Mad-Eye was running late and Tonks was taking the opportunity of not having to start her training just yet (apparently Mad-Eye was in charge of this morning's exercise) to complain to Auror McGowan about the neighbours that had moved into the flat next to hers. The older woman had made the mistake of inquiring about why Tonks was not her usual, cheerful self by demanding, "What crawled up your hole and bit you?"

So, Tonks had dumped her bag down and huffed before proceeding to offload how her past few days had gone. She had been looking for a reason to do this and Auror McGowan had given her one on a silver platter.

"And then when I complained they've made a point every single day, just as I'm going to sleep, to make as much noise as possible."

You see, her problem was her neighbours. Or, as she liked to call them, the evil spawn of the devil. Actually, the devil might actually be nicer than them. She knew that getting that apartment was too good to be true. It had been within budget, there was no mould (shocking) and it was close to the Ministry of Magic. Though, that didn't really matter considering she apparated in but still. It was even a decent size, not a cramped little space like most reasonably priced apartments in London for. Tonks had thought she'd struck gold. Yeah, those things were all good but none of them made up for the fact that her neighbours were horrible. Awful. Annoying. Evil. Take your pick. The liked to blast music at all hours of the day (at all hours), yet complained if she flushed her toilet too loudly. Her toilet. They always dumped rubbish outside her door and they even played knock down ginger on her door. It was infuriating and that wasn't even the half of it. It was like they existed for the sole purpose of being terrible humans.

"Aw, poor baby," Auror McGowan mock-sympathised.

"You could at least pretend to care," Tonks whined, a pout on her face.

"Uh huh," the older woman replied, not looking up from her magazine. She flipped a page over. "This is me caring."

"Who is caring?" Moody asked as he finally walked in.

"Not McGowan."

McGowan looked up over her magazine and grinned. "Oh, but I am."

"By reading a magazine?" Moody asked in amusement.

"This is how I care."

Tonks grumbled something under her breath that made Moody raise his eyebrows in amusement.

"Oh, and someone keeps peeing in the lifts," she added, remembering something else that had gone wrong.

Bot that she could attribute that to her neighbours, it could be anyone else who lived in the building. But still, she wouldn't put it past them.

That got Mad-Eye's attention. His head jerked up comically, both eyes wide.

"Someone keeps what?"

"Peeing in the lifts," Tonks repeated with a nod of her head and then added, "Always in the same spot too."

It was starting to leave a stain. One that Tonks kept carefully away from if she ever had to use kt. Thank Merlin for apparating, that's all she would say. She felt sorry for the other muggles though.

"That's disgusting," he informed her.

He really did look disgusted at that kittle fact too. Tonks didn't know whether she should be proud that she managed to make him look like that, not many things did.

"Want to tell that to the person who is doing it? It stinks up the place something awful."

She had seriously considered running the risk of using a bubble head charm in a public, muggle place just to protect her poor noise. Pee, especially style pee, seriously stank. Like, really, really stank.

"I'll bet," Auror McGowan muttered, looking like she didn't know whether she should be amused or disgusted.

Tonks supposed that it was rather amusing if you didn't have to deal with it.

"But why?" Mad-Eye managed to splutter out.

Tonks shrugged. "Hell, if I know."

Auror McGowan cackled behind him at his bewilderment. For all his knowledge of the worst of society apparently normal dickish behaviour was beyond him. He gave her a dirty look

"Girl, trust me, people can be much worse," she assured Tonks, ignoring his look. "I've had neighbours whose behaviour could only be explained by drugs. Yours sounds pretty normal as far as bad neighbours go."

Tonks' face fell at the idea of it. She really didn't want to know how much worse it could be. Her current situation was bad enough. But was McGowan telling her that even if she moved that she actually ran the risk of ending up somewhere worse? There was just no way, right?

"My neighbour hates me," Mad-Eye told them in a matter-of-fact tone.

Somehow, Tonks wasn't exactly surprised by that. What she was surprised by was the fact the Mad-Eye himself had neighbours. She would have thought that having people anywhere near him wouldn't fall into his 'Constant Vigilance' guidelines. She voiced this thought and promptly got dismissed.

"Living out of the way puts a bigger target on your back than being amongst others."

Right then. Sorry she asked. Though, Tonks did get the feeling that he would have managed to spin either scenario into his paranoid way of thinking if he so chose. Mad-Eye was just like that.

"Doesn't stop them hating you though so I take appropriate measures."

Tonks gave her boss a suspicious look. Appropriate measures for Mad-Eye tended to be a little dramatic. Actually, scratch that, she knew that there was no 'little' about it.

"Those measures are probably why they hate you," Tonks informed him.

"My measures don't do anything unless you're a threatening or suspicious person," Mad-Eye said defensively.

Again, Mad-Eye's threshold for what counted as suspicious was very low and probably completely different from everybody else.

"If anything, I increase the security of the area," he continued. "So, they really have no reason to hate me."

"But they do," Tonks stated.

"Yes," he replied with a nod. "They hate me. Particularly the guy right next door."

He said in such a serious tone for a guy who didn't exactly care what people thought of him.

Evidently thinking that he was being ridiculous, Auror McGowan rolled her eyes and, somehow in both a sarcastic and a condescending tone, said, "Oh, Hun, I'm sure they just-"

"No, no, they genuinely hate me," he said earnestly. "This is their third assassination attempt this week."

Tonks spluttered in shock. What? Auror McGowan's jaw was practically on the floor. She looked at the der woman in question. Had she heard that right? Had Mad-Eye really said what she thought he had said? Really?

"... it's a Monday," Tonks managed to get out as soon as her tongue started working again.

"Monday morning," McGowan added.

"Late Monday morning," Moody corrected.

Tonks looked pointedly at the clock.

"It's nine am."

Still early morning in her book. Well, mod-morning. Ish. Whatever. Either way, it was neither late in the morning nor late in the day.

"Exactly," Mad-Eye said, nodding. "He's a bit slow this month."

"What?" both women demanded.

Slow? That was his neighbour being slow? Oh, Tonks definitely had to knee the story behind that one.