For Nymphadora Tonks it was hard to get taken seriously.
The Auror department was full of old and battle worn men all sharing stories of great captures which were complimented by the scars they had to prove it.
They made their way though life hardly ever seen and barely making a sound. That was what made them so effective. They blended into the background, hid in plain sight and were only seen when they wanted to be.
That was made it so hard.
For Nymphadora Tonks was none of these things. She was a colourful person with bright clothes that often clashed garishly with her hair.
She was clumsy. Clumsy enough that people had stopped offering to help her up, they just let her get on with it.
In conversation she was loud, witty and funny, not someone you would forget in a hurry.
What made things worse was that in her first few weeks as a rookie in the Auror department she knew that she wasn't imagining the looks of suspicion and distrust in the eyes of her colleagues.
She wasn't Black by name, but many people assumed that she was by nature. She resented that. She hated that she had nothing wrong and yet was discriminated against anyway.
So she trained. She trained day and night so she could fight alongside them, gain their trust and be seen as an equal. She waited for her chance, half afraid that it would never come.
Then one day it did. A minor bust quickly turned ugly and reinforcements were called. As Tonks landed there from her apparation she threw herself into the fray with reckless abandonment. She fought along the Aurors that deemed her too young, too colourful and too loud and she proved herself.
Until it all went wrong.
A stray cutting curse clipped her on the edge of her arm and before she knew it she was on the ground, consciousness slipping away.
~o~o~o~
Tonks stood in front of the mirror minutes before she was due in at work. She was trying to tug down the short sleeve of her top further down to hide the ugly puckered scar that ran along her arm. She closed her eyes ready to morph it away as a thought occurred to her.
Grinning, she pushed the sleeve of her top back up her arms so the scar was in full sight of every one.
When she walked through the department later that day she knew she wasn't imagining the respect in their eyes.
…..
A/N- Well, I hope you enjoyed it and if you did reviews are welcomed and prompts and suggestions are sorely needed, all the best-VE