So, I'm just going to come back here from chapter 6 and make an important note.

This story is a story created for the author's release. It's not a story that so much follows a line, but instead is an image of my own thoughts with depression and the such. This story circles the war. I hope overall that some of you can relate and follow this story as something personally understandable. Though, I hope less of you experience the understood.

Enjoy.

First HG/SS.

Chapter One.

From the Burrow.

She didn't know what it was about him, and honestly, she would just go on blaming puberty.

The dreams?

Puberty.

The flying emotions?

Puberty.

The way she fell under those hard, oil black eyes that belonged to the most hated man that ever held tenure at Hogwarts. Outside Delorus Umbridge of course.

It was puberty. It had to be because within her own logic she knows he is not a good person at all.

But, she wouldn't dwell on that now. She wasn't even at Hogwarts yet; she sat in the living room of her best friend's home inside her own mind, instead of with them.

Alone in a crowded room...

A loneliness she knew all too well. A darkness that had seeped into her skin and broke her soul. A darkness even chocolate couldn't break the bleakness of. They.. the muggles, called it depression. Hermione Granger, with hair as wild as her brilliance and her eyes chocolate brown and so innocent from age, called it a side effect of war.

She was so scared at the world that seemed to be whipping by so fast. She had just learned about the existence of magic its self, but already acted as an experienced warrior in a battle..

She was only 15. They were only 15.

She didn't want this, she never did. But how could she back out..? She had fallen in love with those two boys. Her friends. Her best friends. She loved them in a way where their slightest pain hurt her and all she wanted was to bring Harry to normality and safety. She loved Ron, he was like her brother, fire-hairedired opposite that she couldn't help but to become attracted to.,. How could, after Sirius, after all that, how could she just walk away?

Like he could...

Like he always could; he could turn his back away from every horror and still, he came off hard for sure, but he was alive. And after a time, she found herself wanting just that.

She wanted to learn past his classes and learn how to live without feeling what ravaged her dreams and polluted her days. She wanted his strength. How to go with a wand without an argument and come back with only hours to prepare for class and teach straight through.

But he was not a good man... And Hermione would keep on repeating this in her mind. He was often violently angry with a shorter fuse than a muggle gun. He was verbally abusive and beyond her haze of what she promised herself was puberty, there was nothing at all she liked about him, or that he could give her to make it all worth it.

She had seen him that night.

She had seen him in the courtyard when-

"Hermione?"

Hermione breaks from her thoughts and returns to the living room and to those who sat around her.

Grounding herself again in the Burrow, she glances up to the messy haired hero of her playing story, Harry Potter, who she only guessed the comment was from and shook her head.

"I'm sorry. I'm really, really tired." She explained, running her fingers through her curly hair.

'What we'r you thinking about?" Ron asked as he ripped apart a gummy with his teeth.

"Nothing, just school."

'Oh, come on, Hermione," Fred sighed glancing around before reaching his hand into the couch, "Why didn't you say you needed to relax."

"School is relaxing for me." Hermione breathed but took the glass bottle of low grade alcohol anyway and took a swing once both twins nodded.

"Right." Harry smirked as he took the bottle from her.

Hermione realized the time only then and her daze was broken as the clock struck one am. It's low chime river-bating through the darkened house in the sound of soulful women. Looking back to Harry as he finished his sip and handed the bottle to Ron, she gave another sigh and rubbed her eyes.

"Guys. I'm going to bed." she pushed off the ground with a hard sigh over her cracking knees, saying goodnight before setting off into the darkened house.

"I'm going to bed as well," Ginny sighed after a minute, closing the Quittage magazine she had on her lap and figuring since she wouldn't be allowed to drink, what was the fun of staying?

Hermione was already up the stairs and Ginny would smile and wish her friend a good night as she passed the cracked open bathroom door. She'd slip into the bedroom alone and quickly settled in her own bed, resting her head on her pillow with her back to the door. It took a few more minutes, but when Hermione came in, Ginny kept her eyes closed and didn't say a word, only listened to the tip toe padding of Hermione as she moved across the bedroom. She heard the sound of a placed a cup of water on the bedside table and Ginny waited with all the skill her brothers taught her as she heard Hermione getting in the bed across from her, but didn't hear her lay down all the way.

That night, as Ginny fought sleep behind closed eyes and a comfortable composure as she listened for Hermione who was still sitting up with the blanket over her legs. Instead of falling asleep, against what she had told her friends, she would wait in the light of a single candle, waiting quietly with her book on her lap, eyes blindly on the page, she waited until she heard Ginny's breathing drop to a slow, sleeping breath.

With what little noise she could make, Hermione pulled from under her pillow case an orange bottle marked with a prescription sticker that she covered with her hand. Palming the cap open she flicks two white and blue capsules into her hand before swallowing them with the water. She wouldn't know that Ginny saw her, that the younger girl had faked her sleeping just as her brothers had taught her and had turned over unnoticed to see Hermione taking the pills from the odd orange container.

Unknowing to anything, Hermione would go on to lay down with her back to Ginny and would place her head gently on the pillow without noticing that her friend would watch her until she began to lightly snore.

From His Home in Spinners End.

Glass bottles were loud, potentially dangerous, and in large numbers, attention-grabbing.

If it wasn't for his magic, he would also complain about the taste of warm toxic, but that hadn't been a problem of his since before he knew how to drink.

But, anything to drink, anything, was better than muggle made poison.

He had given up on shot glasses years ago and drank directly from the always frosted bottle of magic made a drink, his form slouching further against the back of the comfortable armchair.

It was a summer night. It had been a meeting night. But, he was home and he hurt. So, fuck it.

But this was only for tonight. This was only for the inside of his home. Tomorrow, he would sleep off his lessened hangover and would pack for Hogwarts.

His dry spell.

The thought alone turned his stomach as if he had taken a large taste of warm tequila.

He wouldn't be able to drink. He wouldn't be able to indulge in his relaxants. He was to be sober always and at all times but fuck it. For twenty-four hour medical care, safe housing and content exposure expectations, he would be the best sober he could be for the safety it provided.

At Hogwarts, his being was constantly accounted for. At Hogwarts he was safe. At Hogwarts, he had a job. At Hogwarts, he has a future... However bleak of a future was...

This was...

It was a future he was building an obituary for. One that would hopefully outcast his father's disgrace.

He would be a hero. Lily would be proud. And his bloodline would die with the world in light. Albus had promised this all. He promised at least that much.

A final shot.

Not the final smoke.

Severus Snape would then make his way to his bedroom at the top of the stairs, his shoulder sliding against the wall the entire way.