Synopsis: Harry and Severus are soul mates. Bellatrix and the Death Eaters had Harry captive. He was saved by Lucius Malfoy and fell into a coma from the Cruciatus Curse. Severus finds a way to save him by entering his mind, helps him and then magics them both out of there.

(-)

Chapter 19

Starve: v. to be in the process of perishing or suffering severely from hunger; to feel a strong need or desire.

Harry felt as if his stomach had fallen through the ground and if he could just put it back in its rightful place again he'd feel a lot better. Only the strong arm around his waist kept him upright, though his knees protested violently, buckling beneath him. Turning his head to say thanks, he did a double take.

He gaped, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, before the scowl on the other man's face made him splutter out an apology. "S-sorry." Harry attempted to stand by himself before taking another long look around.

"Where are we?" He finally asked, mystified by the small town.

"I have some idea," Severus responded, something in his voice warning Harry that things hadn't gone quite as planned. "It is rather… unexpected…" Was that embarrassment? Shame? Harry stole incredulous glances at the other out of the corner of his eye. Severus' face was fixed in a decidedly displeased expression, mouth curling in a half-sneer and eyes blacker than ever.

Harry took a deep breath to calm his still pounding heart. Wherever they were, at least they were a long way from that room. The recollection sent shivers up his spine. This place was entirely different, yet just as unnerving. The town was so quiet that Harry expected tumbleweed to blow across the street. But the air was still and stagnant, it almost smelt musty.

"How do we get back to Hogwarts?" He asked tentatively. There was something inherently wrong about this town. It looked nice enough, Harry thought it looked a bit like an abandoned Hogsmeade, but the emptiness left a chill that couldn't be ignored.

"I thought you would have realised by now," This time Severus looked amused, the embarrassment seemingly gone. "We are in Hogwarts. Physically. Mentally, that appears to be another matter entirely."

"Oh," Harry clicked. "So if that was me before, this is…"

"Indeed."

"Do you know how we leave?"

A scathing glance gave Harry his answer and he flushed. "I was just asking." He muttered.

Harry looked down the street, shrugged, and set off. The sidewalks were paved, grey stones with the occasional red one placed on the path. Harry could hear his shoes thud with every step.

"Where do you think you're going?" Severus' voice drifted after him. Harry looked over his shoulder at Severus' questioning face, eyebrow raised.

"If we're not going anywhere any time soon, we might as well get a look around. Coming?" The expression on the other man's face could be described as indignant but Harry thought he'd better not put a word to it for his own good. Despite that, another set of thuds accompanied him down the pavement. Harry smiled to himself. He felt better already.

The buildings were all empty, Harry looked in every single window and even stepped inside a couple. The shelves were all stocked in the shops and every home looked well-groomed if a bit shabby at 

times. The streets were dusty, as if it hadn't rained in days. Harry's shoes scuffed against the dirt, little clouds forming.

Severus had begun to lead their direction now, not hesitating or even looking around. Harry suspected the older man knew exactly where they were. He hoped that also meant he knew the way out, despite evidence to the contrary. The ground didn't get much greener as they headed towards the outskirts of the tiny town. It was like the everything about the place was dead, a barren ghost town. The paths narrowed and Harry's feet once again fell on the dusty, unpaved ground. He was so fixed on how eerily real the place was he failed to notice the large house they were approaching. Taking a cautionary glance up at Severus, Harry was surprised to see the pained expression on his face. The half-grimace that was just barely visible and the tightening of the brow which suggested an impending headache. He didn't dare ask what was going on again, he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know. In truth, no matter where they were, it had to be better than that godawful place he was stuck in before. Number four Privet Drive had never seemed quite so horrible.

"As you may or may not have gleaned, this was my home." The disclosure startled Harry, who had been sure he was to spend his time in his new surroundings completely clueless.

"This doesn't look like Surrey." He braved, stepping up onto the porch.

"Shortly after my birth my parents were forced to vacate their home in Surrey." Severus' voice was soft, almost gentle, with a tinge of reluctance. Harry waited for him to elaborate but it seemed the other had said what he meant to say. He wished he felt confident enough to push Severus for more information but he was tired, still a bit frightened and frankly he just wanted to be back at Hogwarts.

The door creaked open loudly, a sound that seemed to unsettle both of them. The house was covered in dust. That was the first thing Harry noticed. Some, but not all, of the furniture was draped in white sheets. Cobwebs hung from corner to corner.

Severus sneered at the room. "Just as I remember it. Of course." He let out a barking laugh that was so filled with bitterness it made Harry's heart wrench in sympathy. Both of them had so many unhappy memories associated with their homes, it made him sad just to think of it. His partner's eyes were far away, no doubt in a time long past.

Harry explored the adjoining rooms quietly. Each one was just as dead looking as the last, like no one had been there in decades, unclean, unvisited, unlived in. The cupboards were empty in the kitchen, the benches layered in grime that was probably older than Snape. As he walked past the still man once again a creeping feeling in his stomach told him that the other man had screwed up. Maybe seriously. This wasn't meant to happen. He bit his lip and reminded himself that Severus was an intelligent man, a Potions Master. He would find a way out of here. And, Harry noted, if this was his psyche, the man wasn't nearly as messed up as himself.

A movement out of the corner of his eye made him jump a little. His heart stopped pounding when he realised it was just a cockroach. A big cockroach. He grimaced a little, scanning the floor for its cousins. Scratch that, Severus was a little screwed up. He hoped no other large-scale bugs appeared, because while he had experience with giant spiders, massive cockroaches didn't sound like fun.

"Can't you just do what you did at Privet Drive?" He asked hesitantly, standing in the doorway to the entrance hall where Severus still stood.

The other man jumped, only fractionally but enough for Harry to spot it. He winced, he hadn't meant to startle Severus. The fact that the man was nervy set Harry on edge, he didn't need to add angry to that.

The scowl directed in his direction was only at half-strength, however, and his heart certainly didn't seem in it. "What I 'did' in that place took months of research, hardly a simple action to be taken lightly."

"Months?" Harry whispered. "It's been months?"

"It has been long enough." The other man acceded, seemingly reluctant to divulge more.

"But months? I don't understand."

"Neither did Poppy. Or Albus for that matter." The Headmaster not knowing something? That surprised Harry, though he was aware the Headmaster wasn't omniscient, there was a mystery surrounding the extent of the old man's knowledge. What the man knew was irrelevant right then, Harry just wanted to know what Severus knew, he was sick of the silence.

"Why did it take so long?"

"You were in a magical coma. It's a not a regularity, hence Poppy has not the experience to deal with it." Oh, that helped, Harry rolled his eyes inwardly. It helped if he knew what a magical coma was.

"I've been in a coma for months?"

"That is what I inferred, yes." The man answered, still preoccupied by the house.

"And we're stuck here?"

"I would say that is a fair assessment." Severus sounded disgusted with the whole idea and Harry didn't blame him. This was a very unpleasant place with obviously unpleasant associations for him. At least, Harry noted with relief, the sky seemed quite normal.

"Well we might as well make the best of it then. Think of it as a holiday." He suggested with a forced cheerfulness.

"If you haven't noticed, Potter, you're seriously ill and I appear to have trapped the both of us in my mind."

Harry thought this was a rather astute observation and he had in fact noticed. However, he was away from that horrible place and anywhere was better than there. Anyway, this was a bit of a golden opportunity. Severus was so clammed up about his past and how he felt, his psyche was the perfect way to get a better idea of who the man really was.

"How did this happen? And what's a magical coma?" This place was astoundingly real. Unlike the Dursley's there was nothing seriously wrong to suggest it was all a dream. The air was stale as he drew it into his lungs, it tasted old, musty. He could feel that he was cold. The grit on the bench tops felt sticky and grainy and his foots left prints in the dust as he disturbed the seemingly abandoned home. If Severus hadn't told him that it was an illusion, he would have accepted it as reality without 

a doubt. Well, besides the oddities that popped up every now and again. He shuddered at the memory of the cockroach. Spiders he could deal with, mutant cockroaches, not so much.

"A magical coma is a self-induced reaction -"

"I did this to myself?"

"Not precisely," Severus' voice was tight, obviously disgruntled by the interruption. "It is the reaction of the magical core of a witch or wizard to a perceived threat. It was most likely brought on by your prolonged exposure to the cruciatus curse. It protects the mind from further stress by putting it into hibernation. Your body lives on in the absence of your mind. It is a preventative measure against the rather negative outcomes of the curse in the long-term."

"The Longbottoms." Harry murmured.

"Precisely."

"What about Privet Drive? It doesn't look like that, you know, in real life." He awkwardly assured the man.

"A mindscape. An intricate world your mind creates. It takes unconscious perceptions of places and things and fashions a virtual world. Your particular world was wrought with bad impressions of your relatives' home, thus the exaggerated features of the place."

Harry flushed at what Snape must have thought of the Dursleys now. The place had reeked of his own terror and loathing of the house, not to mention the people in it. There were some things he would rather keep to himself and Privet Drive was one of them. Despite Dumbledore's attempts to make the two of them communicate, Harry knew that there were parts of himself that were his and his alone. No matter the 'bond' between them, some things were just private.

Ron held vigil in the Hospital Wing alone. Usually either Hermione, Draco, or both were there to keep him company. A few adults were also regular visitors, Draco's parents, Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall, Remus and Sirius, the list went on. But Hermione was having dinner with the Malfoys and everyone else seemed busy with a new theory on waking the pair. A new theory that would probably be about as successful as all the other ones. It was getting dark outside, the crescent moon not lending much light to the room. Ron stifled a yawn, stretching.

He had spent much of his time alone in the past few weeks. Indeed, the past few months. Hermione and Draco had been busy together, while they tried to include him, it was a new relationship and Ron acknowledged that reluctantly. Harry had been occupied with Snape and You-Know-Who causing trouble even before the incident.

So Ron watched over his best friend and Snape every evening. He slouched deep into the chair, remembering how he had snapped at Harry before he'd been kidnapped by Lestrange. He'd been so confused and angry and frustrated. He hadn't stopped to think that maybe Harry would understand. March had come and gone. He'd barely blinked and he was seventeen. The year had gone so fast and exams were on the near horizon. Ron couldn't bring himself to worry about them. All his sitting around (feeling completely useless) and worrying about Harry had left him plenty of time to study. It was the most prepared for exams he'd felt in a long time.

(-)

"I think I'd like to come here, you know.. after." Harry felt brave enough to say. "Just to see it for real."

"Impossible."

He frowned. "Just for-"

"It no longer exists. I burnt it down when I turned nineteen." The haunted look in Severus' eyes made him not want to ask more. He couldn't imagine Snape as a teenage arsonist.

"Don't you get in trouble for that sort of thing?" He asked, wondering if this was yet another part of his so-called 'dark past'.

A raised eyebrow made him feel silly. "Besides, I wouldn't take you here even if it were still standing."

Harry felt a bit hurt at that and slouched against the door frame. "I didn't-"

"This place is cursed, Potter, I would go as far as to say it is quite unsafe."

"I didn't think it was that bad, I mean it's just dirt."

The eyebrow graduated to a glower that made Harry feel even more silly. "Not cursed, cursed." Reluctant though it was, Severus' stance seemed to relax, like he'd had all the air sucked out of him and was now collapsing in on himself. "After my mother's death, my father was mad with grief. He cursed the entire town so that nothing would grow or prosper. The ground shriveled up, the river that runs behind this house ran dry, the farmland became unusable. He singlehandedly drove the muggle town to the ground. Everyone moved on. They couldn't understand what had happened, how could they? My father didn't care that he had destroyed the homes of so many muggles, he hated them anyway, thought of them as animals and barbarians. The only reason we lived among them was because my mother was ill and the Healer had advised she be in a quiet environment. I always found it ironic that it was most quiet after she died. I lived here several years following that and then ran away. My father got his wish a year later when I had foolishly joined the ranks of Voldemort but it was much too late for him to see it fulfilled. Far too late. "

Harry put a hand on his forearm and the man looked at him, startled. This place made him so edgy, Harry regretted ever thinking it was better than Privet Drive. It was worse in a much more subtle way. It was Severus' undoing.

It was a split second decision but with his arms around Severus, head tucked into the crook of the other mans neck, he felt relaxed. To his surprise Severus held him, arms lightly but surely resting on his back. He shivered as he felt a shuddering breath on his shoulder.

"We have to get out of here, but I think you should sit down for a while." Harry said, his voice muffled by material. Letting go was difficult because even though he'd slept with the other man before, this felt so terribly intimate and being in this world made him feel like he was seeing a very vulnerable part of the man. He quickly quashed the increasing worry he had about getting back. 

With Severus so perturbed, Harry wondered if he would be able to figure out a solution or whether they'd be stuck here. Harry really didn't want to wait around to find out there were worse things than gigantic insects.

(-)

It didn't take long to discover there were. For one, the taps were dry. The cupboards contained only a few non-perishable items. Snape professed that he wasn't sure how well his magic would work here and even if it did, he professed, the curse would most certainly send it haywire. Harry had been confused as to why, if this was just a figment of Severus' imagination, he couldn't just.. un-imagine… it. Severus had scoffed at the suggestion and promptly explained that one could rarely control what one imagined and that a mindscape was far more complicated than that anyhow. Harry had just screwed up his nose at the man and stepped on a cockroach firmly.

Adventuring out in the town proved to just lower Harry's spirits. Severus had been right, the entire town just failed to grow anything. Bereft of grass or even dampness, the ground felt hard beneath his feet as he walked the same route for the ninth time. They had just undergone two days without water and little food. Harry had always thought he understood 'thirsty' and 'hungry', after all, the Dursleys had taught him well about unfulfilled appetite. But after a couple of days the words took on whole different dimensions. Thirsty became not only parched but also frustrated, tired, and sore.

Severus had snapped out of his nostalgia but he was just as hungry as Harry. Plus everything about the house seemed to irritate him. He scowled at the front door, he frowned at the kitchen, he positively glowered at the back room. Harry had tried to get him to explore elsewhere in the town but that hadn't worked either. T he fact of the matter was, Snape hated this town with a passion.

It began to feel like they had been trapped there forever. In a limbo of not alive, not dead. Two days without food or water grew to an incalculable time, the mindscape willing to let them suffer but not die, it seemed. He really needed to ask Severus how the magical mindscape worked but when his stomach started to ache Harry changed his mind. Less complicated things became the focus of his mind. And Snape had suddenly become a whole lot less complicated to Harry.

Surprisingly, the man seemed more willing than ever to just sit and hold him. Harry would sprawl out over Severus on the couch as the other muttered to himself about spell dissonance. He could feel Severus' arm heavy on his shoulders when he was next to him. Harry wondered if maybe it was a fear that he would somehow disappear. He couldn't decide whether it was because Severus was afraid for Harry or just afraid Harry would leave him there alone. He felt perversely pleased because he really felt like Severus really needed him.

His stomach rumbled for the fourth time that hour. He felt Snape shift uncomfortably. A glare in his direction made him roll his eyes. Severus had become increasingly irritable and Harry got the idea that the man was sure it had something to do with 'spell dissonance' but couldn't factor it into a solution.

Harry decided he was sick of all the muttering and the glaring. Whatever Severus was confused about, he had obviously hit a wall and Harry had no intention of letting that wall stop them. There was something that he'd been thinking about for a while now and it seemed like the perfect time to 

bring it up. He leant back onto Severus' chest, head tilted. "I want to have sex," he murmured. "Right now."

Severus' whole body jolted, the minor tremble making Harry smile. They'd fooled around there before, Harry had always instigated it, Severus was far too tense to start anything. "I had wanted your first-"

"We're stuck in some wacky world in your imagination, trust me, it doesn't count."

Severus' thumb traced a circle on Harry's hip. "It would count to me." He said in Harry's ear, his breath warm on Harry's skin. Harry smiled, tired and hungry but his body waking up to the stimuli.

"Exactly." Harry ground his hips back against Severus' and the choked moan made him laugh.

"When precisely, did you become so forward, Mr. Potter?" Severus' hands taking charge made his whole body sag with relief. Harry had been waiting for this so long. Worrying about it since the beginning. Now it was finally happening, it felt natural and unforced.

He groaned. "Don't call me Mr. Potter, remember?" There was no response as Severus mapped his stomach, which rippled under the man's touch, his hip caressed as he kissed Severus softly. Open mouthed, slow kisses which made Harry's heart pound a mile a minute. Just as he thought it might thud out of his chest, Severus explored the waistband of Harry's pants, just barely slipping beneath.

Harry rested one hand on the nape of Severus' neck, fingers tangled slightly in his hair. The other gripped his upper arm hard. Severus' fingers finally reached the place Harry had been waiting for. He arched his back with a gasp as the other man showed him exactly what life was lived for.

Soon Harry was drowning in pleasure and a little bit of pain as Severus entered him. Somehow, Harry thought, no matter that it was imaginary, this definitely counted.

(-)

The next day was a slow one. The non-perishable food had run out several days before and Harry was beginning to wish this place would just let them die. It was like they were both starving to death excruciatingly slow. Severus had explained to him that while the mindscape would react to the unconscious of its magical base to the extent that they would believe they were starving, it's primary purpose was to protect them and thus it could not kill them. Harry silently questioned how much of Severus' childhood was spent starving.

"May I kiss you?" Harry asked as he was languidly spread out on the couch.

Severus' black eyes met his, strangely tender. It seemed that the longer they were here, the more Severus had let go of obsessing over the solution. Harry began to wonder if he wanted one. "You hardly need to ask." He replied, cupping Harry's cheek and kissing him deeply.

There was a deafening pop that was accompanied by a feeling like someone had ripped a hole in existence. They both turned to face brightly twinkling eyes.

"I rather think I've interrupted something." Albus Dumbledore said, looking absurdly pleased with himself.

(-)

End of Chapter 19

A/N: Sorry for the horribly long wait, my life got really hard all of a sudden. And if this chapter seems odd, I thought so too. I was particularly startled with the sex scene turning up (I know I scuppered that, sorry) in this chapter. I had always imagined it in this chapter in the back of my mind but never actually intended to put it there. But seeing as no one can know what will happen in the future, I thought I'd better give it to any people still loyally reading just so it's there. I hope you don't find the chapter too alienating, and that you enjoy it. Please review as it will help me soldier on with this.