Don't get me wrong,' said Mehitabel Fortinbras, 'It's not that I don't like men. I do like men. Some of my best friends are men. It is, however, a girl's night out and you are not girls.'

Tonks took another swig of her beer and sank further back onto the bench to consider her colleagues, all of them connoisseurs of the 'frank exchange of views', currently enjoying the debate that had been going strong when she arrived at the 'Leaky Cauldron' and was finally, it seemed, working towards some sort of climax. While Tonks was feeling a bit fuzzy from the warmth and the beer, the others had got off work a couple of hours before she had and they had a head start. It didn't seem to have made any of them less intransigent.

'How are we not girls?' demanded Shacklebolt, outraged. 'We've got all the bits!'

Kingsly Shacklebolt was back to being a plump, and now rather pale and vampy, brunette. While the others seemed to be experiencing some difficulties with their Polyjuice assisted femininity, he was having no trouble at all with the very high heels. Or keeping the cleavage under control. Tonks was just the least bit inclined to feel pissed off about that as, she suspected, were several of her female colleagues.

'Being a girl isn't just about having girly bits,' said Louisa Longbottom. 'It's about doing girly things.'

'For the last time, woman, I am not having my legs waxed,' boomed Moody before shutting up suddenly. Glancing around Tonks could see that that appeared to be the consensus amongst the would be interlopers. Gates, Styles, Moody, Shacklebolt and a small woman with hair like a pale chrysanthemum, whom Tonks had as yet failed to identify, nodded.

'But it's something women do,' suggested Louisa.

'Bollocks to that,' said Moody. 'I'm not that kind of girl.'

'Apropos of bollocks,' put in Fortinbras, 'you are not any kind of girl. You're cheating.'

Tonks considered Moody's dark brown skin and braided hair with gold snake's heads at the plaits' ends. Comfortably over six foot and built like a lumberjack, Moody looked like a scary, sexy goddess and Tonks was prepared to bet that the old Auror was, indeed, cheating but, by now on her third pint, could not shake the feeling that she was missing the point.

'Give it five minutes and you will try to take over,' said Fortinbras. 'And then you'll try to start trouble.' She raised her hand to forestall interruption. 'I'm not saying I blame you. After all, it's not your fault that you're chromosomally challenged but you are not coming with us.'

'Do you think,' suggested Tonks, 'that we could all stop arguing and go and find something bad-tempered with lots and lots of teeth to introduce to McLaggan?'

Fortinbras took a deep breath while those of a formerly 'Y' inclination sniggered. 'Tonks,' she said, 'with regard to Mr. Lachlan McLaggan; there's a bit of a queue. Just why do you think you should get preferential treatment?'

'That stake-out we did last week . . .' began Tonks.

'Down at the docks?' asked Fortinbras.

'That one,' Tonks confirmed. Wind-driven grit and dust from a fertilizer cargo had stopped only for intervals of rain which gave the stinging muck something to stick to. Gates, Styles and herself had been pretending to repair a crane. Styles had undone the wrong nut and hydraulic fluid had added to the mess. None of them had dared to use magic for fear of tipping off their quarry so, when Tonks had slipped and fallen off the crane and into the worst of it, the others had sent her to clean herself up and get coffee.

'How was that McLaggan's fault?' asked Fortinbras.

That bit wasn't,' explained Tonks. 'McLaggan asked if I wanted to claim for the coffee.'

'And you signed to say that you were buying coffee and hence not working?' suggested Fortinbras. Tonks nodded. 'So. Five hours work: upped to a full shift at triple time becomes two hours work following on from the previous shift at no extra payment, followed by time off. Did he manage to switch the rest of the time?'

'Yes,' said Tonks. I've an assessment next month which would have been the Ministry's time. Instead, it will happen in the three hours of my own time that the bastard's exchanged for the other three hours of being covered in . . .'

'McLaggan is not your friend,' stated Moody. 'McLaggan does not like you and you were a bloody fool to think otherwise. Vigilance, girl!'

'Sorry Tonks,' said Fortinbras. 'As far as McLaggan's concerned, you're not even on the short list.'

'But . . .'

'He's the only person able to reconcile the accounts. Theory is someone fiddling the books cast a curse so that only one person at a time can total them correctly. Just at the moment that's McLaggan and since no-one gets paid until they are reconciled and no-one's keen to take over . . .' Fortinbras trailed off regretfully.

Let me get this straight,' said Moody, returning to the argument at hand. 'Surely you can't be claiming that starting trouble is entirely a woman's prerogative?'

'By which you are admitting that you are not, in fact, a woman?' queried Fortinbras.

'No. By which we are attempting to determine what exactly are the grounds for your refusal to see sense.' On the table, in a beer glass, Moody's eye was now rotating steadily. 'So,' he enquired cunningly, 'are you, in fact, claiming that starting trouble is entirely a woman's prerogative?'

'I am claiming,' replied Fortinbras in a dignified manner, 'that, whatever it is we choose to start, it is entirely within our prerogative to start it. It is, after all, a girls' night out.'

'And what are we then?' demanded Gates.

Louisa giggled. 'I think we've addressed that.'

Tonks had had enough. 'Excuse me, I need to go somewhere.' Squeezing past her friends she headed for the Ladies' toilets. That was the trouble with drinking pints.

And that was the trouble with drinking with Aurors. There was bound to be an argument, or, given the tendency of any group of experts to produce more opinions than there are persons present, several arguments, usually leading to differences of opinion over whose argument had precedence, frequently interspersed with full and frank discussions regarding authority to arbitrate and occasionally giving rise to opportunities to learn new and highly unusual hexes. 'Bloody vole-pit,' muttered Tonks, splashing cold water on her face. If nothing interesting was going to happen, she might as well go home.

In the sudden draft, as of a door being opened, Tonks groped for the towel. It was handed to her. 'Ta,' she said, drying her face in a leisurely manner before opening her eyes to discover that one wall was missing. In its place stood a large, shaggy horse. At the other end of the reigns was a large, shaggy Death Eater. 'Stop that now,' he pleaded as the horse took a casual bite at his sleeve. In the resulting struggle, the Death Eater's mask was dislodged and fell off to skitter away across the tiles.

'Hello Goyle,' said Tonks, drawing her wand.

'Er, hello Ms. Tonks.'

'Expelliamus!'

Tonks' wand stung as it was ripped from her fingers.

'Hello Nymphadora,' said Bellatrix Lestrange. 'Stupefy!'

-


Author's notes:

I don't know who first designated fanfictionnet 'the Vole-pit' but it's such a lovely expression that I've borrowed it for Tonks to describe her colleagues;