Sorry this took so long. I hope this is enough to hold you all over for awhile.
Piper and Snape reappeared in a broken and charred fireplace. Piper recognized the fireplace and immediately started kicking to be let down. Snape put her on the ground and she stood where he had placed her.
"This is your home, Piper," he told her. "You cannot live here."
Piper toddled through the remains of the living room, occasionally pausing to glance at something. Somehow her house seemed different. Something seemed to call her. She toddled to what was calling her.
Snape looked up at the sky as if to ask, "Why me?" He followed the small child around the burned pieces that were once a house.
Piper passed through the doorway and followed the path to the small garden her parents had kept. The vegetables were slowly rotting. Weeds that were once pulled out every day were thriving. Piper walked to where a small fountain was. The fountain was clean, surprisingly.
"After all that walking, you want to play in a fountain?" Snape asked. There was a reason he did not like children, they never thought things through and were always either lazy or rushed.
As Snape was rolling his eyes, he noticed something strange. The fountain seemed to be covered in small handprints. All the hands pointed to one spot. The one spot was a circle.
While Snape was inspecting the fountain, Piper amused herself by piling dirt into the fountain and watching it disappear.
Snape grew very curious as to the origin of the fountain. Why would someone create a fountain with handprints leading to a circle? "Maybe," he mused to himself, "if someone was hiding something..."
Snape pulled out his wand and muttered a few words. The circle split down the diameter and the fountain shook a little. Piper made a squeak-like noise and ran to hide behind Snape. She clutched his robes and peered around his leg.
The fountain continued shaking until it split in half. The halves pulled apart to reveal a staircase.
"Interesting," Snape murmured. He began to walk forward, towards the staircase, when he noticed a child clinging to his leg. He automatically bent down and picked up Piper. If he was not so absorbed in the staircase, he would have been surprised to notice his actions. He balanced Piper on his hip and went down the stairs. Torches on the walls sprang to life and crackled with fire. The air became cool with each step. A stench assaulted their noses.
Snape recognized the smell. It was the smell of burnt flesh and death.
Piper pinched her nose and buried her face in Snape's shoulder.
Snape paid no attention to Piper and kept walking. He reached the end of the stairs and the room lit up with torches.
Snape felt his stomach clench and bile rising up his throat. There were people, or rather, what remained of people chained to walls and in cages.
Needless to say, Snape left there quickly, if not for his own sake, then for Piper's.
-After Snape had taken Piper to her new home and reported to Dumbledore what he had found, Snape was back in the room that could only be described as a dungeon. Not that he wanted to be, of course.
They were now looking to see if they were indeed all dead. They being Dumbledore, Lupin, and Snape. The ministry would arrive later.
They opened up cages and checked pulses. They noticed that there were house-elves in the cages as well.
"It looks as though they were experimenting," Lupin commented.
"But, why?" Snape asked.
Dumbledore let out a surprised cry from his corner. In a caged was a girl who looked almost exactly like Piper, only older. She was hardly breathing.
The other two ran to the corner where Dumbledore was pulling out chocolate and water from his many pockets.
-Lupin and Snape were pacing outside of Hogwarts' hospital wing. Dumbledore sat calmly, deep in thought. They had brought the girl to Hogwarts to be tended by Madam Pomfrey. She had yet to come out with a diagnosis.
At long last, Madam Pomfrey came out and shut the door behind her. She whispered quietly, "She is asleep and in stable condition. She will be in no state to talk to you, any of you," here she gave a look to Dumbledore, "for a few days. She is lucky to be alive."
Before any more words could be exchanged, she walked back into her hospital wing, shut the door, and locked it. No one would be getting in tonight.