Elias yawned widely, stretching his arms over his head and arching his back, ignoring the spasms the movement caused as best he could. It felt good to stretch. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been in bed, but it sure felt like he had overslept or slept in the wrong position for too long. His body was sore, but not in an ‘injured’ sort of way, or even an ‘overexerted’ way; he just needed to get up and move.

Cracking open his eyes and sneezing twice as the bright light of the sun flooded his vision, he looked around in confusion and awe. His brain felt like it was trying to move through molasses, but something about this room just seemed… right. Like it was his. He wasn’t completely sure what it was, but something about it felt like home. This was a room which hadn’t been Dudley’s, nor was it one he had to share, this was his room.

But where in the world was this room?

Some part of his brain kept saying his father had given it to him, but another said that that wasn’t possible; that his father was dead. But if his father was dead then how did he get this room? And why did he remember his father coming to get him from the hospital? But … it didn’t make any sense. If his father was Professor Snape and Snape hated him then why was Snape his father and he was living with him?

Did it really matter?

He felt like he was putting two and two together and getting five. Everything was so convoluted in his head and nothing made sense. It was like he was living two lives at the same time but he couldn’t remember the first part of one or the second part of the other. In one life, Snape was his bastard of a potions professor and he was an orphan. In the other, Snape wasn’t his teacher at all but rather was his father.

“Oh!” a voice gasped from the door, as he rubbed his temples in an effort to stave off the growing headache. “You’re awake!”

Elias looked up rather blearily at the person standing in the doorway with a rather small cup in his hands. Blonde hair, pale skin…. Malfoy? What was Malfoy doing here? He tried to find a reason why Malfoy was living with him and his father, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Did Malfoy work for his father in this world? Or were they both adopted? The first reason seemed more logical.

“Elias?” Draco asked, hesitantly coming into the other boy’s room. “Are you ok?”

Elias blinked slowly, as though he had just woken up from a concussion and was trying to figure out what happened. In some ways, that was exactly what was happening. It had been nearly a week since Elias had had his episode and was finally beginning to wake up. Even after his former healer came to visit them and explained what was going on with him, Draco couldn’t help but worry for the older boy. It didn’t seem like he would ever wake up. Every morning, Draco would get a cup of coffee and come sit with the boy for a bit while Snape ate breakfast and got the boy’s potions ready.

Despite the healer’s assurances that he would recover somewhat, Draco couldn’t help but be concerned and he could tell Snape felt the same way. Something about Elias made him feel almost obligated to help the boy; as though he were his little brother despite actually being several months older. Having never had a younger sibling before, it was an interesting and rather uncomfortable sensation to have.

Walking into Elias’s room and seeing the boy sitting up and looking around, no matter how confused he seemed to be, immediately filled him with a happiness he didn’t expect to feel while at the potion master’s house.

“Elias, I’m going to let Professor Snape know you’re awake,” Draco said, setting his coffee on the dresser and quickly walked down the stairs to the kitchen. The professor had been slowly perusing the newspaper when he had left and Draco doubted very much that he was done with it by now.

Indeed, Severus was still sitting at the kitchen table, slowly stirring his porridge and reading an article on the increase in mysterious disappearances within the wizarding communities. If the Minister would just open his eyes to the possibility of the Dark Lord being back, the disappearances wouldn’t be all that mysterious at all. Oddly enough, one name of those who had disappeared was still missing: Harry Potter. It seemed as though Dumbledore had yet to actually notify the Ministry of the boy’s disappearance; a fact which Severus was actually quite thankful for.

A flurry of footsteps coming into the kitchen pulled him from his thoughts as he looked up, eyebrow raised, as Draco attempted to remain stoic despite having nearly run into the room.

“Elias is awake,” Draco said, voice nearly quivering with excitement.

Severus dropped the newspaper immediately and resisted the urge to run up the stairs. The past week had been a long and arduous one as he worked to get potions down his son in a bid to stabilize him. He had feared it would be a lost cause, that he would have to take Healer Shannon’s recommendation that he take the boy to St. Mungo’s. If they hadn’t seen any improvement in his condition in the next few days, that was indeed the course of action he planned to take.

Each day, they had seen minor improvements in the boy’s condition, but he stubbornly refused to wake up. The twitching and spasms slowly subsided as the new potions regime took effect and occasionally he would moan or roll himself over, but keeping him responsive was nigh impossible. As much as it pained him, Severus knew he was not capable of continuing to care for the boy in this state if it persisted. It pained him greatly to look at the boy, who very much resembled his mother while sleeping, and know that this situation was beyond him.

Gently pushing open the door, Severus couldn’t help but feel his face relax and the tension he had felt in his shoulders slowly dissipate as he saw Elias looking around in wonder and confusion. He truly was awake!

“Good morning, Elias,” Severus said gently.

Elias blinked rapidly as he looked over at his … father? Potions professor? It was very confusing. “M-m-morning s-sir.”

“Do you know where you are?” Severus asked, noting the ‘sir’ at the end of Elias’s statement.

“H-home?” Elias frowned, looked around for a moment before rolling onto his side to try and get a better look at the room, face immediately taking on a slightly green tone as his head spun from the movement.

Severus nodded before summoning a bin to place next to his son’s bed in case his stomach decided to revolt. Thankfully it had been nearly an hour since he had last spelled potions into the boy’s stomach so he wouldn’t have to worry about them making a repeat appearance. Elias had been lying mostly still for the better part of a week and subsisting on medicinal and nutrient potions, a bit of lightheadedness and nausea was to be expected.

“How are you feeling?” Severus asked as he conjured a glass of water to place on the bedside table.

Elias swallowed heavily before gingerly rubbing his eyes. Focusing on anything was difficult and his thoughts kept seeming to get trapped or fading into a mist. “F-f-fog-ggy.”

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Severus asked, noting some movement out of the corner of his eye as Draco entered the room and leaned against the door frame. As much as he wanted to ask if Elias remembered his name, he couldn't very well ask that kind of sensitive question while Draco was in the room. He could only hope Elias was able to play the part without knowing it.

“I… D-d-did you…” Elias stumbled over the words, looking increasingly confused as he tried to put together what had happened prior to his episode before finally blurting out “Chinese?”

“Yes, we did have Chinese take-away,” Severus said, barely resisting the urge to chuckle. Of all the things to remember, the food was the first thing on his mind. He was a teenage boy, after all, and, despite his thin frame, he still had the notorious ‘growing boy’ appetite.

“S-s-sounds g-good,” Elias said, nodding his head slightly. “C-can I get-t up?”

“Do you need the loo?” Severus asked, helping his son sit on the side of the bed.

Elias nodded, face flushing red at the thought of admitting to his father that he needed to go. He didn’t just want to go to the loo, however. He had a sneaking suspicion he wasn’t going to be getting out of bed for a few days and wanted to get some books or something to work on when his head was feeling less full of fluff. Something was niggling the back of his brain that he had an assignment due, though he couldn’t think of which class it was for.

Suddenly, he felt an emptying sensation in his lower abdomen. His eyes went wide and he tried to cover his shock. Had he just wet the bed? In front of his father? And Malfoy? How had that happened?! He didn’t even feel like he needed to go that bad!

“-as? Elias?” Severus’s voice cut through his thoughts like a knife. “Breathe. It was an elimination spell so you don’t have to get up.”

Elias blinked in confusion as he looked under the covers. An elimination spell? Had Snape just made him wet himself? He didn’t feel wet, but maybe that was part of the spell too. Why would Snape do that to him? Why would he make him wet himself when he could have just gone to the toilet?

Why were his pants dry if he had just wet himself?

“They aren’t wet, Elias,” Snape said sadly, watching as the wheels turned staggeringly slowly in his son’s head. “The elimination spell gets rid of waste products and banishes them.”

Elias frowned before slowly touching the bed under him. His frown only deepened when his hand did truly come away dry. How? Part of his brain was saying it was magic but another was screaming that magic wasn’t real and he was a freak for believing in it. It was so confusing.

This entire thing was confusing. His name was Harry, but that’s not the name he went by. His father was alive but he was also dead. He lived with his aunt and uncle, but he also lived on the streets and worked for a gardening company, but he also lived with his father (who may or may not be dead). Magic wasn’t real, but it also very much was and he went to school to study it, but he wasn’t allowed to go to school to study it because of his bad wiring but he had an assignment due for school that he needed to do. He knew everything fit together, but for the life of him he couldn’t figure out how to piece them all together.

Suddenly a flash of realization crossed his mind: whether Voldemort knew who he was or not, he was after him. He needed to get away. He needed to be somewhere safe, like Hogwarts. But he couldn’t go to Hogwarts. And the Dursleys had kicked him out… hadn’t they? They had sent him to live on his own and… no, that was a lie. Where could he go? Snape was a Death Eater, and Draco probably was one as well.

He was going to die, he just knew it. If only he could make sense of it!

“Elias?” Severus said, noting the boy’s breathing continued to quicken. “Draco, get me a calming draught.”

Pulling his knees up to his chest and grabbing his hair, Elias began to rock back and forth trying in vain to calm his pounding heart and racing breaths. A low moan began to fill the room as he rocked, tears streaming down his face as panic continued to take hold. Vaguely he could feel a warm arm wrap around him and pull him close, but he couldn’t tell who it was or where it was coming from. All he knew was he was going to die, someone was going to turn him in and he was going to die. He was going to be lying there and staring at the stars overhead just like Cedric had been and no one would know and he would rot away with no one knowing or caring where he was.

“Noooooo,” Elias’s heart wrenching moan pulling Severus onto his bed in an effort to calm the boy. The desire to jump into his son’s mind and help him sort through whatever was causing him to panic was extreme, but he knew it wouldn’t be beneficial to helping his son in the slightest. Even with his own Slytherins, he would occasionally reach out and gently prod their minds to better understand what was causing their distress, but he couldn’t do that to his son. Not without potentially causing him extreme pain and possibly even setting back the tenuous progress they had made over the past few days.

“Shh, Elias,” Severus said softly, leaning the panicked boy onto his chest and holding him close. “You are fine. You didn’t have an accident. I’m sorry to have frightened you; I didn’t believe it would be a good idea for you to be getting up and walking to the toilet just yet.”

The toilet? Had he needed to go to the toilet? Harry didn’t know… or should he think of himself as Elias? That’s what his father was calling him.

“Thank you, Draco,” Severus said, taking the vial of calming draught from the pale boy.

“What made him panic?” Draco asked as Severus spelled half of the vial into Elias’s stomach and waited, momentarily rubbing his hand up and down the boy’s back but stopping when he felt a spasm race down the boy’s spine. Slowly, the boy’s moans began to quiet and he began to relax from his self imposed fetal position. “Was it just the elimination spell?”

Pulling a handkerchief out of one of the pockets of his housecoat, Severus slowly dabbed at his son’s face before offering it to the boy to hold. “I don’t know, Draco. It could have been any number of things, but the elimination spell certainly triggered it. Once he’s more calm...”

“‘m g-g-gonna d-d-d-die,” Elias mumbled mournfully as he played with the soft edging on the handkerchief.

Severus and Draco immediately froze and looked at the boy in shock. Had he been more awake during the past week than they had thought? If so, he must have felt as though he were dying. He had hardly moved, he hadn’t been able to eat, and all of his most basic needs had been attended to via spell. It must have been terrifying.

“That is most certainly not true,” Severus said, tilting the boy’s chin up so he could look him in the eye. “You are not going to die.”

Elias shook his head and swiped his eyes with the handkerchief quickly before going back to playing with the edging on it.

“Why do you think you’re going to die?” Draco asked, coming and sitting on the end of the bed.

“‘e’s g-g-gonna f-f-find-d me!” Elias stuttered, feeling oddly subdued by the potion. It was as though his heart wanted to race but had thought better of it.

“Your uncle?” Draco pondered, frowning at the thought. “He won’t find Severus’s house. Besides, we’re going to be going back to Hogwarts soon.”

Elias shook his head exasperatedly before locking eyes with Severus. “Not him. Him.”

Severus’s blood immediately ran cold. The nightmare which set off this episode had been about ‘him.’ Elias had been insistent that ‘he’ was mad. That ‘he’ couldn’t find him. That he didn’t want ‘him’ to find him. At the time, he had thought ‘he’ was Harry’s muggle uncle. Severus hadn’t thought much of it at the time, only that the timing was unfortunate as they had just come back from a Death Eater meeting.

Could there have been something more to this fear?

“Who is ‘him’?” Draco asked innocently.

“HIM!” Elias insisted, head swimming as his panic tried to override the calming draught.

“But who…” Draco said, only to be interrupted by a glare from Severus.

“Elias, no one knows exactly where you are other than Draco, myself, and one healer who has now returned to Belarus,” Severus said, choosing his words carefully. “No one is actively searching for you. Neither Draco nor myself have any intention of turning you over to any person who may or may not be searching for you at this time. Understood?”

Elias hesitated before nodding once more and slowly laying his head against his father’s chest and shakily offering the rather damp handkerchief back to him. It was hard to understand what was happening, why there were three stories in his head, but his father’s insistence that he was safe helped to calm him somewhat. He was still certain that people would be coming after him, but maybe he wasn’t being lied to. Maybe he truly was safe. Maybe he could trust his safety to someone. Maybe someone actually had his best interests at heart.

Maybe, just maybe.