'I care nothing for your reputation!' Snape glared at the assistant healer who had just finished setting Harry up in a room all to himself.

'This boy is to be monitored at all times by myself, Albus Dumbledore or Minerva McGonagall and not a single other with the exception of his healer. Am I making this point clear or shall I spell it out for you?' He snarled.

'I-I get it, no one else...right.' The poor man nodded and hurried from the room to escape the cautiously protective and yet equally terrifying man that insisted on having a bed at the other end of the room to supervise the young patient.

Snape shook his head and sighed as he approached the bed where Harry lay in a semi-coma; his face was pale and occasionally his fingers twitched but there was no sign of Harry himself being there... it was as though his body worked but his soul had vacated the areas in which it was required in order for Harry to wake.

Snape had tried to imagine what it would be like; as though it was a cauldron filled with a thick, impenetrable potion and the boy was residing at the bottom but neither could reach the other and with time, the boy would likely run out of air.

That is how Snape thought of it, and it terrified him.

'You will get through this.' Snape approached Harry's bed and stared down at his son. 'What use is your stubborn attitude if it's not put to effective use during situations such this?' He sighed and sank into the chair beside the bed.

Snape continued to stare at the boy as he mentally prayed for the child's positive wellbeing in every conceivable way.

Harry was sitting on the carpeted floor of the Dursley's house. He picked at the threads of carpet in boredom and frowned about what he feared was really going on.

He sighed miserably and glanced around the living room of the house, wondering why he had awoken there. It looked as clean as it always did but perhaps with less light coming in through the window's curtains; there were more shadows than he recalled.

Harry glanced up when his mother appeared and sat cross-legged in front of him, barefoot and apparently younger than she was in the pictures he had; here she was in her late teens and dressed in a pair of blue jeans with a light purple, long-sleeved shirt that was rolled up to her elbows.

'Hey, mum.' He greeted her. Harry was always pleased to see his mother even if he was convinced that everything around him wasn't real.

'Hello, Harry.' She smiled at him although he could see the sadness in her gaze. 'Did your father explain things?'

'Yes, sort of.' Harry frowned and stared at the carpet he was still picking at. 'He said I'd forget everything and everyone...my friends, my life!' He gasped and a shiver of fear swept through him.

'I don't want to! Mum, you have to get me out of here.' Harry panicked.

'Shh, calm down sweetie.' Lily said in a soothing voice. Harry was surprised at how easy his panic faded when she smiled at him and spoke with a loving tone.

'Yes, it will all disappear.' She nodded. 'And I cannot save you because I too am a delusion. However, have you noticed that you can still remember everything in your life so far, no matter how small or important it may be?'

Harry thought for a moment and realized that if he mentally focused on any person or place, there was no missing information nor confusion.

'Yes!' He grinned with hope. 'I haven't forgotten anything.'

'Not yet.' Lily corrected. 'You can still recall those details of your life because your body is yet to fully absorbed the poison. In a few hours, your body will lapse properly into a coma and your mind will become infected.' She sighed.

'One would assume that the most recent events in your life with fade first but this is not the case. It will be entirely random up to the point where you think you could figure it out and yet you can never prevent it from happening nor fight against it. Everyone you love will be gone, every place you've visited will be unfamiliar and every memory you've ever experienced will be lost forever.' Lily explained.

'Your mind will be an empty shell, replacing what its lost with something new to fill the vacated space. Some details will be gone, others will become modified and occasionally everything will be confused together.'

'A-and there's nothing you can do?' Harry felt tears welling in his eyes as the truth hit him quite hard. It had never seemed false to him, but as his mother detailed his fears and dread, it had become more real that ever, figuratively speaking.

'No.' Lily shook her head. 'There is nothing anyone can do.' She faded away again and Harry waited to be joined by his father but the minutes seemingly ticked by and he was still alone.

Abandoning his task of picking at his aunt's rug, Harry stood and glanced out the windows to see Privet Drive as he knew it. There was something different about it though. There was a spookier feel about the muggle place and as he stared closer Harry realized that the houses weren't painted correctly and a lamppost was upside-down. He saw an empty car drive past along the lawns (seemingly through the fences as if the vehicles were ghosts), and heard a dog barking but the only animal in sight was an oddly-familiar tabby cat that watched him from across the road before it morphed into a piece of parchment and blew away in the non-existent wind.

Frustrated and scared, Harry yanked the curtains closed but the material ripped with his mere touch. He he stared in horror as the laced fabric melted like a slice of cheese that had been left in a warm place, and faded away.

Harry watched as the house around him didn't seem quite right although it hadn't changed, not entirely. He had a moment of inspiration and rushed into the hallway to the cupboard under the stairs.

Grasping at the handle, Harry pulled it open only to find it full of swirling colours as opposed to the cramped little storage space where he had spent most of his younger years sleeping in.

Hesitantly, Harry reached out and touched a part of the constantly-changing arrangement of colours. When his hands made contact with the blue shaded section, it was exactly like Harry was dipping his hand into blue paint. It dripped upwards from his hand as though gravity had reversed for all colourful liquids; it formed a small ball of the “paint” and than coloured and when it returned to Harry's palm, he was in the form of a small toy.

The object was a white horse with a headless rider. Harry recognized it instantly as one of his toys from his cupboard when he'd been annoyed about not getting his letter from Hogwarts. His uncle had been drilling the letterbox closed the very same day in which he constantly played with that small, seemingly unremarkable toy.

The object turned into blue paint again and than formed into oily water, which leaked onto the floor from his hand (with the correct, everyday power and order gravity), and was gone. Harry stared at his hand and wondered why it had been so interesting; the toy had been erased from his mind and would never return.

Confused by his hand for a moment, Harry focused on the swirls again and touched the red part next. The same thing happened, except with the colour red rather than blue and instead of a childhood toy, Harry found himself holding something much bigger as it grew and almost slipped from his grasp because of its material. Uh Oh.

Harry stared at his beloved invisibility cloak and clutched it close to his heart, fearful of losing it as it was not only amazing and incredibly useful, but it held sentimental value. It once belonged to his father.

'No!' Harry gasped as the cloak turned red and began to disappear from his mind as well. Colour after colour, object after object...Harry lost items he treasured, things he had tossed aside in passing, equipment he had occasionally used and worst of all...piece of his memory that he could never reclaim.

'Harry.' Lily placed a hand on her son's shoulder as he reached to the swirl of colours for the eighteenth time.

'Stop.'

Harry turned around tearfully and stared at her before he nodded and lowered his arm; he understood, he knew what she was trying to say...but still he had hoped it not to be true.

The cupboard door shook and slammed shut. Harry watched in horror as the cracks all around it that indicated it to be a door began to seal and fade. He was left standing in front of the side of the stairs with no cupboard in sight.

Fearfully and distraught, Harry spun around blindly to cuddle his mother for comfort. He sniffled as he caught air and opened his eyes. Harry stood in an empty, aged version of the house with no furniture and...no one else other than himself. He shuddered with miserable, fearful emotions and fled to a distant corner to curl up and bury his face against his knees as he sobbed.

Snape stood a few feet away from the boy's bed as healers fussed and cast healing spells.

They had determined that the boy was indeed poisoned by from an unknown kind with ingredients that had stumped even Severus Snape. All except one key component: the mooncoil laxherb...a highly toxic, completely understudied and unbelievably rare plant in which not even the Dark Lord himself would dare to touch.

For it to be used in a potion that had been administered into the blood of a twelve-year-old boy via its powdered form...it was most disturbing indeed.

'Well?' Snape asked the lead healer with in an icy tone, however it lacked its usual volume and was barely above a whisper.

By this time, Dumbledore had also joined with another two healers and a trusted auror.

Snape heard not a single word the healer proceeded to say; the expression the elderly wizard had on his usually optimistic face was all that needed to be noticed. The boy was in a state worst that dying, and there wasn't a bloody thing anyone could do about it.

'It's happening!' A mediwitch declared and the group of healers and Hogwarts staff (which was to say Snape, Dumbledore and McGonagall), crowded around the bed where the comatose boy lay. His face was remembered to be vibrant and young, his eyes alight with mischief or curiosity, his grin lopsided with a mixture of innocence and amusement, his cheeks flushed with the heat of activity or embarrassment...and most of all, an expression of youth, health and liveliness.

All that had changed as it slowly progressed to the face of an unrecognizable, motionless and terribly ill child.

Harry's face became pearly pale with a ting of green, he had darkened shadows under his eyes, his lips turned a shade bluer and his breathing became ragged, uneven gasps for air he was seemingly lacking.

The healers did the best they could with self-breathing charms, monitoring charms, diagnostics spells and anything else that may help. For all the good it did, they may as well have just blinked at the sight of the boy.

McGonagall was close to tears, Dumbledore was pale and wore the expression of a haunted man...Snape however, was far worst.

He slowly sank into a chair that was fortunately right behind him and stared at the poisoned boy laying in that hospital bed. His eyes forgot how to blink, his lungs reduced the amount of oxygen they required, his brain forgot how to function, his skin paled whiter than snow, his fingers gripped tightly to the chair as his wand was separated from his master for the first time in over ten years as it slipped onto the floor.

Simply put; Snape Snape was in shock.

The sound of his fallen wand had the soundly impact of a pencil falling onto a hard surface during an exam; where every sound was louder than it was with the absence of any other noise.

The others turned towards him but by the time their gaze had fallen upon the dark man, he had snapped into composure and had turned to storm out of the room with his wand clutched in his hand once again.

'P-poor Severus.' McGonagall whispered. 'First Lily...now this?' She shook her head and continued to stare at Harry with horror.

'Isn't there anything we can do for the child, Albus?'

'Yes.' Dumbledore's voice was low and almost a growl as he spoke.

'Pray.'

'What's happening?' Harry had subsided in his crying and leaped to his feet when the house around him suddenly gained cracks on every space of wall, floor or ceiling. It began to crumble and he tried to flee but someone snatched at him from behind.

'Get off!' He scowled and turned around to face James Potter. He stopped and appeared oblivious to the falling debris around them as they stared at each other; a scared boy looking right into the haunted gaze of his father.

'What's going on?' Harry choked out as Lily appeared beside him.

'We warned you, son.' James said. 'You are in a coma. The poison is now beginning to take over your mind, infecting it and modifying it with speed and...'

'And what?' Harry gulped, not sure if he really wanted to know but the lack of information was somehow more frightening at that moment.

'It is killing you.' Lily concluded.

'B-but...' Harry closed his eyes and had only three seconds to grieve before an indescribably agony coursed through his body at once; his scar burned, his eyes stung, his legs felt broken and his stomach ached as though it was being crushed.

The boy fell to his knees but instead of touching the cracking floor that was once covered with carpet, he handed on wood and the pain was gone faster than it came. And worst, he did not know this place.

'W-where am I?' Harry searched for his parents but no one was there. It was a rather dark place and obviously somewhat muggle based on the kitchen he could see as well as the occasional electric lamp. He spotted a desk and many, many rows of books the lined every inch of all the walls. There was a fireplace with a silver container of floor power and a large, squishy armchair that also looked rather throne-like as well. There was nothing else.

Until Harry stood and watched in horror as a blurred screen appeared in front of him, similar to the reflections on rippling water. He saw Privet Drive flash before him and than the Hogwarts train in the station went by as well. Harry thought about them as they appeared, but once they had been seen and changed...he could no longer remember what he had just been thinking about.

Ron's grinning face as Harry showed him his scar appeared and faded, as did the expression on Hermione's face as she took the blame for the troll incident, than Draco's sneer as Slytherin seemingly won the house cup, his Gringotts vault filled with gold from his parents, Hedwig flying around Hogwarts, Dumbledore talking to him in the hospital wing after the incident with the stone, the sorting hat announcing he was in Gryffindor, Fluffy the three-headed-dog, Mrs Weasley placing more eggs on his plate, Hagrid telling him he was a wizard, Fred and George laughing during Quidditch practice, Vernon shoving Harry through the front door after the zoo incident, getting his first wand, seeing his family in the mirror, being chased by Dudley and his gang, the feathers levitating during Charms class, the giant chess set, his photo album with pictures of his parents, catching the snitch with his mouth, rushing towards a Christmas tree with presents underneath...and finally, a flash of green light erupted from the images and engulfed the entire room.

Harry was forced to shut his eyes and when he opened them, he was in a vast landscape with no end nor beginning, no horizon nor a sun in the sky and sense of location, identity or reassurance. It was late afternoon (presumably), and Harry was discouraged to find himself utterly surrounded by freezing snow.

He shivered terribly and hugged himself as he lowered to his knees into the icy ground. His eyes watered and his face was just as pale as the area around him.

'Stop, please.' Harry whispered as the wind blew harshly but never seemed to touch him (other than to blow his hair everywhere), or make a single sound.

He noticed a slight change in his attire; instead of his Gryffindor robes he wore those similar to the first years had before being sorted (no house tie, colours or crest). That was the least of his concerns.

'Please just...stop...I-I-' Harry choked on his fresh sobs. 'Stop.' The boy shuddered again although the cause was unknown.

'STOP IT!' Harry shouted his throat raw and ignored the cold as he hunched over in the snow and banged his fists into the icy mixture. He grabbed fistfuls and threw it in the effort to do nothing more than ease his frustration.

He didn't know what he had done to deserve this, or even if he was still alive...either way Harry just wanted to to end so that he could worry about stupid things like homework, old photographs, odd places and an annoying Potions professors who...wait a second!

'Severus Snape.' Harry tried. 'Potions Master at the magical school. Was a git to me because of...someone related to me. I asked him to be my father and he pitched a fit before he eventually accepted.' He frowned and wondered why he hadn't forgotten anything about Snape. It was most odd.

This realization sparked something inside Harry, however small it was, the heat of his hope caused the snow to melt. Suddenly the icy doom became a field of long, lush grass with a blue sky and a horizon for the setting sun to eventually disappear behind. He had ignored his fear and his knowledge for a brief moment and therefore something had changed.

Harry gulped as he felt very drained of energy and shakily stood to warily look around at the modified area. His parents then appeared before him and Harry's rationality began to make itself slightly known. He remembered a few things, he was sure of it! He knew who they were, sort of, even though their faces weren't clear enough and he had no clue of their names (but why did he know anything at all; some of the blurred images before included them).

He thought of the redheaded girl and know-it-all boy...no wait, that didn't seem right! There was a silver snake with blonde hair...err, maybe. Shaking his head with confusion, Harry focused on the one thing he knew for sure: Severus Snape had black hair, dark eyes and dressed in even more pressing toned clothes. He liked to brew potions, scare students and come up with new ways to punish lions, hm...that was an odd hobby. Perhaps he doesn't like cats much?

Harry's head ached and he was terribly confused.

'You are slipping, Harry.' Lily said sadly. 'Soon you won't know anything...it will all be gone.'

'You've already forgotten your friends, your school, the muggle world, your adventures, your lessons and your belongings.' James added.

Harry stumbled and was crouched on the grass which had shortened considerably in the few seconds it took him to no longer be standing. He had his eyes closed as his throbbing head pounded every time he tried to remember something. What colour was Snape's robes again? Green, maybe? No wait, his eyes were green..weren't they?'

'Shut up!' Harry snapped. 'Leave me alone!'

Somehow deep inside his mind it clicked; he may be losing his memories and his mind but nothing around him was technically real. Everything was a part of the poison, a part of the insanity and lies. Everything...and everyone.

Slowly Harry glanced up at the parents he should have forgotten and glared. 'You're. Not. Real!' He growled in a tone to rival Snape himself. 'You're both dead! You left me alone!' His tone began to raise, as did the level of pain in his head; that went ignored.

'YOU'RE NOT REAL!' Harry's shout echoed in the land formated in his mind as he cleared, modified and replaced with every passing second (which was actually much longer in the proper, existing reality of St. Mungos).

--

'Arghhhh!' A wizard howled with agony as a migraine overtook him and he lowered his wand. If not for the silencing charm his partner had conjured earlier, those residing in the Potter boy's room would have surely captured them in the act.

'Well?' The dark-toned wizard growled, entirely ignore the obvious pain of the other. 'Why did you stop?'

'I was almost done, but the boy must have figured something out, I dunno.'

'Does he know who he is?' The dark wizard and original plotter of the powdered potion asked as he yanked his partner off the floor and turned to flee the unsupervised ward with him being roughly tagged along.

'I-I'm not sure but he surely doesn't remember anything else. I could feel it all slipping away, he's got about a few months worth of memories left, that's all.'

'It shall suffice.' The darker wizard nodded. 'There's no way to repair it and he's on the brink of death as it is.'

'Um, isn't this...I mean, surely this is pushing it a bit too far just for a bit of bullying?'

'Do NOT question me!' The darker wizard snarled. 'James Potter stripped me of ever ounce of reputation I ever built, every grade I hoped to achieve, every dream I could possibly think of...and worst of all, I became a nobody because of him. ME! A nobody!' He snarled dangerously as they left the hospital, surprisingly unnoticed by most.

The other wizard wisely decided to remain silent and didn't dare to mention the fact that the potion-curse combination had a tiny loophole in it that may or may not end with their downfall; they were messing with the dealings of the mind.

And anyone magical or otherwise knew; the mind (however much it may occasionally adapt or crumble when tampered with), was in the best and worst of every moment...a very unpredictable thing.