Standard Disclaimer: I, being the lowly, pathetic and uncreative grease-monkey that I am, did not create any of the characters you're about to read about, nor did I create Hogwarts, or any other setting. They are all creations of the fantabulous J.K. Rowling. I'll my twisted little mind managed to come up with is the plot. Narf.
Twiddling her wand over her purple tipped fingers, Tonks sat gazing around the room, feet resting on the table, trying to think of a new, unique style for her hair. 'Perhaps green? Or a lemon and pink swirl?' she thought as she tipped her chair back, and sipped a bit of her coffee. The day had been a slow one, and basically everyone in the Order had been lazing around the headquarters, in a bit of a down cast mood. Their latest leads had come up empty, and they really had nothing to pursue at the current time. She hoped that would change by tonight -she could hardly stand sitting around and feeling useless as Voldemort gained more power with each passing moment.
Making a squinty face she focused all of her energy on a lovely, snot green, bob-style, cut and picked up a spoon to examine herself in the back of it.
"Not bad. Not bad at all," she voiced to herself and leaned back a little further in her chair.
"Beg your pardon?" came a voice from behind, followed by the crash of Tonks falling from her seat onto the floor, her coffee flying from her hand and splashing all about the room.
"Arrr," she grunted and looked up. "Bloody hell, Snape, don't sneak up on me like that!" she ordered as she clamoured to her feet and picked up the fallen chair and mug.
"Terribly sorry," he responded, in a voice that made it clear he was not, and waved his wand cleaning up the coffee splatters the filled the room.
"So," she said motioning to her hair, "What do you think?"
"It looks like a particularly nasty giant used you as a Kleenex," he came back snidely.
"Really, then how 'bout this?" she pointed as her bob changed into a shoulder length, greasy mass of black, exactly like Snapes and made a ridiculously silly, indignant face clearly mimicking him, causing him to glare at her with ferocity. "Oh, get off it," she smiled, changing her hair back to it's previous state.
"Anyways, Nymphadora-" he was cut off.
"For the last time it's TONKS!"
"I refuse to make a fool of myself, indulging in such idiotic nicknaming".
"Either it's Tonks, or I'll morph into you and run around the streets of Hogsmeade in a nice trashy pink nightgown. What would the big tough potions master say to his students then?" she threatened, completely serious.
"Fine," he let out between clenched teeth, "Tonks... Moody wants us all in the living room for a meeting". He turned on his heal, letting his cape swirl dramatically, as he exited the room in a huff.
She was taken aback to see the scene that was laid out in front of her as she entered the room. Mrs Weasley was sitting on the couch, with a horrible blotchy tearstained face, sobbing into her husbands shoulder, as he tried in vain to comfort her, although looking quite terrified himself. Moody, Remus and Sirius apparently had decided to look on sympathetically, clearly unsure of how to act, while Severus glared at her from the corner. 'What in the name of Merlin?' she thought to herself, but before she could put words to her thoughts Moody cleared is throat, and began to speak.
"There, there Molly dear, we'll think of something." It was odd hearing the gruff man speak with such compassion. With that Tonks walked over to stand next to Remus, unsure of what to do with herself.
"What on earth is going on?" she whispered to him from the side of her mouth, confused. Molly clearly overheard, because she responded before Remus had a chance to.
"I-I-t's, it's m-m-y pooooor R-o-o-o-o-o-o-n," she howled between sobs.
"We have reason to believe that Voldemort, may be plotting to, erm, well -may be plotting against Ron," explained Sirius in the most delicate manner he could.
"What?" she gasped. "Why on earth-" she was cut short by Moody's glare.
"He figures that if he can dismantle Harry's support system, he can weaken him mentally, and well, it's a lot easier to take down someone who's mentally exhausted," he finished, as Mrs Weasley muffled a particularly loud sob.
"Bugger... That twisted git. Well, don't you worry Molly, we won't let anything happen to Ron," she spoke, reassuringly, though not entirely convinced of her promise herself.
"And how," piped in Severus, "are we going to go about protecting him?"
"He can always stay here," offered Sirius, always anxious for new houseguests, as it did get quite boring for him trapped inside all the time.
"Don't be ridiculous," criticised Moody. "Hogwarts is much safer than this place. Why would we distance Ron from the one person Voldemort fears the most? He'll be best off to stay near Dumbledore".
"That may be true," Tonks broke in, "but Dumbledore is a busy man and he does have his duties as headmaster of Hogwarts. He's not going to be able to keep an eye on Ron all the time. We can't chance letting him get pulled off by himself. If he's to stay there we're going to have to post a few members of the Order around to protect him."
"Well, we can't very well just have you lot popping up all over the school whenever you feel like it," came Severus from the back corner, as everyone shot him dirty looks.
"Well we wouldn't very well just follow Ron around like a haggle of puppies," shot Tonks back at him. "If it were just out in the air that we were there to guard Ron, those lousy Slytherins you lead would go home to their Death Eater parents and tell them all about us, and Voldemort could knock us out easy as pie. It'd have to more strategic," and with that everyone visibly began to concentrate, furrowing their brows, trying to come up with some sort of plot so their residence at Hogwarts wouldn't raise suspicion.
"Well," suggested Moody after a long moment, "what if we posted one of us at the school, as, you know, a teacher or something?"
"And what exactly would we teach? None of us is qualified to do that sort of job, and we certainly can't go in and mess up the students education," replied Remus.
"But," Sirius said thoughtfully, "We could pose as a sort of student teacher or apprentice… to-to-to Snape!" he shouted in triumph, clearly regarding his plan as flawless.
"Yes, well, wouldn't that work out lovely?" Snape criticised from his corner, "Except for the fact that you're all as old, if not older than me! How many thirty something potions apprentices do you know? Come on now, at least try to be mildly logical".
"Well, we're not all thirty somethings…" replied Moody drifting off as everyone's gaze had slowly found it's way to Tonks, who felt her heart sink further than she thought possible into her stomach.
"Ohh… well…" she stumbled, trying to think of some excuse, when Mrs Weasley looked up at her with a pair of big, pleading, tear rimmed eyes.
"Absolutely not!" shouted Snape from the corner. "I'll not have her interrupting my potions class, prancing around and crashing over my students work!" With that Tonks forgot her previous standpoint and all her attention turned to defending herself against Snape.
"Listen here, you pathetic greasy git! You know damn well that I received 'outstanding' on my potions NEWT. I'm more than qualified to be some lousy potions apprentice! Don't you think it took ten times the work to become an auror! I could run bloody circles around you in that class!" she screamed in outrage, but tried to compose herself when she noticed the whole room was starring at her, with the beginnings of smiles creeping across their faces. 'Oh crap,' she thought to herself. She'd gone and done it now. She couldn't very well deny the position now that she'd put all that effort into telling Snape how good she'd be at it. With that she felt the air being squeezed out of her as Mrs Weasley flew out of her seat and pulled her into a death grip of a hug.
"Oh, dear," she cried, "thank you so much! Oh, you're doing such a wonderful thing for us, keeping my little Ronnie safe!" She continued, only tightening her grip on Tonks.
"Oh, of course, it's nothing, really. You know, me. I always love an adventure…" she sighed, patting Molly on the back as she slowly loosened her grip, allowing her to begin to breathe again.
"Hmmhmm," Snape cleared his throat from the back of the room. "Don't I have any say in what goes on in my own class?! This is absolutely ridiculous! I emphatically refuse to allow you to over-run my classroom in some fool hardy plan to protect Ronald Weasley!"
"Shut up Snivellus," came Sirius, as he eyed him threateningly, reaching for his wand.
"No! Sirius! Just drop it," cried Tonks, as Remus held him back. With that Snape pulled his wand from his left pocket and practically ran towards Sirius sticking it's point at his nose. There was a crash as Sirius tried to pull away from the lock he was in, knocking over an oddly legged, expensive looking, marble coffee table, causing it to crack in half.
"Severus, be the bigger man, put down your wand," issued Remus, once again trying to end the brawl before it got out of hand. "You don't want to do anything that's going to get you into trouble here". Snape glared at him with a look that could kill.
"Look," said Tonks in a frightened voice stepping to Snape side, "Like me or not you know I'm a good auror, and if Ron turns up dead and Harry's emotionally ruined, Voldemort will easily be able to destroy him, and then it won't matter what happened in your damn potions class because all your students, along with you, and the rest of the world with be at the receiving end of an unforgivable curse". He stared down his nose at her for a long moment, and finally loosened his grip on his wand, and charged quickly back to the kitchen. "Right then," Tonks breathed a sigh of relief, as Mrs Weasley began sobbing once again into her husbands shoulder. This was going to be a long few months.