It came again, the numbness, and with it, the urges. It came in the most inconvenient of places.
Double Potions on Thursday meant weathering out the insults and stinging comments of my peers. It meant suffering through the pain of not being accepted. Except, on this particular Thursday, something else accompanied the pain.
Numbness, apathy, it comes with the Darkness. I feel it creeping up, pulling a veil over my eyes. It feels like my head was stuffed into a giant mitten. I could not feel no matter how much they taunted me. I knew the way out of the Darkness, the numbness, but no! not now, not in the middle of class.
I can't stand it, I barely made it five minutes since the numbness set in. I know that the urges to bring myself out of the stupor will only get stronger. I can usually keep it at bay, away from covering me like a blanket, but I forgot, today I forgot..
Its covering more now, I feel it, the Darkness, eating away at my insides. Professor Snape is looking at me funny, I think he just asked me a question.
Numb. That's all I feel. I need to do something, this blanket of Darkness will only get stronger. I dig my quill into the palm of my hand.
Ahh, sweet relief, I feel it. Pain. The pain, it is welcome. It means that I can feel again, that if I keep going, I will feel again.
Professor Snape looks at me again. I think he can smell my blood. I wandlessly transfigured a quill into a razor. It slides across my flesh and brings sweet relief.
Professor Snape stops talking, I notice. He walks over to me, takes the razor. I scream at him. I want my relief back! He stares at me. I bang my arm on the table, pull one of my fingers back, break it. I smile. Pain.
The rest of the class is staring at this point. I don't care, the Darkness is gone, and with it the numbness. I begin to cry. The pain is too much, too little. I know that the Darkness will be back. I know that it will.
Professor Snape takes me to Madam Pomfrey. She looks at me. I think she knows, I was here just yesterday, when my friends found me passed out in my room. I try to smile. To get her to not tell Professor Snape.
Pomfrey must have said something because now Snape is looking at me with pity in his eyes. I dig my nails into my palm. Everything has been healed. I wish they would just leave me alone.
The Darkness is still there, threatening to take over, to come back. I need to do something to keep it at bay. I lunge forward, smack my arm on a bed, hit my shin on a table, crack my head on a corner. I feel the pain, I feel the Darkness retreat a little.
Professor Snape watches me. It looks like empathy is in his eyes. I see blackness.
I wake up in the infirmary. Pomfrey is there. Snape is too. I ask him why he's still there. Madam Pomfrey leaves the area.
Snape pulls his chair closer to my bed. He tells me to tell him about the Darkness. I don't.
He shows me. He shows me his scars, the neat little lines. I gape.
He asks me again to tell him. I do. He tells me that he understands. I don't believe him. No one has ever understood.
I twist my head to the right, hearing the satisfying little pops. I know that if I were to twist a bit more, the Darkness will go away forever. But I'm scared to do that, scared to take the final step.
Professor Snape stops me from twisting my head to the left. He looks at me with something like compassion in his eyes. I can't stand it. I look away.
Madam Pomfrey comes back. She gives me a potion, tells me to sleep. I don't take it. I hide it in my robes.
Professor Snape knows. He takes the potion out, hands it back to Pomfrey. I don't hear what he says. Pomfrey's eyes widen, she nods.
Pomfrey leaves again, Snape stays again. He wants me to tell him more about the Darkness. I don't want to. I turn the other way.
I fall asleep.
When I wake up, Snape is gone. I feel alone again.
I go back to my tower, I light a candle. They took my wand, they tell me not to hurt myself. I stick my fingers in the flame. The Darkness goes again.
In the bathroom, I take the razor and glide it across my skin. I feel relieved that the Darkness should stay away for a while.
The day continues as normal. There is no Potions today, and the other teachers seem unaware. I dread tomorrow.
Thankfully, the Darkness is kept at bay.
Potions again. My class mates haven't left me alone since I was released from the infirmary. Professor Snape asks me to stay after class.
He asks me when the Darkness came. He notices the burns. A salve is put on my injuries. They heal, scarring.
I miss the Muggle world, when you hurt yourself there, it scars. Madam Pomfrey does not allow scars.
Professor Snape asks again. I tell him. He nods, lets me go.
After dinner, I go back to my room. I have enough Dreamless Sleep to end it. Much less violent than snapping my neck.
I feel sad. Maybe if Ron and Harry noticed. Maybe if someone actually cared.
I drink as much potion as I can before I collapse in my room. I drift off into the blackness.
I wake up, am I dead? Professor Snape looms close. I must not be. This is not my idea of Heaven.
He glares at me, although his face shows something other than anger. Sorrow. He begins to talk, to tell me of his own Darkness. I listen, mesmerized. He tells me that I need to fight, fight the Darkness without hurting myself, so I can be worthy of the Light.
I want to be in the Light, I want to be free of the Darkness. Professor Snape helps me. He says when the Darkness comes, to focus on feeling. He says that I should not focus on feeling pain though. I think that this will be hard. I don't want to fight.
I feel the Darkness creeping in again. Professor Snape notices. He grips my face and tells me to fight. I try, I really try, but it will not stop. I tell Professor Snape. He shouts to try harder, but do not focus on pain. I am failing and I think that he can tell.
Professor Snape kisses me. I focus on that. He keeps kissing me. I feel the Darkness slowly stop. He slips his tongue into my mouth, exploring, tasting. The Darkness slowly begins receding. I begin to cry. No one has understood before, or cared enough to help. Professor Snape is the first person to care.
The Darkness is all gone now, but I know it will be back. I pull back from Professor Snape. I look at him fearfully. I ask him what will I do when the Darkness comes back. He tells me to find him, that he will help me. I thank him.
I am lucky that Professor Snape understands. I am lucky that he went through and battled his own Darkness, because now he can help me battle mine.
The Darkness seeps in again. Today it is back with a vengeance, I feel that it is not happy with being thwarted through other means.
I run to the dungeons, calling out for Professor Snape. He immediately comes. He can tell, I think, when the Darkness claims me. He kisses me, until he can see that the Darkness, the numbness is no longer there.
Standing in the hallway, I ask him if the Darkness will ever go away. He shakes his head sadly. He says that the Darkness abates, but that he does not believe that it will ever go away fully. I nod.
Every time after that, I find Professor Snape when the Darkness comes. We get to know each other. Sometimes we talk after the Darkness is gone. I discover that he has a secret passion for the Fine Arts. I discover that Potions helped him with his own Darkness, that when his comes, he brews the most difficult potion he can think of. I begin to like him.
One time, after a particularly bad bout of Darkness, he tells me to call him Severus. I tell him to call me Hermione.
When I complete my N.E.W.T.S. I find Severus again. I ask him what will I do now that I no longer am a student. He tells me to talk to the Headmaster.
Dumbledore knows. I suppose that he always did. He tells me that Madam Pince is retiring, and that I can take her place. I agree happily.
My Darkness comes and goes. I always find Severus before it can completely consume me. I think that I love him now. We have spent so much time together that I have become dependent. I think that he senses that. Slowly, he teaches me to focus on other things besides him that will help me. I do.
I become less dependent on Severus, although we see each other regularly. I am able to go away now, without worrying that I will succumb to the Darkness. Severus tells me that I am now worthy of the Light, that although there will always be Darkness, I have fought it and succeeded.
I kiss Severus. He kisses me back. We go to his chambers. At first, I feel pain, but then it subsides, becoming pleasure. At one point, I explode from the pleasure. I feel complete.
After, Severus tells me that he likes me. I tell him that I love him. He looks surprised, but pleased.
We get married, and have a wonderful, full life. We have a lovely daughter and a handsome son. They help keep the Darkness away.
I cry happy tears when they get married. I cry happier tears when they have kids.
I have lived a long time now. The Darkness was never a big problem.
Severus has lived longer than I have, and he is getting old. I know it, I know that he will leave me soon. The Darkness comes back, full force.
I watch as Severus's life slowly slips from his eyes. I watch as his body slowly becomes limp in my arms.
I cry, sad tears, for the man I loved above all others.
The Darkness is back, but not without the numbness, somehow carrying with it, the deepest of agonies. I try to focus, like he taught me, I try, I really do. The Darkness closes in. I cannot take it anymore.
I go down to our private lab. It looks the same. I have not been here since he died. I quickly find what I need.
The bed that we slept in looks the same. The Darkness is drawing closer. I lie in the bed one last time.
Slowly, I uncork the potion. I do not know why he had it still. I do not want to know.
I drink it down in one gulp. I fall into blackness.
I wake up, am I dead? Yes, I am dead.
I look around, it is light here. Severus comes up to me. I cry. It had been so long since I saw him.
He wraps me tight in a hug. I keep crying.
He tells me that this is the place for those who are accepted by the Light. He tells me that I saved my soul by fighting my Darkness.
He tells me I belong here.
A/N: Please tell me if there is repeating words because the word count suddenly shot up from a supposed 2001 to 2160.
Anyways, this story is slightly inspired by RedOrchid's (over on Ashwinder) story Ten Things I Hate About You. Most of the ways that Hermione self-harms are actually things that I've thought about doing to myself at one point or another.
Please R&R