"Can you stand?"

Tonks lifted her head slowly, unsure that she was actually awake and not dreaming. She forced her eyes open and stared blearily at Severus through the slits allowed by her bruised and swollen eyelids. "Stand?" she croaked hoarsely.

He crossed the room and knelt at her side, his wand pointing toward the tethered end of her chains. "Bombarda!" Tonks was showered in rock shards and crumbling mortar before she could do more than cringe.

"Severus?" Her voice was not improving with use, she realized – she had spent too much of the previous days screaming.

He eased the chains up from the ground. "These will have to be removed once you are free of this place. But we must make haste, the Dark Lord has called Bellatrix and Ferris away for an extended mission but I would not trust Bellatrix not to slip back and check on her favorite victim." He took her arm and tried to pull her to her feet but stopped when she cried out in pain.

"Lumos!" he demanded. With cold detachment he studied her hands and arms in the light cast by his wand. Four more of her fingers had joined the fate of the first one and were swollen and discolored. The rest of her visible skin was mottled by dark angry bruises and he thought he might have felt the bones in her forearm move unnaturally beneath his hand. He turned his attention to her face and tried to block out the sound of her shallow breathing, certainly her ribs had sustained significant damage. While he had been able to prevent Bellatrix from killing Tonks, his presence had not kept the woman from doing her niece grievous harm.

"Can you stand?" he repeated.

Tears eased down her cheeks even as she nodded. "I can try."

"I will assist you if need be," he said slowly but rose and stepped back to allow her the attempt on her own. He kept hold of the chains for fear that their weight would prove too much for her weakened body. "Once we have departed this place I can aparate us away but we cannot do so from within these walls. Your aunt is very thorough."

Tonks nodded and with exaggerated care managed to gain her feet. When she swayed, Severus' arm snaked around her waist and prevented her from falling to a heap on the floor. She managed to shuffle halfway across the room before her strength gave out andhe lifted her from her feet. He carried her through a maze of corridors and rooms and she was surprised by his gentleness. She had never expected him to possess such caring. It was her last thought before the black oblivion that had been niggling at her consciousness finally flooded in and claimed her as its own.

Once outdoors, Severus Snape glanced down at his unconscious burden and studied her by the light of the quarter moon. He had been unnerved by the lightness of her body when he gathered her in his arms, almost as disturbed as he had been upon taking a good look at her face in the dungeon. Had he not already been assured of her identity, he would never have recognized her beneath the abuse she had suffered.

As the days of Tonks' capture had progressed, Bellatrix had used fewer and fewer healing spells. She preferred to heap injuries upon one another until her prisoner was nothing remotely similar to her former self. The worst Tonks looked, the happier Bellatrix became until she was nearly manic with joy. Snape had no question about Tonks' chances of survival should she remain under Bellatrix' care.

He was grudgingly impressed with Tonks' endurance, she had never broken, not truly. There had been a point at which he had almost wished the woman had offered up some tidbit of information just so she might have gained a modicum of relief, no matter how fleeting. But the truth of it was that she had fared far better than he would ever have suspected.

She needed St. Mungo's. But as much as she desperately required healing, she needed to be among the people who loved her and whom she loved. Repeatedly, under Bellatrix' ministrations, she had called out for Remus to help her, to save her. Severus doubted Tonks had even been aware of it at the time, she had been out of her mind with agony, but he knew Bellatrix would deduce which Remus her niece had pleaded for. It was only a matter of time before the werewolf became a target himself. Tonks deserved to see Lupin at the very least, as a measure of reward for her bravery before he was found and taken in himself.

He tightened his hold on her, deafening his ears to the muffled sob she made against his chest, and aparated to Grimmauld Place. He had sent word earlier in the day that the Order was to prepare for Tonks' return – he just had not gone into details.

"Remus, Severus is bringing her home to us." Molly mopped inefficiently at her eyes with a damp handkerchief. She passed him the scrap of parchment that had appeared at the Burrow just that afternoon.

"Knew he had to know where she was," Moody grumbled. "Took his time telling us though, didn't he."

Remus accepted the paper and read the words – twice.

Will return with her by evening.

S

"Constant vigilance," Remus said at last, crumpling the note in his hand. "He most likely could not get a message through to us sooner without risking exposure."

His heart pounded in his chest. Tonks was coming back. He did not miss, however, the lack of news of her condition. The possibilities loomed hugely in a void of information.

The slamming of the manor's front door jolted them all and awoke Mrs. Black.

"Filth! A disgrace on the house of Black! Disgusting mudblood traitor!"

Remus nearly felled his chair in his haste to rise. They all fled the room in a rush and without a word.

"Nymphadora?" Remus' feet would not carry him any further once his eyes had taken in Snape and his charge.

"It's her," Severus said in a strangled voice. "She requires assistance I cannot provide." He crossed to Remus and deposited Tonks in the stunned man's arms. "Moody, a break in must be staged." In a sweep of robes Severus had left again, the cool night breeze swirling in through the opened door as Moody moved to follow.

/to be continued/