5.55 am, and she was outside Moody's house, congratulating herself on her punctuality. True, her Waking-up charm had almost nothing to do with the fact that she was ready 5 minutes earlier, but the four persons that had Apparated in her flat one hour ago and the four creative ways they had found to wake her up, featuring buckets of water, Tickling spells, loud bangs and real lizards. That last part, Tonks was certain, had been Charlie's idea.
She needed to come up with a better way to wake up, there was no doubt of that.
Tonks had Apparated a couple of blocks away from Moody's house and now she was facing his front yard. It was a small house in the outskirts of a town, partially surrounded by woods. Tonks wondered how many times she would have to come to this very place in the next three years.
Taking a deep calming breath, she walked down a narrow path to the front door. Glancing around, she raised her fist to knock. This time she was a fraction of a second too late and the last thing she heard was a harsh cry: Stupefy.
"Stand up, lass."
Her head was throbbing and she was having difficulty distinguishing which of the three Moodys in front of her was the real one.
"CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" The three men yelled and she stood up with difficulty.
"What happened?" she asked, looking around. She was in something that looked like a living room, except it was furnished with only three hard wooden chairs and a couple of side tables. There were no photographs, nor paintings or… well there was nothing else besides a fireplace.
"You weren't ready, I stunned you," Auror Moody was saying.
"Ready? But we hadn't even…" she started.
"What part of 'constant vigilance' is so difficult for you to understand?" he roared at her.
She looked at him for a moment, a rude retort pushing to go out her mouth, but she fought against the impulse.
"None, Sir," she finally muttered.
"I thought as much. Now, abs."
Probably she had misheard him.
"Excuse me?"
"Abs! I want you to get on the floor and do some abs."
Tonks stared at him waiting for the chuckle that indicated he was joking. He looked back at her, with both his normal and his magical eye.
"Yes?" he snapped.
"You're serious."
"Do I seem like someone who cracks jokes, trainee Tonks?"
"No, Sir."
"ABS!"
Tonks laid on the floor and started pulling her torso up, feeling utterly ridiculous.
"How… many… Sir?" she panted between pulls.
"As long as I keep talking, you keep going," he said, taking a hipflask from a side table and drinking a generous gulp from it.
"You are the first one to be chosen as an Auror trainee in three years," he started, pacing the room. "That is not bad, but hardly good enough; it guarantees nothing! I need you to understand that you've just gotten into one of the hardest career paths. Aurors are the ones in which the Magical population trusts and as such, they have to prove themselves constantly. You are not yet a Auror, Miss Tonks, and you won't be one unless you're willing to give your very best."
Between the movement and her breathing getting heavier it was getting difficult to properly listen to him.
"Did I tell you to stop?"
"No… Sir… sorry… Sir…" she panted.
"During your first year," Moody continued. He seemed to be talking slower than usual, "you will be training with the Hit-Wizards every morning at the Ministry, starting tomorrow at eight, but I want you to understand, Miss Tonks, that you are NOT a Hit-Wizard," he stomped his wooden foot on the floor and Tonks could feel it vibrate under her back. "Even if it is important for you to learn about defensive charms and counter-curses with them, the most important part of your training will be in the afternoons. This month you are to come here, next month you'll get to go to Dawlish's."
"And… then… Sir…?"
"You'll be informed in due course."
For a moment he did not speak and Tonks was about to stop the exercise until he spoke again.
"Auror trials are once a year. If you fail, trainee Tonks, there is no repeating. If you fail, you won't be an Auror. Have I made myself clear?" asked Moody, taking enormous amounts of time to mutter every word.
"Yes… Sir…" Tonks had always thought she was in good shape. She had been playing Quidditch for the last 5 years, for Merlin's sake! Apparently that had not been nearly good enough. She could feel her temple throb, her abdominal muscles in pain, her eyes clouded. And Moody kept on going, slower with each word, and with each additional pull it was so much harder for her to focus.
"At the end of the third year, based on your performance throughout all the training programs and in your teacher's opinions you might or might not qualify as an Auror. If the Office decides at the end that you have failed there is no appealing and there is no going back. You won't get your badge, end of the story. Questions?"
She wanted to keep her mouth shut, so this would end, but she was fearing this would be her last chance to ask and she had to use it.
"What… are… the… trails… about… Sir?"
"There are six main skills you have to master: Defence and Attack, Concealment and Disguise, Stealth and Tracking, Poisons and Antidotes, Crime Memories and UYCS. You will be learning each one of them from a specific Auror."
"U… Y… C… S… Sir…?"
"Use Your Common Sense!" growled Moody.
He paced the room for a while, then he spoke again. "Didn't you hear me at the beginning, Miss Tonks?"
"Sorry… Sir?"
"I said you should continue with the abs as long as I was speaking."
"You… said… so… Sir…"
"I'm not speaking anymore."
With a loud thud! Tonks' head hit the ground.
Afterwards she would honestly said that had been the easier part of her training so far.
For a couple of weeks now, Tonks was feeling as if her life were one of those dreams in which she was being chased by some unknown enemy and she had to duck and hide. Except this was real life and there was no unknown enemy, instead, there was Auror Alastor Moody.
The second day she had apparated at his house, with her wand at the ready and looking around feeling extremely paranoid. She had a reason though and it was with enormous satisfaction that she cast a successful Shield charm against which Moody's Expeliarmus, coming from behind her, bounced.
Her smugness did not lasted much for the minute she lowered her wand, another well casted Expeliarmus hit her and her wand went flying in a wide arc into Moody's outstretched hand. He did not give it back.
The rest of the afternoon he chased her aiming hexes at different parts of her body with both wands and intending her to duck them. If Tonks had thought that being wandless in front of Moody was something to be avoided at any cost, this was proving her right. But she had no choice but surrender her wand every day, the minute she arrived at her Master's house.
However, even if she was aching all over and displaying signs of the hexes that had reached her in different parts of her body, when she would finally get into her bed she was forced to admit she was having the time of her life.