A/N: I still don't own these characters, which is too bad. I bet Andromeda would be a load to have around.

—

Tonks was nearly twenty-one when she received the letter from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. It was delayed three weeks past its promised arrival date, and unlike those of her classmates, the offer of a position as an Auror was conditional—"pending further inquiry into one or more of the necessary skill sets listed on the enclosed evaluation".

"Bollocks," Tonks shouted, crumpling the letter into a ball and pitching it in the general direction of the fireplace.

"Accio Letter," Andromeda murmured, raising her wand but not her gaze. The wad of paper changed direction abruptly, just before the flames consumed it, and Andromeda began to lay the piece of paper as flat as possible, fixing Tonks with a reproachful look. "It's an offer," she insisted.

"A conditional offer," Tonks roared, taking careful aim with the evaluation sheet as well. "I did not waste the night of my last Yule Ball at Hogwarts studying bloody Potions for this." This was a little white lie, as Tonks had actually spent that particular evening mastering, at long last, the Patronus charm. The only curious thing about the spell, for her, was that her Patronus never appeared the same. On some occasions it was a bold lion; on others it was a marten, an owl, a housecat, and even, once, a rooster. She rarely saw the same form more than once, and never twice in succession. Her N.E.W.T. examiners had been baffled by it, had called her an anomaly, but concluded at last that as long as she was consistently able to produce a corporeal Patronus, the inconsistency of the Patronus' shape should not affect her mark.

"A conditional offer, darling," Andromeda said, managing to Summon Tonks' evaluation sheet before it sailed into the fireplace as well. "Which means that you read what they have to say, you comply with the conditions, and you accept your offer."

"What conditions?" Tonks shouted, watching her mother read through her evaluation. "I was brilliant, Mum—even Scrimgeour said so, and he doesn't like anybody—what am I supposed to do now, anyway? What do Auror rejects do for a living, get demoted to second-class Hit Wizards?"

Andromeda wasn't listening. She scanned her daughter's final evaluation, which was, to be fair, remarkable in most respects. Particularly high marks in Concealment and Disguise, which was no surprise; a slightly lower ranking in Stealth and Tracking, of course, due to Tonks' clumsy nature—but near the bottom of the list, Andromeda came across a category that had no mark next to it at all: Defence Against Dark Creatures. Instead, the Department had written: Evidence not sufficient for evaluation.

"Nymphadora, did you take every part of the examination?"

"What?"

"See, here—it says…"

Tonks scanned the evaluation briefly, slowing down when she saw what Andromeda had seen. "Evidence not sufficient? That's ridiculous. We had a whole obstacle course—I remember, we started with easy things, grindylows and that, and finished with a sphinx, three dementors, and dragons."

"Dragons?"

"Baby dragons, they weren't much—more confused than anything—but that's not the point, Mum. I did it all. I did it better than anyone."

After surreptitiously putting the fire out with her wand hand, Andromeda extended the letter to Tonks with her left. "Well, you can speak to Mr. Scrimgeour in his office Tuesday next, according to this. I'm sure it's a mistake."

"Bloody better."

"Yes, dear."

—

"Tonks," Rufus Scrimgeour barked when his assistant showed her in, pulling her file from a drawer beneath his desk. "Nymphadora."

"Yes, sir."

"You'll be joining us this year, is that right?"

Tonks relaxed visibly. It was all right, then, whatever she had left out or forgotten on the obstacle course. They would probably just make her go back and do it again, and she could do that easily. "I'd like that, sir. Very much."

"Good." He pulled a more detailed evaluation out of her file, and Tonks tried to restrain herself from squinting at the comments her instructors had scribbled across the form. "They tell me you've finally got your self-awareness under control, that's excellent; solid on your antidotes; good background in Charms, and of course your natural advantage…" He glanced up at her. Under his scrutiny, Tonks felt her nose lengthen and widen slightly. She blushed, but Scrimgeour didn't crack a smile.

"We're concerned, Tonks," he said instead.

"About—"

"Your Patronus. Yes."

Tonks blinked. Scrimgeour said it as though he had expected her to know what was wrong, but why? Her Patronus problems hadn't plagued her since sixth year. "But I defeated all three dementors," she said, trying to keep her voice under control. "I only said the spell once, every time."

"Yes. You confronted the first one with a swan-shaped Patronus, and it changed down almost instantaneously," Scrimgeour said, flipping through Tonks' file almost casually. "You solved the sphinx's riddle in twenty-two seconds, faster than everyone else in the course, with the exception of Amos Pringle—who is, after all, an accomplished Legilimens—and then you attacked the second dementor with a Patronus in the form of a cougar. Sound right?"

Tonks nodded, still confused. "And then the boggart, which—"

"—turned into you." Scrimgeour took off his glasses and tossed them on the desk, peering at Tonks intently, who reddened more deeply. "In your, er, natural state. Is that correct?"

"Yes," Tonks whispered, staring at her feet.

"Yes. We've only had three other Metamorphmagi on staff in the history of the Department," Scrimgeour said briskly, as though tears were not forming in Tonks' eyes (which, today, were purple). "It's very rare, I'm sure you know, but it may interest you to learn that the same thing happened to them when they faced their own boggarts."

Tonks looked up suddenly, wiping her eyes with a touch of impatience when she saw that Scrimgeour had become blurry. "It did?"

"I don't claim to understand it, but some of the scholarship that's been done on Metamorphmagi would suggest that they usually only assume the appearance they were born with when they're—"

"Sleeping, depressed, or terrified," Tonks recited wearily; she did not need to read a book on Metamorphmagi to know that. "So I've heard."

Even Scrimgeour had the grace to look slightly embarrassed. "Yes, of course. So the theory is that the boggarts of Metamorphmagi change into themselves—the selves they never see unless something is terribly wrong."

"But I defeated the boggart," Tonks insisted.

"Yes. You have to understand, though, that many wizards see themselves when they face boggarts. Usually, those wizards are disqualified from becoming Aurors because it implies a weakness of character—a fear of the self, a sign of insecurity, as it were. Of course, we have made exceptions for Metamorphmagi in light of the recent research."

"What did you do for them before the recent research?" Tonks muttered under her breath.

"After your encounter with the boggart," Scrimgeour continued, as though he had not heard (though Tonks was fairly sure he had), "you defeated the last dementor with a Patronus in the shape of a doe. Agreed?"

"Agreed," Tonks echoed. "So what—"

"Has your Patronus ever settled on a form?"

Tonks shook her head. "But I've always been able to do it. I thought that was all that mattered."

"The appearance of your boggart," Scrimgeour informed her, "combined with your highly irregular Patronus, has caused certain of the evaluators to feel that your confidence in your own abilities may be a liability to you under pressure."

Tonks scowled. In English, please.

"They recommend another year of training."

"Another YEAR?"

"But," Scrimgeour continued, motioning her back into her seat, "I have the power to overrule their decision if I see fit. Tonks, this doesn't go beyond this office, but we both know the Ministry is going to be in dire need of highly qualified Aurors shortly. Don't we?"

She couldn't believe he had said it. Most people in the Ministry were beginning to think about Voldemort more and more—particularly with the recent death of Bartemius Crouch—but no one she knew had dared to say it out loud, least of all the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement himself. Cornelius Fudge would have had a coronary if he'd heard, she knew. And suddenly the gravity of the path she had chosen for herself hit her for the first time, knowing, as she met Scrimgeour's unblinking gaze, that her duties would not be confined to rooting the last of the former Death Eaters out of their hiding places, as the Aurors had been doing for the past thirteen years.

"Yes," she heard herself say. "Yes. I—yes."

"We understand each other."

"Yes, sir."

Scrimgeour waved his wand, and suddenly Tonks' file folder changed from the sickly yellow that designated the files of trainees to the deep blue that the Department used for qualified Aurors. "Official ceremony this Friday," he said. "Dress robes. Bring your wand. And for Merlin's sake get rid of that pink hair, it's not at all professional. Rita Skeeter plans to be there, so if I were you I'd change into someone of no consequence immediately after. I certainly wish I could."

Tonks restrained herself from jumping up and down with great effort, grinning madly as she pumped Scrimgeour's hand. "Yes, sir. Of course. Yes."