Harry was in a daze. He thought he'd heard Snape say that his fever had come back, but he couldn't be sure anymore. He was aware that he was up against something warm, but he dared not believe it was Snape. No, no one would want to keep Harry warm, he didn't deserve it.

Coughing hard and clenching his eyes shut at the pain, Harry weakly tried to fight off a hand that was pushing something that felt like plastic into his hands.

"Potter, you need it."

"No," he groaned. He didn't know who this was that was pretending to try to help him, pretending to like him, but it was a trap. They were trying to feed him something to make him sick, he was sure of it. The Dursley's never gave Harry medicine when he was sick, but once Dudley had brought something to him to take when he had a cold and it had only made him throw up, Dudley standing in the bathroom door behind him laughing all the while.

"You are being difficult."

Harry coughed hard again and it was several tense and painful moments before he was able to stop. "Poison," he said angrily, pushing the person's hand away again. "Get that away from me Dudley. I don't trust you after last time."

Beside him, Severus sighed and dropped his arm with the inhaler. The child was babbling again incoherently. Yesterday it had been about being pushed under the water and held down, and today it was about being fed poison. This illness, which Severus suspected more and more was pneumonia with a touch of something else, was obviously doing a number on his system.

"Harry... Harry look at me."

He waited for the confused green eyes to come up sluggishly to meet his. "The last time I gave you this medicine you were able to breathe again."

"Poison," he said in a huff and looked away.

"What makes you think it's poison?"

"Because you laughed at me," the Gryffindor said as if it were the most obvious and most logical thing in the world. "You knew it would make me sick and you laughed at me."

Severus had laughed at him the day before, but only at his stubborn attempts to pull another table up out of the water. Pampered Potter finally having to do something for himself for once.

"I would not try to harm you."

Harry laughed then. "Fool me once," he said, trailing off.

"And then what?" At this point the only option was to indulge the boy in his feverish conversation, though Severus wasn't enjoying it. He obviously wasn't going to get any straight answers out of the child. Perhaps if he carried on the conversation the boy was determined to have, then he would take his medicine, though Severus himself knew it would do little good as the inhaler was not meant to be used this much. It was his only option however.

"Once is enough," Harry said. "You're not nice Dudley. Moldy bread isn't the same as penicillin."

Severus raised his brows. "You ate moldy bread?"

"You told me it was to make my cold go away. I hate you but I'd never make you eat that." As Harry coughed violently yet again, Severus' mind worked furiously trying to piece together what the child was telling him. Someone had tricked him into eating rotting food? Someone named Dudley.

"Is Dudley your cousin Potter?"

"Of course he is Uncle Vernon, ‘s wrong with you? You're the one that sent him to be mean to me."

Severus felt sick inside suddenly. Obviously the boy was remembering something from his past. If this was true that his family had intentionally made him sick, what else had they done? He knew Petunia Dursley had often been cruel to himself as a child and had despised Lily for her talents, but that was when they were children. Had she been intentionally cruel to her nephew?

Harry eventually drifted off to sleep again as Severus remained deep in thought, trying to recall any other information he had about Harry. If he were to be truthful with himself, he knew very little. He had just assumed that the Gryffindor was pampered as much at home as he was there in the castle by the other staff. Certainly Albus would know if anything was amiss in the home he'd placed the boy in, he had enough protection charms up around the place. Yet there Harry was, insisting that he'd been poisoned. The boy's pleading voice from before came floating to the surface of his mind then, begging not to be pushed back under the water, insisting he'd behave himself. He turned and stared at Harry's back with critical eyes that felt like they'd finally been opened after being in darkness for too long.

The boy was too defensive about being weak, he was far too thin, and he'd cried heartily all night just at being held to keep warm.

Stomach churning, wondering what all Lily's son had been through, Severus kept watch over the boy as he slept. He could not force this new knowledge from his mind.

* * *

Harry was feeling better, marginally. His eyes felt heavy, his body ached, his lungs were still on fire, and he was still freezing, but some of the haze had finally cleared. He was weak, but at least he could think straight. Snape was being awfully quiet over there on his end of the table, Harry thought as he lay there. The man seemed deep in thought over something, and Harry hoped it was a plan to get them out. There wasn't a lot of room between the water and the ceiling of the corridor, but maybe they could float out on a table like Draco had done. Harry was still desperately hungry, but he didn't want to risk asking for food.

Now that he was awake and feeling over-rested despite his weakness, he was feeling properly ashamed of crying openly in his Professor's arms before, though he wasn't sure if that had been hours or days ago. One day blended into the next, and he only knew a new day had come and gone by the time on his Professor's watch. The room was dark because the windows were under water, and Harry longed for dry ground and the warm sun on his face. If they were to somehow survive this disaster, those were things he would not take for granted again.

Harry wasn't sure if he was hallucinating or not, but he jumped when he thought he saw something in the water a few feet in front of him, startling his Professor.

"What is it?" Snape asked, suddenly alert and wondering if Harry was alright.

He peered into the darkness only lit by their wands, and squinted at the water. "Nothing I guess," he said, trying to relax his aching muscles. Sleeping on hard tables hadn't done his body much good. "I thought I saw something."

Severus stared into the water and lifted his wand for more light, even muttering a lumos maxima, but nothing was visible. "You were having trouble differentiating reality from dreams earlier. How are you feeling?" he asked, and Harry glanced at him sideways, wondering what he'd said.

"Hungry, weak," Harry said, forgoing stating that he felt like crap, though he was pretty sure the man knew. He didn't look so peachy himself.

"Do you know where you are?"

"On a table in the larger defense classroom," Harry said, looking at him, but out of the corner of his eye he saw something glimmer just under the surface again, and he aimed his wand at it quickly hoping to catch a glimpse, but seeing nothing.

Severus mimicked his movements, but was also unable to discern anything out of the ordinary.

"It has been a traumatizing experience," he said then. "Perhaps you need more rest."

"No," Harry said, "there's something there, I'm not imagining it." He could tell by the raised brow that the Potion's Master didn't believe him however, and he crossed his arms weakly in annoyance. "I'm not seeing things," Harry insisted again before turning his back on the man, not wanting to see himself coming under such scrutiny.

As they shivered there in the darkness in quiet, Harry keeping his eyes peeled on the water for any proof that he was right, he fought the urge to admit to himself, that he might have enjoyed being comforted for once, and pretending like somebody cared for him and his wellbeing. He would give anything to feel that way again, even if it was only pretend. He had no idea that behind him, worried eyes watched him, concerned about little else except his wellbeing.