She shouldn't have been where she was. She shouldn't have been doing what she was doing. She shouldn't be feeling what she was feeling.

Realistically, her problem began between the summer of second and third year. Her parents had claimed she was always acting edgy; nervous... just... not herself. Hermione didn't deny that she probably had - after all, wasn't it to be expected? After everything that had happened in the previous year, coupled with the fact that she would soon be starting a course-load that would make any of her fellow students hysterically sob, who wouldn't be a little anxious?

To her parents, it was enough for her to be taken to a doctor once they were back in Britain. She was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, and given a prescription for Xanax. She was allowed to take one every day, but for the rest of the summer, she barely touched the pill bottle. When it came time to go back to school, she left it behind, after deciding that she wouldn't have time to give into the near-crippling drowsiness the drug caused her.

"Hey, girl."

Hermione was at her drug dealer, Andrew's, house; his voice brought her back to reality."You ever done Smack?"

Excitement grew in Hermione's stomach - she had spent enough time in this house to know the nickname for Heroin; surely, this question would be followed by an offer. "No... what does it feel like?"

The day she came home after third year, she dug into the back of the medicine cabinet, looking for the bottle. It felt amazing to finally, after so many months, be so calm... for the first time, she felt as though nothing mattered - that, if she were to make a mistake, nothing bad would happen. She could've counted on one hand the amount of times she had taken it the summer before - this time, however, it felt different... in a good way. She started to take the pill daily; sometimes twice daily, and carried the bottle in her purse if she left the house. When it came time to go back to school, she made sure her mum knew to send a re-fill every month; despite the fact that she assured Hermione that she wouldn't forget, she still worried that, at the end of the month, the package would be late. Even worse, that it wouldn't come at all.

Andrew laughed, "like nothing you've ever felt before. Shit'll fuck you up like you wouldn't believe."

"In a good way, or a bad way?"

There was no possible way for Hermione to get more than her prescribed thirty pills a month while she was at school. She would spend hours agonizing over whether it would be worth it to double up on one day, if it meant she would have to go a day without somewhere along the line. It was strange... craving it like nothing she had craved before. It was like an entirely new kind of hunger - one that refused to be ignored. When she felt it, it was the only thing she was able to think about.

It wasn't long before she realized that snorting the drug would make it last longer, and therefore, eliminate the cravings. Minimizing the amount of time she would spend without pills, at the end of the month, when she would inevitably run out, and be left to wait for her new prescription to come.

"Good - always good." Andrew answered, sound very sure of himself.

By springtime, she had built up such a tolerance, that even snorting it, she would run out within three weeks. She had never thought seven days could be such a long time - she would make it three or four days without the pills, nervously tapping her fingers, as though she were impatiently waiting for something. After that, would spend every moment that she was not in class in bed, trembling with fever, threatening to hex anyone who tried to turn the lights on.

"Would you like to try some?" He asked.

Hermione pretended to think about it, as though she had never given it any thought before. "I can't pay you for it."

Again, Andrew laughed. "Just because I like you, I'll give you your first hit for free."

The time between May and June was the worst. Hermione had been so sick the entire week, she was constantly on the verge of tears, and finding it harder and harder to hide her problem. Not only had her teachers noticed a significant drop in her work quality at the end of the month, but Harry and Ron persistently nagged her to go to the hospital wing when she told them how sick she was. How could she tell them that the only thing that would make her feel better was a drug? How could they react to her telling them that the only thing that truly mattered to her was shoving a powder up her nose? She wanted to feel horrible - horrible for making Harry think about this, when he had so much to be worrying about as it was. However, she was too caught up in her own personal hell, that any compassion for other had been banished from her mind.

The morning the package came, Hermione didn't go to class. She spent the entire day in the girl's dormitory, higher than she thought was possible, so out of her mind that she barely noticed what was going on around her. By now, she was sure her roommates were beginning to think something was going on; if they weren't, then she had lost all faith in her classmates being able to function in adult society some day.

She spent the next two days the same way, sobering up just enough to be able to take notes in class. Sitting in class that day, she had heard the whispers that went on behind her back; she didn't care in the slightest, so long as no one tried to stop her from doing what she wanted.

"I suppose I can't argue that... What spurred this generosity?"

"Oh, child, you are so innocent, it's funny." Andrew said, chuckling. "Don't you know Smack goes with Xanax like a match made in Heaven?"

Hermione shrugged, "I guess I do now."

When summer came along, she swore she would never spend another year like that. Finding Andrew, who had no problem with supplying her with extra pills, had been the easy part - finding the way to pay him, however, was a different matter. Somehow, she had been able to manage fairly well. She wasn't sure how she would continue if she added Heroin to her bill.

Andrew began rooting through a brown paper bag, pulling out the types of things that any druggie would commit murder to get their hands on. He made a small pile of what they would need: needles, a spoon, a lighter, and, of course, the Heroin itself. He handled the contents of the bag as though he had done the same thing a thousand times - which, in all honesty, he probably had.

With the ease that only the skilled could muster, Andrew went to his extraordinarily dirty, run down, and tiny kitchen, which was attached to the disaster zone of a living room they had been in, and filled the spoon with water. With the bottom of the lighter, he crushed a rock, and poured the powdered Heroin in. He flicked the lighter on, and held it the underside of the spoon, bringing it to a steaming boil.

Hermione was fascinated by the process - she had a bit of a reputation as a curious being, earned by intently watching the way certain people prepared their drugs, should they decide to use them at Andrew's house. Something about the way people would feverishly crush cocaine, mix a shot of meth, or swallow back an Oxycontin, was like the pages of a book to her; it made her wonder if she looked the same way as she chopped up a Xanax, spread the powder out, and sucked it down. Most likely she did. The thought no longer bothered her - most things had stopped bothering her long ago.

Andrew put a piece of cotton into the spoon, and drew the resulting liquid into two needles. He brought both over to her, and knelt down on the floor next to her, like a doctor seeing a patient, in a strange, twisted kind of way. Selecting the needle that had less in it, he carefully put his fingers on her forearm, squeezing on it, making her veins pop.

"This is going to hurt a little," He muttered as he stuck the prick into the biggest vein, which ran from her elbow to her wrist.

For a moment, Hermione regretted what she had done. She knew, at that very moment, that she had just lost her very last scrap of innocence; she desperately wanted it back. She wanted to be a child again - a normal childhood. She wanted to have normal friends, go to a normal school, and, at the end of the day, go to a normal home. She didn't want to be a witch any more - she didn't want to be around for a war... a war she and her friends most likely wouldn't live through.

"Oh - ouch," She groaned - when Andrew said it would hurt a little, he had been under-exaggerating. It felt like liquid fire was going into her skin, burning everything it came into contact with.

Seconds later, when it hit her, any regret she had felt went out the window.

She gasped, feeling as though her head had been painlessly smashed into something, her mind detached from her body, and her mind detached from reality.

"Good stuff, huh?" Andrew asked, setting about getting his own shot in his arm. Hermione did not answer - she had heard him speak, but had not understood a word of it. Against her will, her eyes closed, and she could feel herself dropping back, catching herself, and then drooping straight back down. She tried to say something - what it was, however, she was not entirely sure - and was quite certain that it made no sense coming out.

Unable to stay sitting up, she leaned back into the couch, not thinking, not feeling, barely being.

Barely being... but never feeling so alive. So... so right was this feeling, she could not possibly see why it was illegal. Why didn't everyone want to feel this way? What was wrong with it?

Time lost it's meaning - all she knew was that a considerable amount of it had passed before Andrew began shaking her, saying something about her having to get up.

"Fuck, kid..." he was saying, "I had no goddamn clue how much to give you... shit."

The thought that she would overdose, right here, her first time doing any sort of hard drug, seemed highly amusing. Hermione wanted to laugh at the irony of it all, but the idea of it took too much energy, and was quickly dismissed.

"Hermione!" He shouted, losing patience "get your ass up!"

Trying her best to make herself understandable, Hermione mumbled, "make me." She would stay sitting here for the rest of her life if she could. No - she didn't want to move; damned if anyone wanted her to.

"You've got to focus on something... that helps..." Andrew was saying, taking Hermione by the shoulders and forcing her into a more upright position. She immediately sank back.

Giving up on getting her attention, Andrew went to his stereo system, turned it on, and cranked the volume up. The band that was playing used as much bass guitar and screaming as possible - ideal for the purpose he had turned it on for. If there was noise, then Hermione would be less likely to sink into her high so deeply that no amount of shaking would wake her up. Andrew reminded himself never to dose someone again based on what he thought they should be doing - particularly if that person was a fifteen year old girl, who couldn't weigh much more than a hundred pounds.

High himself, Andrew leaned against the living room wall, half awake, putting his mind on the task of trying to understand the lyrics to the song, hoping he had not made a grave mistake.

As always, thank you for reading. I know everyone says it means a lot, but it really does - I put a lot of work into this chapter, and I hope you all liked it!

I've been thinking of writing a story like this for a long time - it seems like there are very few stories about drug addiction in the Harry Potter fandom, and even fewer Ron/Hermione drug addiction stories. I've always seen Hermione as a person under a lot of pressure... I know, from my brother's experience, that smart people under pressure can have disastrous results. Both my brothers are clean today, after a ten year struggle with addiction to meth and Heroin. Andrew, the drug dealer in this story, is named after one of them.

Again, thank you for reading.