"What's everyone doing this weekend?" Jean asked happily.

Far too happily for a Friday morning, in Tonks' opinion. Her Mentor obviously wasn't working her hard enough if she still felt that perky on a Friday. Who even was her Mentor anyway? Tonks couldn't remember from when everyone had been assigned them. She had been more than a little bit preoccupied then. In fact, who was everyone else's Mentors? Merlin, she really needed to pay more attention when she did manage to make it to the canteen for lunch.

"I'm heading home on Sunday," Tonks offered up.

She had some washing that she needed to take care of - she'd learned her lesson from the last time about washing her clothes as she went along. Somewhat anyway. She was pushing it this week, only having two or three tops she could wear without sinking down into doing the sniff test.

Which was downright embarrassing, by the way, and she'd much rather go out and actually buy a new top before work started before, she had to do that again.

Oh, and of course she was going home because she missed her parents. Obviously. Yeah. Okay, maybe it was the cooking. Because the only thing she could cook were scrambled eggs, beans and bacon. Which was a good, wholesome meal there, in her opinion. As long as she threw a few carrots in there every now and then. But it did get a bit boring. And it turned out, of you got a takeaway every other night the inside of your mouth kind of felt permanently greasy. Yuck.

"Think they're going to surprise you by looming over you as you sleep again?" Dubois joked.

Tonks groaned. "Don't remind me! That was seriously freaky! And they didn't even see anything wrong with it!"

He shrugged, grinning. "Parents. What can you do with them?"

She rolled her eyes at that. You couldn't do anything about their idiosyncrasies especially when they were her parents. She supposed she should just be grateful that they didn't just kidnap her when she was asleep or something. She wouldn't put it past her mother to do just that. And probably successfully too. Andromeda Tonks could be sneaky like that.

"Tonks!" Came a voice that got her scrambling to her feet.

None of the others laughed at her reaction because they looked utterly terrified of that voice. Which was a bit of an overreaction, in her opinion. Moody wasn't that scary.

A "Yes, sir?" Almost came out of her but Tonks really didn't want the embarrassment of getting told off in front of everyone so she went with a sharp, "Auror Moody," instead.

He looked her up and down with this inscrutable look on his face.

"Is there a reason your arse isn't back in my office?"

Tonks looked down at the table with her near finished sandwich and then at him.

"Because it's lunchti-"

She was interrupted by a pointed cough from Mainwaring who tapped his watch on his wrist. A quick glance at the clock on the wall got her eyes widening.

"Because it is the end of lunch and I am going right now," she corrected herself and grabbed her bag.

She was going to run back to his office but she knew how that would end and settled for walking quickly. At least that way her dignity was intact.

"What's this I hear about someone getting into your house without you noticing?" Moody demanded as he stormed through the door after her.

"Huh?"

What on earth was he on about this time? He was ways dreaming up scenarios that she'd have to say how she'd react. But somehow this didn't really seem like one of them.

"You were telling those friends of yours that people got into your house on you."

Finally realising what he was talking about, Tonks' face cleared.

"Oh, that. That was my parents. They came in because they thought I'd forgotten I was going home."

"They got into your house without you realising?"

"Um, yeah?"

She had been asleep, after all. You didn't really notice anything when you were asleep. Unless you were a light sleeper, which she was not.

"Well, what happened to them?" He asked expectantly.

And now she was confused again.

"Happened to them? What do you mean?"

Moody made an exasperated sound.

"People broke into your house while you were in it. What happened to them? What did you do?"

"Uh, well, I fell onto the floor?"

"You fell on the floor?"

"Yeah. Because I was shocked. Because they scared me."

A pretty normal reaction if you asked her so why was he giving her that disdainful look?

"You didn't attack them?"

"Why would I do that? They're my parents?"

And she was pretty sure that they could both beat her pretty quickly at that. Which would just be embarrassing.

"But you didn't know that."

"Well, no. Not at first. Because I just woke up."

"You should never let people get that close to you when you're vulnerable," he scolded her. "Better to cast a spell first and think later."

"How am I supposed to do that if I don't have my wand near me?"

She fell asleep on her sofa, after all. Her wand had been across the room on the table.

"You should always have your wand on you," he lectured.

"Even when I'm sleeping?" She asked sceptically.

"Especially then," he stressed. "That's when you're at your most vulnerable. People can creep up on you unawares."

She blinked at him. "Okay, then."

Would having her wand on hand when she just woke up really be that useful? Tonks doubted that she'd be able to get a coherent spell out first thing in the morning. She might even end up injuring herself, which she definitely didn't want to happen.

"CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"

She jumped at that, bashing her elbow into the table behind her. This was becoming a bad habit. She really needed to stay away from tables when he was talking to her. She didn't want to end up with a shattered elbow or something. Glaring at him, she rubbed at it.

"Do you have to do that?"

He just glared at her. Okay, then. Apparently, he did.

"You should never let anyone surprise you," he said aggressively, thumping a fist on the table.

Tonks was starting to think that he did all this just because he liked the drama he was creating.

"I'm pretty sure the whole point about surprising someone is that they weren't expecting it," Tonks pointed out.

"Then you expect everything."

Tonks had to bite her tongue to prevent herself from telling him that was impossible. Obviously, it wasn't because Moody never seemed to get surprised. He really did seem to expect everything. Which was basically the definition of paranoia, wasn't it? Which made people go crazy. Huh. That actually explained a lot about him in hindsight. Not that it would do her any good to point that out.

"Sure," she agreed, just to get him to stop ranting to her and barely stopping herself from rolling her eyes.

He narrowed his eyes at her and suddenly she got this sense of foreboding.

"Right," he said abruptly, standing up. "Let's get practicing then."

Tonks gulped. What exactly had she got herself into now?