"You embarrassed me, you know?" Tonks announced as she walked in.

Moody looked up from where he was reading something on his desk with a raised eyebrow. "Good morning to you too."

She flung herself into her chair and gave her a dark look.

"It isn't a good morning. Do you know why it's not a good morning?"

"I assume you are going to tell me it's because I allegedly embarrassed you."

"You didn't allegedly do anything. You did do something."

"Did I?"

"Yes," she huffed, annoyed that he l9oked so amused with her and he wasn't taking this seriously.

"And it's embarrassing?"

"Yes!"

She was pretty sure that his ears worked perfectly fine. Freakishly fine, actually, because he could always hear her when she muttered under her breath.

"Are you going to tell me what I did?"

Tonks crossed her arms, not happy that he seemed to be making a joke out of all of this.

"Maybe I won't."

Moody shrugged. "Suits me."

Wasn't he even the littlest bit interested? This wasn't fair! He was supposed to be an Auror, curious about everything!

She crossed her arms and pouted at him but still no response. She even sighed heavily but that just got him rolling his eyes at her. That magic eye of his was particularly creepy when he r9lled it. It made this weird noise. Finally, she got too impatient and decided to tell him anyway because she really needed to complain.

"Because all I've been able to think about was that I acted like an idiot in front of my parents."

"Pretty sure you do that without any intervention with me."

Her tirade was interrupted by her squawking indignantly. What did he just say to her? He did not just say that!

"Hey!"

"It's true."

She opened and closed her mouth trying to come up with a response that he couldn't just shoot down but was coming up blank. And he was looking far too smug about that.

"Well, this time it was your fault," she huffed, crossing her arms. "What with your training and the aches and pains and my twitching arm. Do you realise how daft that made me look? And I couldn't even say anything!"

Even if she could've said something, she wouldn't have. Her mum would definitely have stormed down to the Academy and had "words" with Moody. And Moody would probably come off worse from that conversation, trust her.

"Wait," he said, holding a hand up to stop her and frowning. "What do you mean you had stabbing pains all weekend?"

"Down my arms. They were twitching too."

"I know that," he said dismissively. "You were like that when you left. But the pain?"

She shrugged. "It's just a side effect of the curse, right? You said it was good that my arms were twitching by the end of the week, it was a sign that my mind was trying to fight it off!"

"Yes, the twitching is to be expected because your nerves are getting confused over what commands to follow."

"But the pain?" She prompted, starting to feel like that wasn't so normal.

"Except for pain from muscle spasms? You shouldn't have had any."

"Pretty sure it was just that," she tried to dismiss but he didn't look too convinced. "Look, it's not even sore or twitchy today!"

She held her arm out as proof. No movement from it. He frowned.

"You sure."

"One hundred percent."

"Alright then."

She grumbled under her breath about annoying Trainers who embarrassed their poor, defenceless Trainees and hey didn't even care. Left her to the wolves that were her parents. He looked highly amused by the whole thing.

"Aren't you interested in how your evaluation went?" He asked her, interrupting her yet again.

"Of course, I am," she began and then realised what he had said. "Wait, the results came back for that?"

"They did."

"And?"

Moody didn't sound annoyed or look angry or anything so the results couldn't be bad, right? Then again, this had been an evaluation so could the results even be bad? There were no marks for it. No passing or failing. It was just a note of where your skills were currently. It was nothing to worry about, right? That's what they had all been (belatedly) told the day after their evaluations took place. Mainly because of the number of complaints the Academy got for not warning them so they'd all been dragged into a hall to be reassured that it was just measuring where each of them was ahead of their final exams and certifications. It was just so that the Trainers knew where to put their focus on during these last few weeks. Which helped. A little bit. Because, you know, it was also a reminder that the exams were now weeks away instead of months.

"Your reaction speed is only good," he stated.

She gave him a confused look. That's good... isn't it?"

Because good was good, right? That's what good meant.

"Good isn't good enough."

"Oh-kay?"

She wasn't sure where he was going with this. Wasn't good enough? What was better than good?

"Because it has to be excellent," he continued. "Or better than that."

Okay, fair enough, excellent was better than good. She'd forgotten that was an option.

"Doesn't the evaluation only go up to excellent?"

"Yes. That's not the point."

"Well, can you get to it then?"

He was going around in circles and not making any sense. He should just go ahead and tell her what the damn parchment said. It really was that easy. She ignored the disapproving look he shot her.

"A slow reaction speed means that you get hit first, not the bad guy. And you getting hit first means that you end up injured or dead."

The bluntness shocked her into silence. She had never thought about it like that. Ever. When she thought about reaction speed, she just thought about beating her previous time on the targets not about... Well, not about that. And yes, she couldn't think not being injured or dead. That seemed like it was inviting trouble. And she wasn't able to face that that's what could happen to her just yet. It wasn't her fault. The idea of her becoming an Auror didn't seem real yet. Which was so stupid considering how close she was to her exams. She was going to be a real Auror before she knew it. She hoped. That's if she could pass these exams. There was just so much that they'd learned over the past three years and then there was the practical side of everything... Merlin, she didn't have these doubts when she first started. Where was all this doubt coming from? She blamed this stupid evaluation; it had her second guessing everything.

"Okay, need to work on that," she said, biting her lip.

"You better. I almost don't care if you don't pass anything else as long as you improve that."

"Oh, thanks."

"Everything else was good. I have no complaints anyway," he told her.

Oh wow. Did he really just say that? Wow. That was definitely not something she'd been expecting.

Now that was the highest compliment, he could give her. He didn't normally compliment her at all, just nodded and looked approving. Which she supposed was him complimenting her skills. But this was different. This was the result of an evaluation and he was saying that he had no complaints about how she was doing. Which meant that she was doing well.

She might just pass these exams after all.