Title: We Walk, We Dance
Format and Word Count: Ficlet, 410 words
Summary: Tonks appreciates Remus's chivalry but loves that he never takes it too far.
Author's Notes: Written for the April ficathon on rtchallenge, which was great fun and I thoroughly recommend that you all check out the next one (probably in June). This was written for prompt 20: Walk.
They exit Grimmauld Place and he passes her hand from one of his to the other as he moves around her to walk on the outside of the pavement and she smiles. She loves that he's chivalrous when it doesn't really matter. Because she is perfectly capable of opening doors and pulling out her own chair, and let's face it; there are far worse dangers in her life than walking on the road side of the pavement. But he makes her feel like a woman and she can't say that about many men.
She wonders how he knows not to take chivalry too far with her; she's not sure if it's restraint he's exercising or natural judgement. He'll pull her chair out for dinner, but not at an Order meeting; never at an Order meeting, when she is not so much a woman as a fellow fighter and she knows he'd never take that away from her.
They've never spoken about it and she's not sure they ever will; she thinks there's no need because their dance is already perfect and she'd hate to taint it with what would amount to academic thought. But she likes it when he walks her home the old fashioned way; sometimes he'll take off his coat and drape it around her shoulders and she'll let him even if she isn't cold.
This evening, the air is warm and there is an intangible air of freedom about the night. She giggles for no reason and removes her hand from his to slide it into the warm space between his arm and his body. He looks down at her and smiles as she leans into him. Clearly, he decides that this new closeness is not close enough and so he puts his arm about her waist; sliding the very tips of his fingers beneath her turquoise camisole top.
She hooks a single finger on a belt loop of his trousers and trips slightly on an innocuous enemy in the form of a tuft of grass growing from a crack in their pavement stage. He steadies her and she sighs; he kisses the top of her forehead and laughs.
Yes, she likes their dance. She may stumble occasionally but in what seem like flawlessly choreographed moves, he is always there to catch her and to hold her steady but he always knows when to let her go solo, and she loves him even more for that.