Warning: This story portrays (or attempts to) a character with an eating disorder.

I Am

I'm told there was a period of time in which she had trouble adjusting, just after the war. She couldn't cope with all that had happened, all that she'd done. She was depressed and withdrawn, and put on some weight—easy enough to do after being near starved, on the run. But then she gained a bit more, until those who know her were concerned.

I didn't see any of this, of course. I was holed up in St. Mungo's, recovering from that fucking snake bite. (Why that bastard couldn't have just avada-ed me, why Sir Incompetent Twit had to find and "save me," I'll never know.) Once I woke up from the coma, it was months of agonizing recovery. Bedridden, I had to endure regrowing my kidneys and much of the muscle tissue in my body, which had necrotised from Nagini's venom. Weak as a newborn, I had to slowly regain the strength to so much as lift my head, even as aurors would interrogate me for my trial in absentia. The heart damage leaves me weak, still.

So, no. I wasn't witness to Granger's decline. Only now, mid school-year, am I returned to Hogwarts to replace the temp. (I'm still baffled by the Board of Governer's decision to retain me as Professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts. What sort of lunatics would hire an accused murder to teach school children, acquitted or no?)

However, Minerva has taken great pains to inform me of every detail of the girl's slump and subsequent rally to recovery, amid other mind-numbing gossip. I'm told it's important to know such things, so that I can understand what the "poor dears" have gone through. As if I don't know just what sort of hell they've been through. That I put them through. I'm sure she's done it just to torture me, knowing that I find it too much an effort to leave the room when she goes on one of her jaunts down sympathy lane.

It's difficult to believe, looking at Granger now as she takes a meal in the Great Hall, that this vibrant and confident youth could have been the picture of misery just months before. I've seen the type, in my many years as Head of Slytherin House. Traumatized and despondent. But I've never seen such rapid recovery.

Never.

I squint and look a little closer from my place at the High Table. She looks happy, doesn't she? She's smiling and chatting, at least. Being social. But is that tension around her eyes and mouth? Is her face a little drawn? I'm told she was overweight at the beginning of the year, but she certainly isn't now. Not at all.

My scowl deepens. She's smiling and chatting yes, and has been fiddling with her silverware all of dinner, her food gradually disappearing from her plate. But have I seen her take a single bite? I don't recall -

A colleague makes some disturbance further down the table, and my train of thought is broken. I shake my head and return to my own food. Enough of this nonsense. The girl's welfare is certainly none of my concern, I should leave that to her new Head of House. Worrying is foolish—I should leave that to nosy busybodies like Minerva.

Filius asks me a question from the seat to my left, and I snarl a short reply that has him turning away with a huff. I didn't mean to offend the wizard, but fuck it. If he's going to be so sensitive, it's better that I'm left alone to my meal.

I don't speak another word for the rest of dinner. I don't respond to Minerva's token farewell. I deduct ten points from a Hufflepuff for loitering in the corridors. I curse when I find myself short of breath upon reaching my rooms, where the silence is heavy and stifling. And that's the last I say until class the next morning.

I don't think of Granger again until the seventh-year Gryffindor-Ravenclaw defense lesson the following Thursday. It's difficult to ignore the girl when her hand is always so obnoxiously raised. (I wonder if her shoulders ever ache, as mine do. Her arms must be strong after so many years of continuous hand waving.)

Once, I held hope that by ignoring her she might learn not to be so insufferable, and would stop flaunting her intellect like so many of her female peers flaunt their budding, adolescent breasts... But alas, I've lost all hope of such a happy outcome. Now I just ignore her to be contrary. I delight in her peeved indignance. Unfortunately, she does seem to have learned to take my disregard with calm aplomb. It's not as much fun to be a bastard as it used to be. Still, it's habit.

They're practising advanced shield charms when Granger suddenly falls with a clatter and thump from her chair to the floor, unconscious. Before anything else I study her class-mates suspiciously, but every one of them looks too genuinely baffled to be the culprit.

More annoyed then concerned, I approach the girl and cast a simple diagnostic charm. No lasting injuries from the fall, possibly a bruise or two. And the cause of her fainting spell...

Well. That's... interesting. I raise an eyebrow and look around the room at all the gaping imbeciles.

"Did I tell you to stop?" I hiss menacingly, and they all return to their work.

I leave her there while I fetch an empty vial and fill it from my personal stores. When I return, the students are still diligently practising their shield charms-though they frequently glance at the unconscious girl on the floor. I consider their disciplined behaviour in my absence a triumph of my teaching methods. Fear is effective at keeping one in line. It's a lesson I learned very early in life.

With a flick of my wand, Granger stirs. I wait patiently as she looks around with confusion before her eyes find my legs and then travel upward to stare at my face. Her frightened expression is, as ever, gratifying. (Sometimes I wonder what's wrong with me, that I should so enjoy the fear and loathing of others... until I remember that it's much preferable to disgust and mocking scorn.)

"Sit in your chair," I demand, and watch without sympathy as she struggles to stand and sways slightly before collapsing back onto her stool. Offering her the vial, I sneer, "Drink this. All of it. You will remain silent and still for the remainder of class. Once the period ends, I expect you to stay behind. Understood?"

Granger nods and takes the vial from me, looking dazed. She gives it only a cursory glance before downing it all.

Another sneer, and I sweep away to make a round about the room—harshly criticizing the incompetent efforts of most, silently bearing witness to the slightly more competent efforts of some.

As instructed (she's so good at following instructions when it suits her), the girl is still and silent for the rest of the class. When her peers flee the room after I dismiss them, she remains seated.

I don't speak, just stare at her silently while leaning against my lectern. Eventually she cracks.

"I feel much better now, sir," she says politely. "I don't think I need to go to the Hospital Wing."

I say nothing.

"Thank you for the potion, it seems to have helped."

I continue to stare, and she shifts uncomfortably.

"Do you know what it is that I gave you, Miss Granger?" I finally say, slowly. She shakes her head.

"No, sir. It was colourless, fluid, and very sweet... I don't believe it's something we've covered in Potions."

"Sugar water," I tell her, and her eyes widen. "Yes. Sucrose and water. But it's helped, you say? How fascinating."

My voice hardens. I am unaccountably angry. That she would be so stupid... I should send her to Poppy. Instead, I feel drawn to confront her myself, as if her actions are somehow an affront to me.

"Perhaps you would care to explain how your blood sugar came to be so dangerously low that you fainted in my class. How performing a simple shield charm could have... exhausted you so thoroughly."

Granger avoids my eyes, looking noticeably paler.

"No? Perhaps a pre-existing medical condition," I offer. "Except... I'm quite sure that I would be made aware if that were the case. It must be something else. Care to speculate?"

She shakes her head and says quietly,

"I don't know, sir."

"Don't you?" I sneer. "That's a first. I suppose I shall have to make an educated guess..."

The girl looks past me with a stubborn set to her jaw. I study her appraisingly—the limp hair, the hollow cheeks, the thin frame barely visible beneath her bulky uniform robes. It's far from sexual, my look, but she flushes and shifts uncomfortably, even so. I grab her forearm without warning and she gasps. Lifting her hand, I observe the dry skin, the thinness of the limb, and discolouration of the fingers. I feel the sluggish pulse.

I release her, and she cradles the appendage to her chest, looking confused and affronted.

"Tell me, Miss Granger, have you eaten something today? Yesterday? This week?" I ask snidely. I've seen enough to know that she's eaten far too little, if anything; I'm just goading her now.

"I haven't skipped a meal in more than a month," the girl says stiffly.

"I don't doubt it. I recall seeing you in the Great Hall frequently, I believe..." I lean forward imposingly and look down my nose at her. She meets my eyes bravely. "But did you eat?" I hiss.

"I haven't been very hungry," she says, and her gaze skitters away, eyelids fluttering nervously. Granger's always been shite at lying.

"I see," I say flatly, completely unimpressed. I turn away. "You weren't... hungry. Not a daft fit of self-starvation, then. Just a loss of appetite. No cause for concern." My voice is deliberately mocking.

"It's just a diet," Granger tells me firmly, and I sweep around to face her again, full of scornful disbelief. "And I do eat! So I don't see how it's any of your business, really-"

"A diet-" I snarl, interrupting her babbling. "That will eventually lead to your death, should you continue as you are."

"It's not like that!" she snaps back.

"No? Enlighten me—you're always so eager to answer my questions. Where will this lead?"

"I'm healthier now," she says earnestly. So earnestly. She doesn't have a clue. "You don't know what it was like... I was sick! I gained so much weight over the summer... But I'm getting better."

"Healthier?" I scoff. "I didn't realize that fainting and skeletal appendages were an indication of good health. My mistake."

"I'm not skeletal," the girl says, frowning. "I just lost a couple stones. I needed to... I still do, really."

Her face twists with disgust and I suppress an urge to sigh heavily. How can she not see it? How am I apparently the first to see it? Doesn't she have friends to notice these things? Regardless, it seems change of tactics is in order, with her perception this distorted.

For several minutes I am silent, contemplating. Granger begins to fidget uncomfortably.

"Um... May I leave now, sir?" she asks nervously.

"What did you think about while you sat silently, recovering from your little fir of the vapours?" I ask eventually. It's just a theory, but... "...Shielding charms? Your next class? A paper due for another professor?"

Her expression wordlessly questions: what on earth are you going on about?

"…Or perhaps you were thinking about food. About the coming lunch period and how you will pretend to clean your plate even as you avoid taking a single bite. Trying to ignore the sharp, debilitating pains of hunger. How much of your time is spent obsessing about food, Miss Granger, when once you would have obsessed about your studies?"

It seems I'm right, as now the girl looks uneasy. Good. She should be uneasy. To think of what might have happened if this had continued unnoticed... Possible, considering the intense blindness apparent in every other fucking person in this school. I growl,

"Dammit, girl, how much of you does it have to consume, before you'll realize just what you're doing to yourself? Your liver, your heart, your mind? You are already dangerously malnourished. Should I expect that one day you'll simply drop dead from heart failure or some other consequence of your idiocy?"

I pause to place heavy emphasis on my next words.

"Miss Granger, you are ill. And that will not change as long as you are unwilling accept it."

Finally, she looks disturbed and frightened. For once, I don't relish a student's fear, I am only exhausted. This conversation has taken far too much of my energy, short in supply these days.

"Go to the Hospital Wing, Miss Granger," I demand. "And tell Madam Pomfrey that you need a full check-up."

The girl nods mutely and turns to leave.

"Miss Granger..." She turns back to look at me warily. "I will ask her if you've gone. If you have not..." I leave the threat open-ended. Let her imagine the worst.

Once she's left the room, I collapse into the chair behind my desk and rub my temples with a groan.

Naïvely, I'd thought the greatest danger to this school had passed. That I could teach the buggers how to cast a shield charm or disarm an opponent and not feel that I was responsible for whether or not they someday lived or died. But it seems the greatest danger to the students is, and always has been, the students themselves.

How the fuck do I protect them from themselves?

Any other, decent human being would continue to monitor the girl's health and well-being after that first visit to the Hospital Wing.

Being Severus Snape, I do not.

She is given nutritive potions and plenty of concerned sympathy by the school's matron, and that's all I need to know. Beyond that, I don't care. The very thought of Severus Snape caring about his students is preposterous. I am a vindictive, self-serving bastard with only a few redeeming qualities. Concern for others is not one of them.

Even so, I do notice that Granger has relinquished the cheery, social façade. She makes little effort to pretend to eat, any more, despite her friends' initial cajoling. Her friends, meanwhile—though they treat her delicately at first during that period when she's the centre of the school's gossip—eventually come to ignore her for the most part, leaving her to her sullen silence.

I would pity her, if I were inclined to such emotions. Since I'm not, I ignore her.

I ignore her so well, in fact, that it takes me most of a class period, later on in the year, to realize that she hasn't once raised her hand that day.

I stop talking mid-sentence when I do finally realize, staring at her with confusion as the rest of the students stare at me, equally puzzled, but at my silence. Granger, however, stares at the surface of her desk. She doesn't seem to notice that I've stopped lecturing.

I'd spent years ignoring her waving hand, hoping for just this result. Now that it's finally happened, and she hasn't raised her hand to answer a single question... I'm disturbed.

"Miss Granger," I bark, and the girl jumps slightly in her seat, finally looking at me with wide, startled eyes. Still conscious at least, not having some sort of partial seizure.

"Sir?" she asks quietly. "Could you repeat the question?" A few of her peers giggle, and I silence them with a harsh glare.

"I will not," I sneer. "Ten points from Gryffindor for wool-gathering. You will remain after class to discuss your detention."

The girl nods and returns to staring at her desk. I continue my lecture with a deeper scowl than is usual.

At the end, she stays seated while the rest of the students filter out of the room. A pair of Ravenclaws glance back at her and whisper to each other as they walk, giggling again. Fucking bints. As if the girl doesn't have enough to deal with, without her classmates treating her like rubbish.

A flick of my wand and the door almost clips them as it slams shut behind. I smirk at their audible yelps of surprise before turning back to look at Granger.

I wait silently for quite a while, but the girl continues to stare at her desk, unbothered. I decide to wait it out a little longer...

Until I notice that tears are steadily leaking from Granger's eyes and running down her cheeks.

Dammit.

It wouldn't be very sporting of me to harp on her for inattention, now. Not when she's already crying. Usually the tears happen after I act the bastard, when I can send them away and don't have to deal with their blubbering. Occasionally the younger ones will be so afraid they will tear up just at the prospect of facing my temper, but this is... different. I'm fairy confident that Granger's tears are completely unrelated to my presence or actions.

How... refreshing.

Unsure of how to deal with this novel situation, I conjure a handkerchief and offer it to her silently, watching her sniffle with no small amount of distaste. In return, Granger stares at the nondescript, white scrap of fabric with blank incomprehension.

"Take it," I hiss, growing more and more uncomfortable with each moment that passes, my arm reaching out like an idiot. It may be uncharacteristic of me, but the girl doesn't have to act so bloody shocked.

She takes it from me slowly and begins to wipe at her face, avoiding

"I can't do it," she whispers brokenly, looking down again. "I can't get better."

I snort with disgust.

"Starving yourself won't make you better-"

"No!" she says, her eyes shifting to my face. I raise an eyebrow at her interruption. "I-I see now... what I'm doing. It's just... I can't not!"

The girl sniffles and blows her nose quietly with the handkerchief.

"They're always staring at me and judging me... And the food is just... I can't take more than a bite without feeling sick. I remember being fat. Powerless, unattractive. I can't be that any more! I won't!"

I stand shocked. Her outburst is disconcerting. I do believe this is the first time anyone has ever tried to... confide in me. (A young Lily's puerile "secrets" aside.) How in the bloody hell am I supposed to respond? I could be a heartless git, as always, but just the thought of doing so—when the girl is so genuinely and legitimately distressed—turns my stomach. Yet I don't think I have it in me to be sympathetic and comforting like anyone else might.

So I keep my tone deliberately, uncommonly neutral when I ask,

"Do you not feel that way still?"

This brings a fresh wave of tears rolling down her face (contorted from distress). Dammit. I didn't mean to imply that she is those things, it just seems that -

"I do," she admits. Her voice cracks. "More so now, even."

"Then why do you do it?" I ask slowly, honest puzzlement and curiosity overriding my instinct to act like a bastard in reflex to the emotional topic. What could drive someone to deliberately starve themselves?

Granger looks at me with wide eyes.

"No one's ever asked me that..." she says. "They've only ever asked why I don't stop... 'Why don't you just eat, Hermione?'" she mimics bitterly.

"If you'd rather not-" I begin stiffly, aware that my interest is inappropriate. Not as her professor, perhaps. I do have some responsibility for her welfare, after all. But inappropriate as Severus Snape. Why would I be interested in Granger's feelings?

"No, I-I just, I've never thought about it before..." she says, brows furrowed.

I wait uncomfortably. It really isn't any of my concern. I'd asked her to stay after to discuss her detention, not her troubled emotions...

"After the war, I ate a lot," she says quietly. "A lot of sugar. Fattening things, of the kind that my parents always discouraged me from eating. It was comfort, but I guess it was also a kind of a rebellion; they were still so angry with me for modifying their memories..."

I resist the urge to snap at her to get to the point. I have a feeling that if I interrupt she won't want to continue. I don't analyse too closely why I want her to continue.

"After a while, people started acting concerned. They didn't say it outright, but I knew it was because of the weight. Not because I was depressed and traumatized... so many people were-are, it seems. The weight, though, that was worth being concerned about."

She laughs, and it sounds a tad hysterical.

"It was a comment from Ron actually, that finally made me do something about it. He said I was looking 'a bit hefty' and was concerned because 'it's not very attractive to a bloke.' He was drunk, and I'm sure he didn't mean it... I don't think he even remembers. But it was the final straw, really. I started to diet..."

The girl looks pensive.

"Only, it wasn't enough," she says, and I can hear the anxiety in her voice that must have been so overpowering at the time. "I ate all the right foods, but I was still so heavy. I decreased portion sizes, and then I gained a few pounds!" Her mouth wobbles alarmingly as Granger looks to me beseechingly. "How is that fair!"

I don't have an answer. It's not fair. So much shite in this world isn't, and I've had first hand experience with a lot of shite.

"So it just seemed... obvious, I guess," the girl continues sadly. "If eating made me fat, I should just... not eat. It was gradual. I ate less and less as I became more desperate..."

Granger stares at me defiantly, suddenly angry.

"But I was proud. It's liberating to feel hunger and deny yourself. It's empowering to know that you can do what others can't."

Her gaze dares me to argue, to deny or belittle her feelings. I can't. I do know what it's like, that first taste of power—so addictive. The feeling is euphoric... until someday down the line you understand the horror of what you're doing, the harm.

"And now?" I prompt quietly. Granger deflates.

"Now I just feel trapped," she whispers. I nod, grimacing.

For several moments there is silence. Her sitting, me standing in front of her desk. It's only now that it occurs to me how awkward it must be to have me looming over her while she bares her soul. (How we got into such a ludicrous situation is still beyond me.) Usually I wouldn't give a damn, would be pleased to cause discomfort. But I conjure the chair from behind my desk and take a seat quietly, for some reason unwilling to break the mood by returning to our usual roles.

"How can I get better?" the girl asks hopelessly, and I stare at her, dumbfounded. She's asking me? I'm not exactly a paragon of good mental health...

"Surely Madam Pomfrey would be more suited-" I begin stiffly, but trail off in the face of her bitter laughter.

"Madam Pomfrey gives me a nutritive potion and tells me to eat more," she sneers. The ugliness of her expression startles me more than her words. I don't think I've ever seen the girl sneer, she's never seemed the type. "Oh, she says it the most sympathetic and concerned sort of way, but it doesn't make it any more helpful. In case you haven't noticed, the wizarding world isn't well stocked in experts on psychology."

"And you think I can provide some sort of insight?" I ask sceptically.

She shrugs and looks away.

"I don't know... You're more perceptive then the rest of them, at least, to have noticed what I was doing."

That says more about their thick skulls than my suitability as adviser, I think. And besides, it took her fainting to make me take notice. When presented with such evidence, what imbecile wouldn't put two and two together?

"They know now," I point out. "And I'm certain some provision of friendship requires them to assist you in troubled times."

Really, anyone would likely prove a better confidant than I.

"And they did that. Except these aren't supposed to be troubled times any more, are they?" she replies snidely, and then sighs. "That's not fair of me. They were sympathetic at first... They'd act concerned and tell me they're there for me. They'd beg me to eat and get upset when I didn't. I would trip on something and they'd ask me if I needed to sit down, if I wanted anything or to see Madam Pomfrey. As if it were somehow related to my... disorder.

"They wanted to help. But I didn't want help. And eventually they got frustrated and decided to leave me alone about it. Except things... changed, then. The way they'll... look at me, now. Like I have some outward deformity. I can tell they're always thinking about it. 'Hey, there's Hermione, the anorexic.' I'm not the smart one, any longer, I'm the crazy one."

She sniffles again and wipes her nose.

"But it's more than that, really. Sometimes I'm afraid they don't want me to get better. ...Ginny had some biscuits the other day, from her mum. She was sharing them with everyone in the common room. They smelled delicious... Another girl asked if I didn't want one, I guess she hadn't heard... Ginny just laughed. She said... 'Of course she doesn't want one! You know she doesn't eat!'"

Granger's imitation of her friend is high-pitched and absurd, and in any other context I might consider it derisive. But I can hear the hurt.

"It's true," she continues quietly. "Or it should be. It's good, right? That she's accepted it now? Comfortable laughing about it? About what I am? Who I am? I don't eat. Except... they smelled really good. I wanted to have one." The girl looks at me with desperation. "Is that bad?"

What? I resist the urge to curse.

"Not at all," I tell her firmly. "Miss Granger... this doesn't have to define you. You are fully capable of eating, and of wanting to eat."

Her reply is a weak attempt at a smile, and I can see she's not convinced.

"Speaking of," I say rather dryly. "I believe I've been remiss in my duties as agony aunt. Would you care for tea and biscuits?"

She looks at me suspiciously before shaking her head in the negative, and I simply nod. She then regards me with puzzled curiosity, but my features remain passive.

"Thank you..." she says quietly. And I raise an eyebrow as if to ask "for what?"

Granger's lips twitch, and she stares at her hands for a moment before snickering randomly.

"I tried eating something at breakfast the other day..." she explains. "Everyone was so shocked! And enthusiastic! They made such a big deal about it. It was almost funny, except..." Her mood again turns melancholy. "It was just uncomfortable. No one else gets congratulated when they take a bite. It was embarrassing. It made me not want to try again."

Her look is confused and pleading.

"Why don't you look at me like they do?"

I am momentarily shocked. Don't I? But on second thought... my opinion of her really hasn't changed for the worse. Before today I would have said it's because I don't care if she starves or not, but now... I consider feigning uncertainty as to why, but she deserves as honest an answer as I can give. Why do I feel understanding instead of derisive?

"I suppose I understand... roles," I tell her slowly, considering. "Once useful, now incompatible and unwanted, which you're stuck with regardless. People have expectations, and I'm not immune to trying to meet them. Can you imagine if someone saw me now, offering you a hanky and listening to you blabber about your feelings?"

She giggles soppily, and I allow my lips to form the beginnings of a genuine smile.

"A role," she says, "This is a role?" She gestures toward herself. I shrug.

"I'm certainly no psychologist," I muse, "But it seems to me that... though this 'disorder' may be central in your life currently, you're capable of creating for yourself a new role that suits your ambitions. Not to say that it isn't a struggle... the feelings and circumstances that brought you to the present won't disappear. But... there's hope."

"There's hope... I like that." The girl says softly. After a moment's thought, she looks at me and says, "Sir... I think you're capable, too."

I'm sure my expression must reflect my shock. She giggles and somehow I know it isn't meant meanly. Her comment is startlingly perceptive. But is she right? Is it possible to create a new role for myself, to become someone different? Not the Severus Snape that everyone knows and despises? ...And do I want to?

"Sir, is that offer still open? For tea and biscuits?" she asks tentatively, and my attention returns to the here and now. The real rather than the theoretical. My response will shape our future interactions, I'm certain.

We should be in the Great Hall right now, having a more nutritious lunch than tea and biscuits, but I nod.

"Of course," I say evenly, and summon a tray from the kitchens to set on the desk, flicking my wand to pour each of us a cup.

She lifts her cup and eyes the biscuits nervously. I pretend not to notice, grabbing one for myself and taking a bite nonchalantly. When she slowly reaches toward the tray, I keep my expression placid.

We eat our biscuits and drink our tea in companionable silence. The scene is the furthest thing I could have imagined when I demanded that she remain after class... But upon reflection, I find this far preferable an outcome.

In this way, we take our first steps toward moving past being who others think we are, and becoming who we want to be.

It is liberating and empowering.

End.

A/N: Sorry to everyone waiting for an update to Secret Steps! I was inspired by another reading for Sociology.

I'm nervous posting this, because I know eating disorders are a sensitive issue for a lot of people and I don't want to upset anyone. I don't have any close personal experience with someone who's had one either, so I have no idea how off base my portrayal may be. Maybe I shouldn't have tried... but I'd love to hear your thoughts.

There's a potential for another short, one-shot sequel that takes their relationship further, if anyone wants me to write it. Or I could get back to working on Secret Steps. Curse those long WIPs.