When Remus woke up, he felt like a house had sat on him. Hi head was throbbing, various portions of his anatomy registered bruises or annoying lesions, and he was cold. When he finally managed to think past these aches, he immediately tried to move and find Severus and he immediately regretted it. He was unable to contain his scream as the burns and wounds around his neck from the silver collar awoke with a vengeance. It took several moments for the flare of pain from the movement to die down and for him to realize that someone was patting his arms and talking to him in a quiet voice. Remus risked opening one eye and saw a small, thin boy standing in front of him. The boy gasped and darted away. Remus closed his eyes, then he heard another voice speaking.

"Are you awake now?" The young female voice from before spoke.

It took two tries as Remus' throat was sore from screaming, but he was able to rasp out.

"Yes"

"George says that you shouldn't move. That it will hurt so much that you will go back to sleep. Ok?"

"Ok."

"Do you want some water?"

"Yes please."

Remus heard a pair of small feet moving across the stone floor, then a piece of metal was pressed against his mouth. He greedily drank all the water that was in it, wincing as it made his throat hurt. Then the feet retreated.

"Thank you for the water."

"George says that you should go back to sleep now. He says that you will feel better when you wake up again."

"Thank you." And Remus gladly passed out again.

When Remus next awoke, Severus was lying back in his best of blankets and Remus was sitting with his back to the wall next to him. Remus asked for more water in a hoarse voice and the little girl obliged him. Much to Remus' surprise, his neck did feel better and he stowed that fact away to think about later. Then the girl sat next to him, and after a few moments and some coaxing an extremely wary little boy came forward. They couldn't have been more than five years old. Remus smiled wearily at them and they relaxed a bit.{They're like wild animals. Though I'm not far off at this point. Between the moon cycle and my own fears…} All of that convinced Remus to take the lead.

"My name is Remus Lupin. You can call me Remus."

"My name is Selena. This is George."

"It's nice to meet you. Thank you for helping me. Did you guys help Severus?"

"Yeah, we tried to fix him. George did most of the work. I don't know if it worked, but we tried."

"From what I saw it looks like you did a good job. His bones were all set right and nothing is infected."

"That was mostly George. He's good with that kind of thing. He's part dark faerie."

Remus looked a little closer then nodded his head. George was indeed a dark faerie and upon closer look he could tell that Selena was at least part naga. In return for the confidence just uttered, he offered one of his own.

"I'm a werewolf."

The two nodded, satisfied and relaxed completely.

"So do you know what happened?"

"The nasty men came and took me and George out of the orphanage. We fought as hard as we could, but we couldn't get away and it just made them meaner. Then all of a sudden we were here and there were a lot of the nasty men. Then this really scary guy made us come forward one at a time and he said a lot of weird words. Then it hurt a lot and we all fell down. When we woke up, the grown ups next door were all fighting off some of the beasties that the nasty men didn't put in other rooms. George and I saved your Severus, but the adults next door said that we couldn't put him in their room because he was one of the nasty men. But he's not because he's hurt and he's in here with us. So we took him and found this room. Then George fixed him. And I am trying to find a way out of here." This all happened in one breath and Remus was quite impressed.

"Well it looks like you did a great job. But do you know why he isn't awake?"

"George said he might wake up when he fixed his body or maybe he got hurt so bad it broke something in his head."

Remus glanced and saw George nod his confirmation. "You're a healer aren't you?"

"Yes, he is." The two had obviously been together for a while and were very used to Selena doing all of the talking.

"Has anything else happened? Anything you can warn me about? Do the nasty men come in here? Do people leave and not come back?"

"The nasty men don't come in, they just bring food. And everyone who was here when we started is here now."

"Some of the animals have died." George's voice was low and quiet. Remus could barely hear him, even with his enhanced hearing.

"Why did they put a collar on you?" Selene pushed on, her curiousity evident.

"It's because I'm a werewolf. They thought it was funny to treat me like a dog."

"Why did the collar hurt you? It didn't hurt me when I took it off."

"Thank you for taking it off. It would eventually have killed me, but that's because I'm allergic to silver?"

"And the collar was made from silver. It looks yucky"

"I'm sure it does. But don't worry about it. It's going to leave a nasty scar, but it will heal quickly." Selene and George nodded. Remus continued thinking. Several of the animals that he had seen would not take well to living in captivity without major precautions that were definitely not present. But something in both of the children's voices told him that they weren't telling him everything.

"I'm sorry that the animals died, George. But how do you try to escape, Selene? Aren't we locked in here?"

"We are, but my friends aren't."

"Friends? There are more children here?"

"No, no. Hold on, let me see if one of them will come out." Selene moved near the wall and Remus noticed that there was a small hole in the wall. Selene made a sound and Remus felt his jaw drop as he recognized Parsletongue from his time with Harry. A moment later a snake came through the hole and Selene came back.

"See. They look around for me."

Remus knew what was proper etiquette for snakes and he didn't try to pretend to be brave or unafraid.

"That is a beautiful snake. I'm glad that he is helping you."

The snake hissed, then Selene smiled.

"Sssineesss says that you are being honest. He also says you have been marked by a snake. Do you have a friend too?"

Remus blinked his surprise. Then he remembered Harry,, and smiled. "My nephew has snake friends too. He must have marked me."

"Really? That's cool. Tell me about him!"

"I will, but later. I need to find out what's going on first. Is there anything else the two of you can tell me?"

Selene and George exchanged looks. Then, surprisingly, George spoke. "The marks on our backs… the one that the scary man put on us. Every couple of hours they burn and hurt us. Then you can't do anything. Your limbs feel like lead, it's hard to breathe, and all you want to do is sleep."

Remus took a breath, then let it out slowly. From the symptoms that George had described, it sounded like Voldemort had found some fort of energy draining spell. That would easily explain why they were all still alive after meeting both the death eaters and Voldemort. This would also explain why Voldemort was willing to risk so many death eaters in an unsupported attack.

He then turned to the two kids. "How long till the next attack?"

The two kids looked at him sadly. "Not long. We need to go to our beds."

"Then you should go to bed. We can talk more when I wake up again."

The two nodded. Then Selena turned back to him. "You are going to help him?"

"Child, I'm not just going to help him. I'm going to help you two as well."

Selene flung herself into Remus arms. Remus was surprised, but he hugged her hard. He had no problem comforting this child and if a hug would do that, then he would hug her as long as he could. Then Selene pulled back and the two children ran back to their beds. Moving carefully, Remus curled around Severus. Not a moment later, pain flattened him and he fled into unconsciousness.

Remus could feel someone tugging at him and he opened his eyes to see George's concerned eyes peering down at him. He gave the boy a weak smile, then sat up slowly. He again felt drained, but his neck didn't hurt as bad as it had before. He could see that Selene was not awake yet, but George appeared to be wide awake and healthy.

"So your heritage lets you heal fast too?"

George nodded.

"Thank you for waking me up. We need to tend to Severus. Do you want to help me?"

George nodded enthusiastically. Remus then dug the pouch out. The cleansing spell earlier and the info that the kids had told him had confirmed that Voldemort didn't want any active magic in the room. From how tired and drained Remus felt, he was amazed that the others managed to wake up at all. But keeping that in mind, Remus didn't bring any of the potions or enchanted items out. One of the eventualities that he had expected was being thrown into a shield that didn't allow magic to work, so he had supplies that he could use now without warning the death eaters that he had contraband.

George eagerly helped Remus. Very quickly, Severus was covered in new bandages with healing salves that still worked, despite the lack of magic in them. Remus had actually gotten them from Severus shelves. It had been one of the few pleasant moments during his preparation. Severus had used his abilities with potions to come up with several traps for Sirius and James that they had walked straight into because they were relying on the magic detection charm that Remus had found for them. While they were working Remus contemplated George.

Dark faeries, like all faeries, had a natural instinct to heal all wounded things they came across. In fact, the reason why dark faeries were considered dark was that they had a tendency to use spells that were less than consensual. They had been hunted and shunned to the brink of extinction for instinctively using spells. Spells that involved taking energy without consent.

Remus bit off an exclamation as he realized why George was awake so soon. George's natural abilities were making the tattoo on his back useless. George was probably awake and able during the entire draining process. Remus marveled at the ingenuity and ability of the boy to be able to fake succumbing to the spell well enough that Voldemort had let him go into the cage.

But this brought up another idea in Remus' mind. {The spell that Voldemort is using… it must be a variant on a dark faerie spell. There are counters to that… we can break free of Voldemort's control, maybe even make it backfire on him. Sitting right in front of me is the first break we've really had since Harry…}

Something of Remus' thoughts must have shown on his face because George's smile faltered a little. Remus immediately chastised himself. He had no right to be demanding that a child be the salvation of the wizarding world. He had spent a significant portion of his life trying to make it so that Harry didn't have to be. What he did need to figure out was how to get them out of here.

"Sorry for being quiet, George. I was just thinking." Remus smiled again and George relaxed. Then George spoke quietly.

"You are scarring"

"Yes. My body can't heal silver wounds correctly."

"Because you're a werewolf"

"Yes"

George bit his lip for a moment, then pushed up his sleeve. Remus bit back a gasp at the ugly sight of the scar on the boy's arm. He instead stroked it gently. The boy flinched, then relaxed as Remus' strong fingers eased the tension. Remus guessed.

"Iron?"

"Yeah"

"I understand"

"You're not scared?"

"You can see. I'm the same way."

"Many people are scared of me."

"That's because they don't understand. I do."

George's move was unexpected, but Remus once again found himself with an arm full of child. Remus hugged George, then Remus fished in the pouch and brought out some of the food that he had brought with him. George's face lit up and he took some. From what Remus could tell, they had all been surviving on gruel, and the presence of a loaf of bread and cheese was very welcomed. George broke his share in half, then left part of it by Selene before eating his share. Remus was touched once again by their friendship and it firmed his intent to get both of them out safely.

And it needed to be soon. Draining spells were dangerous by themselves, but even more so for children because they needed their own energy to grow and be healthy. So the marks needed to be destroyed and to do that they needed Severus' help. In the course of his investigation, he had concurred with George's opinion. Severus' unconscious state was not due to any of the physical injuries he had. Whether due to the beating he had received, the interaction between the two marks that Severus bore, or something else that Voldemort had done to him, the pain had killed Severus' connection to the world.

There wasn't much that could be done from the outside to help. This was evinced by Neville Longbottom's parents, still lying in a ward in St. Mungo's. But Severus had one ability that neither of the Longbottoms possessed. Severus Snape was a master of Occlumency. It was more than possible that Severus had managed to protect himself from the pain by hiding in his mind. And if that was the case, Remus needed to get in their and convince him to come back out.

Remus was not and would never be a Master of Legilmency. He did not have the concentration or the true desire to know other people's thoughts. But as a part of his education, Albus had insisted that he get the basics of legilmency and occlumency so that he would know if the people around him were trying to trick him into being around them after the full moon. Remus had only managed the very bare basics, not even enough to be able to teach Harry. But it was enough for him to try, and since legilmency was mostly a mental discipline, it shouldn't trigger any magic warnings for the death eaters.

Before Remus could settle down into a trance, Selene woke up. Not finding George beside her, she cried out in fright. Both Remus and George moved to comfort her. It took a few moments, but Selene once again became the perky active child from earlier. She was devouring her share of food in between high pitched statements.

"So you woke up before me too, huh Remus. No fair. I wanna wake up with you guys."

"You didn't miss much, Selene. We were just fixing Severus' bandages."

"Oh. Ok. That is the yucky part. You can do that, then we can escape while I'm awake."

"I agree Selene, but escaping may take a while. But first, I need to wake Severus up."

"Cool. Can we help?"

"Sort of. I think Severus went to hide in his head when they hurt him too much and he doesn't know that it's safe to come out. I need to go into his head to tell him it's safe."

"Oh. Can we watch?"

"It's not going to be very exciting. It's going to look like I'm asleep."

Selene looked sad at that. But Remus had a solution for that. "You may not be able to help with that part, but there are things I need you to do."

"Really! Yay! George and I will help!"

"Good. I have food that I brought with me, so we have plenty to eat. But I need you to keep lookout for me. The scary man might be able to tell what I am doing and send in some nasty men to stop it. I don't want you to fight them, just wake me up so that I can. And if I spend so much time trying that it's almost time for the draining to come, wake me up."

"Ok." Selene was bouncing in place. George was more sedate, but his eyes were bright and he was holding his ear. Selene grabbed George and proceeded to have a strategy meeting for how to keep a lookout. Remus smiled at the two, the meeting reminding him of so many marauder meetings. Then he turned and went back to Severus. Staring deeply into Severus' unseeing eyes, Remus ignored the quiet sounds behind him and fell into a deep trance.

Severus' mind was distinctly odd. Whatever Severus had done, he wasn't trying to prevent anyone from looking at his memories or knowledge. Remus had touched many different places and come away with more information about potions than he would ever understand. He had also seen glimpses of Severus' never mentioned childhood, Severus reading in his chambers, a rather funny shot of one of Severus' counterattacks on Sirius. The list of things that Remus now knew grew and grew, but not one of the things that he had found bore the feeling of Severus himself. The fact that they were here was a good sign, because the mind of a truly insane person did not have the organization that these memories did. But Remus still didn't know what to do next.