A/N: This is just a little short story I put together after having it bounce around in my head for months. It will be three chapters, about 5,000 words, and I will post each chapter as I get it cleaned up and ready.

This is, without a doubt, a song-fic, completely inspired by the song "Beautiful Disaster" by Kelly Clarkson. I love her music, and when I heard this song for the first time after beginning my fanfiction writing journey, I thought it was perfect fit for Hermione and Sirius. I will not post lyrics in the chapters, but if you have never heard the song, I encourage you to look it up!

This fic has a very different feel from my other stories. Just to warn you.

Thank you, as always, to my friend and beta, Ms. K. Everdeen!

Disclaimer: I wish I could live in this world, but I unfortunately don't own any of it.

Chapter 1

He was standing in the window again. She could barely make out his outline in the dark, but his position was given away by the glow of the cigarette as he took a drag and the wafting smell of smoke through the crack in the window that reached her as she made her way up the steps.

Ginny hated that he smoked in the house. She tried to ban it, but when he outright refused to sit outside in the January cold, Harry had taken his side, saying that it was his house and he could do what he wanted. So, Ginny had conceded, ungracefully, and insisted he at least crack the window to protect the rest of the house's occupants' lungs. He had refused that as well, but he always did it anyway.

She could feel his eyes on her as she reached the landing. She always paused there to look at him before she entered the foyer, disappearing from his view. He was always in that window when she got home from work, and she could always feel him watching her.

She hung her cloak up and made her way down the hall to the stairs leading to the kitchen. She didn't bother to stop and look into the drawing room. The door was firmly closed, and he had taken the room over as his domain since his return. It wasn't an inviting place to enter, and she had no desire to tangle with him tonight.

His inexplicable return from beyond the Veil was months ago now. He had not handled the transition back into the world of the living well. Remus' death had hit him hard, and the realization that he had missed even more years had thrown him in a depression that went far deeper than when he had been in exile or under house arrest in Grimmauld during her fifth year.

She hadn't really noticed at first. She had been wading through the last volatile days of her doomed relationship with Ron when he had returned. She had only seen him once or twice at first and he seemed the same. Not normal, but no different than he had the last time she had seen him when she was sixteen.

It wasn't until her relationship had ended in a spectacular explosion of screaming and throwing hexes and just about anything she could get her hands on that she had actually really noticed him.

She had left her and Ron's shared flat that night in a fit of rage, Apparating directly to Grimmauld Place to unload on her unsuspecting best friend. That was when she had first seen him there. A dark shape in a dark room, with only the glow of a cigarette to demonstrate any life.

That first night she had stopped, startled out of her fuming thoughts. It had struck her as odd to see him there, and she had felt his eyes on her, even though she couldn't discern his facial features in the darkness.

After a few minutes of staring at his shape, she had moved to enter the house. The drawing room door had been firmly closed, so she had shaken him from her thoughts and called out for Harry, brain kick-starting again about her epic break-up with Ron.

Harry had insisted she move into Grimmauld following her break-up, at least until she got on her feet again. She probably could have insisted she stay in their shared flat instead of Ron, but the place had been his choice for where to live, and it had never quite suited her. She felt it was much better for her to move on.

She had thought Ginny would object to her moving in, but the newlywed witch had just thrown up her hands and said the more the merrier. She knew his constant black cloud was beginning to wear on Ginny, especially since Harry refused to even consider speaking with him about the situation. Harry's clear alliance with him over his young wife did not sit well with Ginny.

After over a week of not seeing more than his darkened silhouette in the window every evening coming home from work, she wondered if he even left that room. She assumed he must eat and sleep and use the restroom, but she saw no evidence of it.

Even though they had barely spoken since his return, and she knew very little of him before he had been lost, she felt an inexplicable connection with him every night she saw him standing there in the window. Though she couldn't see them, she knew his eyes were meeting hers in the darkness, and somehow she knew that was the closest human connection he had in his life. It made her sad to think of it.

She questioned Harry about it one Saturday morning at breakfast, two weeks after she had moved in. He had only shrugged, saying that he was processing his return the best way he knew how and that he would emerge from his self-imposed exile when he was ready. When she pushed further, Harry said he did sleep in his bedroom and sometimes had drinks in the kitchen with him. She was happy to hear that he at least left the drawing room occasionally.

She had awoken in the early morning hours, last vestiges of a nightmare clinging to her body as she shakily pushed her sweat soaked curls back from her face. She knew she would never fall back to sleep, so she wrapped her dressing gown around her and padded quietly down to the kitchen, her bare feet making very little noise on the old wooden floors.

He was there in the darkness, sitting at the kitchen table, hands wrapped around a tumbler of firewhisky. She let out a startled shriek when she lit the wall sconces, turning her wand on him before she realized who was there. She hadn't noticed his silhouette in the blackness of the room.

He squinted at her in the sudden brightness, bloodshot eyes burning into hers. He looked terrible. His hair was long and unkempt, snarled around his face. His beard was scraggly and greying. His face was gaunt and his eyes sunken into his cheeks. He looked more like the Azkaban escapee than he had the last time she had seen him in the light, months previous.

She apologized for intruding, though he had ignored her, lowering his eyes to his drink after a few intense moments of staring at her. She quickly went about making her tea, which she had thought to bring up to the library to settle in with a book until it was an appropriate time to begin getting ready for work. But she was second-guessing her decision. Now that she was here with him, the temptation to stay and attempt to draw him into the conversation was nearly irresistible.

She watched him out of the corner of her eye as she finished preparing her tea. She considered offering him some, but the way he was making love to his whisky, she didn't think he would appreciate it.

She made her decision, sliding into the chair across from him. She didn't ask for permission, and he didn't acknowledge her. She sipped at her tea, eyes moving over him in curiosity.

While he certainly didn't look healthy, there was something about him that struck her. Maybe it was just the part of her that reached out for the despondent man in front of her-the part that sparked to life when she saw him in the window every night. That connection she felt was ridiculous. They hadn't spoken, and he clearly didn't want to be disturbed. But she felt it nonetheless, even more so in the moment, sitting so close to him in the light of the kitchen.

She was startled when his eyes snapped up to hers, and she quickly lowered her gaze to her tea, embarrassed at being caught at her study of him. When she raised her eyes again, he was still looking at her intently.

Her stomach swooped at the intense gaze and her cheeks flushed. But she held his gaze steadily, determined to wait him out.

He had a strange kind of beauty to him, even though he wasn't exactly healthy looking. It was in the sharp angles of his face, in his jet colored waves, still untouched by the gray that sprinkled his beard. And it was in the sadness in his hooded, bloodshot eyes. She couldn't look away.

Abruptly he stood and stalked out of the room, door swinging closed behind him. He hadn't uttered a word to her the whole time, yet Hermione felt suddenly exhausted like they had had a heated argument. She watched the closed door for several minutes after his departure, trying to make sense of her swirling emotions.