Tonks was bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. She never thought that she would say that while being an Auror but here she was. Bored. So very bored. She needed one of those spinney chairs that muggles had (and her mother refused to let her father get) because she felt like that would at least make her boredom productive. She wasn't sure how that worked but she still felt like it was true. It would be fun, at least, more funny than leaning back on her current chair.

There was nothing to do. Nothing for her to do anyway. She had read all of the compliance documents, gotten both Eggleston and Dubois to quiz her and had got all their questions right the first time. Something they were jealous of. To be fair, she had an unfair advantage because Moody made her learn a whole bunch of these already because if you were going to do something odd or overly aggressive or both the best way to get away with it is to prove that you broke no rules by doing it. There was an impressive number of ways to get around the rules. Something she felt like you shouldn't be able to do when you were working for Law Enforcement. But whatever, she knew all the compliance stuff and those pointless regs that arsehole tricked them into memorising the other week. That had been mind numbing. She really wanted to do something that would use her brain. Anything. She felt like she was losing brain cells by the day at this rate.

She had even filled out the last bits of paperwork for becoming a full-time Auror, something the HR Department had been relieved about - they had been badgering her about that for an age. How there had still been paperwork to fill out she wasn't sure but it was done now and her pension scheme was all set up. Merlin, the idea of drawing a pension was such a weird thought. Would she ever be that old? Did people really think about their pensions at this age? Eh, she wasn't going to have to think about it for a long time. Too depressing. Who would want to sit around and have nothing to do all day? Not her. And definitely not Moody, that was probably why he took the teaching job up at Hogwarts. Decades of being an Auror, going through two wars and then suddenly you had nothing to do all day? That would drive her crazy. No wonder he jumped at doing something else though she never would have guessed that he would do more teaching. He hadn't exactly seemed to enjoy teaching her, after all. And she was sure that kids at Hogwarts would be quite as eager to learn as she had been. Or maybe that's what he wanted.

She hadn't realised just how much waiting around there would be while being an Auror. There was the waiting for reports to get revised. There was the waiting for reports to get signed off. There was the waiting to talk to people. And then, most importantly, there was the waiting for things to happen. Surely there should be more things going on than there was currently? There were how many people in Magical Britain? Surely a decent portion of those were doing something suspicious?

She supposed they weren't doing something suspicious enough to warrant the Aurors. Hit Wizards took care of the general crime, Aurors being used for anything relating to Dark Magic or terrorism and the like. And yes, obviously she was glad that no one was going around spewing dark magic but still. There was nothing to do.

Seriously, the most interesting thing that had happened was Malfoy storming in here about his son becoming a ferret. She still wanted pictures of that. Would it be weird to send her Mentor a letter asking for pictures? Was it weird to send him a letter at all? Would he even allow himself to receive letters? She was pretty sure he had deemed owls a security risk. How he dealt with aforementioned security risk, she didn't know and she wasn't sure she wanted to know. As nosey as she could be that was definitely something she could do without knowing.

Not that there was nothing going on. There were technically two big investigations. Kind of. The Investigation into the Escape and Disappearance of Sirius Black (and yes, that was kts title on reports) and the whole stupid Death Eater stuff at the World Cup. Neither were exactly in the news anymore except maybe a tiny article or so with the updates that were released to the public which, let's be honest, wasn't a lot. It was mostly four vague updates that they cycled through, maybe worded slightly different each time.

Auror Shacklebolt was one of the investigators in Sirius Black's case. Oh, it was weird to think of Sirius with both his names but she was going to have to get used to it if she ever had to use his name in here. She knew better than to sound too familiar with him. That was one way to get an investigation into her and her family, knowing her luck.

Speaking of her family, the whole Sirius Black one annoyed her mainly because that and the Death Eater one was used as examples of a long-term big case and a short-term big case respectively but they had barely been given information on the Sirius Black one because one of the Aurors telling them about it had realised who she was and had promptly shut up. Which was stupid. What, didn't they trust her? Obviously not.

Great. Just great. She hoped that wasn't going to be a whole thing again. Surely people would understand that the Auror Department obviously didn't care who her family was, so neither should they. But of course, they cared. People were stupid. Hopefully, no one would make too big a deal about it. Not that she wanted to be involved in anything concerning Sirius. Of course, she didn't. It was still stupid. People were still stupid.

None of this changed the fact that she was bored. Very bored. And normally, when she was bored, she would get up to mischief (just ask Professor Sprout), but she couldn't very well get up to mischief in the Auror Office, could she? She thought for a moment and then shook her head. Nah, she couldn't. Unprofessional and all that. Which was a pity. She was going to have to find another way to keep herself occupied. But what? There had to be something she could do around here, right?

[xxxxxx]

She flopped back at her desk an hour later. Nothing. There was nothing she could do to keep herself occupied when there was no work to do. Well, nothing that wouldn't get her in trouble. Somehow, she didn't think Scrimgeour or Wilkins or any other Senior Auror would appreciate it if she put clingfilm across their doors. Though it had been very tempting. It was probably a good thing that there was none in the break room then, what with being an office in the Wizarding World and all. Yes. She had checked. Nope, stereotypical magic break room area with no plastic. She remembered her dad telling her that he had found it odd when he had first started his training as a Healer. He had brought his lunch in a plastic tub and automatically looked for the fridge because even though he'd never had to do that when he was at Hogwarts, his parents had had to when they went to work and obviously je used a fridge at home. Of course, the Wizarding World used neither plastic nor fridges - cupboards with cooling charms used for the latter and other types of boxes and the like for the former. So, he had spent an age looking for the fridge, confusing all his colleagues until a half-blood had taken pity on him and explained.

But that was neither here nor there. The important thing was that her only plan she had couldn't happen because there was no clingfilm. So, what was she supposed to do?

She absentmindedly fiddled with a screw under her desk. It moved very satisfyingly. It was a good thing to fidget with. Twist. Twist. Twist. Twist. Why was that so nice to do?

'Ping!'

Until you sent in careening across the room that was. She went over to look for it and then paused.

There was an idea...