Tonks had to fight not to close her eyes as he described the horrors of a transformation, the sheer inhuman brutality of it rendering her, for the first time in her life, speechless. The shock wasn't aided by the visual of such raw imagery and brutal words coming from this absolutely gentle and unassuming looking man. Some part of her brain didn't quite want to think about the fact that it was all the more.. Easy, if anyone could call it that, for him to describe these things because he went through them himself. Every. Single. Month. Since he was a six year old child. A moment passed before Tonks could actually speak, "It's no wonder they're so violent. Anyone would be.. A slight bit grouchy after that." She smiled weakly then swallowed, shaking her head. It was the first time in her life where she didn't have a joke to hide behind, her mind too busy processing what he'd just said. The images his words conjured. In all actuality, even as an Auror it was the first time she was well and truly horrified by something. "It's horrific to think about enduring even once, but every month, nonstop.." She frowned, "How do you remain so.." She looked at him, remembered the first time she'd seen him, the smile he'd greeted her with just moments before, "How do you remain so sane?" An eyebrow went up, then, and again she couldn't help herself, "..What kinds of fun things?"
Maybe it was the fact that his explanation didn't come from a book but from actual.. first hand experience that shocked her so much, especially when she saw him suddenly and visibly brighten. It astonished her that this man could go through so much and still be so.. Happy, or at least able to find joy in anything. He either had a remarkably strong will or was completely mad. Maybe even both. She nodded to what he'd said, frowning, "It's disgusting people would think like that, but look at who's holding the purse strings of the Ministry. Families like Malfoy's and their ilk who can barely stand muggleborns, much less anything else. He knows damn well it's his little donations that keep MLE from searching his little palace, he knows how important his funding is to the 'gamot. All of them do, and as long as they know that, they know they can make the Ministry effectively their bit--" Tonks coughed, "Their tools." Tonks finished sheepishly.
Tonks frowned, then shook her head. "I can't even imagine what the physical side of your transformation is like, even as you described it to me. The mental aspect is just.. Absolutely beyond my grasp. When it was the memory as an.." Suddenly she found it strangely hard to speak, a word she didn't want to say getting caught in her throat until she mustered up the will to get it out, "..As a more feral memory, did you still remember it afterwards?" And there it was. Staring at him, even as he told her his story, even as he described an unspeakable transformation from what must have been his own account.. She just found she couldn't describe the man before her as remotely animalistic.