How abouuuuuuut Tarantism, Potter character of your choice. :)
tarantism — the urge to overcome melancholy by dancing
Tonks knows he knows. That one time it comes on the wireless, Sirius’ head jerks up and he stares off into the middle distance like a man possessed, too much white in his eyes and face the exact color of spoiled milk. It’s not even one of the common songs—even popular stations play the occasional Waltz for Witch & Wizard in D, and Mooncalf Sonata. But there are certain songs that are older and stranger; that good or bad belong to the families, the Pureblooded ones, because no one else listens to them anymore.
She’s sure when she comes up behind him in the kitchen at Grimmauld Place and starts humming a few bars—
“Don’t,” he snarls, and his hand is somehow over her mouth and his face is a snarl and cruel, it’s cruel. Tonks has never felt quite so young and stupid, as when Sirius is staring at her like she is. (She thought it’d cheer him up, it’d remind him that there’s someone in the Order, in the Ministry, rubbing elbows with all their terrible stupid relatives who is nevertheless on his side. She thought wrong.)
“Sorry,” Tonks mumbles against the heel of his hand. She’s tempted to try and change her hair, make a funny face, just to see if it’ll break the tension—but Sirius doesn’t seem like he’s in the mood to laugh.
Sirius shakes his head, stepping away—he’s shaking all over, actually, she’s not sure she noticed before. “That’s…fine, it’s fine. Just don’t like that song, all right?” He smiles insincerely and then jerks away like a doll on a string, goes back to staring at the not-quite-boiling teapot like it holds the secrets of the universe. Tonks exhales and creeps away, the hot of his hand still burning where he pressed it over her mouth like a shameful brand.
She’s determined that’ll be the end of it. Only—
It’s not deliberate she ends up at Grimmauld Place for Christmas. Mum and Dad both want her home, especially since she works such strange hours for the Department. To quote her father: it’s like Shacklebolt can’t function without her! goodness, you’d think a relatively junior Auror might at least have Christmas off to see her family… (The number of times Tonks has had to bite her tongue not to blurt out it’s dumbledore, all right, it’s the order of the phoenix; I’m fighting a war! deserves a medal all on its own.)
She gets off early though, and rather than go home and subject herself to Great Aunt Norra’s pictures from Saint-Martin, checks in at Grimmauld Place first.
It’s empty, mostly, but she finds Sirius and Remus in the parlor. Or what might have been the parlor once, when Grimmauld Place was a grand London house and not a desperate foxhole for Muggle-lovers. Remus and Sirius are dancing to the Warlock’s Waltz—trying to, anyhow. Standing in the doorway, Tonks laughs at the both of them, and then hisses, panto-style, when Remus stumbles through a turn.
“Oh, go suck Morgana’s clit,” Sirius says warmly, laughing himself. He has too much color in his cheeks—Tonks isn’t sure how much or how long they’ve been drinking, but it would explain the color, the way Remus trips over his feet towards her and grabs her hand, heedless of the contact. (It is, she thinks dizzyingly, the first time they’ve touched. He didn’t even shake her hand when they met, but here he is, grabbing her hand, leading her to the dance floor.)
“Please, take him,” Remus says, with a seriousness belied by the glitter in his eyes, the mischievous dimple at the corner of his mouth. “I’m done trying to dance; if it isn’t disco, I don’t know what to do with it.”
“Boo,” Sirius says, snatching Tonks’ hand up from Remus, and then he’s spinning her into the same old steps, the ones she knows.
Her mother taught her this, one of the very rare lessons from Andromeda where she would actually talk about her family, about Bella and Cissy and the world she’d been born into, full of alliances and dinner parties, balls, invitations; long hours having the steps for the Hopping Pot gavotte and the Warlock’s Waltz drilled into you. Annie, Bella, and Cissy danced with each other, the three sisters, and then each of them was dressed up, and sent out into the world to find her fortune—only, one of them found an excitable Muggleborn photographer, and all the rest drained away, replaced by something that was real.
(Your mother, Ted Tonks said once, is the love of my life. I know, because I can’t imagine a life without her.
Your father, Andromeda Tonks said once, is the love of my life. I know, because I can imagine a life without him, and don’t want it.)
But here and now, Tonks and Sirius waltz across the floor of the parlor in the old-fashioned way, the old style that belongs to the Purebloods because no one else remembers or cares. He’s laughing, and she’s remembering her lessons. The one-two-three, lift; one-two-three, bend. In the light of the fire, his eyes are living silver, bright, and she can feel Remus watching them twirl across the floor. During the reel (the next song, she and Sirius know that one too) Remus keeps time by clapping, and then insulting their footwork over the beat of the music.
She catches a glimpse of him sometimes, turning; he is flushed, and very handsome, grinning wide and shameless, and she thinks—
There is a war on, Tonks knows. But just now, right now, she lets Sirius lead her through a promenade, while Remus laughs at the both of them from the doorway. She would not say that all is well, but it’s very close.
