"Did James end up liking Hokey?" Remus asked.

My moke's name sounded funny coming out of his mouth. Had it always sounded so silly? Poor Hokey.

"Oh, he did. He really liked him. Tried to get his own apparently but his mum put her foot down."

"A complete travesty," Sirius declared.

"James certainly thought so."

"What did you think of your Electives?" Sirius asked, changing the subject abruptly. "I always thought of those as more fun."

"You found Arithmancy fun?" Remus asked in amazement.

"Yes."

"Have you two switched brains or soemthing?" I teased.

"I can like academic things!"

"Sire you can, Padfoot," Remus teased, patting him on the head.

"I can!" Sirius shoved Remus away from him which just made him laugh.

And now Sirius was pouting. Ha.

"My Electives were okay, I always preferred Defence or Transfiguration. Care of Magical Creatures was fun, though."

"Did it not smell?" Sirius asked doubtfully.

I couldn't help but give him an incredulous look. What? Remus flung an arm around his shoulder and grinned.

"Padfoot here decided to be a prissy pureblood and decided that he did not want to get his hands dirty."

"Yep," Sirius agreed easily. "No thank you."

I giggled. To be honest, I couldn't imagine Sirius shovelling up Hippogriff dung or the like.

"So, what was so bad about Electives?" Remus asked.

"Extra classes meant I had to spend even more time with people I definitely did not like," I grumbled.

Two classes in first and second year were definitely more than enough time spent with some people. She really hadn't needed any more. Unfortunately, Electives weren't split along Houses.

That got both Remus and Sirius raising their eyebrows.

"I didn't exactly have the best start to Ancient Runes..."

Great. Just great. None of her friends were taking Ancient Runes. The traitors. No, it was too difficult sounding. Too redundant. Boring. Divination sounded more fun. Hmpf.

Well, she was going to have loads of fun in Ancient Runes. She'd show them. It was going to be the best subject. Or it would if there wasn't one teeny, tiny problem. Okay, it was a big problem. For her anyway.

Unfortunately, one Abraham Smith from Gryffindor was also taking Ancient Runes. Fantastic. Just, fantastic. That was the last thing she needed.

"Oh, great, it looks like we have a freak in our class," he said loudly.

Case in point.

Everyone snickered at her and the tips of her hair turned bright red. The downside of being a Metamorphmagus was that everyone knew what you were feeling. Not that this boy seemed to be picking up on that. Smith was pretty stupid after all. Unfortunately, he was also very, very, annoying and downright horrible. She had plenty of experience with that - he was the one she had had that fight with a way back in first year. And Tonks was very prepared to repeat that experience if necessary.

"Hey, freaky freak," Smith continued.

Tonks ignored him. She wasn't even going to acknowledge him.

"Hey!" He stood in front of her. "I'm talking to you."

"I don't think you are." He gave her a confused look. "Last I checked, my name wasn't 'Freak'."

"No," he sniggered. "It's something more stupid instead."

"Shut up!"

Oh, she knew she shouldn't have responded but her name was the one thing that could make her snap. Why did people have to be so mean about it? See, this was why she went by her surname.

Smith just grinned at her, obviously just wanting a reaction out of her. Which she just handed to him on a silver plate, didn't she?

"No, I don't think so," he said lazily. "You don't give orders around here."

Not even halfway through the day and she was already exhausted. Tonks didn't want to fight with him. She didn't want to fight with anyone.

"Oh, just leave me alone," she said, turning away from him.

Unfortunately, Smith had other ideas.

"Don't turn away from me!" he said loudly.

"I'll do what I want," she spat back.

He didn't get to order her about! No one did! She could talk to who she wanted or ignore who she wanted. It was that easy. Why did he even want to talk to her anyway? It was obvious that he didn't like her.

They had drawn everyone's attention now because of course they had. People just couldn't mind their own business here. Of course, none of them were doing anything about this argument. Just watching.

"Is somebody angry," he mocked in that stupid taunting voice. Oh, how she hated that voice.

Or maybe they didn't. Didn't he know that red tips meant she was embarrassed? It happened often enough that the whole school should know that by now. Honestly. But, then again, she really shouldn't expect so much intelligence from him.

Maybe blunt force would work better. It would make her feel better anyway. A lot better. Even if it meant risking yet another detention.

"Oh, hi, Tonks!"

That was the first friendly face she had seen since she came into this classroom. Charlie Weasley slipped into the seat next to her just as the bell rang for the period to start.

"You're taking Ancient Runes?" she asked both hopefully and in amazement.

She didn't think that Charlie would be the type of person to take Ancient Runes. Then again, she didn't know what subjects he was the type to take.

"Yeah, Bill said they were pretty cool so here I am."

"Cool."

Tonks was kind of jealous. Having a big brother who had already gone through this would definitely make things easier. And be a lot of help.

"Done anything more with your ears?"

"Kind of. I tried the external canal thing again."

"Did it work?"

She frowned. "Not really. I mean, it did. A bit. But not as much as I wanted it to. Apparently, I need to morph something in the inside of my ear..."

"Oh, look! The freak is talking about freaky things with dragon boy."

Charlie shook his head and rolled his eyes.

"He really is an idiot, isn't he?"

"Why on earth was that Smith boy like that?" Sirius asked, looking angry on my behalf.

Which was kind of sweet hut that was years and years ago now. It didn't bother me anymore. Well, not much.

"People just suck sometimes," I said with a shrug.

I certainly had plenty of experience with that. And there wasn't anything you could do to change people like that. The reason why they sucked was because they were stuck in their ways and refused to change.

"Smith," Remus said slowly. "Is he any relation to a Zacharias Smith in Hufflepuff?"

"Maybe?"

It wasn't like I was exactly chatty with Abraham.

"You teach his kid or something?" Sirius asked.

"Maybe," Remus grimaced. "The attitude is certainly the same."

Nice. Good to know that it was hereditary. Not.

"Why are your classmates such arseholes?" Sirius asked in all seriousness.

"Padfoot!" Remus scolded though there was no real strength behind it.

"You know it's true, Moony."

Notably, Remus didn't deny it but he obviously didn't want to egg Sirius on. Instead, he turned back to me.

"Do they ever just leave you alone?"

I shrugged, not knowing how to answer that. There was apparently a lot about me that people felt like they could poke at but I wasn't going to mention that.

Unfortunately, Sirius read my expression correctly and a dark look came over his face.

"People really do suck," he muttered.