"What was your punishment?" Sirius asked with morbid curiosity. "Did you both get punished?"

I scrunched up my nose in remembrance of the scolding me and Pauline got. It was rather impressive and terrifying coming from Professor Sprout. You didn't expect it from her, unlike McGonagall, so it really put the fear of God into you when it did happen. Which it did with depressing frequency for me throughout my Hogwarts years but that was neither here nor there. Yet anyway. I'm sure that those stories would come out eventually. It was sure to entertain these two idiots.

"Yeah, both got a right telling off and way too many detentions," I replied. "I think my hand nearly fell off with all the lines I had to write. That and we had to work together on cleaning jobs for Filch."

Sirius winced in sympathy and Remus rolled his eyes. Easy for him! He didn't have to force himself to get along with Pauline for Merlin knows how many hours to get their jobs done. Jobs that took quite a bit longer than they were supposed to because they didn't get along.

"Was there much of a backlash from Pauline's announcement?" Remus asked.

Sirius snorted. "It's Hogwarts. There's always a backlash."


"There she is."

"Bold as brass."

"Freak."

"Figures the whole of her family is a bunch of outcasts."

Tonks was never going to complain about the stares at her hair again. Nope. Definitely not. Nor was she ever going to think "it can't get any worse" again. Because it really could get worse.

It turned out that more stares really could make a difference. Especially when it seemed to be the whole bloody school and most of the Professors. Sure, she got all those for her abilities but these stares were different.

More accusing? Prying? More nosey. Definitely more nosey. It was like everyone had a right to know all about her parents. Which they didn't.

Though, apparently, being Edward Tonks and Andromeda Black's "lovechild" (yes, she heard someone call her that, no, she didn't know what it meant) meant that she was interesting. The wrong kind of interesting. She didn't want to be interesting. She just wanted to be Tonks. But now she couldn't even be that.

Those stupid stares. It was like they expected her to blow up or something. Or maybe become evil where she stood. It was all so stupid.

"Bewitched."

"Tricked."

"Did you hear-?"

That was some of the nicer things she had heard about her parents. It was just awful. She wanted to hit something. Or someone. But both of those things were frowned on so she just had to ignore it. Hmpf. Liked that worked. It just seemed to encourage them.

"- of wedlock and-"

"I wonder if-"

"Why would a Black be so stupid?"

Something snapped in her. Again. That was really happening a lot recently.

"My mother is not stupid!" she shouted, whirling around on the stupid Gryffindor who said that.

His eyes widened in shock but it soon turned into a stupid smirk.

"Oh really, what do you call what she did then?"

"The right thing to do!"

Because it was the right thing to do. She had fallen in love! Of course, you did what you could for love! No matter what!

The boy scoffed at her. "Yeah, right. Don't be stupid. She had everything and threw it away for a whole load of nothing. Tell me that's not stupid."

"It's not!"

Tears sprung to her eyes and she stomped her foot. Stubbornly, she rubbed them away with the back of her knuckles. She wasn't going to show an idiot like this any sign of weakness.

"You know it's true," he taunted.

"Shut up!"

"What are you going to do? Go crying like a little baby? It's not like you Hufflepuffs can do much else."

"No!"

"Then what are you going to do?"

"This!"

With that, Tonks dived at the boy and soon they were rolling about on the floor. People were cheering and shouting above them. Fighting on the floor of a corridor was much different than fighting in the Common Room. The ground was harder. She was pretty sure she was going to get more bruises from that rather than the stupid weak punches this Gryffindor boy was trying to land.

Tonks got a hand to her face and she bit it, making him yell out in shock and shove her away. But she wasn't having that. He wanted a fight so he was getting one.

Or not, as someone was now dragging her away. She struggled to get free.

"Hey! Let me go!"

She looked up, just realising that this might be an adult who was doing this but thankfully it wasn't. Actually, it was James Abbot. Her so-called friend.

"Geroff me!"

She tried to wiggle free but he had a surprisingly strong grasp.

"Stop it, Dora!" James hissed as he dragged her off the other boy. "You got him good."

"Well, let me get him even better!"

She lunged forwards, still being held back by James, making the Gryffindor boy whimper. Good.

"Someone ran to get a Professor!"

That made her still. She did not want any more punishments. Or an extension to her already existing detentions. It was bad enough to be forced to do things with Pauline, she didn't want to be made to "cooperate" with this boy as well.

She was breathing heavily as the other boy's friend did the same thing to him. Actually, his friend shoved him away, telling him to "cool off".

"Sorry about him," the Weasley said. "He doesn't think before he speaks."

"I thought that was Gryffindors in general," Tonks sniffed.

That's what mum said anyway.

"True," he admitted after some thought. "Ok. He doesn't do a lot of thinking at all then. That better?"

Tonks couldn't help it. She laughed. It was a bit weak but she laughed. She hadn't done that since Christmas.

"Yeah, that's better," she said.

He cooked his head to one side and gave her a grin, holding his hand out.

"Charlie Weasley," he said.

"I know. You fell out of the boat at the start of the year," she told him as she shook his hand.

He pulled a face at that. "And you're the one with the silly name."

"Say it and I'll thump you," she threatened.

Charlie raised his hands in the air. "I won't say it. I won't say it."

"Good."

She'd had enough teasing to last her a lifetime.

"It's Tonks, isn't it?" Charlie asked hesitantly.

"Yep. That's me."

"The technicolour wonder," James added unhelpfully.

Tonks elbowed him for that and he doubted over.

"A violent one," he wheezed out.

Charlie chuckled and looked between the two Hufflepuffs.

"I'll try to stay on your good side."


"Charlie sounds like the first person to make sense," Sirius grumbled.

"More like he didn't realise what was going on around him," I retorted. "If it's not Quidditch or dragons that boy is just not interested."

"I'm glad I missed out on teaching that particular Weasley," said Remus.

I snorted. "He drove all our Professors batty. There was a point when he tried to include Quidditch or dragons in every essay he wrote."

Sirius howled with laughter. "That's genius!"

Remus put his head in his hands and groaned.