Tonks tried really hard not to let her nerves show. Big, bad, awesome Aurors didn't get nervous and she wanted to be a big, bad, awesome Auror. She wanted to be a big, bad, awesome Auror so badly. So badly that she didn't even have a backup plan if this went south. And this wasn't going to go south because she was going to do just fine here. She was going to walk right into the arena, do the absolute best she can do, not mess up anything and then walk out with her head held high. Hopefully impressing enough Aurors in the process.

Or even just one. Yeah, just one Auror being impressed by her would be good. It would help if it was a good Auror and not one who just trained her straight from a book but even then, one boring Auror Mentor would be better than none.

What even happened if no Auror chose you? Were you kicked out of the Academy? Was she forcibly assigned to one? That wouldn't be the best of starts to her training. That would be worse than vetting a boring mentor! And it would be just plain embarrassing.

Wait. No more thoughts like that. She hadn't even done any of her demonstration yet, nor had she got her exam results. Tonks knew she was jumping the gun here but she was really, really nervous. And when she was really nervous her thoughts went to all sorts of weird places.

There was going to be three straight days of demonstrating the skills that she had picked up in the last six months. Tonks still couldn't believe that six months had passed already. It was like they had gone by in a blink of an eye. Hadn't kt been just last week that she had gotten drunk for the very first time with the others?

Nope, that wasn't the case. Six months had really passed and now she had to basically show off for three days. She was going to have to go up against the Duelling dummy for a final time as a Probationary Trainee (her official title), then she was going to have to stand in front of three Aurors and get questioned on the law. Then there would be several wounds that she wounds that she'd have to heal and explain what would have to be done next. The timed run on the second day was what she was looking forward to the least. There was no way that that was going to go well. Neither was the obstacle course on the third. And finally, there would be an essay that had to be written on the purpose of being an Auror and why she wanted to be an Auror. Thankfully, you were allowed to bring in a planned outline for that one. Less than a hundred words but still, it was something.

Quite an intense few day in front of her and her belly was doing flip flops. Tonks was still better off than Mainwaring- he had already been sick this morning and was still looking a bit green around the gills. She was just surprised it hadn't been Gaffrey - he seemed to be the one who threw up when nerves got to him. Maybe he had already, she hadn't seen him this morning - his demonstration was in an hour and a half.

Auror Taylor chose this moment to poke his head round the door.

"We're ready for you, Trainee Tonks."

"Yes, sir," she answered automatically.

She took several deep breaths to calm her nerves, or at least give herself the appearance of being calm. She could do this. She could do this.

The very first thing she did as she entered the arena was trip over her own damned feet. She actually heard chuckles from the audience and none of those were coming from her fellow Trainees (they weren't allowed to be in to see so no one had any sort of advantage). No, the chuckles came from fully-fledged Aurors. Which sucked. Really sucked. And not how she wanted to start this off.

Now all those Aurors thought that she was some dumb, empty headed little girl who wasn't taking this seriously. Or couldn't take this seriously. When, in fact, this was one of the most important things for her.

Tears stung at the corners of her eyes but she shook her head back and sniffed. She wasn't going to let them get the better of her.

With a grim look of determination on her face, she raised her wand.

Do you know how intimidating it was to have three Senior Aurors loom over you with absolutely no expression on their faces? Because it was absolutely terrifying. Tonks was honest enough to admit to that.

How in Merlin's name was she supposed to answer questions on legislation when they were looking at her like that?

But somehow, she managed it. Sure, she stumbled over a few questions (figuratively instead of literally, for a change) but she answered every single one. Whether the answers were right or not were another matter but at least she'd given them all a go. Well, she knew she hadn't answered them all correctly- she had completely made up that answer to the laws that generally restricted the force an Auror could use (there were more specific laws for specific situations but she would be taught those later). In her defence, those as had changed so frequently over the last two decades that it was confusing to know which ones were the official ones. Three separate scrolls had given her three different answers when she had been studying!

It was the next day and Tonks was feeling pretty confident in herself about this one. It was the Healing demonstration and she felt like she actually knew what she was doing. Which was a first. She would be the first to admit that during the demonstrations yesterday she hadn't felt like herself at all. It was like someone else had taken over her body and done all the motions thanks to muscle memory. It was a weird feeling.

But she wasn't feeling that today. No, today she felt fairly good. Calmer, anyway. She wasn't going to let her nerves get to her. This was going to go well. She was going to make it so.

She approached the table where the enchanted training dummy was set up. As soon as the table recognised her approached, it activated the charms on the dummy and a fountain of blood spurted up into the air.

Oh, she got a gusher for her first one. Cool!

The timed run did not go well, just like she had predicted. Tonks and involving anything that had to do with her and moving her feet quickly in a very precise way never ended well for her.

Tonks was pretty sure she had slipped and tumbled further than she had actually run. And she didn't even want to know her time, walking away from the invigilator as soon as she crossed the finish line. She didn't want to hear how badly she had done.

She was pretty sure that she wasn't meant to end up this dirty from the run of all things. The obstacle course tomorrow? Definitely because she knew that that was going to involve actual mud.

Great. Just great.

The obstacle course was definitely... something else, for lack of a better way to put it.

It had gone slightly better than the run, somehow. But, then again, she wasn't running or even walking all of it. There was crawling and climbing as well, all of which she was fairly good at. Better than running, anyway.

And yes, she ended up with mud everywhere, that's what happened when you had to crawl through a tunnel filled with it. Would something like this really happen when she was chasing down Dark Wizards? She had rope burns too, which sucked. Writing was going to suck later.

But she completed the course and she actually stuck around to hear her time. Not her best but definitely not bad. Tonks was pretty satisfied.

Writing an essay when you were all dirty and sweaty and achy from an obstacle course was definitely something else.

And she was right, writing did suck when you hand rope burns on your hands. Who knew that holding a quill could sting? But she had to push through it and get this essay done. Glancing up at the clock at the front of the room, Tonks frowned. She didn't have a lot of time left. She returned her attention to her essay after giving her cramping hand a shake.

Now, was there a way to write this last half of her essay without it sounding cheesy? Or did they want cheesy? Because she could do cheesy.