"I can't believe that you missed the whole necklace incident," Proudfoot whined, slumped over the tiny kitchen table and parchment haphazardly strewn across it that was filled with his untidy writing.

"Not my patrol," Tonks said smugly, taking a nice long sip of her hot chocolate. "Ahh." The warm drink had never tasted so good.

She had been considering adding something stronger to it, or even soaking her marshmallows to it but the chocolate did the job after the cold weather and crappy happenings of the past day. Chocolate really did soothe everything as Remus-. Tonks shook her head and set her mug down, suddenly it didn't taste so good.

"If it had only happened two minutes before-"

"Did you want the girl to be attacked sooner?" Savage grunted, dropping himself into a chair. It creaked ominously.

He'd spent the last three hours back at the Ministry, dealing with the fallout of what was quickly being dubbed 'The Cursed Necklace Incident'. The man was not in a good mood after basically being under interrogation by Scrimgeour. Tonks winced in sympathy, she had first-hand experience with that.

"No, of course not!" Proudfoot went on the defensive. "I just meant that if it was going to happen, surely it would be better that it happened sooner in the day? Uh, less people around and all that."

"It's a Hogsmeade weekend, Proudfoot," Dawlish snapped, striding into the room and wiping ash from his hair. "There's never 'less' people around."

"Of course, sir," Proudfoot said quickly, feeling that this was the time to be formal.

They basically had a terrorist attack happen on their watch, definitely no need for their usual winding up of Dawlish.

"Spend a lot of time on your knees, sir?" Tonks asked mockingly. Well, almost no need.

"Shut up, Tonks," her boss snapped, though without the usual venom. He must be tired.

Dawlish leaned against the fridge and rubbed a hand over his face. It looked like he had dramatically aged since this morning. It did seem so long ago that he was making sexist jokes. He flexed his knees slightly. Something cracked and everyone winced reflexively. That definitely sounded like it hurt.

"I just spent the past hour on the floo with some of the best Healers on the Spell Damage Floor of St Mungo's," he explained to them.

Tonks instinctively winced at the mention of that particular floor. Certain residents of it had always been thrown in her face when she was growing up. Like it was her fault her "dear auntie" performed all sorts of atrocities.

"Isn't the girl underage? Shouldn't she be in paediatrics?" Savage asked, looking confused.

Dawlish shook his head. "She's of age and even if she wasn't, she'd still be on the fourth floor. Paediatrics don't have the specialists she needs."

"How bad is it?" Tonks asked quietly.

For all of her joking around, Tonks did actually feel guilty that she hadn't been there when it happened. If she'd actually gone into the Three Broomsticks for her drink this might not have happened. Or maybe she could have lessened the curse somehow. She'd received good marks in healing and curse lifting during training. That and her mother had taught her how to untangle some nasty curses. Her way of going against the Black Family Teachings. Reducing their impact. She knew that it was a ridiculous thought, there was no way she could have done anything – it had happened in the bathroom for crying out loud - but it didn't stop her thinking it. Maybe an Auror presence would have given the culprit cold feet? Oh, she didn't know. All Tonks knew that she felt guilty about being safe and snug in this stupid apartment while a student got hurt.

"They were bringing in the Unspeakables when I signed off," Dawlish said with a sigh. "The Healers had never seen such a curse never mind how to go about lifting it."

"At least the Potter boy had the sense to grab the necklace and get it to the authorities," Proudfoot praised, looking somewhat impressed. "Even knew not to touch the thing. Not many kids would think of that."

"We could have been looking at a lot more casualties," Savage agreed.

Tonks shuddered at the thought but felt a glow of second hand pride for Harry. That showed the Ministry. He was a smart kid. Though how he was coping with seeing someone get cursed in front of him, she didn't know. She'd have to ask Ginny. Or Hermione. It had to be traumatic, Tonks knew that it had been for her when she saw her first curse victim at the World Cup. It had been on a defenceless Muggle too.

"Finding the source is why the Unspeakables were brought in so fast," Dawlish added. "Hopefully they will be able to reverse it before it becomes permanent."

"It can do that?" Proudfoot gasped, sounding astonished.

Unfortunately, Tonks wasn't. Through her mother she knew a lot of curses that behaved as she suspected this one did. Wouldn't know how to begin removing or reversing it though. Her mother certainly hadn't when she was explaining how to identify curses like that.

"It feeds off her magic to circulate through her, doesn't it?" Tonks asked, focusing her eyes squarely on her rapidly cooling mug. Yuck, cold hot chocolate. She did not want to see the surprised looks at recognising that symptom.

She could feel Dawlish giving her the old side-eye as he replied slowly, "Something like that. Last I heard, it latched onto her magic which is powering the curse."

"Can it drain her magic?" Proudfoot asked in an alarmed tone.

Tonks answered before Dawlish could.

"No, curse like that don't work that way. It's not a curse that's cast live. It's embedded in the object so all it does is use your magic to constantly perform the curse without dissipating like a curse you cast on a person would eventually do."

"Like it's successively being cast on her?"

Tonks nodded.

"In this case she constantly feels like some sort of pain curse is constantly being refreshed on her," Dawlish finally managed to get in.

"Like the Cruciatus?"

Dawlish shook his head. "Apparently the curse affects your brain rather than your whole nervous system. It makes you think you're in pain without actually being in pain. The main part of it that it triggers the part of your brain that feels terror."

"Hence the screaming?" Tonks guessed.

"Yep."

The four of them shuddered as one at the thought of a child going through that. It didn't matter that she was now seventeen. She was still in school and should in no way have to deal with something like this.

Tonks took a swig from her mug, now really wishing there was something stronger in it, and spluttered – some liquid coming out her nose and spraying Proudfoot.

"Hey!" he complained, jumping backwards and shifting his seat so it ran over Dawlish's foot.

That sent their boss hopping across the kitchen, knocking things off the counter (including the nice neat stack of reports!) and colliding with Savage. Both men fell to the floor with a loud enough 'THUMP' to wake the dead. Tonks really hoped that the tenants below them weren't in. They did not need another complaint lodged with the Ministry.

"What the hell?" came three annoyed and pained voices.

"Cold!" Tonks whined, shoving her mug away from her and pouting at it.

AN: Hope everyone is enjoying the story so far, thank you to all those who have been reviewing - really appreciate you guys sticking around for so long. Please don't forget to check out my two 'extra' stories for this series 'Tripping Up' and 'Stumbling Romance', would love to know what you think!