Self Medicate.

From The Dusty Pages and the Faded Pages.

"Hermione, are you okay?"

The start of conversation was a strange one, but Ginny had asked it as her icebreaker and Hermione stumbled with the books in her arm that she was holding as a response.

"What?" Hermione asked.

Ginny had chosen the library to talk to Hermione. Somewhere that the boys rarely traveled to, a spot where they could have next to silence.

"You just.. you seem like you're stressed." She tried.

"Well, yeah, Ginny." Hermione scoffed nervously, "It's school."

"That's what I kinda wanted to bring up."

"Whats going on?" Hermione said suddenly, turning to fully face Ginny placing the books on the small wooden plank table at her side.

"Okay." Ginny started, falling into the seat beside her, Hermione quickly following suit. "The last few months, I've noticed you've been upset. Outside of school and everything you just seem... sad.."

"Well.." Hermione started, looking away, "It's been a hard year, I'm tired a lot, school is zapping my energy, things with the Order.." Hermione chuckled of the muggle pun until she noticed Ginny didn't get it.

"Hermione, I'm scared to."

"Ginny, I don't really want to do this," Hermione coaxed trying to avoid the rising anxiety.

"Hermione, It's okay to talk to me."

"I know.." Hermione bit her cheek.

"I just.. I don't want you to be sad.."

"I know, Ginny."

"Please, tell me what's wrong."

"I… I have to go."

Hermione flew up from her seat as she felt her heart slam and tears threaten to fall. She ignored Ginny as she called after her, and heard the hiss of the librarian that followed that. She didn't know why she acted the way she did but as she escaped through the large pair of doors, she walked briskly down the busy hall, seeking silence and solitude.

So she traveled up. Higher and higher into the towers, she climbed step over step until she was the only one in the stairwell that housed rooms used mainly for storage. Unsatisfied and now feeling catastrophic, she continued her way up the spiral stone staircase, focused on the top and the briskness of the outside air. Slowing down as her legs began to protest she'd occasionally test the wooden doors as they came, but found all locked until one closed door opened with the turn of the handle. Freezing in front of the door that looked just as all the others had, she immediately smelled the scent of burning from the inside and watched as a small puff of the smoke wavered out from the top of the door as she pushed it open. No noise came from within the room, not living movement except for what she felt was a person pulling themselves inwards and the feeling of trying to hide. Hermione looked around the small, oval room stacked with boxes, picture frames and desks, and breathed in the fresh smell of tainted smoke.

"Hello?" She called out, stepping fully into the space.

Someone was burning something and that someone was in the room and she knew this.

Stepping back, she closes the door and stands before it, her hands behind her back and spread over the wood.

"I'm not leaving.' She informed.

"Of course you're not." A darkened response came clear as Professor Snape's figure stepped into the silhouetted light of the domed, stained glass window that matched the height of the wall across from her. "It would be far too much to expect Ms. Granger to leave a situation that has nothing to do with her."

"Professor." She greeted.

"Ms. Granger." He'd return coldly.

His voice was dull and listless, his eyes that watched hers was not his usual anger, but in an irritated calmness.

"I'm sorry to have.. Umm.. walked in on.-"

"Nothing." He finished for her. "You walked in on nothing and you were leaving now because you are bored of this empty room and chose to move on."

"Are you smoking?"

The question came out for reasons she didn't truly understand. Some of it was because she didn't find a reason to care. She was feeling numb, careless….

Depressed...

"Is that really your business?" He asked and she noticed right away he hadn't answered.

"It would be the headmasters."

What the hell was she doing!? She thought as the words she just said reran in her mind. She was pretty sure she had just blackmailed the Head of Slytherin.

"Excuse me?" his voice dripped of venom.

Yup, she realized with a heart falling feeling, she just tried to blackmail, Professor Snape.

"What is this, Ms. Granger? Do you want some or do you need something else?" He mocked an invite uncharacteristically as he looked away with a huff.

She shrugged. "Depends."

What was going on with her, she didn't know, but now she found herself under his glare, a glare she saw he had issues pulling on the full extent of out.

"Okay, Ms. Granger." Her head snapped up and her eyes widened slightly, "Fine. This one time, in a motion you will never see again and no one will believe when you tell them, I will..." Looked her up and down ."Level with you if it means you leave and never come back through this threshold again or speak of this meeting."

"Fine."

He turned his lip up at her in disgust as he began, "Teaching is a straining job."

"Understandable." She confirmed his words and pushed him for more which reserved her another glare.

"And, I'm relaxing."

"Maybe I need to relax."

"Are you propositioning me, Ms. Granger?" His voice raised, though she knew the room was protected as well as she bet, locked.

"No." She shook her head, "Just, if you gave me the option of relaxing also, maybe I'd be less annoying during class."

"So, blackmail and bribery."

He almost look proud of her but she knew better, as she knew her place.

"Blackmailing would be if I was threatening you... Professor. And we both know I'm not in the position to threaten a man such as yourself."

The sentence was full of underlying meanings, darkness and weight. A weight that seemed to throw the usually walled man off balance and bring him to momentary silence as her topic of choice nerved him.

"No, you're not in that position, are you?" He voice purred darkly.

"No."

"Get out."

"Professor."

"Shut up!" He ordered, his voice rising. "Do you think this is my first time being walked in on? Do you not think I can find another time, another place, another way where you will never find this again. Go tell the Headmaster whatever you wish to tell him. There is no point where, and excuse my language, Ms. Granger, I give a damn."

"Then let me stay if you don't care."

"You have class."

"No, I don't. Not until Monday." She informed, fighting him past anything he had fought before with her. She didn't care and was clearly fighting tonight, and that was her weapon she found working against him.

"Ms. Granger," Where his voice once put fear into her, she felt nothing, "I'm one comment from taking all the house points from Gryffindor for this and many more reasons."

"And what will that do to me personally?"

Again, silence.

"You're really testing me now, Ms Granger."

Indeed this was a rush for her. A wave of lacking reason she didn't understand but chose to rise the current anyway.

"Good thing we are in a school and you're my teacher. It's almost like testing is supposed to happen here."

"Get out."

"Fine."

And she did. Without another word, without another glance, she turned around and left to descend the stairs and walk straight to her common room where she would sit on her bed with the curtains drawn and lose herself for an about an hour, thinking about what she did and said with a racing heart and sweating forehead.

Something for Each and Every One of Them.

"Don't you care about yourself?"

The answer was no.

"Don't you want to be okay again?"

The answer was none.

When there wasn't a way to feel better, feeling better was just a phrase.

It was the one thing they all had in common. They all no longer cared. They all found their lives just spending. They sat across from those they once loved and stared blankly where once they felt the warmth. Those locked in silence felt the same emptiness as those in bright, busy halls while each saying the other had it better.

They are here, and they walk through time in a haze. In their mind, in their words, a disconnection has erupted, and no one yet is ready to say anything of it.

Hermione took pills from a container and turned her eyes towards sharp, slices of pain to break her darkness. Severus took from pipes and bottles while avoiding what Sirius had found, using what once destroyed the Professor, now rejoiced under a needle and tie on the skin of the dog.

For now, they will self-medicate, but life is not about to become bright and they all know this.

Eventually, there will be meetings, there will be more running into. There will be more exposure towards their silent suicides and in time, each will find their healings.