Deciding that perhaps she ought to think over what exactly she were going to teach at Hogwarts, she sat her desk and started scrawling random ideas onto scrap pieces of paper. Her concentration on this matter lasted barely five minutes, before she found herself staring into the mirror, fingering her current hair style. Her hair was a flaming shade of red and hung in tight curls that reached barely to her shoulders. Wrinkling her nose up, she sighed and ran her finger through her wavy hair, wistfully. Tonks never showed anyone the real her, but this shade of dirty blonde was the natural way her hair would hang. Her eyes roaming over the waves, she pointed her wand and straightened them, hating the way in which her natural hair never seemed to want to do what she wanted it to.

Putting her wand away in a drawer on the desk, she lifted her quill once more and held it in mid-air, as though she were about to write something. Something in the reflection had caught her eye. It was in her eyes, inside of them, that she saw and fascinatingly realised she were looking at her true self for the first time in months. Throughout her auror training and her initiation into the order, she had continually changed her appearance.

Shaking from her dream, she swore loudly as she saw that a small puddle of blue ink had formed on her dungarees. Scrunching her nose up once more, she was pleased to see the dungarees disappear and in its place appear a pair of boot cut jeans. Changing her shirt the muggle way, she left the sleeve buttons undone and rolled them up toward her elbows. Just as she were about to leave the room, she caught sight of herself in the mirror and imaged the red curls back. Pleased that she had remembered to change her appearance back, she opened the door and left the room, in search of some inspiration.

She leant upon a rotting windowsill, in one of the basement windows, the darkness of the room bringing her no inspiration. Fumbling with the crumpled up note in her hand, she wondered what on earth had driven her to accept the proposal. What had Dumbledore been drinking when he'd decided to give her the job?

Allowing the note to fall from her hands, onto the dust covered rotting carpet, she ran a hand through her hair and groaned, forgetting it were curled and got her nails caught amongst the threads. Wriggling her small button-like nose, her hair straightened out and the color faded into black. Feeling the color matched her mood, she left it that way, whilst picking red strands out from underneath her now chipped and broken nails.

She had absolutely no idea how to handle a class. She had not the faintest clue how to teach. All she knew were the facts, the information that she needed to get across. She could credit herself for knowing what level of sorcerory to teach each individual year and what standards she knew she had to raise them too, but, every time she'd imagined herself standing in front of a crowd of kids, trying to teach them she'd fail miserably.

Thinking perhaps Albus had made a grave mistake and thought it too horrible to take back, she opened the heavy oak door and made to climb up the stone steps and back into the main part of the building. In the dark, she had failed to notice someone hovering over an unseeable cauldron in the corner and it was his voice that made her jump and caused the door to slam shut. True to her lack of luck, the only candle lit, the one he was holding was blown out as a result of her reaction to his appearance. She waited with baited breath for the obvious sneer and, true also to his persona, he responded, but rather in a different manner than she had supposed. A scuffling of feet told her he were moving and, frozen, she stood still, feeling suddenly vulnerable and sensing his breath somewhere close. Not wanting to risk running into him, she stood as still as a tree trunk and fastened her arms to her side.

The sound drew closer and, as it did so, she felt a piece of paper being pushed into her hand and felt him brush past her, whilst saying, "You don't want that to fall into the wrong hands."

Nodding her head in the empty, silent darkness, she clung to the piece of paper as if it were her life. Stowing it away in her pocket, she opened her mouth to thank him as he re-lit the candle. She almost jumped of fright, for the second time, as she saw his face illuminate only a couple of inches from hers. Guessing what she were about to say, he sneered and commented,

"Don't thank me. If it had been my choice, I wouldn't have appointed you."

Feeling as though he may as well have struck her across the face, she felt the sudden need to lash out. Rashly, she took a harsh grip on the wrist that was hanging loose. He didn't seem to find this amusing, as his eyes came upon her skin with a look of loathing, of disgust. Flinging her hand from him, slightly disturbed, he commanded her,

"Get off me, petty child. Leave."

Normally, Tonks didn't allow herself to be ordered around, but something about being in this pitch room with only him and an ominous looking cauldron made the bottom of her stomach vanish. Taking advantage of the request fully, she left swiftly and closed the door behind her, this time allowing the candle to stay alight.

Severus watched her only briefly as she left and then turned back to his cauldron. There was something about being touched that deeply unnerved him. Perhaps it was because he had only ever allowed one woman to touch him and now she were dead, but the sensation sent a feeling of almost fright through him. He clenched his hand tightly around the ladle, stirring the brew, fully aware that his hand seemed to be throbbing where she had clasped onto him. Heat rising up through his body, he undid his top collar button, shaking his head in disbelief, frustration. Annoyed at the girl, he hung his robe up on a stand that stood to his left and focused his full attention on the fresh brew of Wolfsbane Potions.

Her mood still dark, her anger flaring, Tonks felt her eyes shift from hazel to that of a crimson shade of red, although her hair stayed deathly black. It was because of this physical change, that Remus, at first, did not notice her as she climbed upward out of the basement and stormed past him up the main staircase.

Taking a second, but careful glance, he caught the tense look upon her delicate face and followed her carefully. Watching her movements, closely, he snuck in through the library door as it were about to shut behind her.

Sliding into a chair, summoning a book to her and charming a chair so that it moved from the table, she said, with her back to him, "Remus, if you're going to follow me, at least make more of an effort to look inconspicuous."

Sitting in the seat she had moved from the table, he was barely able to see the shade of her eyes as they were trapped behind the book, which read on the front cover, "Dangerous Beasts and Mystical creatures of Welsh Origin." Deciding to avoid the silly question of, 'Is there anything wrong', as there obviously was, he tried,

"Still musing over what to teach your students?"

Grateful that he hadn't paid attention to her disheveled state, she nodded her head, whilst chewing on the end of her wand and mumbled, the wood still in her mouth,

"I know the guidelines, but yeah, I thought I'd bring some of my own origin into the course. Make it interesting."

Her eyes, now calming to a subtle shade of pink, he nodded his head and dragged his eyes from hers, feeling it were unnecessary to look at her so closely for much longer. Folding his palms together, on top of the table, glancing briefly over the lines caused by his transformations, he attempted to make some reference to what he had heard,

"You had a run in with Snape, didn't you?"

Judging by her silence, he guessed that she had. As her eyes seemed to lighten, so did her hair, from a shade of pitch black to one of dark brown that matched his own. Her pink eyes still fluttering, the book lain down on the table, he reached for one of her hands that lay on the open page. She didn't seem to notice the gesture and, so, rubbing a thumb over her hand he said,

"Are you alright?"

Awaking from her mild trance, she nodded her head,

"Yeah, I'm fine. It's just, something he said, it got to me."

Remus' following snort caused her eyes to fully open and, noticing his hand were on hers, she pulled away a little and watched him closely.

"Yeah, that's Snape alright. Don't be bothered by it Tonks," he said, reacting to her pulling away from him and the shock in her eyes from what he said.

"Severus isn't a people person, he's cold to everyone, and it's not just you. You'd do well to just stay out of his way."

It was Tonk's turn to snort,

"Do you realise what you just said? Remus, we're going to be working together for the next entire year. It won't be physically possible for me to stay out of his way and even when I try, I always end up annoying him anyways."

"Now, you can't be that hard on him. I know he's not the friendliest of people, but he is a fair man." It was only because of the thought of the Wolfsbane potion, that drove Remus to defending the cold man, and he shivered unpleasantly at the thought of opposing her in favor of him.

"You could say that again..." she mused, flicking through the pages of her book, bored with the conversation now. How she was expected to want to talk him when he defended that idiot, she didn't know. Her hair fading into a lighter shade of brown again, she violently became aware of her changing state, of how her hair was slowly fading back to its original color, she squeezed her eyes and imaged the red curls back. Her eyes, now completely calmed down, were a lilac color. Lupin caught onto this change in state and felt a little hurt that she didn't want to reveal how she truly looked, in front of him.

Bouncing one of the curls in her hand, completely unaware of the pained expression on Remus' face, she mused,

"I get the impression he doesn't think too highly of me, Severus I mean."

Leaning back in his chair, stretching out his legs, he sighed, "Back to that now, are we?" He had been hoping that their conversation wouldn't consist of that man wholly. He had nothing substantially against him, but it pained him to think she thought and worried more over Snape than himself. Worried by what these thoughts indicated, he ran a hand over his eyes, as if to wipe away the tiredness, blaming the thoughts on that, he replied,

"Snape is the kind of man who enjoys his private space."

"And what exactly has that got to do with him being so negative about me getting the Defense Against the Dark Arts position?"

Placing his hand back on the table, leaning further toward her again, he said,

"Don't tell him I told you this, but it's pretty common knowledge that he's wanted that position for years."

Tapping her quill against the rough parchment, with a shrug of her shoulders, she asked, "And what has that got to do with me. That's still no reason for him to be spiteful."

"In my books, it isn't at all, but well, he has his reasons for thinking he would've been far better suited to the job than you."