Tonks' eyes flew open at the blaring sound of her alarm. She didn't even give it a chance to ring twice as she quickly smacked it. As usual, it fell to the floor with a 'clunk'.

Merlin knows how the poor thing had stayed in one piece for so long, still working too! Every morning it went through the same routine. There was even a scratch on the floor where it fell to. The landlord was not going to like that. Hopefully a Reparo would fix it.

Anyway, she didn't care about things like that. Not today. Because today was a really important day. A really, really important day. A really, really, really important day. Well, you got the point.

Today was the day they got assigned to mentors. The ones that they would study and train under for the next two and a half years. That was a long time! And it was happening today!

She rushed around like a mad lesson, trying to get ready. Then slowing down because pulling your trousers on and cleaning your teeth did not make for a good combination. She choked on her toothpaste and fell flat on her face. Thank Merlin for her morphing abilities and being able to hide bruises. Because that would be embarrassing- meeting her Mentor for the first time with a bruise on her face.

Eventually, she pulled herself together into some resemblance of a human being and was soon ready to go to work. She thought so anyway. Running her hand through her short hair, this short spiky look was definitely her favourite, Tonks mentally ran through her morning checklist in her head. Face washed and teeth cleaned? Check. Freshly showered? Check. Clothes on and the tight way round? A quick check of her jumper demonstrated that that was not check. It was quickly fixed though. Breakfast eaten despite queasy stomach? Check. Boots on and laced properly so she didn't trip over them and make a fool of herself? Double check. Robes clean and pressed and no longer had that weird sooty mark in them? Sort of check. If you looked closely there was a shadow of a mark.

Okay. She was ready to take on the day. Sort of. No. She was. She was ready.

Before she could work herself up into a state, Tonks apparated to the Auror Academy. She didn't even pay any attention to the older trainees loitering about the front, waiting for their training for the day to start, she had more important things on her mind.

Sure enough, so did everyone else. Every single person in her training group were all needed one direction. Quite quickly in most cases.

Tonks knew better than to run to the announcements board like all the other trainees were doing, she didn't want to start the next portion of her training by humiliating herself. Again. Sure, she wanted to know who her Mentor was but she wasn't too fussed as long as it wasn't Scrimgeour. It wasn't like she knew any of them personally, she just wanted to get trained by someone. Irrational anxiety gripped her as her old fears of not being picked by a trainer resurfaced. It was ridiculous, she knew that - she'd passed her exams so they couldn't kick her out, but it didn't stop her worrying. She craned her head over the crowd of her fellow trainees, why was the board in a narrow corridor? Also, she really had to work on increasing and decreasing her height - mainly increasing, it sucked still being too short to look over people's heads. Especially in times like this when it would make reading the Mentor assignments a hell of a lot easier. How come there were so few trainees yet they managed to pack themselves so closely together that she couldn't see through them?

Thankfully, because there so few of them, the crowd thinned reasonably quickly - enough so she shoved her way through. There were gasps and whispers on either side of her as people found out who they were training under. Tonks would have thought that there would be more excitement, she knew she was - as well as being nervous, obviously. She didn't think she exactly shone for many of the instructors. A grunt escaped her as people wouldn't move. She literally had to shove Eggleston out of her way. Seriously? They had found who their Mentor was, it was common decency to move aside and gossip about them!

"I don't believe it-"

"I thought he wouldn't-"

"He's not meant to-"

"I don't think he's ever-"

Honestly, people were so dramatic. You'd think that they'd save the dramatics for their actual training, Tonks was sure they would be in great demand once the real workload started.

She jumped as she collided with Matt.

"Sorry," she said. "Just trying to get to the board. You seen yours yet?"

But she didn't get any response, he just gave her a weird look. Seriously, what was with people? Tonks glared back. If they didn't want to be shoved or act like actual human beings then they should stay out of the way. Then she noticed that Matt wasn't the only person staring at her. Nearly all of her fellow trainees were.

You'd think she'd be used to stares after Hogwarts but she hadn't actually been sstared at that much here so she was out of practice.

"What?" she asked rudely, her hair flashing red in irritation. She thought that everyone had gotten over their staring-at-the-shape-shifting-freak problem already.

"Have you seen the assignments yet?" Jones demanded, stepping in front her.

"No," she retorted and gave him a pointed look. "Because no one is getting out of the way."

He snorted at her and gave her that annoying knowing look of his, like he was glad that he knew something she didn't.

"You're going to want to see it."

"Well, yes, that's how I'm going to find out who my Mentor is, " Tonks replied rudely with an eye roll. "What's with all the theatrics? Did someone not get assigned or something?"

Was that even a thing?

Jones just shook his head and stepped aside. "You'll see."

If she didn't already hate him, she definitely would because of the smug look he was giving her.

"That's kind of the idea," she grumbled striding forwards a few steps before stopping and turning to face the still gathered crowd. "Are you all really going to watch me do this?"

"We need to." Jean informed her, having also pushed her way to the front.

Tonks pulled her pig snout face at them, getting some good looks of disgust as some people turned away. Good. Bunch of nosey parkers. And here she thought they were mostly getting along? She turned back to face the board and scanned the piece of parchment for her name. It was alphabetical. Typical. She really should know this by now and just start from the bottom. Oh well, at least she'd see who the others got. Looks like Jones got Scrimgeour, poor sod. Apparently, he was a real taskmaster. Though, did she really feel sorry for him? Scrimgeour would probably be able to knock some sense into Jones. It would be better for all of them that way.

"Do I have someone horrible or somethi-?"

All of her thoughts came to a grinding halt as she found her name and the Auror she was assigned to. What? No, this had to be a mistake. She scanned the parchment again. The words were still the same. She did it backwards. Nope. No change.

Tonks blinked and rubbed at her eyes. What? She shook her head and peered more closely at the pinned parchment, nose almost touching it. Nope, the words didn't change. No. It couldn't be. It was just impossible. There was no way, it had to be a prank. She looked around her but everyone looked as shocked as she did. The black ink was quite clear.

Trainee Nymphadora Tonks assigned to Senior Auror Alastor Moody.

What. The. Fuck.