I'm stringing these scenes together for you guys-otherwise they'd be pretty short. Enjoy : )

SSHG

That night she fell into sleep quickly. Her mind had been conditioned by the potion to sleep quickly and easily. It wasn't long before she started thrashing in the bed. I held her tightly against my chest, soothing her when she cried out. Reassuring her when she reached into the darkness. We lay like that for hours. As she fought with her inner demons, I thought about what I'd just agreed to.

I'd had no other option, of course. Every alternative path had been blocked off from me. I'd tried protecting her in half measure, being there for her emotionally while letting her explore her physical recovery on her own. I had foolishly tried leaving her to her own ends. Now, I would be her everything. I would make myself responsible for her emotional recuperation and I would be the sole master of her physical recovery as well.

Of course it wasn't fair to her. She'd already developed a fanciful attachment to me. She trusted me because I was the one who'd found out about her situation and put an end to it. She felt gratitude and that, combined with the fantasy about me she'd concocted, had led her to believe that I was the only man she could trust to give her body to.

It ate at me, my unworthiness, the innumerable reasons that she deserved better than me. I looked down at my hands where they rested against her pale skin. Hands that had caused pain and death. I was holding her with arms that had crushed dreams and destroyed lives. Comforting her with the body that had raped and defiled. Soothing her with the voice that had threatened and menaced. I shouldn't be touching her. I shouldn't be anywhere near her. And yet here we were. Put together by a twist of fate that left us inextricably bound together.

Worst, was that I couldn't help the savage thrill that tore through me at the thought of her being mine. I wanted to possess her, body and soul. I wanted her for my own. And now I had her. I wondered if she would ever recover enough to move on. To find someone more worthy to spend her life with. Probably. The human spirit is a remarkable thing. She was already so strong, I could easily imagine her finding her footing in a few months or a year. Deciding she could brave the world. Finding love.

I held her to me tighter, fighting the waves of agony that tore through my chest. Because she was just starting her life. In her journey, I would only be one small stop. For me, she was the destination. She was my journey. My alpha and omega. The beginning and the end. Somehow, in the months since she'd walked back into my life, she'd taken it over. I breathed for her, I bled for her. I lived for her and I'd die for her. And since it was what she needed, I would hand her my heart on a silver platter and let her tear it apart. She would have every part of me. And when she was done, I would help her throw me away so she could move on to something better.

I didn't know when I'd fallen in love with her, but I knew it just as surely as I knew that the sun would rise tomorrow. And now that I'd accepted it, there would be no going back for me.

HG

Two days later, she lay sweating and shivering in my arms. Her breath was coming in weak rasps. The withdrawals were wreaking havoc on her body and on her mind. Sometimes she fought off invisible assailants. Sometimes she called out for her mother, sometimes she called out to god. Most of the time she called out for me. I could only hold her tighter and whisper into her ear.

When she woke up that afternoon, I checked her pulse and oxygen saturation levels. They weren't what I wanted, but they were steady. I gave her the focusing potion that was hopefully going to help her mind regain its control. She let me minister to her without comment.

"How did you even survive that much?" I wondered out loud. I just couldn't believe it. After two weeks of taking the potion two or three times a night, her mind should have crumbled to dust. But already she was going through the worst of the withdrawal.

"I'd built up a tolerance for it," she murmured. I hadn't been expecting her to answer, so she caught me off guard.

"What?"

"I already had a substantial tolerance for it before I started taking it after...after that night."

"What do you mean? How?"

"I'd been addicted to it before, though never this badly," she admitted. My breath caught and I stared at her, unable to move or speak. "When I first got my letter, I read every book I could get my hands on. Because they were a relief, a way to escape the world. I read them so many times that I memorized them cover to cover. But once I got to Hogwarts that first year, I probably wouldn't have stayed such a know it all if not for the nightmares. I found that once I no longer had the real devil of my life there to torment me, he came in my dreams. I discovered the Dreamless Sleep draught my second week in the castle. I brewed my first dose of it my third." I didn't have time to appreciate her genius because she went on. "I used it to get through the nights. And when I discovered the dangers of it, I started studying harder to make up for any ill effects it might have. I read every book I could get my hands on so that I could counter the loss of focus and brain activity. I pushed myself harder than anyone because I knew the consequences if I didn't. But I couldn't stop taking it.

"The first week of every summer I went through the withdrawals, but he didn't ever notice. No one did. And when school started again, I brewed new batches of it and started studying even harder, convinced I was going to lose my mind to the potion. Then, after the war, I didn't have any reason to keep taking it, because I was living in hell all the time. What are nightmares when you live the reality every day?

"When you brought me here after you found out what was going on, I took the dose you gave me for that night, but no more. It wasn't until...recently that I started taking it again. I couldn't make the dreams stop. I couldn't escape. I didn't know what to do. So I started taking the potion again. Only, one dose no longer lasted me the whole night. I needed several to last eight hours. And because I was taking so much, it didn't matter how much I read or how busy I tried to keep my mind.

"And to be honest...I didn't really care all that much. What use is a mind without a body that functions properly? If I couldn't ever live a full life, why did I want to live at all? It was worth the chance that I might not survive so that I didn't have to relive the nightmares every moment I slept. You are probably the only person in the world who understands the pain, the shame...and if you couldn't want me, then who else would?"

I stared at her, feeling my heart twist for the hundredth time. How much more abuse could the muscle take? Dear spirits how had I driven her to this? I was amazed that she'd been able to properly brew a Dreamless Sleep potion her first year, amazed that she'd been able to focus so much on learning that she'd blocked the side effects of the addiction, amazed that she'd survived going through withdrawals all on her own every year. And after all that survival, all her fighting to live, I had driven her to the point where she felt her life wasn't worthwhile in only a few short weeks. With just a few callous words. My shame, impossibly, deepened. I'd driven her into the arms of numbness because I'd been unable to face the temptation she presented. I could have saved her this pain if only I'd accepted my feelings for her sooner. Or if only I'd been able to resist her allure. If only I wouldn't have kissed her.

She fell back into unconsciousness again before I could say anything. I was grateful, because I had no words left to say.

SSHG

"Do you hate all addiction so much, or is this one particularly bad for you?" Hermoine asked me at the end of the week. She was shivering, but only her forehead was dotted with sweat, as opposed to her entire body. We were making progress. The end was definitely in sight.

"I have...personal reasons for my hatred of the Dreamless Addiction." I didn't elaborate, but I knew she wouldn't let it go at that.

"What happened? Were you addicted?"

"No, not me." I paused, gathering my thoughts. This time she didn't say more, because she knew I would keep going. Somehow in our time together we had come to know each other almost better than we knew ourselves. "My mother started taking Dreamless Sleep after I went to Hogwarts. I guess she decided that I was old enough to fend for myself once my schooling began."

"Oh Severus, I'm so sorry," Hermione murmured. I brushed a kiss on the top of her head, staring blankly at the wall.

"It was a long time ago," I continued with a shrug. "She lasted longer than most. It ate her mind slowly, letting her retain a little of herself until the very end. Then, once she finally succumbed mentally, her body followed quickly. Some people can live for years in a state of Living Death, a condition similar to your mother's. But thankfully she only lasted a week or so like that. Then she was gone."

"I'm so sorry," she said again, snuggling deeper into my arms. I tightened my hold on her, reassuring myself that she was here with me, she was safe and whole. I'd caught it in time and pulled her back from the brink. I don't think she'll ever truly understand the terror I felt when I realized just how far gone to the numbness Hermione had been. Seeing her like that, knowing that she could end up the way my mother had...it wasn't a feeling I would have wished even on my worst enemy.

She turned her face into my chest, seeking warmth and comfort from me, and fell asleep once more.