"Okay, that's it," McGowan said, coming to a stop and putting her wand away.

Tonks stood and stared at her in confusion in the middle of the duelling ring, her wand still outstretched.

What just happened? They had barely started duelling and now she wanted to stop? What had just happened? And why was McGowan giving her such a disapproving look? She thought that she'd been doing pretty well. She hadn't landed on her butt once today. That had to be some sort of a record!

"What's it?" Tonks asked. "Did I do something wrong?"

Had she been constantly flubbing a wand movement or something?

"You tell me!" McGowan said in exasperation. "Get your wand away."

Tonks realised that she still had hers out and blushed as she did as she was told. If this was what McGowan was going to be like today, then it was best that she do as she was told as quickly as possible.

"I don't understand," Tonks said in confusion.

What was she supposed to tell the woman? She didn't know what McGowan was talking about, never mind tell her what was going wrong. Tonks honestly thought that things had been going pretty well, actually. Okay, yes, McGowan was greatly underpowering her spells but that was because she was demonstrating something to Tonks and that wouldn't last very long if Tonks was rendered unconscious. And yeah, of course Tonks hadn't been a hundred percent perfect on returning fire but she was learning some new things so of course she wasn't going to be absolutely perfect. McGowan didn't usually expect perfection (which, and she felt like she was betraying Moody here, was a nice change from Moody).

"I mean, I know I m3ssed up that stance and then there was that underpowered spell-"

Was McGowan trying to make her be aware of everything she did? So that she knew her faults before someone pointed them out to her? A useful exercise but the woman didn't need to be all dramatic about it.

All she got was this rather explosive and exasperated noise in response. It was quite an impressive noise; Tonks didn't think that she'd be able to replicate it. Oops, and now she was getting glared at. Sen better pay attention.

"Your head is not in the game here."

Tonks gave her an insulted look. She had never felt so offended.

"My head's in the game."

McGowan was shaking her head.

"It really isn't." And she held her hand up to stop Tonks from arguing with her before she could even open her mouth. "Don't lie to me. You messed up three separate reactions. You tried to dodge two spells you know full well can't be dodged and then tried to shield against an obviously overpowered jinx. Your. Head. Is. Not. In. The. Game."

Tonks blinked at her. Had she really done those things? Well, obviously she knew that she had done those things because she had screwed up and kind of paid the price when she felt the results of those spells hitting her but still. This was what McGowan was so worked up about? Really? Come on! Tonks had pointed a few of these things out herself.

Sure, was it a good day for her? No, it wasn't. But you got days like that were things didn't go right and you screwed up stupid things. Today was one of those days for her! But she was trying. That's what mattered, right?

"I thought you had passion for this!"

Apparently, McGowan didn't think she did but what did she know?

"I do!"

McGowan scoffed at her. "Well, it's not even the littlest bit obvious today."

Tonks huffed and crossed her arms. What was this woman to say whether she was passionate about something or not! She didn't know her! And making some tiny little mistakes didn't mean that she wasn't passionate about it, it just meant that she made some stupid mistakes! Mistakes that could be fixed! It wasn't the end of the world! Why was McGowan being so dramatic about all of this? It was so infuriating.

She wanted to kick or punch something. Really, really badly. But that would probably make McGowan think that she was unhinged or something. Did it really matter at this point?

"You know what? I know what you can do instead until you get your head on straight."

Tonks couldn't help but feel this sort of sense of foreboding. The one thing Moody and McGowan had in common was their ability to come up with some truly inventive punishments. Well, doing laps wasn't exactly inventive but wasn't something that the other Mentors used so it was still odd. Though she suspected that she might actually prefer doing laps to whatever McGowan came up for her. Sometimes the term "evil genius" described her perfectly. And no, Tonks did not think that was an exaggeration.

"No," she complained, realising what was McGowan just dumped in front of her.

Law books. Legislation. And a hell of a lot of parchment.

"Yes."

"I haven't done anything wrong!"

She was only usually made to do this of she'd screwed up or something! And she hadn't screwed up! Not concentrating or forgetting something wasn't screwing up, was kt?

McGowan gave her a look and Tonks slumped back on her chair; arms crossed petulantly.

She groaned. Loudly. She definitely preferred Moody's method of discipline and she never thought she'd ever be saying that about doing laps but here she was. Because having to learn legislation was just plain torture. Especially the way McGowan made her do it. Which was write out each sentence of the legislation like she was doing lines. As in, the woman made her write each sentence of a particular piece of legislation fifty times each. Fifty times.

Sure, she'd only had to do it twice before this. And McGowan picked out small laws and the like for her to copy out but still! It was normally a minim of ten sentences. That was five hundred lines!

"Do I have to?"

And if anyone asked, that was not a whine. People who wanted to be Aurors did not whine, they complained. Groaned. Argued about things they disagreed with or were unhappy about. There was definitely no whining. McGowan raised an eyebrow.

"What do you think?"

Tonks groaned. This wasn't fair! This was cruel and unusual punishment!

"Use your words, Trainee Tonks."

She scrunched up her nose. Oh, great, her full title. That was never a good sign. She better get going and actually do as she was told then.

"I guess I have to," she muttered out mutinously.

Just because she was going to do as she was told didn't mean that she was going to do it willingly, after all. She even sighed loudly to show her displeasure. Which did absolutely nothing to change things but it made her feel better. A little.

McGowan smirked at her and tapped the parchment so it appeared in front of her.

"Fifty times."

Tonks pouted but picked up her quill.

"What about twenty-five? " She tried.

"What about a hundred?"

"Fifty's good," she said hastily.

"I thought so," McGowan said smugly. "Get cracking because you won't be doing anything with that wand of yours until you're done."