Harry's green eyes slowly blinked open to stare blearily up at the ceiling overhead before turning his head to one side to take in the unfamiliar room in which he found himself lying on his back, lovingly tucked into a large and comfortable bed. The raven didn't have the slightest idea where he was; the last thing that he could remember was leaving the corner grocer near his house with the half-gallon of milk his mother needed in tow and setting off towards home. His head was muddled and his thoughts were confused.

The bedroom door swung open with a quiet creak and a man stepped into his line of sight holding a metal breakfast tray in his large hands. Seeing him awake his handsome face broke into a kind smile, dark eyes overflowing with love.

"Did you sleep well, my darling?" he purred, crossing the room towards him. "Have you any idea how much I've missed you, Harry?"

"I…" through the warm fog still clouding his mind Harry struggled to speak, beginning to push himself up onto all fours. "How do you know my name?"

The dark haired man chuckled lightly, shifting the weight of the tray of food onto his left arm and using the other to gently push him back against the pillows. "We've been married for five years this coming month, darling." He told him, sliding the tray across his lap before grabbing the chair from behind the desk and setting it beside the bed so that he could sit down. "I know that a lot has slipped from you over the course of your illness. Eat. You need your strength."

"Married…? I'm nineteen!" Harry yowled, attempting to get up again only to once more be firmly but gently pushed down again by the man as he patiently righted the breakfast tray the raven had nearly tipped over.

"At heart, I'm sure, but you turned twenty-five just three months ago now. It was a small affair; just the two of us. But you were still very weak back then. Couldn't even sit up on your own." With graceful poise of wrist and fingers he picked up the fork lying beside one of the plates on the tray and skewered a sausage link on the end of it before offering it to him. "Open."

Harry stared at him, too dumbstruck to even muster a proper glare at the implied suggestion he couldn't feed himself.

"Harry, darling, please. I know that you've all but certainly regained the strength to feed yourself by now but doing simple things like this, well, they've become habit. So let me keep doing this for you for just a while longer: ween myself off of it." The strange man-likely, he'd now reasoned, the one responsible for drugging him unconscious and kidnapping him off the street-offered another smile. This one smaller, slightly self-conscious but no less warm as he poked him gently in the lips with the sausage. "Open, darling. I want you to eat all of this and gain back all the weight you lost to being so ill. I even made all your favorites for you: scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, pancakes and eggs benedict. And your tea, of course. I know that this is a lot, but every calorie counts for you at this point."

His efforts to speak again were mistaken as permission to feed him by the stranger who promptly shoved the sausage into his mouth. Left with no choice but to chew if he wanted to avoid choking to death he was forced to postpone his questioning for a moment.

"Now, I don't want to rush you-especially since your body isn't used to consuming so much at once anymore-but I can't stay for very long. As much as I hate leaving you on your own in your condition I have to go to work soon."

Work? He was going to work as if it all were completely normal and he didn't have a teenaged boy he'd accosted and kidnapped sitting in one of the beds in his house? Then again, he was delusional; that much, at least, was starkly clear.

Oh well, his kidnapper's impending criminal fallacy would be his greatly appreciated boon and would give him the chance to escape and find his way home.

Swallowing the sausage ad leaning out of range of the eggs which were next offered he demanded "who are you? And what do you want from me?"

"I see," his sigh was long suffering as he pursued him with the fork. "A bad day today, it seems. It's me, darling. Your husband. Tom Riddle."

"I've already told you that I'm bloody nineteen! I'm not married to anyone, certainly not to you!" He managed to get all of that out before the eggs were shoved into his mouth and chose to consider that a small accomplishment.

"Look at your hand, darling. You're wearing the ring I gave you." This time he picked up the cup of hot tea and offered it to him. With how dry his mouth had become in the wake of whatever the lunatic-Tom-had knocked him out with the raven gladly accepted the drink, the unsweetened liquid offering glorious relief and soothing his throat; his eyes fell to his hands and found a ring of delicate braided gold encircling his finger, glittering with a number of the precious emeralds which had been firmly set into it. "As for what I want, that should be fairly obvious. I want you back to your normal self, as you were before the illness struck you down. I miss coming home to you after we've both finished our work for the day and sharing banter regarding our annoying coworkers. I miss sharing meals with you at our table. I miss your warmth beside me at night. And bedding you of course, because you're marvelous, but that's secondary to everything else."

The final mouthful of scrambled eggs was foisted on him; having recognized by now that appeasing Tom's desire for him to eat would make the other man more likely to answer his questions instead of trying to gag him with the fork every time he opened his mouth-not to mention that his captor was actually a rather accomplished cook, not that he'd be admitting that to anyone-Harry accepted the utensil and swallowed the food.

"Where are we?"

"Home, my love." Picking up the butter knife Tom began cutting up the pancakes. "No more hospitals. No more nurses. No more medications. Don't worry."

"So your Husband, I mean I've, been sick Tom?"

"Yes, Harry." Mindful to keep the syrup and butter from dripping onto the sheets or his clothes, Tom proffered a forkful of the pancakes. "You've been very sick. For a long time. They all told me you were going to die, but I knew that you were stronger than some damned disease. And I was right. You're here with me, now, and you're recovering. You beat it!"

"Yeah. Y-Yeah, I did." Harry supplied, shifting somewhat awkwardly in his position propped against the stack of pillows. "Tom, I…don't remember what I had. Can you…remind me?"

"Cancer. Blood Cancer: Leukemia, to be more exact. It was…horrible. For both of us. I hated to see you suffer like that."

With the bacon, sausage and eggs gone the pancakes half-vanquished and the Eggs Benedict yet untouched Harry refused to accept more food despite Tom's continued efforts to force it on him. Finally relenting with a small frown he set the fork down and stood up, picking up the tray.

"Alright, if you insist that you're finished I won't make you eat anymore even if I'd rather that you did. I'll be back at six for dinner but if you get hungry before then there's a sandwich and thermos of tea in the nightstand beside you." He said, planting a soft kiss on Harry's temple before the raven could act to escape. "Rest up, darling. I'll see you tonight."

With the gentle clattering of cutlery and the faint smell of expensive cologne Tom swept from the room, the door closing behind him with another soft click. Harry remained where he was until he heard the distant thud of the front door closing before he got up and hurried over to the window. Looking out over the yard as a sleek black Jaguar pulled up the long driveway and out of sight. The moment he was certain that he was gone Harry rushed to the door of the bedroom and grabbed hold of the knob in an effort to throw open the door.

The knob gave a weak metallic clunk of protest and the door rattled on its hinges but it didn't open.

Locked! His heart plummeted through the floor. The door is locked! He locked me in the damned bloody room!

Maybe the delusional lunatic wasn't quite so completely delusional after all if he still possessed enough wherewithal to realize that his 'husband' would attempt to make a break for it the moment he had the chance.

Harry kicked the door in front of him, hissing sharply at the pain which flooded through his foot as a result, and limped back across the room before dropping back onto the bed with a groan.

I can't stay here. He thought, glaring up at the white ceiling overhead. I can't stay here and play house with that barmy madman! I have to get out of here!

At barely nineteen Harry Potter was not prepared for any of the responsibilities that would come with being the husband to anyone, especially the handsome but obviously unhinged Tom. Wasn't prepared to fill the hole in his life left behind by Harry Riddle who had died of Leukemia.

The instant that the chance to escape back to his real life presented itself he had every intention of taking it.