"I do not go all robotic!" Sirius complained.
I just exchanged a look with Remus before we turned back to him and said in unison, "Yes you do."
"Now, that's just creepy."
Remus rolled his eyes at Sirius' rather obvious deflection.
"You used to get all robotic when we got into trouble at school," Remus reminded him.
"That was a defence mechanism that I had to use at home. Of course, I used it in school as well!"
"Well, until you realised that you could be cheeky with no real consequences."
Sirius gave us a goofy grin. "Minnie always was a softie."
That was one word I would definitely not use to describe Minerva McGonagall. The Marauders were definitely something else.
"Well, I tended to talk a lot when I got into trouble..."
"It wasn't my fault!" Tonks said immediately as Professor Sprout settled herself behind her desk.
Professor Sprout pinched the bridge of her nose and took a deep breath. That was never a good sign.
"I never said it was," she manged to get out in a calm voice.
"Oh."
Well, that was a bit awkward. Tonks kind of just assumed everyone would blame her. She had technically been the one to cause the whole incident after all. Not on purpose, mind you! It really was an honest to goodness accident. Even she didn't understand how it happened. She just knew that she had caused more than a little bit of destruction. Who wouldn't be in trouble for that?
Apparently, not her. Which was nice. Detention was never fun, after all. And she'd had quite the streak of no detentions the past few weeks and she would quite like to extend that to the Christmas Holidays. Or December at least. She was still on track for that then.
"I just want to know the sequence of events that led up to it," she said kindly. "To make sure that it doesn't happen again."
"It was an accident."
"I know dear, and you're really not in trouble," her Head of House said earnestly.
That, that wasn't what she meant. Though it was nice to be reassured (again) that she wasn't going to get a detention over this or lose points.
What she meant was that she really didn't know the sequence of events that caused her to be at the centre of what could only be described as a massive mess in the middle of the corridor.
At least this time it hadn't involved dungbombs. That really would be catastrophic.
"I fell."
"You fell."
Tonks nodded vigorously, blushing slightly at what happened only fifteen minutes ago. Her knees hurt something shocking from it. And her side. And her back. You know what? Everything hurt, from her head to her toes. She was definitely going to be covered in bruises tomorrow.
"Yeah, I fell," she repeated as her Head of House just stared at her incredulously.
"You weren't pushed or anything?"
"No, ma'am," Tonks shook her head.
She would like to say that someone had pushed her - to save her from the embarrassment of, well, everything- but that wouldn't be fair. Or true.
"You fell... into a suit of armour in such a way that-"
"The whole corridor of them fell over?" Tonks interrupted. "Yes."
Professor Sprout looked confused. Tonks didn't blame her as she didn't even know how she managed that particular stunt. Technically, the way she fell shouldn't have made her crash into the suit of armour at all. If she had fallen straight, that was. Which, of course, she didn't. Nothing was ever simple with her.
"How?"
Tonks shrugged. She didn't exactly know the answer either.
"I'm clumsy."
Professor Sprout's eyebrows shot up her forehead.
"I am aware, but to this extent?"
Another shrug. "Yes?"
Was it really that difficult to believe? Tonks was pretty sure that she had had more than enough witnesses to back her up. She had heard the laughter.
"But how?"
The poor woman looked so bewildered at this knowledge. Poor her.
"I just am. Always have been," Tonks informed her. "All breakable things are kept out of my reach at home. Too many accidents."
Professor Sprout just shook her head and muttered something that Tonks couldn't quite catch.
"So, I'm not in trouble?" Tonks checked again.
There was probably a rule about not destroying Hogwarts property. Those suits of armour had to be valuable. They were old, after all. And they had made quite a crash - some of them definitely had to be damaged.
"Oh, no child!" she was quickly reassured. "Not in the least."
Then why on earth was she here? That would be the only reason she would have been called to her office, wouldn't it?
As if she knew what she was thinking Professor Sprout continued, "I just wanted to make sure that you were okay and no one was giving you any trouble. I come down hard on bullying."
Tonks wondered where she was when all those whispers and taunts were happening last year. Though, she supposed it wasn't really Hufflepuffs that were just doing that. And the Hufflepuffs that did, went quiet really fast, if she remembered correctly. Which was probably down to Professor Sprout, Tonks realised belatedly.
"No one's bullying me," she said quietly.
They weren't. Well, not anything that she counted as bullying anyway. Pauline was always going to be Pauline and nothing was ever going to change there. And she wasn't entirely blameless either. It was fun to annoy the other girl. As long as she didn't get caught. Which she rarely did.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, Professor."
Tonks nervously rubbed up and down her arm, not wanting the woman to worry any further.
Professor Sprout gave her a calculating look before nodding her head.
"Very well then."
"Do you want me to help tidy them up?" Tonks offered
It was her mess, after all, and mum said that you should always clean up your messes. Sure, that was normally said when she had spilled something but Tonks thought it applied here as well.
Professor Sprout immediately shook her head. "There's no need for that. Mr Filch can be quite exact in his work. You would just get in the way."
Tonks winced at that. Yes, definitely not a good idea to get on the bad side of Filch (if she wasn't already).
The two of them were staring incredulously at me again. Which of course meant that heat was rising in my cheeks. Again. Which sucked.
"What?" I asked loudly to cover up my embarrassment.
"A whole corridor of suits of armour?" Remus asked with raised eyebrows.
"Yes."
Okay, that was very defensive sounding but I couldn't help it.
"They're not even that close together," Sirius said, brown furrowing as he thought. "Can they really topple into each other like that?"
"So?"
"It's just... impressive," Remus told me with twitching lips.
"Amazing, even," Sirius said with a strained looking straight face.
I look between the two of them, their faces turning red with the strain. With a sigh, I waved my had at them.
"Oh, go on."
That's all they needed. Their laughter was loud and uncontrollable. Tears were actually coming down Remus' face he was laughing so hard.
Hmpf.
