"You need not fear me."

Apparently words were insufficient reassurance, for Potter continued to look stricken, as though Severus were a man-eating monster and not an injured and therefore helpless man. Instead, the boy huddled against the opposite wall of the cell, as far away as he could get. Severus sighed and closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the stone wall and listening to the ragged pain stabbing down his right side. Not content with the Cruciatus, the Dark Lord had experimented with several spells that left more... permanent marks. If the cold didn't kill him, the blood loss would.

Shifting his centre of gravity was a bad idea: he slid an uncontrolled half inch down the wall and clenched his teeth down on a curse, fingers digging uselessly into the stone beneath him as he fought against dizziness and nausea while the fires of pain flared up along his side. Despite his best efforts, a muted whimper struggled out of him. Perhaps it was that that changed the boy's mind, the evidence that Severus was as human and as broken as he. Or perhaps it was just an ineradicable compassion, extended even to those he feared, that would warm the cockles of Dumbledore's heart. Bah. It could as easily just have been that the boy was tired of Severus ruining what little atmosphere there was in the cell and fouling the air with the smell of blood.

Whatever the reason, a feather-light touch brushed Severus's arm and when he, startled, opened his eyes, the boy was there, right in front of him, thin, pale face filling his vision. The boy flinched at Severus's gaze, but didn't take his hand away, didn't withdraw. Fear was written large on that pallid countenance, but he swallowed it down and stayed his ground, trembling faintly but resolute.

Confused, Severus looked down at the small hand on his arm. The area of contact grew warmer and warmer, as if the boy were radiating heat, and then the hand began to glow with a faint, warm yellow light. And slowly, slowly but surely, the bleeding down Severus's side stopped. He could feel the flesh beginning to knit itself together. Feel the healing reach into his body and gnaw at the aches and pains, feel the strength beginning to return.

At which point cold, pain, and shock became too much and the world went white.

When he woke, he was no longer in danger of dying. Severus, crumpled on the floor against the wall, stared up at the ceiling. Then, very carefully, he sat up. It still hurt to move, but when he inspected his wounds they were all half-healed and no longer caused him agony. Even the tremors of post-Cruciatus had gone.

He looked at the boy, huddled in the corner and watching him warily through huge green eyes too big for his wan face. "Thank you," he said slowly.

The boy flinched into himself and pulled even closer into the corner, never taking his eyes off Severus.

And this, Merlin this, was Harry Potter. A terrified little boy cowering in the corner of a dungeon in oversized clothes who feared the whole world and not just that part of it in the Dark Lord's control. Severus had believed that Potter must be growing up spoiled and pampered. So much for that idea. (He was well aware he was ignoring the real issue at hand, which was that an eight-year-old boy had just healed him without recourse to a wand. But that was too scary an issue to face right now, so he would rather focus on the fact that Potter wasn't who he'd thought.)

"I'm sorry," he said softly. "I'm sorry I couldn't save you."

Severus had no idea how the Dark Lord had returned – or how he had saved himself from destruction at the baby Potter's hand in the first place. All he knew was that he had been abruptly summoned after seven years of silence and that when he'd obeyed that summons he had found himself in the company of the Dark Lord and several Death Eaters – and a small boy with a white, terrified face and a lightning bolt scar.

And yes it had been stupid and yes it had been foolhardy, but Severus hadn't seen the great Harry Potter, he'd just seen a boy being tortured and known that he couldn't leave him there. Seven years of peace had made him soft and weak, presumably. He'd never had the stomach for the atrocities the Death Eaters had grown into, much to the derision of some of his more bloodthirsty fellows, but he'd never been so blatantly foolish either. But, weak-minded fool that he was, he'd maintained his cover, sneered at the boy, bowed to the Dark Lord – and taken the first opportunity to throw himself on the boy and activate his emergency portkey.

Unfortunately, it hadn't worked.

Idiot.

And now the Dark Lord had two prisoners to play with.

"They'll come for us," he said. "As soon as Dumbledore realises something has happened he will begin to search for us. The Dark Lord cannot hide us forever and so we will be found. They'll come for us."

The boy watched him with huge, frightened eyes and said nothing. Severus licked his dry lips and said, "They will. I assure you."

They had to.

There was no way to tell time here, no way to tell how long he and the boy had been down here. The torches flickered with perpetual flame so that there was no day or night, only constant firelight. Mealtimes and torture sessions came at equally random intervals and there was nothing here to mark time except for the beats of their hearts.

But Dumbledore would come. If not for Severus, then for Potter.

This would end.

"You are a fool, Severus. To give all up all I have to offer you for the sake of a worthless boy."

Severus, whimpering unashamedly on the ground, was not expected to participate in this conversation. Voldemort would rather hold the floor. The man strode up and down his throne room, radiating power and confidence. So proud of himself. Proud of himself for terrorising an unarmed man and a boy.

"Did you think he would repeat his little miracle? Did you think he would save you?" Voldemort's sneer was a thing of beauty but Severus was in no condition to appreciate it. The Dark Lord chuckled darkly. "I would have killed him swiftly, you know. But to have the both of you here, to know what you were willing to surrender for him... Why, it's more amusing to keep him alive.

"Think on that, Severus. All that he suffers here is your fault. Yours."

Severus already knew that. The Dark Lord's words meant little to him, barely touched him. He was watching the boy.

"You wanted to save him and you only made things worse."

Voldemort laughed.

And, dangling from the hands of two Death Eaters, Potter watched on with wide, terrified eyes.

"They'll come." Severus spoke to himself as much as to the boy, in reassurance, in hope, in prayer.

"They won't." He'd never heard the boy's voice before, a dry wisp of a voice deadened with long-lost innocence. But no tears. The boy never cried, no matter what the Dark Lord did to him. "They never come."

"Who?"

"Anyone."

Severus shook his head violently. "No, they'll come. They will."

The boy hitched a thin shoulder and turned into the wall. "No."

"Yes!"

"No."

He leapt to his feet in anger. "They will come, Potter, and they will take us out of here! They won't leave us here to rot!"

The boy glared up at him with the first defiance Severus had ever seen in him. "They won't come. No one ever comes. I hope and I hope and they never COME!"

Severus sank down to his knees and closed his eyes. He didn't want to believe that. He wanted to believe that for once he wouldn't be left behind, for once he wouldn't be written off as an acceptable loss. For once someone would care enough to follow him.

"They'll come," he whispered.

If it wasn't for the boy's magic Severus would be dead. Sometimes – often – he wished he was. Better he was dead than to make the boy watch him suffer, better he was dead than to lie unresisting on the dungeon floor while the boy poured magic into him to keep him alive until the green eyes swam with exhaustion. Better to die than to live through the Dark Lord's imaginative games and then wake in a cell with the boy crawling off to his corner to huddle far out of reach.

"Can't you open the door?" he demanded of Potter. "You can do magic. Get us out of here!"

The boy flinched, but he sat there at the door, his hands pressed against the solid oak and his eyes closed, as the sweat beaded at his forehead and he fought against the magic that held them captive. Fought until his whole body shook with the effort and Severus snapped at him to leave off before he killed himself. The boy flinched, a whole body flinch as if Severus had leaned over him screaming threats, then slunk back into his corner to collapse. To collapse, as if he'd just taken on an army. Merlin, he'd probably been directly battling the wards on the door; it was a wonder Severus hadn't gotten him killed. Severus cursed himself for a fool.

"I'm sorry," came the whisper, a small boy taking on responsibility for the world's wrongs.

"It's not your fault," Severus said brusquely. "It doesn't matter." He scowled across the cell at the small figure. "Get some sleep."

Time passed, unheeded, unmarked. Just passed, in a tick-tick-tick of pain and fear and pain.

"You tried to save me," the boy whispered from his shadow.

Severus couldn't see his expression, only his eyes, almost luminous in the flickering torchlight. "Yes."

"Why?"

How to compress several decades of twisted emotions into a single sentence? He glowered at the wall. "Because someone had to."

"Why? Why would anyone care?"

He hesitated, then met those wide, frightened eyes. "I had to try to save you," he said, "because no one tried to save me."

He shivered violently and pressed his back against the wall, curling up into as small a ball as possible as if there was some way to be warm in this hateful place. And then there was a hand on his arm and a shuffle of clothing, and the boy was curling up beside him, offering his slim heat to Severus as the only thing he had to give. Broken far beyond pride, Severus pulled him closer, wrapped the small boy in his arms, and held onto him as the only thing left to him. Small fingers gripped his grimy robes, tears dampened his chest – the tears that the Dark Lord's torture never seemed to elicit.

Severus could say nothing – what was there to say? It wasn't going to be all right and he couldn't help the boy. There was nothing to say, no reassurance he could give that wouldn't be a complete and transparent lie. So he just held the boy and rubbed circles on the thin back and let him cry until he was exhausted.

No one ever comes, the boy had said. And it terrified Severus that Harry Potter, that the Boy Who Lived, had something in common with him. It terrified him that this hero who should have been the toast of the wizarding world, who should have been cosseted and loved and worshipped, was a only scared little boy who treated dungeon cells as almost to be expected. Potter should have been the hero. Severus could have hated him if he was the hero. He wanted to hate him. He couldn't.

It had all gone wrong and he didn't know how to fix it. He couldn't fix it. So he just held on to the boy in useless comfort – and if he was clinging to Potter just as much as the boy was clinging to him, well, there were only the stones to know it and the stones wouldn't tell.

No one was coming. There was no rescue for them. All they had was each other.

"They'll come," the boy said. "They'll come for us."

"No they won't."

"They will."

"How can you say that?"

The boy looked up at him. "Because you came for me."