AN: Reloading this story I wrote in high school… I had to "delete" all my stories when my parents found my ffn account years ago, but I luckily held on to most of them. Thought this one might deserve to be seen again. It's a different look at the Dementors and why people go insane in Azkaban.

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the really bad dialog!

Ch1: Anything but the Memories of You

I wake up slowly; savoring the feel of my first good night's rest in 3 years. I stretch under the silk sheets and feel the ache of under-used muscles. I roll over in bed reaching for you – only to find a cold pillow.

The room is pitch black as I get out of your bed and rummage in your closet for something to wear. Finding one of your old shirts I don it and leave the bedroom. The contrast between the darkness of your room to the hall blinds me was I pad silently down the hall in search of you.

You never were much of a sleeper. During the war you were lucky to get three to five hours a night. Why I thought that would ever change is beyond me.

I check every room as I walk down the hall. The bathroom. The library. Your study. As I pass the kitchen I realize that just like your sleep schedule hasn't changed, your morning routine probably hadn't either. You are a creature of habit.

I turn and head for your potions room.

I walk through your house marveling at how it doesn't fit you at all. I am so used to your Spartan room at Hogwarts. Your family had much more expensive taste then you. I look at all the finely kept furniture knowing it would be covered in dust if it weren't for your house-elves.

Taking a left down a set of stairs, I descend into the depths of the house. Halfway down the stairs, I stop mid-step remembering a detection ward I placed here during the war. It would announce any deatheaters popping in unannounced for a visit.

Quickly I remove it and continue on my way. I don't want to alert you to my presence just yet. Turning another corner I see light from behind the door and know I have guessed right. Soundlessly I enter the room to find you working two cauldrons at once with a…potion book before you.

The book surprises me. You always complained about the clutter they caused as I used them. You knew every potion ever invented from start to finish. So the appearance of the book is disconcerting to say the least.

Not turning around you say quietly, "They took the memories away." Your words startle me. But of course you would know I was here. Years as a spy, you had to be able to hear the silence to survive.

"Who?" I whisper quietly.

You don't look up as you speak, stirring with one hand and mincing beetle legs with the other, "In Azkaban…they feed…" your hand continues to chop strongly as your voice falters for a second, "They take your memories. They feed on good memories."

I want to run to you and hold you. But I stand still not daring to move in fear that you might turn in on yourself.

"I have…I have so few." You wave your hand over the cauldron freezing it in place. You rest your hands on the table in front of you and you hang your head in exhaustion. "I didn't want to lose the memory of you. I built a fortress around every memory of you. Of us. I gave them memories of my school days. Those…those days mean so little to me. I gave them the feeling of riding a broom. I can get that back…" You run your hand through your over grown hair as you pause.

"I gave them the instructions to every potion I ever learned."

Tears fight to break the barrier of my eyes as I imagine the horrors you unjustly suffered. No public apology. No medal. Nothing will ever fix that. Nothing will ever make it okay.

"The Ministry's official position is that the dementors are there to keep the prisoners at bay…but the jailers turn a blind eye, some times even encourage them to do more. Memories are the only currency in that hell. To be fed... for clothing so you don't die from the cold…it comes at a price, costs a little bit of you every time until there is nothing left. They took the memories of Albus. I can still feel those memories on the very edge of my awareness. I reach out in the fog for them…"

You pause for a moment trying to compose yourself. "I nearly starved before giving up those memories…but it was either my last memory of Albus or – a memory of you."

You turn to me now, tears in your eyes you cross the room in four quick strides gripping my arms you lock on my eyes.

"I wouldn't give them any of you, Hermione. I would give them anything but you. I can't make a single potion by memory any more. I need books. Something I haven't needed since I was a 7th year…but I gave them without grudge…to save you. I have lost my memory…some of the memories that make me the man I am…but I have you," your hand caresses my check, wiping my tears away with the pad of your thumb, "my dear, Hermione, you kept me from dying in that place."

I reach for you now, holding you in my arms. We fall to the ground under the weight of everything that has happened. And we weep together on the cold stone floor. I know you have said all you wish to say. Never did I dream you would tell me all so readily or so soon.

As a matter of nature you never had let me in very far. Even when you confessed your love all those years ago, you held back, in fear of rejection.

That hell, with its monsters, broke you. Broke my Severus. My strong creature of habit, that I fell in love with as a schoolgirl, sits crumpled before me and by Merlin I love you all the more. What you survived would have killed any other man. But not my Severus. Not mine.

After a time we stand. You notice as I suppress a shiver in only your shirt and you undo your cloak and wrap it around me. Our eyes meet in understanding. We will rebuild what memories we can. And make new ones of happiness and peace to fill the void. But it can wait a day or so as we recover and restore your body…then we will tackle the slow process of healing your mind and soul.

"You haven't eaten anything since you got home…let me fix you something."

You nod absently…you are pulling back into yourself after your breakdown. You don't like being weak…vulnerable…you fear I will leave a helpless man.

But I know no other home but your arms. My place is at your side and I have no plans of leaving.

You turn back to your potions, a lost man grasping for any scrap of memory in the words on the page.

Heading for the kitchen to ask the house elves for some food, I whisper just before closing the door, "No Severus, I will not abandon you. You are my home."

You don't know that I know you hear. But I do. You were meant to. And I continue on up the stairs as if I'm unaware.

AN: Sorry that Severus is a little...well unSeveruslike. Blame it on Azkaban. It changed him to the core of his being. I've never been very good at dialogue and this story needed a lot of dialog to get across what i wanted to say.