Tonks stopped in her tracks, turned around and put her head down quickly, holding her breath. All within a few seconds and surprising didn't fall over her own feet as she did so. Which was stupid, she knew. It wasn't like holding your breath made you invisible or something. And yes, she wanted to be invisible or, at least, for everyone to just walk right past her like she was a mark on the wall or something. Just pay no attention to her. That should be pretty easy, this was the Auror Academy, everyone was always rushing everywhere and they were always too busy. Too busy to concern themselves with someone trying to disappear into the wall. Unless aforementioned person got in someone's way and then that was a whole new set of problems.

But she wasn't in anyone's way. In fact, there weren't that many people walking up and down at all. Which was rather unfortunate. There was no better way to disappear than to disappear into a crowd. Which was why if you pursuing a criminal, you should steer clear of densely populated areas and places with a lot of foot traffic. And yes, that was basically a direct quote from one of her textbooks.

Well, she didn't have a crowd to disappear into so becoming one with the wall. She didn't want to draw attention to herself at all. Not even a tiny bit. Especially attention from one particular person. Oh, and she just didn't want to interact with him at all. She wasn't ready for that just yet. And it should be easy, right? He shouldn't want to talk to her or anything like that. He was the one who pushed her away like she was nothing, after all.

Okay, maybe she cared a bit more about this whole thing than she cared to admit. Yes, she tried to push away the hurt and the feelings of ineptitude right down, so far down that the feelings may as well be stuffed down into her toes. But the thing about that technique is that it didn't work. Not really. Especially if you kept stuffing feelings down. Well, eventually you'd run out of space and you felt like you needed to burst.

Which was her right now except that she couldn't burst. Wouldn't burst.

No, she wasn't going to give anyone the satisfaction of watching that happen. She'd probably vet chucked out for having a mental breakdown or something. She'd heard that that had happened to someone in the year above, how awful. And She'd heard whispers that a close eye was b3ing kept on Jean. Something about being extremely chirpy like that could be a front for psychological issues or something. Or they could be talking a load of crap. Either way, no one was going to see her emotions all burst ou5 of her, even if she felt like she needed it.

She could hear the 'thump, thump, thump' of his wooden leg. It was still a bit down the corridor from her. Hopefully he would walk past soon and she could just get on with her day.

Yes, the person was Moody. Seriously, who else would it really be? Moody was the last person she wanted to be paying attention to her right now.

Not that je would be paying attention to her. He didn't want her, remember? But still. She didn't even want to make small talk or acknowledge him. She would probably just embarrass herself if she did. Come on, come on. Why didn't he move any faster?

'Thump, thump, thump'.

Now he was close to her.

"Just keep walking," she muttered to herself. "Keep walking. Nothing to see here, just a wall."

It was times like these when she wished that her clothes had the same abilities as the rest of her body. Then she could actually become one with the wall.

She could feel his eyes on the back of her head. Like they had burned spots there. She actually raised her hand and touched the back of her head to check to such burnt patches. Stupid? Yes. But who knew what that magical eye could do?

Was he just staring at her like some sort of weirdo? Seriously? Whatever. Tonks fidgeted with her hands, willing herself not to turn around. She had committed too much to being invisible now. She couldn't just turn around. Even if it was extremely awkward and daft. How long had she even been standing here? It couldn't have been that long, even if it felt like hours. Even Moody didn't take that long to walk down a corridor.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid."

Be impressed, Tonks actually managed to stop herself from whacking her head against the wall at every iteration of the word. She didn't know what was more stupid, her behaviour or his.

Then this feeling of anger came over her. Yes, actual anger. Now, that wasn't something she had felt for a while but she was definitely feeling it now. He had absolutely no right to stare at her anymore! He had lost that right when he decided that he could just shove her off onto someone else! With no warning! Did he not know just how horrible that was? Did he really not care? And then he secured that he could stare at the back of her head?

Oh, sure she looked stupid and probably had received a lot of stares but anyone else could do it all they wanted! But not him. Not anymore. He didn't have that right anymore.

She took a deep, steadying breath. It didn't help.

You know what? She should probably tell him that, shouldn't she? She should! It didn't have to be a great, big conversation. She just had to tell him to stop staring at her and then walk away. Yeah, she could do that.

The plan was to spin around and demand that he stop (hopefully loudly if she gathered up enough confidence) but as soon as she turned around, her angry expression gave way to a confused one. This was because the corridor behind her was empty. Very, very much empty. What on earth had just happened? He had been right there. She knew that he had been right there. You didn't just go around imagining that Alastor Moody was right behind you, glaring holes into the back of your head!

She looked around helplessly and more than a little confused. How had he disappeared so fast? He hadn't apparated, she would have e heard something. Even if you were the quietest appararter, you still made a slight noise. Especially when you were in a corridor like this - corridors did weird thing with sounds.

Then the feeling of anger welled up inside her again. Even if it was completely irrational.

How dare he just up and vanish? Ignore her like that? Go away before she could talk to him? And yes, okay, he didn't exactly know that she wanted to talk to him but that was no excuse! He couldn't just up and disappear like that! What kind of person did that?

And there was that irrationality that she'd been talking about. And to further demonstrate this, Tonks kicked at the wall. It hurt.

Ouch.