Disclaimer: All canon characters, places, plots and situations from the Harry Potter Universe belongs to J.K. Rowling. I make no profit from this.

Warnings: Rated M for language, violence and scenes of a sexual nature in later chapters.

A/N: Thank you to everyone who's taken the time to review and are following this story. I'm in the process of finding a beta, so please bear with any errors for now - I didn't want to keep you all waiting until that had happened. As before, please share your constructive criticism and tell me what you enjoy about this story too.

Chapter Two: Static Magicality

oOoOoOo

Sirius Black felt like shit.

After the chaos that had filled his childhood home on Christmas day, Grimmauld seemed unnaturally still and quiet the next morning. Although, next to the pounding in his own head anything could be considered 'quiet'. Remus and Tonks had both left for work already, dropping Teddy off at school on the way. Neither of them had offered him more than a watery smile and a nod as they passed him sprawled in the living room, treating him like a landmine about to discharge. "Uncle Sirius isn't feeling well Teds, let's be quiet."

So what, maybe he liked it better that way.

He slipped off the sofa, groaning at the pain in his neck and back from sleeping cramped all night. Wrapping the blanket around him like a cloak, he shuffled into the kitchen in search of something to ease his discomfort. The muggle Italian coffee maker caught his eye but he still hadn't figure out how it worked and neither Remus or Tonks seemed to use it, so it must belong to their other housemate. Thinking about that made him recall the night before and that was something he really wanted to put off thinking about until absolutely necessary. Preferably after a very strong cup of coffee. Or a bludger to the head. He knew they had instant coffee, alas, they were fresh out of bludgers. He was sitting at the kitchen bar cradling his steaming cup and feeling miserable for himself when she walked in.

"You look like you've been kicked by a Hippogriff," she said, by way of greeting. He grunted, lifting his eyes to hers.

"Well good morning to you too, love."

She was silent as she surveyed the room; the kitchen was a tip after yesterday, and he watched as she tidied up with a few efficient flicks of her wand. The pot-scrubber soaped itself and went to work on a pile of dirty dishes, while a bucket filled up with soapy water and a mop zoomed out from somewhere to begin cleaning the floor. She raised her wand again and all the rubbish in the room flew up into a clump that hung in the air until she whizzed that off with a silent Evanesco. She looked around, and with a satisfied nod, she finally pointed her wand at the Italian coffee machine and it whirred to life. He couldn't help being impressed, and she caught his eye, quirking an eyebrow.

"No house elves around here," she said, pointedly. "I saw the state of the bathroom."

Oh that was right – their bedrooms were on the same floor so they'd have to share the bathroom. Cleaning hadn't exactly been high on his priority list the last while.

He watched as she grabbed her coffee and took a seat at the bar with him, inhaling the steam rising from her cup. The rich scent of good coffee reached his nose, making his mouth water, and he looked down into his own cup at the murky grey-brown liquid there. Awkward from the night before, he felt like he had to fill the silence with words.

"Nobody in this house besides you can work that bloody contraption," he said, gruffly. To his surprise, she leaned closer and wrinkled her nose at his cup. With an ease that seemed almost arrogant, she flicked her wand at the machine and it began to make another cup. He noticed that she'd taken a seat one away from him and it made him self-conscious, suddenly painfully aware that he probably looked as though he'd crawled out of a sewer. If he could remember what he had done the night before, he wouldn't have been surprised to discover it wasn't far from the truth. He looked, and smelled like a vagrant while she sat there fresh, clean and completely at ease, one bare foot curled underneath her. He wished he had a hangover potion, or best still another bottle of Firewhiskey and maybe had also obliviated himself so he wouldn't now be soaking in the contrast between them, and the knowledge that he had turned into someone even his former convict self would have found a little pathetic.

She sipped her coffee, eyes closing in pleasure and he took the opportunity to really look at her. The colour was high in her cheeks, making her look healthy. She held herself with poise and yet seemed completely down to earth in her mannerisms. Her hair was a cascade of honey curls, drastically changed from the frizz bomb he remembered. She seemed so very different from, and yet somehow the same as the teenager he remembered. For some unfathomable reason, he found himself scrambling to fill the silence again.

"So have you lived here as long as my cousin and Moony?" he asked.

"Moony? Oh yes, Remus." She shook her head. "No, after school I shared a flat with the boys. Harry and Ron," she clarified, unnecessarily. He remembered how the three of them had been joined at the hips. "But then they went off and got married and it's hell trying to find a decent, private one-bedroom flat in London, so Remus and Tonks suggested I move in with them." She took another sip of her coffee and then suddenly started. "Oh," she said, suddenly serious. "Are you alright with me living here? Only it's your house and Merlin, I didn't even think to ask-"

He waved a hand dismissively. "Of course it's fine, love. I always wanted this dreary old place to have a new lease on life." He looked around at the changes, and thought about the people that had filled this room the day before. "It certainly looks as though you've all done just that", he said, almost under his breath. He couldn't mask the bitterness that escaped with his words and regretted it as the atmosphere in the room shifted. He dropped his eyes to the table.

"Sirius," she said, "I want to talk about last night."

He immediately began to fidget, looking into his coffee cup as though he were a Seer divining tea leaves. "Yeah, sorry about that," he said eventually, his voice gruff with reluctance.

"You don't have to be sorry Sirius, there's nothing to be ashamed of."

Yet embarrassment – when had this become such a familiar feeling to Sirius Black? – washed over him when he realised she was talking about the equally mortifying bit where he'd cried all over her the night before. "Um, not that. Well yes that too, but the… ogling," he finished lamely, gesturing in the direction of her chest while making very sure not to drop his eyes to the aforementioned area. She laughed, surprising him again. He'd expected anger, or at the very least a stern talking to. That's the girl he remembered.

"It's okay," she said. "You didn't get handy. Even Harry and Ron have hit on me when they've been pissed." She grinned, shaking her head. "Hopelessly predictable the lot of you, really. First you drink, then you get weepy. Honestly I think you'd flirt with a Flobberworm if you were drunk enough."

Thinking about his recent escapades, he couldn't disagree with that. "Yes well, I am sorry for disturbing your night with my problems, I'd like it if we just forgot the whole thing, yeah?" he said, looking up to see the smile fade quickly off her face.

"There's no need to apologise for that," she said sharply. "If you think you're the first person in this house that's had a moment like that after everything we've been through, you're wrong." He realised that she was trying to reassure him, but her words drew his guilt to the surface like poison. She was frowning at him. "Sirius, what's going on with you? And don't try to say it's nothing," she said and reached out to place a hand on his, startling him. He looked down at their hands. Her skin was fair and unmarked, soft and achingly innocent in contrast to his own, dark and etched with tattoos and hair. An inexplicable fury began to build in the center of his chest, radiating outwards. He must've been in a worse off state than he thought, to let himself get into a vulnerable position with this witch. He wasn't going to touch Firewhiskey ever again. A week, at least.

"Look, I've apologised-" he started, realising that he had said sorry that morning more than he had since his return. She shook her head, cutting him off.

"This is not about last night, Sirius, this is about the last four months. Why have you been so distant from everyone? Why aren't you talking to Remus or Harry? Why weren't you at the Christmas lunch?" Her questions were an assault on his sore head. "What's going on with you Sirius?" There was a painfully awkward silence and he bounced a leg anxiously, sure that a little more confrontation would push him over the edge. When it was clear he wasn't going to say anything, she sighed. "Let me try," she was saying, her voice more gentle than before and he couldn't help looking up at her. She continued without any response from him.
"I think you're feeling displaced and you've had so little experience of genuine freedom as an adult that it's confusing to have it all now. It must be horribly disorientating to come back to your best mate being almost a decade older than you, and missing more of Harry's life. And I know you hate that you missed the war."

Her words surprised him, bringing a deep pain bubbling up into his chest. He moved back warily. "Are you a Legilimens?" he demanded, his left hand twitching towards his wand. This would really be the last straw.

"I'm not reading your mind Sirius", she said, earnestly. "You told me as much last night, and I've learned a little bit about people while you've been gone. I just wanted to talk with you because I heard you've been having a tough time since you got back and I wanted to let you know that it's normal."

His desire for absolution warred with his self-hatred, indignant at being counseled so boldly by a woman half his age. He snapped. "And what the fuck do you know about it little girl?" he spat. She flinched, and the ugliness in his chest grew. "Oh I remember you alright, the same fucking know-it-all right there…" He trailed off, not really sure where the words had come from in the first place, feeling horribly, angrily exposed. She had stiffened at his words and he waited for the tears, maybe a well-deserved slap but all she did was look at him with a coldness he didn't think she had in her.

"What I know, Sirius, is that half my classmates have been in the special ward at St. Mungos, either due to irreversible curse damage, or because when you see your friends and family die around you in horrible ways, it tends to mess with your mind." He was not an exceptionally tall or large man, but compared to the witch across from him, Sirius was both. And yet in that moment it seemed like she was growing with ire, shrinking him with the crackling power she seemed to be holding back. "What I know, Sirius, is that in the three years after the war there was an unprecedented abuse of Calming and Dreamless Sleep draughts. I know that when all of us who survived go to sleep, we see the faces and hear the voices of our friends and family that we could not save-"

He slammed a closed fist on the tabletop and the empty coffee cups rattled violently. "Don't talk to me about loss, I lost my friends, my family years ago! I've lost years!" he shouted. She snorted, a bitter sound.

"You're not the only one who's lost people, Sirius." There was a tremble in her voice. "I'm not trying to make you feel guilty, but you will not sit there and talk to me like I don't know what it feels like to try and make sense of a world that just doesn't any longer!"

How had their awkward, polite reunion turned into this? He opened his mouth to deliver something biting, something that would put her in her place but then he noticed the unshed tears in her eyes, the way she turned her face away from him, blinking irritably, and he felt awful. It was so quiet he could hear the ticking of the grandfather clock in the next room. It felt like minutes passed by in silence.

"I've been a right arsehole," he blurted finally.

"Really? I hadn't noticed," she said dryly, not missing a beat, and his voice rang out in a bark of shocked laughter. She smiled wryly. Amazingly, the tension in the room dissipated a little. The change in the atmosphere was giving him emotional whiplash. He wondered again if magic was involved. What was she doing to him? He hesitated before speaking again.

"I'm just living up to expectations, aren't I?"

Her eyes widened. "Is that what this is about? Sirius, you've had a lot of your time taken away from you, unfairly. But there are no guarantees. All we have is here and now. I think it's safe to say we've all changed, so if you're making yourself miserable trying to live up to these expectations you say people have, you're wasting precious time. You're here to stay," she said, squeezing his hand, and he felt rather as though her fingers were around his heart instead. It was an uncomfortable sensation. "No Azkaban, no Veil. But also no promises. One day at a time, that's how we're all doing it. You've been given a gift."

"And what if I didn't want it?" he mumbled petulantly. She gave a frustrated sigh.

"If you're really that ungrateful and helplessly miserable, then you are most welcome to go throw yourself back into the Veil," she said simply. Her unkindness astonished him into speechlessness. "What? If you're willing to throw it all away, to hurt the people who love you and ruin any chance of happiness you have, that's your choice."

"I don't know what you think you're doing, but I'm sure encouraging someone to commit suicide isn't helpful!" he said, taken aback.

"I'm not doing that. I'm pointing out that you have choices. Even if you're sorry to be back, we're not. Nobody blames you for anything. But whether you want… this," she gestured towards his him, "or want something else is your choice. You want to stay and be a part of this crazy family? Great. You want to go live on a deserted island? Do it. We'll miss you. Harry will miss you. But it'll be okay, because we know what it's like and we just want you to be happy."

"When did you get so wise, Hermione Granger?" he said, falling back on humour to cover the discomfort he felt at the way she'd burrowed her way through his walls.

"I've always been wise, Sirius, it's just always been you lot who never listen," she said primly, getting up to put their mugs in the sink. Sirius moaned, rubbing a hand over his sore head and wondering if he was actually awake. Whoever thought there'd come a day when he'd see a playful Granger? It was another thing about this woman that jarred with the memory of the person he used to know. It was actually difficult for him to not to stare at her – he had never been able to resist admiring a pretty woman, and the knowledge that to him at least, she'd been just a teen less than half a year ago didn't change the fact that she had grown up.
She really had grown up. He ran his eyes over her womanly curves, the long tanned neck, flat belly and tumbling honey curls. Her bare feet were nicely shaped, the toenails polished a deep pink colour. Even her eyes were the colour of whiskey… eyes that were currently looking right at him.

"Eh? What?" he asked, gracelessly, even as his inner dialogue argued.
For Merlin's sake man, pull yourself together. She's half your age.
Well technically not.
That's not the point! She's Harry's age.
Harry's an adult.
She's his best friend!"
I'm just looking!

She was standing by the entrance to the kitchen, a hint of amusement playing around her mouth. "I said, you should really think about talking to Remus. He misses you, you know. And Harry. You may be surprised at how much they would understand." He inclined his head to indicate that he'd heard her. He wasn't going to commit to anything.

"Oh and Sirius?"

"Yes love?"

She wrinkled her nose. "You might want to wash. You reek." And then she sashayed out of the room, leaving him speechless again.

Cheeky wench!

He took her advice, watching and thinking about the last ten hours as the hot water sluiced over his skin, running towards the drain in grimy rivulets.
Hermione had him stumped. One minute she'd been soft and caring, so empathetic he still wasn't convinced there wasn't magic involved. The next she was as good as telling him he could top himself if he wanted! The witch had gotten to him, and he blamed the surreal events of the night before for weakening him to her. Still… she was the first person from 'before' who had spoken to him like he wasn't fragile, wasn't about to fall to pieces. And regardless that he felt that way some days, it was a nice change. Her insight into some of the things that he himself hadn't been able to, or didn't want to articulate, was eerie, leaving him feeling more vulnerable and exposed than he had in a long time. It wasn't pleasant. He wasn't sure which scared him more, the sense that the tenuous strings holding him together had been prodded for integrity and found wanting, or that for the first time in months, he'd felt a spark of life running through his veins, forcing him to be in the present.

The irony that he had received from a bossy young woman and a cup of coffee some taste of what he'd been chasing after all this time, with the clubs and the women and the drinking, was not lost on him. He growled, agitated, tangling his fingers through matted hair as he washed away the residue from the night's activities. The vigorous movement reminded him just how delicate he was feeling after last night's binge, and pressed his hands against the wall of the shower, leaning forward and letting the pressure of the water massage his head. He used to care about the way he looked, even after he'd escaped from Azkaban. Granted, there wasn't much he could do about it, but he still cared. Now, bizarrely, his status as an ex-convict increased his appeal amongst witches, even though it was clear that he hadn't been taking care of himself. He could feel the protruding ribs when he soaped his chest, the absence of muscle strength that he'd taken for granted until it withered away. No wonder he'd been coming off second best in bar brawls. He looked down. Even that looked disappointed and tired. Despite all of this, he knew he was a good looking man, and he knew how to say all the right words, a well-versed script. And if he wasn't in the mood to drown himself in casual sex, booze always helped to numb the shit feelings. And if that wasn't enough, he could count on a good punch-up to get his blood pumping. After all, who was he if not the Legendary Sirius Black?

That was his problem right there. Who the fuck was Sirius Black? He cursed the woman for setting his mind on this train of thought, everything he tried to avoid looking too hard at coming into clear focus. He sounded like a fucking nancy, worrying about 'finding himself'. Yet. If he's honest with himself, he doesn't know how to be a godfather to a grown man with children of his own. Or how to process the graying hair on his best friend's face, or that out of the people who mean most to him, his baby cousin is now the closest to him in age. Everyone had their own lives, and the last time he had been independent was twenty years ago. Twenty. So at a loss for what to do, he had been doing what was easiest, what was familiar. Isn't that what everyone wanted anyway, the charming, arrogant, reckless Sirius Black? You've hardly been charming.

What about what you want, Hermione's voice said inside his own head. What's your choice? He sneered at this extremely unmanly thread of thought, rubbing his hair with a towel before wrapping it around his waist and heading to his bedroom. He needed a good, long sleep. The door to her bedroom was closed, and he could hear nothing as he passed. His room, however, was an absolute tip. He knew it had been messy and not exactly fresh, but how had he failed to notice how disgusting it had gotten? It was as though the bloody witch had climbed into his brain and scraped his eyes clean. It was difficult to maintain his grudge against her when he noticed a vial of Hangover Potion on his bedside table, resenting the fact that he couldn't even resent her in peace!

Godric's hairy bollocks.

Sneak Peek Chapter Three.

"Muggle flea market," he responded, and asked her if she'd like a game. She'd perked up at that. Apart from Remus, nobody else really enjoyed games like these. "If you're sure," she'd said, borrowing a little of his cockiness for a moment. "I am terribly good at this game though, you sure you want to play?"