Tuesday morning found Tonks prowling around Grimmauld Place before breakfast. Only one more day before she could go back to work. Molly's dreamless sleep potion had worked its magic, and with two blissfully nightmare-free nights, and more than twenty-four hours of taking the invigorating draught, she felt like her skin could barely contain the amount of energy rushing through her. The waiting was almost unbearable.

Her little experiment hadn't been without its bumps. She was profoundly grateful that when the first dose of draught wore off, she'd already returned to her room for the night. There was no way she could have explained to the others how she could go from energetic and alert one second to near collapse the next. It had hit her like an oncoming train, except that with a train she'd have had some warning. She had made it to the bed, barely, taking the potion Molly had left on the bedside table with hands that shook hard enough to spill precious drops onto the blankets. The moment she was prone she blacked out, only to wake the next morning still fully dressed and feeling vaguely hung over.

By her calculations, one drop of draught had given her a little over three solid hours of 'back to normal,' as she'd begun calling it in her head, and so, Mad-Eye style, she made up flasks to carry around with her, to take at three hour intervals. It proved successful, leaving her confident that, come Wednesday, this at least would go smoothly and she wouldn't be facing Scrimgeour as a broken-down shadow of herself.

The one detail she remained uncertain about was food. Even the Weasley boys were grudgingly impressed by the absurd quantities she was now eating in a single sitting. It took her ages to finish a meal, not really something she could accomplish at work.

Maybe if Molly packed her a hamper and she just ate throughout the day? Chances were high that she'd be stuck at her desk anyway. Scrimgeour might complain, but he was the worst offender when it came to clandestine snacking, everyone knew it. Yes, she decided, that seemed like the best solution.

And that was all the thought she was going to devote to that subject. Her abnormal appetite, along with her fatigue and unexplained weight loss, were subjects that weren't worth the energy required to think about them. It wasn't like she didn't know something was wrong. Thinking about just how wrong it was, or the myriad ways it could continue to go wrong, only made panic start to bubble up inside her chest, and why bother torturing herself like that when she still didn't have any answers? Time enough to worry once she learned more.

It was a particularly stupid piece of logic. In a house full of Gryffindors, there was a lot of that floating around, and Hufflepuff that she was, she hated resorting to what she considered sloppy thinking. Avoidance was a fantastic way of making things worse. But if this bit of stupidity allowed her to function instead of being paralyzed by her own fear, then she was prepared to be stupid for as long as it took. Or at least that's what she told herself when her rational mind threatened mutiny and started arguing for things like telling Moody or Remus, or asking for more time from work. Sometimes rational sense wasn't the answer. And then she was back to stupid logic. She was running in such tight circles she was making herself dizzy.

The life of a Gryffindor must be difficult. At least she was in good company.

That was the thought floating through her head when she found herself battling what seemed to be a semi-sentient slime mould that had begun growing on the wall in the dining room. Twitchy as she was thing morning when she woke up, she'd gone looking for a fight, which in Grimmauld Place was about as difficult as walking into an unused room and waiting for a few minutes. Less time, really, if you were actively poking in corners or under furniture. This yellow horror had been lurking in a patch near the door, a few tendrils extended to catch hold of the unwary. It wasn't difficult to kill, although somewhere Professor Sprout was weeping over its loss, but the short fight forced her to focus. You couldn't allow yourself to be distracted in a situation like that or you were dead. Even against slow-moving slime moulds.

Where had this thing even come from? She swore the house itself encouraged stuff like this. After brushing off the spores it had shot out, in an attack like something out of those horrible Muggle B-movie from the 1960's that her dad liked so much, she raised her wand to set fire to the thing. The spell was on her lips, her wand raised, when panic struck without warning and she found herself huddled back against the dining room table, laughter ringing in her ears and visions of poor Boskin filling her head.

Okay. She drew in a shaking breath and choked on a sob. Okay. Fire was a bad choice. No fire.

This was…not good.

Hand trembling, she cast an acid spell on the slime mould instead. Probably the better choice. Sirius might thank her for burning the house down around their ears, but the others would be considerably less appreciative.

The nearly-dead thing hissed and sputtered as the acid burned into it, falling in smoking, foul-smelling gobbets to the carpet. Bits of it glowed faintly in the dim light of the room.

Tonks stared. Acid. No. No, that was much worse.

She barely had time to bend over before she vomited on the floor.

Remus looked up from his cup as Tonks walked unsteadily into the kitchen.

"Oh my goodness!" Molly rushed over. "Dear, you're pale as a sheet, are you all right?"

Hermione was the only other person in the kitchen at the moment, her nose in a book as she finished her porridge. She looked up at Molly's exclamation, her curious gaze bouncing from adult to adult.

Tonks noticed, of course. She seemed to notice everything, didn't she? She brushed Molly's hands away and visibly pulled herself together. "I'm fine. My stomach's a little off. Nothing breakfast won't fix."

Her smile was a weak counterfeit of what it had been the night before, and remembering, Remus felt another stab of…damn it, it was not jealousy. He'd wrestled with this for half the night, shoving it out of his thoughts only to have it creep back in again. He distracted himself by pouring another cup of tea.

Hermione went back to her book and Tonks took the chair next to him, looking…

He wanted to ignore her, but something in her eyes silenced the arguments in his head and made him sit up, worried.

"Nymphadora," he said before he could stop himself. "Sorry. Tonks. I…"

He glanced at Hermione, whose eyes darted back to the page in front of her.

What's wrong? What happened? he wanted to ask. Because clearly, something had. Her expression was reminiscent of what it had been back on the day of the attack. Haunted. Horror-filled.

"Hermione, what do you think of this?"

Remus didn't miss the catch in Tonks' voice when she unexpectedly spoke up, or the faint tremor that passed over her. He watched her quash it immediately with an angry shake of her head as she reached into the pocket of her jeans to pull out a small tin.

"Ooh, what is it?" Hermione eagerly reached out, opening the lid immediately. She made a face that was at once fascinated and disgusted and began poking at the contents with her wand.

"Some kind of slime mould, I think," Tonks answered. a little more steadily. "Nasty thing. Growing on the dining room wall."

"Looks like fuligo septica. Dog vomit slime mould. I wonder why it was in there, that's an odd place for it, usually it's found in…" She rattled away without noticing that Tonks had closed her eyes and stopped paying attention.

"Are you all right?" Remus asked quietly.

Tonks nodded. He waited, but nothing else was forthcoming.

Well, if she wasn't going to answer him, he had a perfectly good pair of eyes, didn't he?

"Hermione," Remus stood abruptly, interrupting the girl mid-sentence, "let's go take a look, shall we? Maybe we can figure out more about it."

Tonks looked taken aback. "I destroyed it pretty thoroughly, there's not much to see."

She didn't want him poking around. That was interesting. In that case, he decided, he was all the more determined to go get some answers.

He swept out of the kitchen with Hermione excitedly leading the way. Tonks may have called after him, he wasn't sure. He wouldn't have stopped even if she had.

"Let me go in first, Hermione. Keep your wand out, we haven't cleared much of the dining room yet and I'm not altogether sure what's lurking in here at this point. Ready?"

"Ready, Professor Lupin!" Hermione grinned, looking a little too eager.

At least she was competent, he told himself. And she probably wouldn't accidentally hex him in a fight, unlike some of his own colleagues.

Everything was quiet as he cautiously opened the door. The room smelled absolutely revolting, an acrid, sulphurous odor that caught in the back of the throat. He lit the candles in their wall sconces with a muttered spell and scanned the room, checking the furniture and ceiling corners, and stooping a little to look under the table. Insect eyes reflected back at him, but it shrank farther back into its hiding space and seemed reluctant to come out. Whatever Tonks had done earlier had thoroughly terrorized the inhabitants of the room and none of them seemed inclined to pick a fight. Fine by him.

He turned his attention to the walls and found the spot Tonks had mentioned almost immediately. Hermione was already inspecting the area, being careful, he was glad to see, not to touch it directly. He stepped closer.

It seemed as though most of it had been destroyed, a roughly oval patch of discoloured wallpaper showing where it had grown, ringed with blackened, stinking bits of what he presumed tp be the slime mould. The whole area was heavily pitted. Looking closely, though, he could see tiny spots of bright yellow where she hadn't quite gotten all of it. As thorough as she tended to be, it was telling that she'd missed that. The carpet showed spots of discolouration as well, along with small pieces that looked as though Tonks had cast a scouring spell and had done a poor job of it. And the carpet almost looked…burnt? No, she hadn't set fire to it, there was no smoke. He wondered why. Fire would have been the logical ch-

Understanding swept over him. No. She wouldn't have used fire, would she?

"Do you think she used an acid spell, Professor?" Hermione asked him, examining the burnt bits.

Ah. Acid. Well, this explained why she'd looked the way she had.

And she thought she could just waltz back to her job with no repercussions, no problems whatsoever. He sighed in exasperation. Why was she insisting on this folly?

"Professor?"

"Yes, sorry. I think you're right. That would also account for the smell. Unfortunately, with acid, you have to make sure everything is evenly covered or, as you can see here," he pointed out the remaining live spots, "it doesn't effectively destroy everything. Step back, I'll get the rest."

Hermione backed away and watched closely as he cleansed the remaining mould, spraying a mild acid liberally around the outer edge to eradicate any spores too small to see. Hopefully that would keep it from coming back.

"Oh!" Hermione exclaimed.

Remus spun, prepared to fight off something else, but the girl was staring at the floor.

"It's wet. Is the ceiling leaking?"

They both looked up, but there was no sign of water. Or any other suspicious liquid. Hermione bent down to inspect the spot.

"Ew. It smells like sick," She made a face. "I guess the smell of the acid upset her stomach."

"I would imagine, if the air is still this bad in here. She did look off when she came down to the kitchen. Let's finish cleaning up and then go see how she's doing."

Hermione was eager to show off her spell work, so there wasn't anything for Remus to do except stand there and work himself further into a temper.

By the time he walked back into the kitchen, he was fully ready to confront her with everything he had just pieced together, forcing an argument that would hopefully rally the others to his side and bring enough pressure to bear that she would accept the reality of her situation.

Sirius' arm around Tonks' shoulders brought his self-righteous head of steam to a screeching halt.

"Where've you been, Moony?" Sirius called when Remus walked in the door. Thankfully, Hermione had gone back upstairs to her room, no doubt to tell Ginny all about their impromptu lesson.

As much as he wanted to turn around and leave again, Remus knew this might be his only chance. He stalked over after a deep breath and planted himself in front of them. He couldn't bring himself to sit. He couldn't. As ridiculous a figure as he probably presented, standing in a huff at the end of the table, it was still preferable to the alternative.

"I saw what happened," he said, trying to keep a tight rein on his anger. It helped that Tonks looked even more stricken at his words. Maybe she hadn't expected him to piece things together. Or maybe she hadn't expected him to come out and say anything in front of everyone else, but why should he sugarcoat this for the sake of public appearance? Maybe the others could make her see sense.

"You have a dangerous job. The difference between life and death is your ability to cast every spell at your disposal without any hesitation, am I right?" He waited until she gave a reluctant nod. He leaned forward and spoke every word clearly. "So how can you tell me that you're ready to go back out there and do your job when you're incapable of casting a simple fire spell?"

She rose so abruptly that her chair tipped over. Her eyes burned into him as she stood there, trembling and white-faced with fury. Her mouth worked but no words emerged, until finally she choked out, "Go to hell, Lupin," and Apparated away.

Moments later, they heard the front door slam shut. Walburga's portrait began to wail.

Sirius stood slowly, his face darkening as he stared at the staircase and then swiveled his head back to Remus.

"What the fuck did you just do, Moony?"

A/N: WOW. These past few weeks did not go as planned. Nothing bad happened, don't worry, everything is fine, but dang. There's busy and then there's BUSY. Needless to say, there was no opportunity to build up any sort of buffer, so we'll just hobble along as best we can until everything sorts itself out. And hopefully the story itself will cooperate, because this chapter didn't behave AT ALL. Completely unlike the outline I had planned out. No fighting of any kind was supposed to happen. I don't know. I'm just along for the ride, apparently.

Hopefully you're all well, sorry for the wait! Thank you for reading, and for all the lovely reviews!