Okay, so I know that I shouldn't be starting another story, because I'm just a horrible updater, but I'm stuck on all of my other stories, and I'm in a Harry Potter mood, so here goes. I promised myself that I would not post this unless I have at least two chapters, but I haven't written in a long time, and I just felt like it. And I promise that I'll come up with a better title sometime. This will eventually end up as a Lupin/Tonks story, by the way. I will also try to figure out an actual plot sometime.

Disclaimer: Everything belongs to J.K. Rowling. Enough said.

Chapter 1

Tonks stared at the slip of parchment that Mad-Eye Moody had just handed her. She quickly read the message written in green ink, then glanced up at Mad-Eye.

"I don't get it," she said blankly. "What's Number 12 Grim—"

"Shut up, girl!" growled Mad-Eye. "You're an Auror, for God's sake! Do you know nothing of secrecy? What if someone was spying on us, right here, right now?" He glanced distastefully at her poster of the Weird Sisters, as if the moving portraits of her favorite band were going to jump over into the next cubicle and tell it's occupant of what Tonks and Mad-Eye were talking about. Tonks, who was used to Mad-Eye's paranoia, just rolled her eyes.

"Sorry, I just don't get—"

"Memorize the message on the parchment. Burn it when you're done. Meet me outside my cubicle when your shift is over. Got it?" Without waiting for an answer, Mad-Eye clunked out of her cluttered cubicle to his own a few spaces down. Tonks glanced at her watch and rolled her eyes once more. Her shift ended in exactly two minutes. She decided to spend those precious 120 seconds following Mad-Eye's bizarre instructions.

She read over the parchment again.

Number 12 Grimmauld Place, London, is the site of the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix.

Once Tonks was sure that she could remember it, she set the parchment alight with the tip of her wand. She carelessly threw the flaming parchment into the wastebasket beside her desk, which promptly burst into flames.

"Oops," she muttered, aiming her wand at the ball of flame that was her garbage. "Aguamenti." Water sprayed from the tip of her wand, soaking all of the papers on her desk and failing to put out the small fire. The only thing she succeeded in doing was making the wastebasket shoot flaming balls of rubbish at her, one alighting her hair. She let out a cry of frustration and quickly extinguished the small flame burning her spiky pink locks.

A shiny, bald head poked up from the cubicle to her left. "Are you okay, Nymphadora?" the man asked in a deep voice.

"Don't call me that," Tonks grumbled, still engaged in war with her cubicle. The man managed to send a concentrated jet of water at the fire, which quickly was put out.

"Thanks, Kingsley," Tonks said, relieved. She now set about drying her papers with her wand. As Kingsley winked and disappeared back into his own workspace, Tonks heard a familiar clunking noise. She turned around to see a clearly disgruntled Mad-Eye standing in front of her.

"When I say two minutes, I mean two minutes!" he growled. "It's been nearly two and a half!"

"Sorry, must've lost count of the seconds there," Tonks snarled sarcastically as she attempted to clean up her office a bit. Mad-Eye slowly took in the sad sight of her soggy (and partly charred) cubicle.

"What in Merlin's name did you do?" he asked slowly, not really seeming to want to know the answer.

"Set fire to my wastebasket," Tonks said a matter of factly, now stacking slightly drier papers (they were still a bit damp).

"What did you do that for?" he asked her, staring.

"I didn't do it on purpose!" she cried exasperatedly. She saw Mad-Eye glance at the clock.

"We're one and a half minutes late, let's go," he grumbled. Tonks heaved an enormous sigh and followed him on their way out of the Ministry of Magic, wondering what she was in for.

A/N Please review, and let me know what you think! This is my first Harry Potter fic, so no flames please, though constructive criticism is of course welcomed.