She had jinxed it. She had seriously jinxed it. Because of course she had. Because nothing ever went the way she wanted it to so why should it start now? She had gotten cocky, overconfident. She really should know better by now but here she was. Like a damned idiot. A fool, that's what she was.

Argh, she was so annoyed at herself. Her guard had been down and she hadn't been expecting it. Lile an idiot.

In her defence, after that whole outburst at Moody she hadn't wanted to think about the whole situation too much. Because that had just been embarrassing. Really embarrassing. She still couldn't believe that she had said all those things to Moody. To Moody. Why had she done that? She could feel everything turn red at the thought of that. She looked down at her arms, yep. Everything. Well, at least her skin was getting easier to morph these days.

That was a much better thing to focus on rather than the whole awkwardness that was Moody trying to comfort her after her stupid outburst.

It was nice, kind of. In a weird way. It probably would have been better if they both didn't feel so obviously awkward. However, it had helped a bit.

But that wasn't her current source of exasperation. No, that would he her so-called friends and their mumbling about Sirius. What was different than when he first made the news? Well, now they had no qualms about muttering in her earshot. Which meant that they were going to approach her. She just knew it.

It took them longer than she thought they would. It was now nearly the end of November. Hallowe'en had been three weeks ago. Three weeks! That was twenty-one whole days. They had waited twenty-one days! She had honestly started to think that she was safe and the whole thing was being annoyed. It turns out Moody had been right. Well, not about this exact situation because he didn't know anything about it. But in general, he was right. You really shouldn't ever let your guard down. Because, as he liked to put it, letting your guard down meant surprises and surprises were never a good thing. Yeah, he was probably really fun at parties.

Well, now they were all sat around her while she was trying to eat. Why was it always when she was trying to eat? With a sigh, she abandoned her sandwich. She was probably going to end up choking or something on it knowing her luck.

"Your mum's a Black, isn't She?" Matt said with no hesitation.

"Sisters are Narcissa Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange, right?" McCabbert added, eyes narrowing.

Oh, a double attack. Trying to catch her unawares. A good interrogation technique, it had the ability to startle someone into answering at least part of one of the questions fired their way. Too bad she knew what they were doing. Though, she was vaguely worried as evidentially, they had done their homework.

"She's not a Black anymore," Tonks settled for saying.

Because it was the truth. And you should either say the truth but say as little as possible or tell as few lies as you could, or else but get tripped up. And she did enough of that physically, she didn't need that happening mentally as well.

Unfortunately, everyone was unimpressed with that response.

"Yeah, yeah, Tonks is her married name," Mainwaring said impatiently. "But she was born a Black."

Argh, they didn't understand. Not that they would ever have to. But still. Her mother wasn't a Black anymore and they should just leave it at that. Except they weren't going to, were they?

"No, I mean she's literally not a Black anymore, got disinherited and everything."

There was also something about getting burnt off a family tree but Tonks still wasn't really sure what that meant so she left that out.

They were all staring at her now, like that was something they'd never heard of before. Which, to be honest, they probably hadn't. None of them were from old families. Not really.

"So, did you know him?" Mainwaring asked, breaking the awkward silence.

"Who?" She decided to play dumb.

"Sirius Black, duh."

Now, what the hell was she supposed to say to that? Lie and say no? But would they believe it? Did it matter? Did they deserve the truth? What were they going to think of her? This was stupid. So stupid. Also, Mainwaring was stupid. He should be called Stupid-waring or something because that's how stupid he was.

"Yes."

Maybe if he kept her answers short and sweet, they would get the hint.

But that seemed to have the exact opposite effect. Mainwaring had opened the floodgates and they weren't stopping now. Question after question, none of them particularly good. She hated all these questions about Sirius and what he did. Why did they think she would know any more than anyone else? Finally, Tonks got fed up.

"Why are you going on about all this now? He escaped at the start of summer. Well, technically the middle because it was July but it was the start of the school summer holidays..." she trailed off and frowned.

Why was she still thinking about school holidays when she hadn't been in school for three years? Merlin, that was weird. Partridge coughed pointedly. Oh, yeah, they were all still staring at her, expecting her to say something.

"July was months ago," she continued indignantly. "And none of you," she pointed aggressively at them. "said a damn thing. You just did a load of whispering. And then at Hallowe'en! More of the same! Not one of you dared say anything!"

She was fed up with them. Really fed up with them. All of them. Even Jean. They had all pissed her off.

"It's not like we didn't want to," Mainwaring said petulantly.

"Excuse me? Last time I check we were all grownups and could say what we fucking wanted."

And yes, that meant that she was going to swear at them without any repercussions. Because grown up. And an Auror. Well, Trainee Auror. But any kind of Auror was expected to swear. It kind of came with the territory. A d strangely, the only thing odd was that she desc4ibed them all as grownups. Adults. She really didn't think that word for her just yet. She certainly didn't feel like an actually adult. It was weird.

They were all looking at each other again like none of them wanted to say whatever they were going to say. It was like this stupid, wordless argument. Kind of like how her parents sometimes communicated with each other but these guys were nowhere near as good at it. Case in point, Mainwaring actually gave Jean a shove in an attempt to get something across but she just looked confused. It would almost be amusing if she wasn't already pissed off.

This seemed to be a common theme with these guys. And it didn't get any less annoying with time. Actually, it seemed to get even more annoying.

"Oh," she shoved her chair away from the table and standing up. "Just leave me alone."

And she stormed off. Argh, why were people so bloody annoying?