"Looking forward to today?" Shacklebolt asked, poking his head around her cubicle.

"Huh?"

She was just putting her bag under her desk - she had just got in - she really wasn't ready for any sort of human interaction until she had dragged herself to the break room for some crappy coffee and Shacklebolt was expecting her to be able to reply to him before that? Also, why was Shacklebolt talking to her? Yeah, he was nice enough but he was heading up the Sirius Black Manhunt so she would have thought that he would kind of avoid her. Like everyone else involved in that. No, she wasn't bitter about that at all. But apparently, he was different.

"Today, you looking forward to today?"

"Uh, I don't think so. Is something happening today?"

She hadn't missed a memo or something, had she? Shacklebolt shook his head and laughed darkly.

"I'll say somethings happening today."

Now she was even more confused.

"Hallowe'en, Tonks. It's Hallowe'en," he said impatiently.

"What's so special about Hallow..." she trailed off as she remembered how her dad complained every year.

"All the crazies come out on Hallowe'en," he said with a grim look.

"I've heard." He gave her an odd look. "My dad's a Healer," she explained. "Always got the weird injuries on Hallowe'en."

"Yeah, well, we get weird cases on Hallowe'en."

"Seriously, is that not something for the HitWizards?"

"They deal with any disorder and affray and all that. We deal with people who choose Hallowe'en to either accidentally or deliberately choose to perform dark rituals."

"How do you accidentally perform dark rituals?"

"You'd be surprised," he said darkly.

Okay, now her interest was officially piqued. Accidentally performing dark rituals? This was something she just had to see.

[xxxxxx]

Tonks flung herself into her chair, her hair standing on end like she had been electrocuted, her face full of soot, half of the left sleeve of her robes missing and inexplicably, one sock. And yes, both shoes were still on her feet. No, she hadn't taken them off.

It turned out that someone accidentally performing dark rituals was something she absolutely didn't have to see. Nor did she ever want to get involved in ever again.

You know what the difference was between deliberately performing a dark ritual and accidentally performing one? Well, with those that were deliberate there were Clear, concise, exacting, deliberate steps. Which could be followed. Normally from a handy book or piece of parchment. With expected results. Which means that they could (eventually) be reversed. With expected results. Those that were accidental? They had none of those things. At all. Not even a little bit. Seriously, how did you transfigure the goat you were trying to extract blood from (because of course these fools couldn't just go and buy goat blood like normal people) into a fish? A fish, of all things. They hadn't even been trying to transfigure anything! They had been trying to restrain the goat with a freeze charm of all things! Which, by the way was a whole other issue that she really didn't want to talk about because although their idiots had been unsuccessful in freezing the goat, they had been successful in freezing the water around said goat. Because, you know, it was a water freezing spell. You know what happened when you froze water? You got ice. And what happened when an Auror didn't see the aforementioned ice or wasn't made aware of it? They skidded on it. That's what. Not slid. Oh no. Skidded. And, of course, landed on the goat that had been transfigured into a fish. A fish that still bleated like a goat. Talk about stuff of nightmares. She was definitely going to be seeing that every time she closed her eyes for the foreseeable future. She should probably be grateful that all she got was injured pride rather than any broken bones. Her one bit of good luck today.

Of course, the nonsense hadn't stopped there. Oh no, that had only been the start of jt.

Some idiot had decided to paint the Dark Mark on a house down in Ottery St. Catchpole. Which would be bad enough if it had been on one of the magical families that lived down there but no, the idiot had been drunk and had done it on a muggle house. The Obliviators had had to come out for that one. And was the reason she had purple paint down her left side because she had had to go and fall into the wall, didn't she? She did because that's just how her day was going. Seriously, what kind of idiot went around and painted the Dark Mark on walls? Were people really that stupid? Obviously, they were but still. The guy's defence was that he was drunk but seriously? Even the Weasley twins weren't that stupid. This guy grew up during the war, just like her. Surely, he would know just what sort of fear that would strike? He didn't even look apologetic about it. Probably because of being drunk. At least he didn't throw up on her. Matt and Eggleston and both been thrown up on twice and weren't happy about it. Jean had also been thrown up on (this was a theme today) but she had also got peed on. Peed on. Honestly, drunk people were disgusting. She'd rather deal with blood rather than any other body fluid. Anyway, her drunk guy had been left in holding with the other drunk guys she had been called right back out again. Seriously, not a moment's peace today. She couldn't even remember if she'd eaten never mind when she'd last eaten. Breakfast, maybe?

Then there was the nonsense about some sketchy trader trying to sell restricted potions ingredients to people strangely blatantly in Knockturn Alley because of the uptick in customers that didn't know how to act in Knockturn Alley because they only came in because in was Hallowe'en and they wanted to do something 'creepy' and where else did you go for creepy things but Knockturn Alley. And yes, that was a direct quote from someone they had brought in. So many schoolkids given cautions about the Street and the things they were trying to buy. She'd ran out of cautions and had had to go back to the office for more. Apparently, that was a rookie mistake and everyone took at least two of them on Hallowe'en. Well, no one had told her!

And to top it all off, just before returning to the office they'd got a call about a witch leading a dragon above Diagon Alley.

"I'm pretty sure we aren't the ones who are supposed to be dealing with this," someone had complained.

"You aren't going to be the ones catching the damn dragon," Scrimgeour snapped back. "But you will take the woman into custody!"

It turned out to be a pair of stupid muggle balloons of a witch and a dragon respectively. No actual humans involved at all.

Dawlish had actually flung himself on top of the dragon one in an effort to prevent it from drifting away but all he had done was roll off it and landed arse first in a muddy puddle.

"At least we aren't HitWizards and don't have to do clean up duty tomorrow," Kingsley said cheerfully as Tonks desperately sucked down even more coffee.