Remus propped his chin on his hand and looked at Tonks with a touch of surprise. She had just come downstairs for breakfast, in her Auror robes, and with her new Metamorphmagus badge pinned in place. The main problem with the picture was that her hair was short, spiky, and a shocking pink.

He chewed slowly on a bite of toast, and then said, "Your real hair colour is pink?"

Tonks sat down gracelessly. "Well, the badge isn't flashing."

"Your hair isn't really pink."

"How do you know?" she replied snappily.

"Well, it just isn't, is it? Nobody's hair is pink."

"Nonetheless, today my hair is pink."

Remus chewed on that one for a moment, and then said, "How did you break the badge?"

Tonks looked down at it. "I haven't done anything to it. It's got quite a lot of anti-tampering charms on, and it would take a lot of work to get round them."

"Is it broken?"

Tonks smiled thinly, and concentrated briefly. Her hair suddenly turned electric blue, and the badge lit up and started flashing. The effect was quite noticeable. "No, it's not broken." She concentrated again, and the hair was pink.

"Your hair is pink?" Remus was having some difficulty processing this idea. "I thought that was just ... you messing around." The badge was still flashing. "Er, shouldn't that stop now that you're back to normal."

Tonks laughed, but it was a bitter sound. "This badge can detect when someone morphs, alright, but the designers obviously didn't know a thing about Metamorphmagi." The badge suddenly stopped flashing.

Remus said, "I thought that it was supposed to flash whenever you weren't in your normal form? That's what it said in the paper anyway."

"That's why I said they obviously didn't know anything," replied Tonks. "I don't have a 'normal' form. I've never had one. When I change, I change. I can't tell you what I would look like now if I weren't a Metamorph, because I don't have that base shape. So this device is easily fooled, because my system thinks its normal after it gets used to the change, which is in, ooh, a couple of minutes."

Remus thought that over carefully. "You never mentioned that before?"

"Well, you never asked." When Remus did not smile, Tonks continued, "That was always a big plus; you weren't always pestering me about what I really looked like. A lot of my friends always used to do that. It was so annoying."

Remus nodded and took another bite of toast. "So, why pink hair?"

Tonks bared her teeth. "They all think that this thing will force me to my 'natural' face. So, I'm messing with their heads. They won't like pink hair, but what can they do about it? I'm going to stand up and be counted."

Remus had his doubts as to the effectiveness of this strategy, but Tonks was not in a mood to listen to them. With a kiss for good luck, Tonks disappeared off to work.

As he was rather worried about her, Remus made little progress that day on either of his two problems: the Parkinson Manor, and a safe bolthole for the other werewolves. He returned home as early as he could, and ended up lounging round with Cal.

Tonks appeared a bit later than usual; Remus took one look at her face and knew that she had had a bad day. Corroborating his opinion, Tonks looked down,a nd started to fiddle with her badge, working it loose, and then finally throwing it bad-temperedly into a chair.

Cal appeared at her side, bearing a small glass of sherry. She made an effort to smile at him, took up the glass and then stormed to a different chair. Cal looked over at Remus and shrugged helplessly, clearly leaving the field to him.

"So, how did it go?" As conversational openers, it was not one of his best.

Tonks took a gulp of her sherry. "Awful. Absolutely awful." A pink curl bobbed in front of her eyes and, muttering a curse, she closed her eyes and her hair turned brown.

"What happened?"

Tonks studied her fingernails intently. "Well, nobody complained about the pink hair."

"That doesn't sound too bad." Obviously there was something else.

"Hmmm. Apparently I morph all the time unconsciously. I never knew! The damn badge kept lighting up all the time. It was terrible. And everyone kept just looking over and staring at me, as if, as if..."

She could not finish the sentence, and Remus perched himself on the armrest of her chair, wrapping an arm round her shoulders.

Tonks leaned into him and said nothing further for a few seconds, before starting again. "I didn't even realise. I mean, how dumb is that! I thought that I had to decide to morph."

"What do you mean? You always have to think about it before you change your hair."

"Yeah. But apparently I make lots of little changes all the time. We were at lunch and I was reaching over my cup, and the badge starts flashing! I must have lengthened my arm or something. Without even thinking about it. And another time, I was earwigging someone's conversation, and it started flashing then. And, lots of other things. I couldn't bear it."

"Are you sure the badge wasn't malfunctioning?"

"Well, I'm fairly sure. I did some tests in the privacy of my own office. And I guess it makes sense. They must be little morphs that don't make a big change. I mean, changing your hair colour is quite tricky, especially as it's all dead, but lengthening a finger a couple of millimetres – I mean, I obviously just do it naturally. Who knew? I mean, I knew that I changed a lot, but that was usually consciously. That's why I was always so clumsy when I was younger; I was always changing too much, too fast, and forgot how long my legs were meant to be, or whatever. That's why I stay in more or less the same shape these days!" She paused for a moment, and then continued, rather sadly, "Even when I knew, I couldn't stop it this afternoon. It's like breathing, or whatever. I just couldn't stop. I'd lean over to pick something up, and be concentrating as hard as you like, and the damn badge would still light up."

Remus gave her a squeeze. "You'll work it out. You work everything else out! The Ministry will just have to get used to it."

"Easy for you to say. Even the guys I've been working with for years were, like, why do you keep morphing? They just didn't get it. I'm tempted to pack it in, I really am." Tonks leaned back, trapping Remus' arm, and stared into the corner, before looking at Cal. "Don't worry, Cal. I'm not going to. I just really, really, hate this."

After dinner, to relieve some of the day's various stresses, they all trooped out to the Green Dragon, and resolutely talked about non-magical things. This was somewhat aided by the new installation of a plasma screen television in the pub, and the football match playing out on it. Remus knew very little about football, and Tonks took some sort of pleasure out of explaining the intricacies to him. Apparently, England was involved in a qualifying match for the 'World Cup'. The pub was full of vocal supporters.

Towards the end of the match, it became impossible to pay attention to anything else. Remus actually felt a bit concerned, but Tonks did not seem to mind. It seemed to be taking her mind off the badge, which had to count for something. After the referee blew the final whistle, the place erupted in cheers. The mood was infectious, and even Remus felt himself grinning.

The pbu emptied a bit later than usual, and Remus and Tonks hung around to wait for Cal and Draco, who had quite a lot of cleaning up to do. Eventually, they started on their way home.

Draco said chirpily, "Hell of a game, eh?"

Cal nodded. "And some. Especially that shot towards the end. Amazing."

Remus looked at them. "Do you two play Quidditch ever? I mean, you used to play at school, right Drake?"

Draco shrugged. "Well, I don't fancy joining any of the local teams. And, watching the footie on the TV beats watching a Quidditch match on the WWN. That's for sure. I mean, Quidditch is okay, but you need a lot of stuff to play. Football, all you need is a ball."

"You play?"

Draco shrugged again. "Well, I've tried a couple of times, but I missed out on all of those years of practice when I was a wizard, so, I'm a bit rubbish really."

Remus did a double take. "When you were a wizard? You can still cast spells, right?"

Draco smiled. "Of course I can. I meant, when I lived like a wizard." He paused, and then said, "So, how're the secret operations going?"

Remus smield thinly. "Actually, I've been trying to think of a good place for all of us werewolves to go at the full moon. Don't want to go back to Sorrel's, that's for sure, but we'll need somewhere safe to transform. Or rather, not a danger to anyone else."

Draco nodded. "Tricky. Where do you have in mind?"

Remus tugged on his earlobe. "I've been drawing a bit of a blank, to be honest. It needs to be big, and secure, from both wizards and Muggles."

Cal piped up. "How about one of the old castles; you know, the ones that are spelled to look like ruins to the Muggles."

Tonks shook her head. "No, most of them have magical trips, to let the Ministry know if anyone goes on site."

"Really?" said Remus. "I thought that they were free to visit?"

"Oh they are. The trips are just so that the Ministry can track down any vandals."

Draco suddenly said, "I know! There are all these old disused factories in Manchester. I was watching a programme on the Open University about them. Muggles don't go near 'em. Nothing wizard about them. All we'd need to do would be to strengthen the walls in the lower rooms; Transfiguration or the like, for the full moon. Then, Bob's your uncle."

Tonks looked at him approvingly. "That just might work."

Remus had another question in mind. "Open University?"

Draco glanced away. "It's a Muggle thing."

Remus looked at him, and then Draco sighed and said, "It's a series of courses that you can sign up for that you complete at home. There are TV programmes on all the stuff. I haven't signed up for any of the courses, but anyone can watch the TV shows.'

Remus nodded. "Well, it sounds like the best idea I've heard so far. How about we all check it out on Saturday?"