(Disclaimer: Anything or anyone you recognize belongs to JK Rowling. Cheers!)
The silence stretches out. The eerily dark lighting of the kitchen casts long shadows over three seated figures. Remus is sitting comfortably, sipping at his ever-present cup of tea. Sirius is hunched over a glass of something stronger. Tonks, who has finished her drink already, is listening, for a moment, to the silence.
She knows what they're thinking. They're thinking about the bloody war, about weariness and grief and death and pain. It is always easy to think about darkness in this house. She sneaks a glance at Remus, seated across from her. His eyes look into himself, troubled. She sighs.
Slight movement across the table startles Remus out of his thoughts, but his own secretive glance just shows him a young woman, looking slightly frustrated, staring into her cup. He sighs. Another endless evening.
Sirius has seen this whole silent exchange happen about seven times in the past ten minutes. His two companions are not being even remotely as subtle as they probably think they are. He snorts, then realizes that the others are now staring at him instead of at each other; and that he is probably not helping the whole madman image by laughing at nothing. He swiftly reverts to staring into his glass. He sighs. Empty. What a disappointment.
Sigh after sigh after sigh. Nothing is getting accomplished, until Tonks, who is sick of the darkness, sick of the war, sick of the endless sighing, stands up and startles the others by turning on the wireless and finding a Weird Sisters song with an absurdly fast beat. She's wearing her lucky socks, and tonight, she feels like dancing.
Before Sirius knows quite what is going on, his cousin has caught up his hands, and twirled him to his feet. Why not, he figures. It's better than sitting around.
Remus observes. Tonks and Sirius both have good rhythm, surprisingly. He makes the mistake, however, of sipping his tea, and the movement attracts the attention of his friends. Before he quite knows what is happening, Sirius is saying "Oh, now, we can't have that!" and Tonks has captured his hands in hers (they're surprisingly soft--Stop that!) and is pulling him to his feet, whirling him around.
Suddenly, all is light and laughter and music and movement. Remus has been weary. He's been worn down by lycanthropy. He's been battered by pain and war, but suddenly, Remus feels like smiling again. Something is changing. Tonight, he's feeling young.
Remus has time to think that her eyes truly catch the shadows in the most interesting way, before batting that train of thought away as if it were a pesky fly. However, like a pesky fly, the thoughts come back. Or maybe it's that her eyes are dancing, just like the rest of her… He realizes this is true. They're matching to the beat and the twirling, and perhaps she isn't even aware of it, because the pattern looks truly organic. For one piercing moment of truth, Remus feels that he is looking directly into her soul: a beautiful symphony of color.
He grins, suddenly aware of what they are doing. They're dancing in darkness. They're beating the war, carried above the worry, pain, and fear by all the sounds and colors of hope. He is laughing and so is she.
Sirius, with a secretive smile, tiptoes away unnoticed, finds his way upstairs.
The next song is something slow and romantic, and Remus and Tonks stop their dance and look at each other while pretending to look everywhere else, in a way that would certainly have infuriated Sirius, until Tonks shuts off the wireless.
A tumble of words, lost somewhere between "Er, well..." and "Oh, here's your coat!" carries them to the door.
Remus can't look in those undefinable eyes. He'll get lost. So he looks somewhere else.
There's a moment of silence.
Then--"Remus, why are you staring at my nose?"
Caught out. "Erm-"
"Goodnight." A hint of the laughter that carried them through the dance.
"Goodnight, Tonks."
Upstairs, Sirius quietly crawls into bed. He may be sick of this house, the loneliness and secrecy, but tonight, there's something in the air, and Sirius feels like hoping. He falls asleep with a smile on his face.
Back home, Tonks curls up under her usual pile of blankets. She danced with him. She buries her face in her pillow, but it does nothing to hide her blush from herself. It is a long time before she can fall asleep, but when she finally does, she does so smiling.
Remus stands watching even after Tonks has vanished into the dark, not wanting to surrender the magic of the moment. When he does turn away, it is with a smile that will carry him up the stairs, into his nightclothes, and beyond, into the light of dreams that are, for once, of joy.