A/N: Thanks for the great reviews on the last chapter, they really made me happy. This is just a warning that updates might get less frequent from here on because I've got a lot more work at school than I thought I would. I do want to finish this story though, and I will. So, yeah. That would be my note. (Oh yes, and as always, please review some more) not that I want to sound needy or anything……

Chapter Eight

Tonks

"…..And I want you to alphabetize these files and then color-code them according to importance, alright? And then you can make copies of these notes and send them to Scrimgeor. Right. Carry on then."

I have often wished that I could shoot lasers out of my eyes. If I could I'd have been shooting them into the back of Cummings' head as he walked away. I am not a slave! I wanted to shout. I may be the youngest one here but I. Am. Not. Your. Bloody. Slave! Stupid Cummings. I was glad his name sounded vaguely dirty, and I hoped very much that he got a lot of shit for it at school. I really, really did.

"Nymphadora!" said Kingsley, looking scarily cheerful. "Excellent, just the person I wanted to see. Could you leave those files and come with me. There are some things I need your help with."

I gritted my teeth. I knew he had to pretend not to know me very well. I knew he had to make it look like I was doing menial labor for him as well, but why Nymphadora? Why? The problem with him was, he had a cruel sense of humor. There was just no way around it. Git. Big fat bald git.

"Now if you could just draw lines with this straight edge from each of the points where we have suspected Black might be hiding, in chronological order of course, that would be spectacular," he said, shoving a map into my hands, then adding in an undertone, "meeting tonight. It's a go with the werewolves."

"Bloody brilli," I said. "D'you really want me to do that map thing?"

"Course I do, Nymphy," he ruffled my hair. 'Nymphy' indeed. The work place was unjust! Unjust! I stalked away muttering about glass ceilings and longing for a drink.

"And it's raining. Of course it's raining!" I growled as I stepped out of the ministry three hours later and stalked down the street. Perfect. I hadn't brought an umbrella and my mascara wasn't waterproof. Also my jeans seemed to have decided it would be a lovely idea to transform into sponges. I could have apparated but really there wasn't much point. I'd only been outside five minutes and already I was soaked, more water wouldn't do me any harm. And, I had to admit, trudging through a hurricane during rush hour rather suited my mood of sullen rage.

By the time I reached Grimmauld Place I felt as if I'd swum the English Channel. I only wanted to get inside, dry off, and let Molly make me a big mug of hot chocolate. I'd completely forgotten about the meeting, so when I undid the locks and stepped inside it was a bit of a shock to see Meg, Tom, Sirius, and Remus standing in the hallway and staring at me as if I'd grown a second head.

"Wotcher all," I said, then noticed I was dripping all over the carpet. "Er, sorry about the water Sirius."

"That's……that's…….that's er, that's fine, Tonks," he looked rather taken aback, as did Tom. Remus looked as if someone had whacked him in the face with a skillet.

"What?" I said. "It's only water."

"Er, Tonks, sweetie. You do know your shirt is completely see through, right?" said Meg gently.

Why, oh why, was the world so cruel? Now I understood it. I looked like some strange, sluttish, Alice Cooper person. No wonder they were all gawping like idiots.

"No," I said in a voice of quiet dignity. "I did not. Does anyone have something I can cover it up with?"

"S'not really necessary you know," said Tom. Meg slapped him in the stomach.

"Why don't you give her your jumper, Remus," she said.

"Oh. Right," he said, peeling it over his head and handing it to me. I put it on thinking pig, pig, pig! I am an idiot. Who doesn't realize that white shirts become transparent when wet? Remus must have decided I was retarded, what with this and the tripping and the saying stupid things all the time. And now he felt sorry for me! It was unbearable.

"Why don't we go down to the kitchen," said Sirius, clapping his hands together in a business like and determined way, much like a football coach who's just realized none of his players have feet but is trying to make the best of it.

"Here," said Meg, pulling me back and wiping the mascara off my cheeks with a tissue from her bag. "Now you don't look like a member of Kiss."

"Thanks," I said.

"No problem," she said. "Hey, did you see Lupin's face when you walked in the door? God I thought he was going to faint!"

I felt myself go bright red, "Let's not talk about it anymore, okay?"

When we got to the kitchen we found it packed. Every member of the Order was there, including Dumbledore and Snape (who rarely came to meetings). I felt Meg go stiff beside me. In a flash Tom was next to her. The two of them seemed to be inflating themselves, drawing themselves in and up as if against some terrible force. I noticed for the first time that Tom had dressed to make himself look frightening as possible, and it had worked. His Mohawk was gelled all the way up, and it added about half a foot to his height. He was wearing his very tight black trousers again, and a faded black shirt with the sleeves ripped off and "Velvet Underground" printed across it in white letters and some crusty stains on the hem that looked suspiciously like blood. There were leather bracelets with spikes on round his wrists, but they weren't ornamental spikes, he'd sharpened them into deadly looking points. He had polished his huge boots till they shone and reflected the light from the fire in the grate. He had that honking great knife on him too, unsheathed this time. And, to top it all, he was wearing a huge, heavy looking chain round his waist. No one could mistake this baby for a belt either, it was too heavy, and like the knife and his boots, he'd polished it till it shone. The message was clear; Do Not Fuck With Me.

"There's—there's quite a lot of them, isn't there?" whispered Meg, looking apprehensive. She'd also dressed to intimidate, but in a different way. She was wearing a black lace dress whose coverage could generously be described as 'scant', she'd added four inch red heels and fishnet stockings, and she'd done her hair and make up to perfection. She seemed to be saying, 'I could bring every man here to his knees if I wanted to, top that!'

Problem was, they were so scared they hadn't yet noticed how well their message was coming across. Most of the men were sneaking sidelong glances at Meg. All the women in the room were looking at her as if they couldn't decide whether to hate her or mother her (excepting Molly, whose look of pity Meg had registered and was clearly offended by). Everyone except Dumbledore, Snape, and Remus looked nervous of Tom who was now holding himself like a wary dog, on the edge of attacking.

"Right all!" called Molly. "I thought we'd have some dinner before the meeting, now the kids are gone. So let's all sit down."

Everyone began jostling to find seats. The whole process was made complicated by the fact that a great many people (male people) wanted to sit next to Meg, but were too afraid to come near Tom who was hovering over her like a bodyguard. When the dust cleared I found myself between Meg and Remus. I felt sure I was going to die of embarrassment. I couldn't think of a thing to say to him that wasn't highly inappropriate. In light of this, I decided that silence was the best option.

"So," said Remus, nodding at Tom and Meg. "D'you think they got their point across?"

I nodded and repeated to myself don't blurt it out don't blurt it out don't—"So, you saw my tits then! Sorry about that!"

Oh God. There it was. I was now officially the most spastic woman alive.

He looked startled for a second, then a mischievous grin flitted across his face. "Don't apologize. It wasn't exactly an unpleasant experience."

I whacked him on the arm, but not hard, "You perveret! God, I feel dirty just wearing this jumper."

"Give it back then, I don't' mind."

"Can't. My shirt's still wet. Actually, I think I'm going to hold this jumper hostage. Hope it's your favorite." Really I already knew it was his favorite. It had more holes in it than the other ones, and the blue had faded almost to gray. You could feel him in it. Even if I hadn't seen him wear it a hundred times before I'd have known.

"No don't throw them away, I'll have them!" We turned in time to see Tom pouring an almost empty bottle of white wine into a half empty bottle of red wine and shaking it up. Molly, who was standing next to him with her arms still outstretched, her hands curled around the necks of phantom wine bottles, watched in horror as he took a long pull on the bottle and then offered it to Meg, who poured some into her empty water glass. "Anyone else want some?" asked Tom, offering the bottle around.

"Certainly," said Dumbledore, smiling pleasantly. Tom handed him the bottle and soon it was being shared around the table. Everyone seemed desperate to be polite.

"I can almost hear them thinking," murmured Remus, pouring me some wine. " 'Perhaps it is normal in werewolf culture to drink pink wine. Let's not offend anyone'"

I snorted, took a sip, and had to restrain myself to keep from spitting it out again. "That is fowl. What's he playing at?"

Remus glanced at him, "It's a game."

I chanced a look at Tom. From the look of it, Remus was right. There was a look of satisfied amusement on his face, and his movements were easier. Meg looked torn between a kind of vicarious triumph and embarrassment.

Tom's game didn't end with the wine. Within the first fifteen minutes he seemed to have figured out the entire dynamic of the group, and of course he exploited this mercilessly. First he had a long, very loud conversation with Dung about various criminal dealings, making sure Molly heard every word. When he'd exhausted this he turned to Snape and said, "So were you and Sirius mates at school?" He enhanced his butterbeer with rum from his hip flask, then asked if he could sample the contents of Moody's. Lastly, after everyone had finished, he pulled out his rolling papers and a plastic bag of some kind of leaf in it which he claimed was tobacco (but smelt as if he had mixed it with more potent things) and rolled up.

And the whole time no one said boo. The whole thing was so sick it was fantastic. Looking round at everyone else I could see none of them understood what was going on save Dumbledore, but he was too lofty to get involved. Remus and I kept glancing at each other and sniggering into our potatoes so that no one would notice.

What I didn't realize until I stood up to help Molly with the plates was just how drunk we all were. Meg and Tom were putting it away like they had hollow legs or something, at the most Tom was buzzed and Meg was tipsy (which made me wonder just how much Tom must've been drinking to be as soused as he was when I first met him). But the rest of us, well the rest of us were pissed out of our heads. Everyone had drunk too much, either out of nerves, or because we'd just been keeping pace with everyone else and not noticed how much we were drinking.

So I stood up to help Molly and immediately fell back into my seat. I tried taking a deep breath to get my equilibrium back but the fumes from Tom's "cigarette" just made it worse.

"I think," I said, leaning against Remus' shoulder to keep from toppling forward. "That I am smashed."

"I think it's mutual."

I started to giggle, "Can you be mutually smashed?"

"Oh I dunno," he grumbled. He took a sip of his drink and then started shaking with silent laughter.

I covered my face with my hands, "Oh this is baaaaad. This is supposed to be a serious occasion and," I leaned close to him to whisper 'everyone is piss drunk!' but somehow I didn't manage to say anything, because I kissed him instead, and he kissed me back.

When we broke apart we were both stone cold sober.

"Oh," I said. "Well." And then I stood up and started clearing the dishes and taking them to the sink, and I didn't fall over once.