"Albus, I mean it, Hermione really is sick. I think that she needs help." Severus sighed with annoyance as he watched that irritating twinkle enter Dumbledore's eyes, while sipping tea and sitting in one of the big, irritating chairs in his house.

"Wow, Severus. I suppose you actually care for someone." Albus had a pretend shocked look on his face.

"Shut up, old man, just tell me how to get Hermione help." On the outside, the only hint that Severus was embarrassed was the slight colouring to his cheeks.

"Well Severus, the only thing that we could do is give Hermione permission to take leave, we could make a story up about her getting a very private apprenticeship for a famous Potions worker to go travelling around the world looking for ingredients. Or that she is taking a leave to study abroad. Perhaps that should be the story, eh, Severus?"

"Well, Albus, I think that the second story would be more believable. How long would she have to be in treatment?" Albus looked thoughtful for a moment, thinking and finally said,

"She'd have to be in treatment for a month at least. If she shows no signs of improving, then it'll be longer." Severus sighed heavily, not knowing what her "treatment" would be, and not really wanting to know either.

"Well, Albus, who'll be the one giving her treatment?" He asked reluctantly. Albus got that familiar twinkle in his eye again.

"Why Severus, I'm so happy you asked! Since Hermione doesn't trust anyone but you, then she should stay in your quarters, ensuring better recovery." Severus groaned in irritation as he realized that Hermione would be staying with him. Well, this wouldn't end up good.

"Why? You know that I won't be able to… to-"

"Control yourself while she's around you, walking by you and being unable to touch her?" Dumbledore interrupted. Severus glared at him and said,

"Yes, precisely. Thank you for the lovely description." This was spoken sarcastically. Very much so.

"Severus, you have needs, it's natural. Just because she's living with you doesn't mean you can't be intimate with her." Severus put his hands over his ears and said,

"I don't need a sex-talk, old man!" Dumbledore smiled again, his eyes twinkling even more as Severus got up to leave.

"Good day, Severus, good day." He nodded at the former headmaster and walked out, knowing what he needed to do.

"Severus, I can assure you that I'm perfectly fine and I don't need any kind of treatment!" Hermione shouted at him as soon as he described what would need to be done.

"Hermione, please just listen to me, I don't want this for you either, but if it's the only way for you to get better…" she sighed and said,

"Whatever. I'll do it, but I'm not happy about it." Severus tried to hug her, but she just walked away from him, leaving him hurt, but understanding why. He sat down in one of his chairs with his head in his hands.

"Damn, what am I going to do now? She's pissed at me! I'm only trying to help her, though! Oh well, if this helps her in the long run, then I don't care. I'm gonna do it." He finally decided, he laid down to go to sleep, knowing that the next day definitely wouldn't be easy for both him or Hermione.

"I can't believe that- that infuriating man!" Hermione whispered whilst lying on the bed in Severus's chambers, wanting desperately to cut her wrists, but also knowing that Severus would find out if she did. The marks were either too deep to cast a well-lasting charm on it, and he checks her wrists most of the time, too. However, he didn't check other parts of her… like her shoulders. Or her sides, or her stomach, or her upper thighs. She felt her excitement rising higher and higher as the adrenaline rush overtook her with the thought of being able to release some of her emotion. She silently got up and searched through her bag for her trusty razor, removing the blade and taking the very edge of it to her shoulders and one large gash on her side. The pain of Severus's betrayal didn't cease though, it kept haunting her, whispering in her ear that he thought she was insane, that he thought she had mental issues. Therefore, causing her to slice herself deeper and deeper, never stopping until the world went black as she fell back on her mattress, soaking the comforter in her own lifeblood whilst she lay there, floating in unconsciousness. She had a dream. It was more of a nightmare, really. She was arguing with Severus. He was yelling,

"You are pathetic! I can't believe I've wasted my time on you! You're disgusting and FAT! I hate you! Oh my gods, I hate you! You are nothing to me!" Every word had hit her like a brick to the face. They say that sticks and stones break your bones, but words will never hurt you. That's only partly true. Yeah, sticks and stones WILL break your bones, but they feel much better than words. Hermione would much rather be beaten to death with sticks and stones than listen to the hatred spilling from Severus's mouth. Sticks and stones only break bones. Words can shatter the soul.

"I'm sorry!" She had screamed, begging him not to just walk away from her on such a bad note. "Severus, I'm SORRY!" She screamed again, trying to run to him, but she couldn't move from where she was. He didn't so much as spare a last glance at her before leaving her all alone. She sobbed into the ground as he left.

She soon felt hands shaking her awake while yelling her name. It was Severus, he looked so scared and angry.

"No! Go away!" She screamed, still thinking that he hated her and not wanting to be hurt any more than she already was.

"Hermione, you're going to have to sit up so that I can apply the bandages to you, that way you don't fucking die." He said angrily. I did as he told me to.

"You hate me." I stated. I had to know if my nightmare spoke the truth. Severus stared at me in shock and sadness.

"What? No! I could never hate you, Hermione!" I breathe in slowly. "I may be disappointed in you, but I could never hate you. Look at you, look how skinny you are! Do you really want to look like this? Like you're a corpse?"

Yes. "No," I lie. I don't want to get better. I refuse to destroy what made me so perfect and skinny. Didn't he know how much pain I went through to get this skinny? I'm not weak, I'm not sick! I'm strong! Severus smiles a relieved smile, but it doesn't fully reach his eyes. I think that he knows that I'm lying.

"Hermione, what has caused all of this? You were always smiling before tonight…. Was it something that I said?" He looks genuinely upset, but I have learned that when you have feelings, when you have love for things, people, then you always end up getting hurt when you realize that they don't love you as much as you love them.

"Severus, just because I smile doesn't mean that I'm happy." She tells him with a cold, unfeeling look on her face. It was better to hurt the ones closer to her before they hurt her first.

"Hermione…" he whispered, yearning to hold her, to hug her, to be with her even though she was going through something so hard. Eventually, he knew that if she was going to hurt him this much, he'd just have to retreat before getting too hurt to comprehend anything that happened to him. He'd have to become a complete bastard again, although he didn't want it. He refused to be hurt by the second girl he's ever loved in all of his 38 years. She would be the last he'd ever love. Ever.

"Just go, please." She whispered, knowing that if he stayed there any longer, she wouldn't be able to take it any longer. She'd break. Severus got up with a flourish of his robes after finishing the process of bandaging her up and left her without another glance to her direction. Hermione sighed and refused to let too much of her emotions show. She wouldn't cry because of this; she wasn't weak. She was strong. Strong people didn't allow emotions to show. She sighed again. Why didn't she ever die and stay dead? Maybe it's because she was too afraid to actually die, but sick of living. How on Earth would she manage to be here, then? Perhaps a half-existence would be a lot better than this. Why couldn't she just stop the world and get the hell off?

Hermione got back into bed and slept. After all, sleep is the only place where life didn't have the tendency to completely fall apart. She had no clue that not fifty feet from her, Severus Snape was tossing and turning, wondering what he did to deserve so much pain for just a little bit of love. Eventually, he fell into a blissful oblivion.

Hermione woke up, but she wasn't allowed to teach. All she did was wait for Severus to get back from the Great Hall, while she tried to figure out a plan to be able to keep from being forced to eat breakfast. Perhaps she could pull the whole, "I have my period" thing today. I mean, he fell for it once, why not twice? Soon enough, she heard him coming through his door and sure enough, his voice travelled to her ears.

"Hermione, get in here! You need to eat breakfast!" Hermione sighed and walked into the kitchen area, clutching her stomach in exaggerated pain.

"I'm not really hungry, sir, I'm having period cramps." Severus rolled his eyes and sat a plate of food in front of her, despite her pleas for him not to. It was eggs and bacon. She sighed. Fried eggs, 90 calories. Bacon, Turkey, cooked. 108 calories. She pushed the bacon out of the way, explaining to Severus that she has always hated bacon, even though she really loved it. As for the eggs, she took a knife and cut out the yolk, only eating the egg whites. Egg Whites, fried, 16 calories. Severus got up, and cooked her pancakes, demanding that she ate them. Shit, he knew that she loved pancakes because he's seen her eat them without a word of complaint.

She cut each pancake up in tiny bits, and made sure that none of them had any fattening syrup soaked into it. Severus watched her slowly, fearfully pick and eat at her breakfast, terrified to eat because she thought she'd get fat, when really, she needed to gain weight. A lot of weight. He cast a charm on her earlier, seeing how much she weighed, opposing to how much she should've weighed. She should've weighed at least 9 stone 4 [130 lbs.], but she weighed only 6 stone 12 [96 lbs.] She needed to gain weight. And fast, or else she would die, and it would be all his fault. Who cares if she fucking hated him? He would make sure she ate if he had to force food down her throat. Anything to make her realize that her life wasn't a joke, a game to play and if you lose, you can just come back and play again. No, in life, if you lose, you die. That's it.

"You know, a normal woman with your height and weight ratio should be at least one hundred and thirty pounds. Or nine stone four. Do you know just how much you weigh?"

"It's not polite to ask a woman her weight, Severus. Or did no one ever teach you that?" Hermione said to him harshly, not really caring if she hurt him, which she knew she did. She just didn't want him knowing her weight because if he found out that she was twenty-four pounds underweight, then he'd freak out on her! She just said,

"I weigh around one hundred and something pounds." She lied. Severus's eyes narrowed.

"Liar." Hermione's eyes widened.

"Excuse me? You have the audacity to call me a liar when you don't even know my true weight?" Severus leaned back in his chair and crossed his arm, looking at her with a bored expression on his face.

"I knew that you wouldn't tell me your true weight, so I casted a charm on you today to see how much you really weighed. I know that you were lying." Hermione's face became angrier and angrier until she yelled,

"YOU COWARD! WHY WOULD YOU HAVE TO PERFORM A CHARM ON ME WHEN YOU COULD JUST ASK ME TO GET ON A FUCKING SCALE?" Severus's eyes turned to black stone while he cornered Hermione.

"Don't," He screamed. "Ever call me a coward!" Her eyes widened and she threw up her hands as if to defend herself.

"Severus, please!" Severus took her wrists in his and kept them away from her face.

"WHY WOULD YOU TRY TO SHIELD YOURSELF? I WOULD NEVER HURT YOU! NEVER!" Severus was red, but he didn't care. He was furious that she'd call him a coward, and hurt that she was afraid of being hit by him. He would never hurt her. Didn't she know that? He sighed and stepped back, allowing her to leave, but she didn't. She just stayed there in the corner of the kitchen, scared, but defiant.

"I know you'd never intentionally hurt me. It was instinct." With that said, she stomped out of the room and went to hers, changing into a black long-sleeved shirt that her mother bought her from Muggle London at some place called Hollister in Brent Cross. The emblem was a bird of some sort. She's been there before, trying to find some nice shorts, but most were too short for her taste. Hermione searched for a pair of yoga shorts, again finding a pair of bright green Hollister shorts. Too short, but they were comfortable. She walked over to her books, sifting through all of them, trying to decide which one to read. Eventually, she decided that she just wanted a little "light reading", so she picked out Wuthering Heights. Bronte was a good author, although she had a few screws loose in her head, in Hermione's opinion. She opened the book and began reading about the tragic and twisted love of Heathcliff and Catherine. Plunging into the depths of betrayal and hatred, revelling in the malevolence of children and adults who've been wronged when younger. Loving it all as well. At least there was love.

Severus played a few notes on the piano and decided whether it should be changed or written on the staff. Whether there should be notes played with it, what should come after it, and if the mixture of notes made a nice melody, what the harmony should be like. Severus played and wrote, played and wrote, played and wrote, until he couldn't do it any longer, for there was no more staff paper left. He stared at the music in front of him, barely comprehending it. How had he wrote this? Did he really write this? Could he play this? He set his fingers upon the white keys, looked at the paper, and allowed all of his emotions spill into the air in a bitter, melancholy tune. The sound filled the air as he played it all, note after note, never stopping to look, not even thinking, really. Just playing and listening to the nearly unearthly sounds that were being emitted from the piano. Listening to the pure, simple beauty of music, and revelling in the fact that he was the only one able to control it, no one else.

The song eventually ended, as most songs must, but that didn't stop him from exulting in the screaming silence that enveloped him. Slowly, he rose from his seat and left the room, now uninterested in what used to hold great fascination for him. He wasn't sure what he was going to do now. If Hermione wouldn't eat right now, what might make her want to? She would die soon if she didn't get enough nutrients in her body. Right now, she was one step away from being malnourished, and once you got malnourished, then it was extremely difficult to get her back to the way she usually was. Right now she needed to gain roughly 25 pounds, that means that she needs to consume 87500 calories, and that would mean that she couldn't lose any of those calories, she'd have to take in 90,000 calories if she was going to lose any of the calories. Perhaps he should get her a calorie log that way she'd be able to write down what all she eats and if she wasn't eating enough, then Severus would know it.

Yes, that's a good idea, no, a great idea. He waved his wand and materialized a journal out of thin air. It was really hard to do something like that without concentration and very much power. Then, he added a bunch of lines to the journal and words such as calories, and what the food had in it based on fat, sodium, sugars, fiber, potassium, iron, and the percentages. It would take roughly 2 minutes, but he was more concerned about her weight than everything else that was going on concerning the time that it took to complete something that may take a couple moments for her if it would help to save her life. He didn't really care anymore. He was too much in love with her to consider how angry she'd be with him.