"What?" Harry asked, completely bewildered.

"The question isn't that hard, Potter, even a Gryffindor like you should be able to answer it!" Severus snapped.

"But... what do you mean, what happened with muggles? I thought you would teach me how to make all that stuff with that wand-thing! You've promised!" Harry was hurt. So the professor was just like anyone else and wouldn't keep his promise. It had been stupid of him to imagine otherwise!

"Potter, I appreciate that you are willing to learn how to perform magic correctly but now you will tell me everything about your life with your relatives and any other muggle you might have encountered while staying with them! I won't have you distracting me by whining about your ineptitude to cast simple spells!"

"You will help me, then?" He almost didn't dare to hope. Perhaps, perhaps...

"Yes. I promised, didn't I? But not now!"

"When?" Harry demanded. He had to make sure. He wouldn't risk being betrayed by that man. He seemed to be all right - well, at least better than any other adult he had encountered so far. He wasn't exactly nice, but he seemed to listen to Harry. He had asked him questions and hadn't locked him up even when Harry had said something freakish. And he had given Harry his medicine when no one else would do it.
But why did he want to know about Harry's time with his relatives? There wasn't anything special about it, was there? And surely he knew how freaks like him were treated by the doctors? So why kept he insisting on Harry telling him everything all over again?

Severus eyed the boy carefully. He could sense that it would mostly depend on his answer to Harry's question whether he would get useful information out of the boy. "If you answer my questions satisfactorily, you may come to my office tomorrow evening at six o'clock and I will help you with your magic." There. That had been nice and clear and impossible to be misunderstood, hadn't it?

Severus observed Harry. He seemed to consider his answer. "OK."

Phwe, apparently, he had said the right thing. Expectantly, he waited for the boy to start babbling about those muggles. He didn't, though."Mr Potter, I believe I have asked you a question...?"

"Oh, uh, yes..." Harry hurried to obey, "ehm... but what do you want to know?"

"Everything, Mr Potter." Snape said, exasperated, "When was the first time you had to go to a doctor and why? When have you started taking medicine? What other treatments have you received? How did your relatives react to your illness, and did they ever try to contact a wizard? Just tell me everything."

"Uh... I have gone to Dr Green since I was really little. I don't know... almost forever! But at first I didn't take medicine. Only after I had to stay at the hospital. At first, I was in a real hospital, because the demon had really hurt me. Later, they brought me to the ward where Dr Green worked. I had to stay there for a really long time! This was when I started to take medicine. I didn't want to, but they made me anyway..." Harry shuddered. He didn't like to think back to those times, even so he didn't actually remember very much. "Uhm, well, later I was allowed to go back to the Dursley's again. Dr Green had suggested that I should go to a home for people like me, but Aunt Petunia was really nice and made sure I was allowed to go back to Privet Drive! But then the demon made me stop eating. It was terrible, you know, because I was really hungry all the time but couldn't eat anything! Well, I tried, but it was really difficult. I had to be quick and swallow the food before the demon could make me spit it out. Mh, I had to go back to the ward a short while later... they put a tube in my nose because they said I needed to eat. But I couldn't eat! The demon didn't allow it! The tube was really nasty. Did you ever have a tube that went through your nose into your stomach?"

Severus had been tempted to interrupt the boy several times. He had refrained from doing so, though, thinking that it would be the best to just let the boy tell as much as possible of his own. But what, for Merlin's sake, had happened during the last ten years?! Hospital? Demon? Sending Harry away from Privet Drive? Medical procedures Severus didn't even want to think about?

"No, Mr Potter. I never had such a... thing. And I can't imagine why someone - doctors even - should do something like this to their patients! Surely there are other methods to treat someone who is unwilling - or unable - to eat? How often exactly did you stay in that hospital? And why didn't your Aunt take you home as soon as she learnt what they were doing there?!"

"Mh, Dr Green said I was really ill. I don't think Aunt Petunia would have wanted me at Privet Drive then. I mean, what if the demon would have hurt her or even Dudley?" Again, Harry shuddered. Aunt Petunia might have simply locked him up if the demon had done something to her son, but Uncle Vernon? Somehow, Harry doubted he would have been able to avoid hospital if Uncle Vernon had learnt that the demon - and therefore Harry, even if the boy in question didn't really understand why and how - had hurt his precious son. "And they took me in again when I was better. The medicine, you know, the one that the doctor-witch didn't want to give me, it is supposed to fight the demon. They said that it was in my head, and therefore I had to take the medicine so that it could fight the demon. Before I started taking it, the demon did really mean things like smashing my head against the wall! Well, I didn't remember, really, but Dr Green told me... this is why I mustn't forget to take it!"

"Mr Potter, what 'demon' is this you are referring to?" Severus mind went in overdrive. Yes, in the wizarding world, there were many... beings muggles considered to be mythical creatures, pure imagination. But demons? He had never heard of those, and his knowledge about dark creatures couldn't be considered poor. Perhaps the boy had encountered someone - or something - else and, not knowing what it was, simply called it a 'demon'? But hadn't Dumbledore said that he had left Harry with his relatives because of the protection they would provide? It wasn't possible that a dark creature had made it into the Dursley's home and hurt Harry not only one but several times, was it? Of course, if something dark had made it into the Dursley's household and hurt the child, and if said child had told the doctors about a strange creature that wasn't supposed to even exist, it was quite possible that they had thought he had imagined things, had had hallucinations, and therefore considered him mentally ill. But it wasn't possible. Or at least someone - Dumbledore - would have noticed, with all the wards he had added, in addition to the blood-wards. He wouldn't have risked Harry's life, would he?

"Just the demon. Mh, he's in my head. Yeah. I don't really know why, but Dr Green explained that it wasn't a real demon, but that my mind was sick. And because of this sickness, my mind kept seeing and hearing things that aren't real. I don't know whether to believe him or not, though... if the demon wasn't real, he would have never been able to hurt me, would he? But he did! Here," and Harry pushed his hairs on one side of his head away, "this is where he smashed my head against the wall in my cupboard."

Severus gapped. The scars on the side of the boy's head were rather long and it was clear that the original wounds had been rather serious. No wonder he hadn't noticed them before, though, who would look for other scars on the Boy-Who-Lived's forehead than the one and only lightning-bolt shaped one? But honestly, the famous scar was nothing compared to those Harry was currently showing him.
But something else in the boy's speech had caught Severus attention. "What do you mean, your cupboard? Did this... thing made you climb into your wardrobe?"

"No, my cupboard where I slept. I-"

"Why did you sleep in a cupboard?!"

"Uhm, my relatives gave it to me... and I really like it! Well, when I was little, I sort of wished that they would allow me to sleep in a real bed like Dudley, but later when they had tied me to the bed on the ward I thought it was a really good thing that they had given me the cupboard instead of a room! Of course, after that letter came I had to move into Dudley's second bedroom..."

"Your mean... are you telling me that you have lived in a cupboard?"

"Yes. My cupboard under the stairs."

"But-" Severus was speechless. How dared those muggles to deny a child such a basic thing like a bed?! But, he had to remind himself, this wasn't why he had wanted to interrogate the child. At least not this time. Oh, this would be discussed, and in any case, he would have words with Albus about this matter - or perhaps better Minerva? After all, the witch had promised to support him when it came to Harry's placement with those awful muggles, and the more Severus learnt about the whole business, the more he doubted that the headmaster was quite as innocent as the old man pretended to be, "Ha- Potter! So you lived in a cupboard, yes?"

"Yes. But I had to move out. I really miss it."

The boy seemed almost.. dejected. But why should he feel sad about it? Surely moving out of a cupboard into a real bedroom was something to be happy - if not overjoyed - about? "So.. why - Wait," the potion master interrupted himself, "what did you say about someone tying you to a bed?" Surely the muggles hadn't been this depraved. Had they?

"Yes. In hospital. They-"

"They tied you to a bed in a hospital?"

"Yeah. Because of the demon. He couldn't hurt me when I was tied to the bed. I didn't like it, though. It's really mean when all the adults hold you down and tie you up... please I don't want to talk about it!"

"But... they tied you to a bed? When was this? I thought muggles had stopped torturing wizards!" They couldn't have started hunting down wizards and witches again, could they? If this would have been the case the ministry, the ICW, someone must have learnt of it! No, and hadn't the child said something about his aunt insisting not to tell the doctors anything about the wizarding world (even so, if the boy was to believed, she had expressed it in slightly... different term)?

"Uh... I don't know whether it was because me being a wizard. Have all wizards demons in their heads?"

"Wha- of course not, Mr Potter, there aren't such creatures like demons, least of all in a person's head! But answer my question, when was it that they tied you to a bed?"

"Uhm, after the demon had smashed my head against the wall. Dr Green told me that it could have killed me. I don't know... it's good it hasn't, isn't it? Well, the demon didn't think so... doesn't think so. He wants to kill me, I think... At least this is what he keeps saying. The medicine is supposed to make him stop though..."

"All right, and it was only this one time after this- this demon tried to kill you, yes?" Perhaps, if it had only been a one-time incident, it wasn't this bad, but more like an emergency measure until they could calm the boy - or the demon? - down?

"Eh, no. This was the first time. But please I really don't want to talk about it..." Harry was getting quite agitated. If he wouldn't stop thinking about all the times they had forcibly thrown him onto a bed and tied him up soon, he would have another one of those panic-attacks. Already, he felt his breathing becoming more and more irregular.

"Mr Potter, I need to know exactly what has happened and why! How else do you think I can find means to help you and to... correct your placing with those muggles?" Because there was no way he would let the boy return to a place where he obviously had been mistreated and Merlin knew what else!

"But... but I don't know! They just came running every time the demon had hurt me and seized me and threw me onto a bed and then they had straps and tied up my arms and legs and sometimes also my belly and then they gave me injections and everything was fuzzy, I don't really know... NO - DON'T - TALK - 'BOUT - NOO!"

###

Severus would never really understand what happened next.

The child was clearly in distress, and he had just been about to summon a calming draught when he sensed the presence of a foreign force in the room - as if someone (or something) quite powerful tried to invade his mind. Legilimency!

Spinning around, heart racing, he scanned the classroom for the intruder. Nobody seemed to be there. But then - cold fear swept over Severus. He was back. No. The Dark Lord - at Hogwarts?! In his quarters?! This - it just wasn't possible!
But who else would be powerful enough to perform Legilimency on him and almost succeed in entering his mind?! Not even Dumbledore had ever managed to enter Severus mind without his consent! But how?
Yes, he had been quite sure that some day, He would come back. But now, at Hogwarts, without so much as a warning? The potion-master had expected to be able to tell in advance when it would happen, feeling it through the unfortunate connection he had with - Him, or else hearing rumours from certain people he associated with only for this very purpose!

But it didn't matter how and why and when, not now. Reason chimed in, and Severus had hardly ever been this glad that he was able to think rationally and act quickly even in life-threatening situations. He was alone, in a room with the boy-who-lived himself. The first thing he needed to do was to make sure the boy was safe, then he had to summon Albus and - "HARRY!"

###

Harry had tried. He really had tried to stay calm, to breath slowly and deeply just how Dr Green had taught him to do whenever a panic-attack was approaching. But the professor just wouldn't stop talking about him being tied up. Why didn't he listen to Harry's attempts to tell him that he couldn't talk about those things, why kept he insisting on knowing every detail?
Already, Harry could feel the hands of many much bigger people upon his skin, cold feel how they were pulling him from the ground, carrying him away, not listening to his screams and please to leave him alone, and then he was put down onto a bed and hands held him down, he couldn't fight, he couldn't breath, there were people everywhere and they grabbed him and held him and now the demon was laughing, laughing because mere muggles would do his job, and Harry himself was laughing now - was he? And then he could feel the demon trying to tear his mind apart, it hurt, oh, it hurt so much, and they wouldn't stop - the demon, the hands, no, he had to fight, but he couldn't move, he couldn't lift his hands, but he had to, he had to seize this thing out of his head!

###

Severus didn't know what to think. The boy - Harry - had he some sort of fit?! And - how was this possible?! He was an eleven year old child with practically no magical education, least of all mind magic! And yet the force that pricked and pulled on Severus' Occlumency-shields clearly came from the boy's mind - something wasn't right here. No child should be able to even scratch on his shields! But if it wasn't the boy's own doing, who else could it be? Had someone imperiused him when he had visited Diagon Alley and was now trying to attack Severus by using Harry? But even Hagrid must have noticed if someone had attacked Harry during the few hours the two of them had spent in Diagon Alley! Hell, even if the oaf hadn't, it just wasn't possible to cast an Unforgivable on the Boy-Who-Lived himself in the midst of one of the most crowded places in magical Britain with no one being any the wiser!

There was only one way to find out what was going on.

Concentrating fiercely, the potion-master forced the thing that tried to invade his mind away and made sure that his shields were still in place and hadn't sustained any damage. When he was reasonably sure that he had enough control of his own mind to be able to attack, he hissed "Legilimens!" and reached out for the boy's consciousness.

A few moments, he wasn't sure whether he would be able to even find Harry's mind. Somehow, everything seemed to be charged with a strange sort of energy. Finally, Severus managed to sense the boy in the centre of what could only be described as a mental whirlwind.

There was hardly any defence when he breached the barrier that separated Harry's mind from the outside world.

For a few seconds, myriads of images, emotions, ideas and thoughts drummed against his own consciousness. There were people in white closes towering around him, some of them holding him down while one of them forced something into his mouth. Fear and terror seemed to be the most prevalent emotions. A man that's face was inches away from his own, the man's mouth moving rapidly, but no sound could be heard. The noise of an iron door falling shut, followed by the jangling of keys. A green light soaring his way. Screaming. Then, a pain so intense that Severus briefly thought whether the Dark Lord had cast the Cruciatus-curse on the one-year-old Harry Potter before he had tried and failed to kill him. And through all of this, there was a menacing voice - it couldn't be human, could it? - that promised the most gory death.

Then, suddenly, everything stopped and Severus found himself knee-deep in some sort of black, sticky mud. What was this?

Looking around, he noticed that the mud wasn't only on the floor - well, as far as you could call it floor, being inside someone else' mind - but practically everywhere. It covered the surfaces and stinking, glutinous clouds of it wafted through the air.

It was as if everything had become paralysed. Just a few seconds ago, Harry's mind had seemed to be on the brink of collapsing under the stress of all the confusing images, thoughts and memories and the noise had been almost unbearable. Now, however, it was eerie silent. Nothing seemed to move. Only now and then a thought or memory floated by - strangely distorted, as if they were about to dissolve and merge with the mud. Severus himself felt as if his mind was working in slow motion. It had never been more difficult to think clearly. The mud - but was it mud? It was mucous and practically reeked of decay - made it difficult to stay focused. It almost felt as if this... stuff was trying to pull everything it could seize into its hungry depths. The potion-master wasn't sure what would happen if it - but who or what was 'it'? There shouldn't be anything in the boy's mind besides his own consciousness! Well, what would happen if it actually succeeded, and he was quite sure he didn't want to find out either.

But what was the mud doing here, in Harry's mind? Where had it come from, what was its purpose?! And how was it possible that the boy was still able to function properly (well, almost properly)!? The mud caused Severus Snape, one of the most proficient wizards there were when it came to mind magic, to feel completely out of control - as if someone had switched of any reason and left him with only the ability to breath and just, well, exist.

How could the mind of a child survive something like this!
He had to leave this place, and quickly. He didn't know what would happen if he wouldn't, and he wasn't prepared to take any chances. Merlin knew what this was.
He was reluctant to leave the boy - Harry - alone in this dreadful environment, but he couldn't help the child if he couldn't think, couldn't figure out what that sludge actually was and how to get rid of it.

Severus tried to turn around - when had it become so difficult to move? - and was shocked when he discovered that the usual light that normally indicated the place you had entered someone's mind - and therefore the place you had to return to in order to leave it, too - wasn't there.

Looking around, he noticed that there wasn't any light. Only clouds and puddles of black mud. What was he supposed to do now?

Just when the potion-master decided to walk in the direction of an area where the slime didn't seem to be quite as thick as everywhere else, he sensed the very force that had led to him invading Harry's mind in the first place.
As quickly as the mud let him, he spun around and caught sight of a dark shadow - even darker than the mud - that hovered at the edge of the part of Harry's mind that was visible to Severus. It seemed to come nearer and nearer, though, and the pull on Severus own mind became stronger by the minute.

This wasn't good. Every single account Severus had read about battles of two equally strong Legilimences that took place in the mind of one of the participants head's had ended with (at least) one of the two of them becoming a mental cripple. And while he was fairly sure that whatever that force, that shadow was, he would win a trial of strength, it would be foolish to risk his - and perhaps more importantly, Harry's - sanity.
No. There was only one way left. It might hurt the boy - well, it would hurt the boy - but in the end, it was safer than searching for an exit for hours, all the while an unknown threat was looming in the background.

"Occluderis!*" Severus shouted, while he pictured himself outside Harry's mind. He felt how the surrounding space narrowed. An instant later the edges of Harry's consciousness almost suffocated him and then he was seized by a feeling similar to apparating - only much, much worse.
After several horrible seconds in which he couldn't breath, he felt the space widen again.
Then, suddenly, he was on his feet, standing in the middle of his classroom, panting and sweating and feeling nauseous. He was tempted to sit down - Where were the stones? The floor seemed to be made of rubber - but just then he caught sight of a swaying and staggering Harry Potter.

"Harry!" He managed to reach the pitifully moaning boy just before he fell down. Severus felt for his pulse and was relieved when it was only slightly faster than normal. Briefly, he thought of the nice, comfortable sofa in his quarters. Then, however, he decided that it was extremely unlikely that he would made the journey without major accidents - why couldn't the castle stop spinning? - and settled for sitting down on the rough stone floor, pulling Harry with him.

Great. Now he was sitting on the floor of his classroom, feeling worse than he had after most Death-Eater-Meetings, with a whimpering Potter leaning on his side.

"Oooouuuh" Harry groaned. He didn't even try to think about what had happened this time. His head felt like it had been ripped open and filled with lead. Dimly, he noticed the presence of someone else sitting beside him, and then he was violently sick.

"Potter!" Severus huffed. The relief that the boy hadn't thrown up over him was short-lived when he saw that Harry had puked all over himself. Great. And he hadn't even his wand to clean him up.

"Ouh ouh oooooouh... wa- wa'se mad'er?"

"Nothing, Potter, except for both of us currently sitting on the floor of the dungeons, you having vomited all over yourself and me being unable to reach my wand."

"Hu...? Bu' - what?"

"Potter just sit still, your head will be better in a minute," 'Once I have managed to stand up, fetched my wand (that was lying a few feet away from their current position) and summoned you a headache-draught', Severus silently added.

"Hu ? Don' wan' do.. no I'm ti'ed..."

"Yes I know Mr Potter. I assure you you will be able to rest once we have made it out of this classroom." Apparently, the boy didn't have the strength to argue. Instead, he just snuggled - snuggled!? - closer to Severus and seemed to settle for a longer stay on the floor. Well. This wasn't how the potion-master had expected to spend his afternoon.

After five minutes or so, the smell emitting from the boy - well, from the vomit that covered his clothes - became almost unbearable and with his last ounce of strength, Severus crawled the few feet towards his wand that had fallen on the ground when he had forced his way out of the boy's mind. Well, after he had made sure that Harry's upper body rested against the side of the teacher's desk, that was. Since when did he care whether Potter was halfway comfortable? Instead of thanking him for his effort, though, the boy - typical Potter - whined at the loss of bodily heat next to him.

"Noooo... don' leaw... noo..."

"Potter!" He snapped back, "I will be right back, but you smell worse than- well, quite disgusting and I need my wand to clean you up. And didn't you want something to ease your headache, too?"

"Mmmfff..."

No wonder the boy wasn't particularly... talkative. It was a miracle that he was even semi-conscious after the means Severus had had to employ to leave his mind. It was one thing to enter (and leave) a mind through a carefully crafted connection, but a completely different one to use sheer force. However, he hadn't really had much of a choice... damn, why did he even feel guilty about this? It wasn't his problem if the boy was in pain, he was only doing this because nobody else throughout the bloody castle was capable of finding out what was wrong with Potter and how to cure it! It wasn't as if he had begged for the job! No, it was Poppy's - and Albus'! - fault that he (and Harry) were in the whole mess, not his!

"Scourgify" He muttered, having reached his wand. Then, he proceeded to summon a headache-draught for the boy and a pepper up potion for himself which he drowned quickly. Aaah. This was much better! "Potter, open your mouth!"
To his astonishment, the boy didn't even questioned what the bat of the dungeons was about to give him. This wasn't normal, least of all for a Gryffindor who constantly suspected their potion-master of having dark plans about killing the whole tower in order to use them as potion-ingredients. As if he would ever use something as brainless as a Gryffindor in one of his potions! Even Flobberworms were smarter!

Well, Severus thought while feeding Harry the potion - obviously, the boy couldn't be trusted to take it on his own, weak as he was - perhaps it was because the boy was used to getting all kind of drugs out of other's people hand? And obviously, he had learned a long time ago that every attempt to fight against it was futile, if the things Severus had seen in his mind - before the mud had extinguished everything - were anything to go by.

"Uh, thank you, Sir!" Harry offered. Wow. This had to be the first time he felt more alert after taking medicine than he felt before! "Um, but what's- I mean... why are we sitting on the floor?"

"I hoped you might be able to explain what has just happened?"

"Uh... no." Harry blinked. What a strange question. Didn't the professor know that if you got confused it often was difficult to remember? "I'm sorry!" He added, having seen the man's scowl.

"You have done nothing wrong - for now! - so you have nothing to apologize for, you stupid child! Tell me, what is the last thing you remember before sitting on the ground?"

Unconsciously, Severus had seated himself next to the boy again, providing Harry with a welcome opportunity to rest his head against the man's shoulder.
It was so nice! With the Dursley's, nobody had ever hugged him or even sat as close as the professor was sitting now, and the nurses and even Dr Green had only touched him when holding him down or giving him injections. Nobody had ever just... well, been there. Close. Harry thought it was rather comforting to have the professor sitting next to him, close enough to lean his head against him, especially now that he felt rather awful (although it was much better than before he had taken the medicine!). And now the man even put a hand on Harry's right one! Well, it might only be because he had been about to make a hole in the classroom-floor with the constant drumming of his fingers (a habit he had developed during the long and lonely times he had been tied up and not able to move otherwise), but still, it was nice. Somehow, it made Harry feel warm inside.

"Um, you were talking..." Harry began, unsure what exactly the professor wanted to know. "About the ward and everything..." his voice dropped. He hoped the man wouldn't make him talk about all those horrible things again. "I don't know much more... I panicked, I think. I tried to calm down, I really tried, but... well, I don't think I've managed..." He was such a coward! Nobody else was afraid of talking about hospitals! "Um, is this why you had to give me medicine?"

"Potion, Mr Potter, it's potion. And no, this isn't why I had to give you a headache-draught. Somehow, you-" Severus interrupted himself. What should he tell the boy? That he had sensed a foreign being in his head? That something dark might lurking around in his consciousness? That a force that, when it came to mind-magic, was almost equally strong as the potion-master was, had somehow... possessed him? And what about all that mud? Did the boy know about it?

He decided that, for now, he would tell as few as possible, in the hope that Harry would offer his own explanations. He wouldn't lie, though. "You, or, well, something in your head seems to have drawn me into your mind. It's a very special branch of magic, nothing that is taught at Hogwarts, but it isn't dark or dangerous - normally," he hurried to explain, not wanting to scare Harry further. "And, well, unfortunately, I had to use rather... unorthodox means to end the connecting. This is why you are in pain and were sick."

"You mean - you were in my head?" Harry gapped.

Severus huffed. First-years! "It's not that simple, Mr Potter! You can't enter another being's head! It's the mind that we are talking about, and anyway, it's not as if you simply walk into someone's mind. There are spells that create a link and then the spell-caster might - might! - be able to connect his own mind with the one of the other person and... well, but that might be too difficult to explain.

Yes, then, I think - at least for now - you could say that I was 'in your head'."

"Then- have you seen the demon?!" Harry was amazed. Wow! Perhaps the professor could help him to fight the demon, if he could just go into Harry's head! Dr Green hadn't been able to do this! Sure, the medicine he had prescribed Harry had made it a bit easier for him to fight the demon, but still, he had been on his own when it came to actually battling against that terrible thing.

"What!?" Severus was shocked. That was the demon Harry kept referring to? It was something inside the boy's own head?! "You mean... that- that thing has hurt you?"

"Yes," Harry knew it might be... greedy to request something like this - after all, it wasn't the professor's problem if that creature kept hurting him - but he just couldn't refrain from asking the man. After all, maybe, maybe... "If you can go inside my head, will you help me fighting it?