Savage, the moron, he started laughing and Alastor snapped at him to be quiet, which gave your mother a second to compose herself. She folded her arms across her chest and said...Merlin the guts of the girl! She said: Well I'm pretty sure it isn't a fashion show, Mr. Moody, although perhaps I might be wrong. After all first appearances can be deceiving, don't you think?"

Teddy reached to press a hand to his mouth as he laughed, and the Minister didn't bother to try and smother his amusement, he threw back his head and positively roared with laughter as he exclaimed:

"Goodness, Teddy! The look on Alastor's face! I wanted to howl with laughter! I wanted to clap her, for Merlin's sake! And he was impressed, like Scrimgeour was, I know it, but he was furious all the same! How dare she speak to him like that! In front of the entire office! Who did she think she was?! I wouldn't have said it to him, I wouldn't say it to him even now, for Merlin's sake! But there was your mother, only out of Hogwarts a few months, her first day in her first job, standing in front of the greatest Auror of our time, dressed in ragged looking robes and looking a total mess...and she had the nerve to tell him, to tell the great Alastor Moody: appearances can be deceiving! Ha! He gave her hell! Everybody did, for weeks and weeks! And it was all down to me and that bloody trolley! I might very well have ruined her career before it even started if she hadn't kept her nerve...she nearly didn't, you know. She nearly dropped out several times...told me she fancied running away and joining a muggle circus! All thanks to me! And you know, Teddy, she never resented me for it, not even for a second. I bought her that coffee, like I said I would, as a feeble apology. But she bought me a coffee the next day in return, as if I couldn't attempt to apologise at all! And that was why I took notice of your mother, Teddy. Because she was so forgiving. And strong. And so full of heart. And she remained that way until the day she died. She'd be that way now if she were still with us, she'd forgive me for neglecting my promise. She'd even forgive your father for the distance between the two of you, mark my words!" The Minister slumped back in his chair then, sighing heavily as he fixed the boy opposite him with a stare, adding: "She'd hope you can forgive him too."

Teddy swallowed the large lump that had formed in his throat.

"Do you...do you know where my father is?" he asked, leaning eagerly forward in his chair. "Do you ever hear from him or...do you think he's still alive?"

Kingsley frowned, reaching to pass a wary hand across his brow before he confessed:

"It is...difficult to...to know for certain..."

"You've not heard from him, then?"

"I have not, no. Not for many, many years..."

"When did you last see him or...or hear from him?"

"He was at the Battle of Hogwarts." Kingsley recalled rather reluctantly as if the memory pained him. "He disappeared for a while, when your mother died, stopped turning up to Order meetings...none of us knew where he had gone. We feared the worst, thought he was dead. But he showed up at Hogwarts that night just like the rest of us! He came to keep watch over the south western battlements with me...just appeared at my elbow out of the blue! He looked dreadfully sickly, I can tell you...for a split second I didn't recognise him!"

"What did you say to him?"

"I didn't quite know what to say, truth be told."

"What did he say to you?"

Kingsley simply shook his head.

"Very little...said Moody had told him I could use a second wand and that he'd gladly die beside me if it gave Harry a fighting chance. I told him it would be an honour, and then we stood in silence...waiting..."

"He didn't mention me? Or Mum?"

"Not that I can recall."

"And then Voldemort's army attacked?"

"Yes...there wasn't much time for talk after that. We didn't manage to stick together for all that long...we took down a giant that was attempting to bring the wall down, drew a bit too much attention to ourselves and before I knew it there were swarms of Death Eaters all over the place...we held them off for as long as we could, but before long we lost one another in the corridors. That was the last I saw of him."

Teddy frowned deeply.

"D'you suppose he...he might've died fighting?"

"Perhaps," Kingsley mused, shifting a little in his seat. "Nobody remembers seeing him in the Great Hall afterwards, but we never found a body, either."

"But nobody's ever seen or heard from him since the Battle of Hogwarts?" Teddy attempted to clarify, and the Minister for Magic gave a shrug.

"I certainly haven't, and I suspect if anybody else had I would have come to hear of it."

At that moment there came a knock upon the door, and Teddy twisted round in his seat again to see the witch who had appeared earlier peering round the door.

"Minister? They're ready to begin." she explained, and Kingsley rose to his feet, murmuring:

"Thank you, Jean. Could you fetch Mr. Potter for me?"

As the witch gave a short nod and slipped back out into the corridor, Kingsley turned to offer Teddy a smile.

"Will you be visiting your mother's resting place tomorrow at all?" he wondered. "For her birthday? I expect your grandmother usually took you, did she?"

"No..." Teddy mumbled rather dejectedly, gaze dropping to his shoes. "We never went to the grave on Mum's birthday...Gran didn't like to...she found it too upsetting..."

"Yes...yes I imagine it would have." the Minister observed sadly as the office door opened again as Harry stepped inside. "Well perhaps Harry might take you this year."

"I'd like that." Teddy said, rising slowly from his chair, and the Minister offered him a broad smile and requested:

"If you do go for a visit, tell your mother how very sorry I am. And that I'll make it up to her from now on."

And as he reached to straighten his coat, Teddy smiled too and murmured:

"I'm sure she will forgive you."