Tonks hurried down the hall, carrying the case file about a theft in a small wizarding village in Wales that she had never heard of before yesterday. The theft had turned out to be nothing more than some local kids causing trouble. It was a scenario that had been common when Tonks was a trainee, but recently, she always expected the worst when sent on assignments.
They were on such high alert that even a "small" theft such as this one needed to be reported to Robards, just to keep him up to date on where and where not Voldemort and his Death Eaters were operating. Tonks was eager to get a brief memo written up and sent to Robard's desk for when he actually had time to look at it in a month.
She was passing the door to the break room when she heard her name drift into the hall and paused, hovering just out of sight of whoever was inside.
"I can't believe she got sent to Hogsmeade back in September," the voice continued. She recognized it as Whittaker, a man who had joined the department eight years before Tonks. "That should have been a high-ranking assignment. If the Death Eaters had attacked, we could have lost a whole generation. No one with so few years on the force should have been sent there."
Tonks backed up against the wall, her stomach churning. In the past, she would have already blown in the room and confronted Whittaker and whoever he was speaking to, but as a strand of mousy brown hair fell into her eyes, she couldn't find the energy to do so. She could hardly make it through work anymore, let alone arguments with her coworkers.
"Did you expect anything different?" Miles asked. Tonks clenched her jaw. She and Miles had gone through training together, and the other woman had always tried to turn everything into a competition. "Moody always favoured her, and Kingsley does the same."
Clearly, Miles' opinion of her hadn't changed. Tonks was grateful that the two of them rarely worked together as they were typically paired with more experienced Aurors in order to gain experience. Or maybe only Tonks was being assigned to work with more experienced Aurors, if these accusations were anything to go by.
"I didn't expect anything different," Whittaker agreed. "But I don't understand what's so special about her that has them enamored. She's been falling apart on the job lately."
Miles sniggered. "Thank Merlin that ridiculous pink hair is gone. Too bad that it apparently held the secret to what little power she had. She's been falling apart for months. If it weren't for her connections, she'd have been fired a long time ago."
"I can't help but wonder what's going on," Whittaker said. "It can't be her job."
Tonks gripped her hand into a fist. As if a job was the only worry someone could have. The idea of them guessing anything close to the truth filled her with dread, and she pushed away from the wall. Keeping her head down, she hurried past the doorway, hoping that neither of them would bother to glance at the hall as she passed.