Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. She wasn't supposed to do that. She didn't want to do that. Why had she done that? Well, okay, it wasn't like she had had a choice, it had been completely accidental but still. Why did her body have to be like this? Why did it have to embarrass her?

Tripping over her own two feet in front of Scrimgeour and Madam Bones. Seriously? Did she seriously do that? Yes. Yes, she did. She had never been so mortified in her life and she had fallen in front of her entire year at her Hogwarts Leaving Ceremony. And on her Sorting Ceremony she remembered. Huh, there was something poetic about that, wasn't there? But that didn't mean she wanted to repeat that trend as an adult! And certainly not in the Ministry of Magic! School was different! She was still a kid then! And okay, use, she had turned eighteen just before she left school

Oh, what a great first Impression that was. First her hair and then her freaking lack of grace. Fan-freaking-tastic. Just great. The universe hated her, that was for sure. This wasn't what her first day was supposed to go like. Not even a little bit. She hadn't wanted to stand out (literally, or rather, fall out, she supposed but she hadn't wanted to do that either!), and even if she did, she wouldn't have wanted it to go like that!

All that had happened was that Bones and Scrimgeour came over to give the newly minted Aurors a sort of talk about the expectations they had of them and to welcome them to the Department and all that. That's all it was supposed to be. Nothing was supposed to happen to her, she was just supposed to be sitting on one of the chairs that had been laid out like all of her other fellow new Aurors.

But no, of course something happened. And of course, it happened to her. All they had had to do was stand up and be led over to something (she didn't catch what because they bad all broken out into excited whispers) that the pair wanted to show them. She didn't do that. Oh, no. What she did was fall flat on her freaking face. Just fantastic.

"Shut it," she hissed at a snickering McCabbert.

It was alright for her! She didn't just faceplant in front of all of their bosses! Of all the things to do on your first day, you definitely didn't want to be doing that.

She had even predicted it! Well, before they had walked in those doors this morning, she had thought that she didn't want to fall on her face! And now she had done just that! Why had she even thought that into existence?

And you know what wasn't helping? The fact that one of her so-called friends was making fun of her! Her day was bad enough without that.

"Stop laughing!"

"I'm sorry," McCabbert said, wiping at her eyes. "I'm sorry. It's not funny. It's really not."

There were a few beats of silence before she burst into laughter again. Tonks just sighed. She couldn't even bring herself to thump her. What was the point?

And then of course, everyone else burst into laughter. Again. Which wasn't fair. How would they feel if they had done the same and made an arse of themselves in front of their bosses? She bet that they wouldn't be laughing. And she would have laughed at them. Well, maybe she would have. But only a little!

"They all hate me," Tonks groaned, burying her head in her hands, ignoring the tray of food in front of her.

How could she even think about eating considering what had happened to her? A failure. She was a failure.

"They don't all hate you."

"Well, they should."

"Are you always this dramatic? I didn't think that you were this dramatic." Matt asked.

"Shut up."

She was allowed to be dramatic when she had fallen flat on her face in front of her bosses. Her new bosses.

"They must think I'm an idiot. I'm not an idiot! Aurors shouldn't be idiots!"

"Pretty sure one of them laughed." Dubois pointed out.

"That's even worse!"

She didn't want people laughing at her! Or staring at her! And people were doing both! She had got enough of that at school, she did not want that here. And, unlike school, she doubted that something more dramatic was going to happen to make people forget about it any time soon. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Could she be thrown out of the Auror Department on her very first day? Before she even did any actual work? They couldn't do that, could they? She didn't think so. Falling on your face wasn't something that needed disciplinary action, right? Mind you, she hadn't read the entire Auror Handbook yet. That thing was thick. As in, it could probably be used as a foundation stone for a building and be more secure than actual stone. Did people actually memorise the thing cover to cover? She hoped not.

Okay, maybe it wasn't a disciplinary thing but could they decide that she was just too incompetent? That was a thing, wasn't it? They wouldn't want incompetent Aurors and she had definitely come across like one today. One day. One day, that was all it took for her to mess something up. That had to be a record.

Then she realised that her tray had been shoved towards her and she looked up.

"Eat," McCabbert said in exasperation. "It will make you feel better."

"Nothing is going to make me feel better."

McCabbert actually shoved chips into her mouth for that comment.

"Shut up. Eat. And stop being dramatic."

Tonks unintentionally got her own back by choking and spraying chips everywhere, much to her friend's disgust.

"Ewww!" Fontaine complained, having received most of the spray. "You're disgusting!"

"It was McCabbert's fault!"

"She didn't make you do it!"

Tonks didn't care but it was still McCabbert's fault. Thank Merlin for cleaning charms, that's all she was saying.

"You need to stop stressing," said Matt, taking a bite of his burger.

"Seriously," McCabbert rolled her eyes. "No one cares about a bunch of Probationary Aurors."

"They're going to throw me out," she said like she hadn't heard them.

Matt flicked a chip at him. It got her square on the nose. And it had ketchup ok it.

"Not cool," she grumbled.

"Is it going to stop you stressing?"

"I'll stress if I want to stress."

This was a perfectly normal thing to stress over!

"Throw another one at her," McCabbert told him. "One with more sauce on it."

"Don't you dare!"

Matt looked like he was seriously considering it.

"You do realise that no one's pointing or laughing or whispering at you?" Dubois asked, trying to steal a chip which she thwarted. "You may as well share if you aren't going to eat them," he grumbled.

Tonks looked around at that, something she had avoided doing. Sure enough, je was right. All the tables were pretty much filled but no one was looking at them or her weirdly. Huh.

"Drama Llama," McCabbert coughed.

"What?"