Frederick Savage came to bleary eyed and laying on his back in the grass in the shadow of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, to find himself staring up at a blur of pink and grey. "Wotcher Freddy... How many fingers am I holdin' up?"

"Fiffnnhmmm," he murmured, not fully in control of his lips yet.

Tonks looked at her hand, pulled into a peace sign, and looked back down at Savage with a shrug. "Oi that was a right nasty fall you took there..." 

"Nhhhm hmhm..." Savage's lower lip was swollen and hard to move, his chin covered with mud and blood from his mouth. He'd fallen face-first into a protruding rock by the pathway. 

"C'mon I'll help you up to Madam Pomfrey's, she'll fix ya right up!" Tonks offered a hand.

"Y-you s-stunned me!" Savage gasped. "You stunned me."

"Oh come off of it, Freddy! What would I have stunned you for!"

"Dunno.. but you done it, I heard your voice, you stunned --"

"Hallucinations! That's what you've got! You couldn't even tell how many fingers I was holdin' up! What's next you'll be saying that there is the sun-- " She paused, looking up at the sky. It was growing dark and overhead, stars were staring to peep out in the purpley-pink span. The huge round moon hung high overhead, getting brighter by the moment as the time ticked down slowly but surely, ever closer to the nightfall. She stared at the moon. "Bloody hell," she whispered. "Is - is tonight the full moon?"

Savage had sat up and spat blood into the grass and he was struggling to his feet, a bit dizzier than he would've cared to admit. "Looks it," he muttered, looking up, his voice sounded funny from what was likely a broken nose.

Tonks stared up at it in horror. "It's - it's actual full moon, not just - you know how it looks almost full but it's missing the ickle bittest bit of sliver and there's like two full moons? Is's not like that?" She tilted her pink-haired head and squinted. "Cuz if you look at it just right on the left a bit it - it looks skinnier than usual!?"

"The moon doesn't go on diets, Tonks," Savage snapped.

"I mean --"

Savage scoffed. "What, are you a werewolf, afraid of the full moon now?"

Tonks looked at him, "No!" 

Just  - you know - the most bloody amazing beautiful compassionate hot-stuff-sexy-man I love more than frackin' anything on this entire planet is, is all - oh, and also he's on his way back here right now, through a violent murder tree, with a convicted killer  - who is also his hubby by the way -  that we're all out here trying to capture and feed to the dementors, but like  - stay cool, man, let's not let things get weird, alright, Savage?! she thought panic rising up in her.

They'd been waiting for Professor Snape to bring the potion in to Remus when the whole thing with the Map -- and now -- 

"Oh gods." Tonks smacked her hand to her forehead.

What if Remus transforms with Sirius right there?! What if he bites Sirius! What if Sirius ends up a werewolf, too? Or worse, what if Remus kills Sirius?

"Oh no, no-no." She shook her head, "Oh no - that is not acceptable!"

"What's the matter with you now?" Savage demanded, "Realizing what a load of cack you're in when Moody gets wind you stunned a fellow auror?"

"No - I just - oh gods. Savage, listen to me. You've got to get inside."

"What?"

"Inside the castle. To see Pomfrey. Like now. Right now." She started tugging on his arm to pull him up. 

"What are you acting like a complete nutter for?" Savage demanded crossly, letting her pull him up, "Bleeding hell." He clutched his nose, the change in elevation from sitting to standing smarting all the way up the bridge of it.

"Here." Tonks raised her wand. "Episky." 

There was a loud crack and Savage cursed loudly, slapping his knee with his palm at the pain. "You gotta warn a guy before you do that! Blimey!"

"Sorry. Now GO. Get up to the castle. Right away. Your mouth looks terrible and I can't do a bloody thing about that," she lied, exaggerating the damage the rock had done, "And that gash on your cheek, it looks terribly painful."

"Of course it's terribly painful!" Savage answered, frustrated.

"Well see? To make up for you thinking I stunned you - which I didn't, you tripped on that bloody exposed tree root over there -" she pointed to the tree root that most definitely had not been there before she'd conjured it up moments before ennervating him, "-- I'll watch your post for you! Make sure the Willow is well guarded!"

Savage eyed her suspiciously.

"Really! Go on! Before your face is stuck like that permanently! And wouldn't that be unfortunate!"

It didn't take much more convincing and he was off - he was very prideful in his good looks, after all, which was honestly at least half of why Tonks couldn't stand the man. 

She watched him go, nervous, and hopping from one foot to the other. What should she do? What should she do? She looked up at the full moon rising and the fading of the sunlight. If Remus came up out of the tunnel under the Whomping Willow into THAT moon - he was going to transform. He hadn't had the potion! 

"OHP! The potion! I'll get the potion! I can meet him at the tunnel with it and he can drink it and - and - and when he changes he'll be alright!" Tonks took one last look at the tunnel, hoping she would be able to get to the office and back again before it was too late.

She rushed forward, running across the grounds. Her hot pink trainers squealed on the stone steps leading up into the castle. She wished she had Hagrid's hippogriff now - he could fly her right to the office and back again and maybe she'd stand a chance of beating Remus's moment under the moon. 

Filch would complain for days about discarded rhinestones that dotted the corridors where they'd flown off her trainers.

She took the stairs three at a time, and was panting with burning lungs by the time she got there. The dungeon - the potion master's office - where Professor Severus Snape would have the potion for sure. She banged on his office door. "Yoo hooo!! Professor!! PROFESSOR SNA-AAAPE!" she shouted, "URGENT MINISTRY BUSINESS! VERY OFFICIAL!" 

He wasn't answering.

"Bloody hell," she muttered and she backed up from the doorway, glanced left and right to be sure no one was coming, then raised her wand.

A simple alohamora would never work - not with somebody like Snape, she reckoned. He probably had about 12 passwords and a bloody full length obstacle course to run through to get inside knowing Severus Snape.

"Welp," she muttered, "Already stunned an auror and broke his nose. Might as well get busted for breaking and entering." She aimed and shouted, "Reducto!"

There was a great shower of red sparks as the door exploded inward, landing a few feet back from the frame on the floor with an almighty crash. Tonks rushed up the steps and into the office, looking around frantically. She ran to the stores and started plucking up bottles, searching for anything labelled Wolfsbane. But there was none.

"Nooo," she gasped, panicking, "No, no, no - there has to be -- some where here --"

And then she heard something that made her go cold.

Purring.

Mrs. Norris.

She turned around slowly. The tabby was standing there in the middle of the doorway, staring at Tonks. 

"Shoo!" Tonks tried. "Go away, this is a very important thing I'm doing. I could have a warrant, you don't know!"

The cat  seemed to listen, jumping down, and disappearing around the door of the office.

"Well. That worked well," she said, and she dove back into her search.

In her haste to turnabout, though, Tonks's foot slipped on absolutely nothing and she tripped backwards into the shelf, knocking over a bright yellow bottle, which hit the ground, which released an intense amount of concentrated scent and set Tonks into uproarious laughter that would not stop - she picked up the broken bottle and saw it was a laughing potion. "Of - of course!" she was in tears over - well, nothing. And this fact alone was funnier than anything else and she leaned against the wall, wheezing but unable to stop.

She couldn't even stop when Argus Filch showed up in the door frame and cleared his throat.

"It's YOU!" she laughed, hooting with mirth, wiping her eyes. "Oh gods, I - I can't find the wolfsbane! And -" she could barely control herself, "I - I spilled the laughing tonic and -- you're just sooo funny! Look'it'choo!"

Filch grabbed onto her arm. "You won't be laughin' when Dumbledore finds out you're sneaking about in Professor Snape's stores!"

Tonks looked at his old, wrinkly hand grasping her elbow and she laughed all the harder, "Mr. Filch I'm not twelve anymore, I - I've been trained in defensive action at the Auror Training Center now!" tears were coming down her cheeks as she hooted at him, "I could kill you with my bare hands you old codger!" 

"Come with me!" Filch demanded.

Tonks wrenched away, "No, no, I'd rather not. Mr. Filch, where's Professor Snape? You seen him about?" She was still giggling a bit, but the potion was starting to wear off (she drank nearly an entire vial of giggle potion once as a dare with Cha-Cha Weasley and they'd both been laughing for DAYS back then so thank goodness this potion wore off quicker than that one had). As she pulled back, she saw a label on a shelf. Aconite. "OH! Wait! That's another word for Wolfsbane isn't it?"

"Stealing from the Potion Master's store! Thievery is a very bad offense! You'll be fired from the Ministry for this!" Filch reached for her again, but she moved quicker than he could and grabbed up the box that sat on the shelf over the label.

Filch over-compensated and grabbed for her yet again, but she was quick as lightning moving about and she stepped 'round him, hopping over Mrs. Norris, and out of the store room. "Lovely chatting with you Filch." She took off running even as Mr. Filch tried at grabbing for her once again, tripped over Mrs. Norris, and fell headlong onto the flagstone floor.

Tonks was on her way down the corridor and back up the stairs from the dungeons, clutching the box of aconite, sure she had the right thing and imagining herself saving the day by taming Remus Lupin's werewolf. Then, once Remus was tame, she'd hear the whole story and finally, finally get to see Sirius Black again! And get to help to clear his name!

She couldn't wait to hug Sirius and tell him she never once didn't believe he was innocent.

Would he thank her? Would he be proud of her?

What would he say?

She danced down the front stairs of the school, merry and confident as could be, not even noticing that she was dancing through full moon light, no longer a fading sunset but the full luminous moon. She was singing to herself - Hungry Like the Wolf by Duran Duran, obviously -and was just turning toward the Whomping Willow when a chilling sound filled the air.

Speaking of wolves.

Speaking of hungry wolves.

The night was filled with the howl of a hungry werewolf.

Oh no.