Title: Aftermath
Characters: Hermione/Sirius.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or anything related to it.
Summary: "He watches solemnly as the dark, angry sea crashes repeatedly against the pier. The continuing onslaught knocks the small fishing boats carelessly about on its slate coloured surface. He is going to leave, tonight. He has decided." Sirius returned, the war may have ended but its after affects were still perceptible.
A/N: Edited, to change structure.
Aftermath
February 2001
The ancient, azure paint chips beneath his neat fingernails as his dry, calloused hands tightly encircle the corrugated iron railing. The air, drenched with the mist of crashing waves, seeps into his skin. The residue of salt flavours his cracked lips. He watches solemnly as the dark, angry sea crashes repeatedly against the pier. The continuing onslaught knocks the small fishing boats carelessly about on its slate coloured surface. He is going to leave, tonight. He has decided.
"I got you an ice-cream." Her small voice is almost carried away on the harsh wind. "I realise it's not the ideal weather, but when at the beach!" She laughs weakly.
He takes the proffered cone, but barely touches it. Sirius knows it is time to go. Just like he knows, he was never meant to come back.
"You're going to leave, aren't you?"
His head turns sharply in her direction. A hazy, grey light struggles to shine from the clouds above her as the harsh wind whips stray, strands of chestnut hair about her wind lashed cheeks. She is not looking at him; instead her gaze is drawn to a small boy, dressed in an over sized wax jacket, collecting shells on the beach. He finds himself mildly surprised that he has not foreseen her knowing. She knows everything! Merlin, she reminds him so much of Remus that at times it aches to be around her.
"An old school friend of Lily's said she'd put me up for a while. Just till I'm settled," he says.
"So you've had this planned for a while?" she asks him trying to mask the anger from her voice. She keeps her eyes trained to the young child skipping across the damp sand. "When do you leave?"
"I was thinking tonight."
"Tonight!" her voice falters.
She remembers when he returned, it was a little after the monument was erected. The deaths still felt so fresh. Even to this day she pretends not to see the bitterness in Mrs. Weasley's eyes that Sirius came back, but that Fred was dead.