Unsettled. That was the best word Tonks could come up with to how she was feeling these days. Unsettled. Off. Out of whack. All good words, none of them good feelings. Not so good feelings that she didn't want to be feeling right now. Or ever. But she was going to be feeling them for the foreseeable future now, wasn't she? Eurgh, feeling didn't even sound like a word now.

Everything was just weird and strange and overall, just not good. And it wasn't just the things that had happened directly to her, it was everything that was going on around her as well. Nothing felt right.

Two people down. They were two people down out of a class of twelve. A tiny class. And now a sixth of them were gone. A sixth. That was a pretty big number, wasn't it? Yeah, it was. They had lost a sixth of their class. And, oh, sure, Tonks wasn't stupid. She had heard all the stories, warnings really, from years gone by. The only course that had a higher dropout rate that the Auror Academy was the Healer Training at St Mungo's. Of course, both of those had high dropout rates. They were both incredibly intense courses.

The difference was that the Auror Academy used to have loads of trainees at the very start and then end up with the select few. This year they started off with such a small number that Tonks really didn't think that any of them would be lost. But she was wrong. Very wrong.

Did this mean that more of them were going to drop out? She knew that a someone in the year above, a third-year trainee, had dropped out yesterday. A simple as that. In his final year. Only mere moths away from graduating the Academy. Tonks didn't think that she would ever be able to do that no matter how bad it got. But who was she to know what would happen in another year?

Just over a year. That's all she had left. What a strange thought. Didn't she just start at the Academy just the other week? Time was a really weird concept when you weren't in school but also weren't really interacting with the real world. It was like she and her fellow trainees were in a bubble. A very strenuous bubble but a bubble just the same. Sometimes she went days without know what day it actually was.

She casually stepped out of the way as a bunch of first year trainees ran past looking panicked. They were probably lost or something. That was a small group too, she noticed. There were maybe eight of them there? That was even smaller than her class.

How depressing. Did no one want to be an Auror anymore?

Despite everything that had happened to her recently, she still did. Tonks hoped that nothing stopped her from wanting to be an Auror.

Even if there was the whole thing about her getting basically shoved off one Mentor onto another for no reason that she could discern. Yes, she was still thinking about that. How could she not think about that? How many Trainee Aurors got dropped by their mentor (their mentor that supposedly chose them) and dumped on another one? Not many, she figured. And that was just embarrassing!

At least she finally found out her so-called new Mentor's name. The woman had actually gone through that whole first day with her without Tonks knowing her name. It felt so weird and awkward and just downright strange. Oh, sure, Tonks didn't normally refer to Aurors by Auror followed by their surname a lot of them time, normally referring to them by Sir, Miss or Ma'am as the situation dictated. But even then, she at least knew their names. And that kind of made a difference. Not knowing someone's name and having to talk to them was just weird. And she hadn't liked it.

But there hadn't been much she could do that first day. The woman had refused to tell her when she outright asked. And then there were no pieces of parchment or anything around with her name on them. Trust her, she had looked.

Tonks didn't even know why the idea of her not knowing her name was so amusing to the woman. Surely, you'd want someone to use your name? Well, unless it was a really horrid name, Tonks could understand that but people had two names! At least! You could choose what you went by! Who went ahead and chose nothing?

Thankfully, Auror Peterson had called over to her in the corridor one day. Much to the older woman's displeasure but Tonks was just glad that she finally got the woman's name!

Speaking of McGowan (because that was her new Mentor's name), Tonks better get a move on or else she'd be late. Granted, it would be to nothing exciting. Just learning how to analyse evidence and documents. But it was important. So, she picked up her pace and soon found herself sitting at a desk with a five-page piece of correspondence between three people in front of her. Great. Just great. What she had to do was pull any information she thought was related to the crime that McGowan had put up on the blackboard in front of her. But Tonks couldn't help but let her mind wander as she did so.

Yeah, this past week and a bit had been downright weird and Tonks didn't like it. Not one bit. Nothing was going the way she planned and she didn't know how to make it go back to the way it was. When kt seemed like everything had been working.

She frowned at the thought. Obviously, it hadn't been working if Moody saw fit to basically get rid of her. So, maybe she couldn't go back to that point. But it would be nice to know what she had done wrong so maybe she could fix it. Was it fixable?

"Tonks!"

"Yes, Auror McGowan?" She responded promptly.

Auror McGowan tilted her head to one side and frowned. Tonks couldn't help but feel a little self-conscious.

"You with me, Tonks?"

"Yes, ma'am."

She even gave a short nod. The last thing she wanted to do was screw things over a second time. Realisation suddenly came over her which settled into determination. Not screwing things up meant no more daydreaming or wondering or feeling put out. It meant getting on with it, no matter how weird and wrong it made her feel.

"Well, finish up analysing that document and then we can get a move on." She said impatiently.

"Yes, ma'am. Sorry."

Tonks bent her head over the piece of parchment and started chewing on the end of her quill.

She was supposed to see how many clues she could grab from this piece of correspondence and she thought she had everything. One more read through couldn't hurt.

She could do this. She could get through it. And she wasn't just talking about finding clues.

Too bad just telling yourself something didn't make you feel it.

"I want you in the Medical training room."

"Yes, Auror McGowan," she said obediently, standing up and following the woman.

This ought to be interesting at least. She hadn't spent a lot of time in there. And at least she could get on with things no matter how she felt.