Found:

With her new found hope, she took the time to actually look around at what was happening. Yes, she knew the house was on fire, beams were slowly falling, and her leg was on fire. But what she didn't know was that there was a beam on her leg, and that was what was holding her leg down. If only she could just get her leg free, she might have a chance. She struggled in an intense battle with the beam, and lost.

She remembered the popping noise and fought harder, thrashing about, knowing that if she could only free her leg, she could hop up and help whoever would save her. That is, if they were here to save her. It was still quite possible that it was her father who had come back to watch her burn. That thought chilled her almost enough to offset the heat of the flames around her.

Even if it was her father, nobody was going to save her if she was dead. So, it was settled, she would try to survive, even if it was no use. At least she would die trying.

Finally, her leg seemed to move. She slid it slowly and painfully out from under the beam, and cried out as it finally was free. Even with her leg being out, she could not stand up. She was simply in too much pain, exhausted, thirsty, and choking on smoke. She heard the front door creak open and footsteps above her head. She wanted so desperately for them to hear her, save her, kill her, anything. Though, when she tried to yell out, all that came out was a pitiful screech. She banged her hands on the ground, but that only brought down more ash from the ceiling.

She heard the footsteps walk back towards the front door, and finally her voice was higher than a whisper.

"Please! He-" She choked on smoke and couldn't finish her cry for help. She heard the footsteps pause, and she sighed. But then, they walked out of the house and she heard the door slam. "NO! Come back!" She felt tears coming on now. She knew she was doomed. That hope that had risen in her chest collapsed and a little part of her died inside, realizing again that nobody cared. She was just some girl, a nuisance even. Her vision went fuzzy and she coughed. Her end was soon to come. Please be quick.

For about ten minutes, she went in and out of consciousness, gasping for fresh air. If she wasn't burned alive, she would suffocate.

xXx

A man strolled through the corridors, glaring at the simplest of things. The moving pictures, the floor, even the gargoyle in which he stood in front of at the moment. "Cinnamon swirls" He growled. He hadn't meant to growl, it just came naturally. The gargoyle jumped to the side, revealing a moving staircase. He stepped onto the first step, and waited until the stairs stopped moving and he was in front of a door. He had only knocked twice when an old voice came softly, "Come in!" Stepping inside, he sighed.

"What is it? I have things to do, Albus." He huffed.

"That you do, Severus, that you do." With that, Severus glared at him, why couldn't anything be easy with Albus? Pushing all thoughts aside, Severus waited for Albus to continue. "Severus, I need you to fetch someone for me." A pause and more information poured out of the old man's mouth. "You see . . . this is an important person, and she is in grave danger I fear."

"She?" Severus asked, finally interested.

"Yes, she. This young lady will need medical attention when she is brought here. I have already gone to the house she is in, but I think it will be better for you to be the one to save her."

"Save her? From what, may I ask?"

"There is no time at the moment, I'm afraid. However, once she is here, at Hogwarts, everything will be explained." Albus said in a rather dismissive tone.

Severus huffed, thought about the order for a second, and finally grunted, "Fine." Albus handed him a piece of paper with an address on it. It must be the address of this girl he must get, he thought.

At last once he was outside the gates of the medieval looking castle, he turned on his heel and apparated to the nearest place to the address as he could. He found himself just outside some woods. Sighing, he took swift steps until he saw a house. This house was on fire. Surely, Albus wouldn't have told him to save a girl from a fire? As much as Severus wanted to turn around and go back to his comfortable quarters back at Hogwarts, he knew he could not turn his back on this place. Someone needed him, and he would not let them down. He wasn't as cold as everybody made him out to be.

He strolled up to the front door and slowly opened the door, cautious of what he might find. Smoke flew out, smothering him. He wheezed, taking a few steps back. If someone was in that house, he didn't know how they could possibly survive all of the smoke. Retrieving his wand from deep within his cloak, he grunted a quick, "Aguamenti" and a blast of water came from his wand. However, the fire seemed to be bewitched, so only a small path was put out, just big enough for Severus to walk through.

Now, the only problem was finding the girl in this three story house. It probably even had a basement for him to search. He would start from the bottom, he decided. He carefully navigated through the house to find an open door that led down into the basement. He had found it, but a beam that had fallen blocked the way down. With a simple, "Evanesco", the beam was gone and Severus continued down his path to the basement. He hoped his efforts were not wasted, and he was very pleased to see the girl in the middle of the floor, still obviously breathing.

The girl seemed to be struggling to stay awake, not a good sign. Severus saw her burn and would have liked to heal her then, but the fire about to engulf them delayed that. At the moment, the most important thing was to get out of the burning house, or else any healing would be pointless. He scooped the girl up and was appalled to feel how light she was. She couldn't be more than five years old, but she felt as light as a toddler might be.

Severus turned around and practically ran through the house and turned on his heel when he reached the grass. The familiar sensation of apparition hit him and he landed easily. He looked down at the girl and mentally face palmed for being so oblivious to her needs. She obviously was in need of immediate medical attention and he had probably made it all worse. He sent his patronus to Albus and waited for a few minutes before Argus Filch came waltzing down the path to unlock the gate. He did so, but took his sweet time doing it.

"Move out of my way, you insufferable fool, can't you see I'm in a hurry?" Severus snapped when Filch stood gaping at the sight of Severus holding a child. Severus sped to the castle, pausing only to open the front doors and then continued to the hospital wing.

Madam Pomfrey came strolling out of her office, and gasped. "What happened to the poor child? And why are you holding her, did you do this Severus?"

"No, I did not, now will you please direct me to the bed in which I may place her?" He spoke so low; it was barely above a whisper.

"That one, what happened to her?"

"Fire." He was efficient in his speech whenever possible. Even so, Poppy Pomfrey raised her eyebrows at this.

The doors slammed against the walls as Albus entered the room.

"Severus, when you found her, was she running such a high fever?" Poppy's voice brought him back to the scene unfolding.

"She was just pulled from a burning house." He growled as he looked at the sweating girl. It was rather chilly on this Halloween night, so she shouldn't be that warm. Albus and Poppy both were already shaking their heads before he got to the word burning.

"No, I am afraid this is much more, I will look her over, but if her fever doesn't go down, I might have to send her to St. Mungos." She began to inspect her leg, which had been burned to the bone. After a few more moments, she moved onto the arms. They were bruised, but not as bad as her back, which was exposed when Poppy turned her over and pulled her shirt up. There were gasps to be heard from all three of the adults around the bed. The girl's back had an infected gash that stretched from her lower back to lower neck. There seemed to be others surrounding it, though they were older and just scars now. There was bruising on her back and face as well. There was so much bruising, in fact, that not even the dimmest human being could mistake it as a mere accident. No, this was obviously due to abuse, and long term at that.

The girl's eyes fluttered open to reveal brown orbs with tints of gold. She looked around and started hyperventilating when she saw Albus and Severus so close to her.

"It is okay, child. Do try and calm down." Albus tried to soothe her to no avail.

"Can't you see that she is scared half to death?" Poppy exclaimed.

Severus glanced at Albus, who seemed to read his mind and nodded, as if giving him permission. "Legilimens" Severus murmured and was pulled into an awful scene.

xXx

"You stupid whore, why can't you do anything I ask right?" An evil man Severus remembered as Tenebris Drake bellowed at the little girl who couldn't have been more than three or four. He slapped her, punched her, and kicked her repeatedly in the stomach, before an evil glint came to his eyes and a sinister grin crept onto his face. He dragged the girl by her hair up two flights of stairs and threw her onto a bed. It was a big bed, probably Tenebris' bed himself. He slinked over to her and smiled. He ripped her pants off, and started unzipping his own pants, before pinning her down-

xXx

Severus couldn't bear to see anymore. He exited her mind and looked down at the innocent girl who was sweating uncontrollably. "I will not hurt you. My name is Severus Snape." She seemed to consider his words before she finally nodded. She then pressed a hand to her head and closed her eyes, wincing. Poppy rushed out of the room and came back seconds later with three tonics. Severus recognized two of them as a healing potion and a dreamless sleeping drought. "What is that one?" He pointed to the third bottle.

"Antibiotics." Poppy answered simply, before giving her the medicine. Why did she need Antibiotics? That was a muggle treatment only used by wizards and witches when no spells would heal an illness. There were only a few illnesses not curable by magic, and they were quite severe if not taken care of at an early stage of the sickness.