Disclaimer: No need to sue...I still don't claim to own anyone except Leah.

Chapter Eight:

It was hours later that Severus began to become aware of his surrounding, light threatening to push past his closed eyelids and make him wake up. Images of the past few hours flooded into his head and tears began to flow down his cheeks as the image of Leah's tattered body presented itself in his minds' eye. He shook the image out of his head, forcing himself to open his eyes, knowing the image wouldn't be out in the open. He blinked a few times to get his pupils to adjust to the bright lights around him and realized he was in St. Mungo's again. He sighed and tried to sit up to get a better look at his ward when pain seared through his arms and shoulders. He laid back down carefully, trying not to aggravate his muscle's any more than he had.

He sighed and turned his head to the right and saw that the ward was completely full. The seven students were in bed, all beginning to wake from their sleep and look around as well. A latch clicked and the door at the far end of the ward opened to reveal Professor Dumbledore who was wearing a grim expression, the usual twinkle in his eyes no longer present. He walked down the middle of the room slowly, pausing at each student's bed to check on them and see how they were fairing. When he reached Severus' bed his lips turned up at the corners to produce a small smile that held no happiness, only comfort.

Severus could hold in no longer and burst out, "Where is she? How is she? What happened, why are we here?" Dumbledore held up his hand to bring a halt to the questions and summoned a chair so he could sit next to Severus.

He took in a deep breath and looked at Severus with sad eyes. He braced himself for the worst, praying that she was at least alive. "She is down the hall in a private ward being treated for a number of curses, potion miss use, and rape and battery. She is in a coma for the time being, and the mediwitches say that it is mostly up to her to pull through this. She went through a lot Severus, who knows how much more she could have taken before she died."

He paused for a brief second before pushing on with the explanation. "It seems that young Miss Lestrange and Mrs. Malfoy had a plan that went terribly wrong, and you are here thanks to Mrs. Malfoy who sought the Auror's assistance in California to rescue you all."

Severus fought back tears as he listened to Dumbledore's accounts of what happened down in the vault before he had woken up, chained to the damp wall. He shivered as he imagined the pain she must have gone through. They had beat her physically, used pain enhancing potions, cut her with knives and such, as well as used the Unforgivable curse twelve consecutive times for approximately five minute intervals, with only a minutes rest before being hit again. His face visibly paled as he realized that Leah may not live through this account, but pushed all thoughts of her dying out of his mind. He wouldn't think like that, he couldn't think like that. If anything, he was going to remain strong for her sake, and get revenge on who ever had hurt her.

Dumbledore cleared his throat and Severus brought his attention back to the present. "You and the students will be back at Hogwarts for the coming semester so get your rest. You will need it."

Soon enough, spring was breaking through winter's blanket and every day brought more hope and more despair with it. It was the middle of March, almost three months after the events in the vault and Leah had made very little progress. Severus found himself thinking about Leah every moment; wondering how she was progressing, praying she would wake up, and thinking up a plan to get to Jackson Mable and kill him. Normally, he would have convinced the Dark Lord that he was a bad Death Eater and have him killed, but since he had blown his cover the summer before and was now under the security of Dumbledore that wasn't much of an option.

He pulled himself out of bed and wandered over to his adjoining bathroom, preparing to tackle another day. He wasn't prepared at all. He still ached, had to constantly take pain relieving potions, and didn't think he could make it through yet another school day without seeing Leah's smiling face peering up at him from her story-telling perch on his desk. It was true, he hated her sitting on his desk, disrupting the natural order of things, but now he would give anything to have her back there.

He turned on the shower, undressed, and stepped under the warm water, letting it slide down his body and ease away his pain. He let the tears fall freely, knowing the water would wash them away. He didn't know if he could still handle the stress of teaching five days a week, didn't know if he could measure up the teacher Leah had been. Images of her through the years wandered in and out of his mind as he took a second to reminisce about each one. One of her in a blue cotton dress in the middle of summer that accented her eyes, her hair up in high pigtails, running around and jumping out of trees, then getting scolded by her mother when she broke her arm. Her at the sorting ceremony, in average black robes, her wild, frizzy, curly hair down around her face, her blue eyes staring out at the crowd in the Great Hall as the hat yelled out Gryffindor. He had been proud of her then. Her in her Gryffindor robes sitting in the back of his sixth year potions class, blowing up cauldrons and purposefully adding wrong ingredients just to see what it would do; staring up at him with those sapphire eyes daring him to punish her. He never did. Her walking through his door only months before, bouncing up and down on her heels because she was nervous, staring down at her feet, asking if she could be his assistant.

He stepped out of the shower, dried off, and walked back into his bedroom to his dresser. He pulled out black slacks, a long sleeve black shirt and got dressed. He sat down on his bed to put on his shoes and socks, memories of Leah still running through his head. He saw her sitting on his bed, crying because she'd been unable to save a young girl of about seven at a raid on a muggle community. Her eyes were puffy and red from crying, her nose stuffy, and her dark black curls were pulled away from her face in a high and messy ponytail. He had held her tight that night as she sobbed hysterically, saying that she didn't know if she could handle the pressure of being who she was. At the time he hadn't known who or what she was, but he hadn't pressed the subject. She had looked up at him from under those long lashes, blue eyes boring into his soul, and he had known at that moment that he loved her. She appeared strong and brave, but underneath it all she was still a young woman trying to get by in life, and that night he had known that he would always be there to protect her from harm.

He snorted at this last revelation as he pulled on his robes. He had done a great job of that one, protecting Leah from harm. She was far away, in the hospital, attempting to heal from her injuries in the vault. He pushed down the sickening feeling that was threatening to rise in his throat as the images from that horrible day invaded his memory. He turned around, half expecting her to be there, standing in his doorway in the nonchalant manner she had perfected over the years. Her left arm above her head on the doorframe, right hand in the pocket of her favorite blue jeans-the ones with the hole in the left knee from where she had fell down the stairs rushing to class- a smile on her face, and her bright eyes sparkling with mischief. He waited for life to be like some sort of fairy tale, where the heroine wakes up from her deep slumber just in time to save him from himself; to reassure him that life went on and that all was going to be fine as she enveloped him in a warm embrace. But she wasn't here, she never was. His room was dark and empty. He stood up and walked across the room and opened the door, pushing down the thought that he may never see Leah in that room again.