"You owe me absolutely nothing. Do you not understand that I do not want to know you any longer? We live in different worlds. There is, according to you and according to your son, and according to one other source, nothing anyone can do or I will die. So I ask you now, if you want to kill me, just go ahead, just try to remove the curse, otherwise, leave me be. Take the books but go."

"Severus, we want to help," pleaded Narcissa.

"I don't want your help! How often do I have to repeat myself? I want you to leave now. I have no other way of getting you out of my house but by manhandling you and I try not to do that, so please leave of your own accord."

"We have a thing to ask of you," Narcissa began again.

"Out. Now," he sneered. "I knew you wouldn't come out of the goodness of your heart and I don't even want to hear it. If you don't leave, I will."

Lucius shot him a sad look, in his eyes something Severus had not seen, and took his wife's hand, nodded at Severus and left. Just left. Left Severus alone with his thoughts.

Oh, they had looked bad. There were deep lines etched in both their faces — but he had done enough. Whatever they wanted, he didn't owe them anything. They didn't owe him anything.

And more than anything, Severus wanted to severe his ties with the Wizarding World. He did not want to know any witches or wizards anymore. He wanted to be left alone. No, that wasn't true. More than anything, he craved a cup of tea and wondered briefly whether it would be rude to just ring Eleanor's bell before he remembered his undeniable Slytherinness and made his way out to his little garden, making as much noise on the way as he could.

Kingsley greeted both of them with a face like thunder, his usually so kind visage contorted in a grimace of disgust. He shook Hermione's hand firmly before he led them into his office.

"Well," Hermione couldn't contain her curiosity any longer.

"I...you have seen him?"

"I have seen him. Harry has seen him, too."

"But he knows about the curse?"

Hermione nodded. "I told him."

"You told him?" Harry asked sharply. "When?"

"I'll tell you later," she pleaded. "Please. Who was it? The Malfoys?"

"Tell me now," insisted Harry.

"Later. Please. Kingsley? Lucius Malfoy?"

Kingsley shook his head. "No. But first of all, let me say that I have put my people on it to research a way of undoing it. There is none. The curse fell into oblivion about three hundred years back and we have no idea how she came across it. It's only mentioned in one book that we know of."

"Who was it?" Harry asked hotly, pacing around the office. Hermione was unsure why he was so agitated about it. Why he cared so much. Or why she cared so much. Was probably the fact that he had looked so thin and so miserable. Was probably the fact that it had seemed hopeful that he could get a wand back, that the Wizarding World would not lose such a great mind and such a brave person. Maybe it was...she wasn't sure what it was.

Kingsley rubbed his hand across his face and sat down heavily on his chair.

12. Coinage

Coinage

One of the least common processes of word-formation in English is coinage, that is, the invention of totally new terms. The most typical sources are invented trade names for one's company's product which become general terms (without initial capital letters) for any version of that product. Older examples are aspirin, nylon and zipper; more recent examples are kleenex, teflon and xerox. It may be there is an obscure technical origin (e.g. te(tra)-fl(uor)-on) for such invented terms, but after their first coinage, they tend to become everyday words in the language.

(Yule, 1985)

The silence that followed was almost unbearable. Kingsley seemed too disturbed to say much more, Harry paced and Hermione fidgeted. It lasted only a few seconds, she knew, but it seemed so much longer, it seemed hours, minutes.

"Follow me," the Minister of Magic said suddenly and lifted himself up from the chair he had sat in. "She's still in the questioning room but...I suppose the Wizengamot will be rather swift with the verdict this time," he shook his head and stepped out into the corridor, both Harry and Hermione on his heels. He mumbled as he walked and Hermione, though she was truly closely behind the tall man, only understood a few snippets. She had never seen him so distressed, really and her mind whirled with the possibilities —

someone close to them? Someone he obviously had never expected. Someone who had always led a perfect life?

Who?

She knew Dolores Umbridge was in Azkaban. She had been tried in between the Death Eaters and Severus Snape. She was there, Hermione knew.

And everyone else — every female (he had said 'she' after all) seemed so outrageous.

Alecto Carrow had been Kissed.

Bellatrix Lestrange had died by Molly Weasley's hand.

Molly Weasley was unthinkable. And she had been at the Burrow cooking and doing housework when they had been in the courtroom. So had Ginny Weasley.

Minerva McGonagall? No. That woman, as far as she knew, fought to incorporate Severus Snape back into the Wizarding World. She was a decent person. She was a good person. And she had admitted, full of gilly water and Firewhiskey Manhattan (another one of Harry's inventions which tasted extraordinarily good), that she missed 'her Severus' and that she at least wanted to talk to him.

Who else was there? Hermione couldn't think of a single name.

"...cannot believe ... her. Truly shocking. ... idea ... people ... side," she heard the Minister mumble and caught, at the same time, a glimpse of Harry. He was just as tense as she felt. What was it that made both her — and him — feel like this about the man who had made their time at school miserable? Well, more Harry's than hers.

She grasped his hand. "Did you send the letter?"

He nodded. "And you went to see him?"

She sighed and nodded guiltily. "I had to. After he sent us away. I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner."

He frowned at her. "We could have gone together," he hissed.

"I know but I thought that one of us would be less...I don't know, intimidating. And it's maybe wrong of me but I thought you and all that that implies would sit worse with him than me. It didn't he almost struck me so..."

Harry grunted, then looked at her. "He nearly struck you?"

"No, he threatened me. It wasn't serious and I honestly think that I pushed it a bit far. But I had to tell him about the curse and I did. And so that's alright. I won't go back."

Harry arched his eyebrows questioningly as they followed the Minister of Magic and his almost billowing, colourful robes through the building. "I saw your face earlier, 'Mione. When we came back from shopping and after that crying. You will try to persuade Kingsley to give him money and if he refuses, you will give him some. I know you."

Hermione groaned. "Well, is that such a bad thought?"

"We're here," Kingsley interrupted them and pointed at a door. "You will see her through a charmed window inside."

He had spent the day reading in his room. His parents had gone somewhere — and had, again, not told him where. He was sick of it. He wanted to get out, wanted to live somewhere else, wanted to be someone else. He couldn't bear it any longer to be treated like a child, to be left out. He had, rebelliously, put on those jeans again in the morning but the only reaction he had received, again, had been a careful frowning and arching of eyebrows. Nothing more, nothing less. And then they had left. Had left him alone in that gloomy house with nobody to talk to.

His former friends — gone. Pansy had never spoken to him again after the Final Battle. Gregory Goyle, well, he had never really gotten over Crabbe's death and hadn't minded at all to be put under house arrest. The rest of the Slytherins had either fled or met their fate. He didn't want to think about all those things.

If he only had a bit more money, he would be able to find a flat of his own, find a job or an apprenticeship and get to work, earn money. People would laugh at him, he knew. People would sneer at him but he would have to swallow that too.

If he wanted the name of Malfoy to stand for something better than what it had in the past. He would have to work, no matter what. Even if he didn't know what to do, how to do it but he could only think of one person who could give him advice. Only one person he trusted still enough.

He would have to see his godfather again and soon.

"Draco?" he heard his father from downstairs. "Come down here."

Severus had enjoyed a cup of tea over the wall in the garden with Eleanor, and had then go back inside, back to the textbook. He wanted to delve into that academic world again, into a world that he had not known before, that analysed speech and language and that had made him forget before. Why shouldn't it manage to make him forget the unfortunate visit of the Malfoys now?

He opened the textbook randomly and read. He was so absorbed in the textbook that he didn't truly notice the fire growing smaller and smaller. Only the shiver when he looked up, thinking if there could be a pen, or a pencil somewhere in the house for him to make notes, made him aware of the only faintly glowing ashes.

He cursed softly under his breath and threw another bit of former furniture in when his eyes fell on the stack of books. Well — the stack of books that should have been there. There was nothing. Only an empty spot where he had put all the books.

"Bloody thief," he hissed under his breath. He had told him to take them but he hadn't even notice him taking them. They were now all vanished. "Bloody damn thief. Conniving egotistical son-of-a-harpy. Came here to..." he growled low in his throat and knew he would have to do without his books. Not that they were any use of him now. Not that...but" target="_blank">that...but it had been so much better to burn them.

Well — he would have to make do without them — and he had offered. He huffed to himself and knelt in front of the fireplace, blowing softly into it to keep it going. He would have to ask Eleanor for some newspaper to start his fire in the future.

Severus growled once more and tried to find a pen. Or a pencil. He had to make notes, he had to try this out what he had read. He had to familiarise himself with that foreign and yet so logical material. And he knew, that would keep him company, this would keep his mind occupied.

"Here," Lucius handed Draco a stack of strangely coloured paper with weird looking people on top. This was — Muggle money.

"What's that?" asked Draco.

"I want you to bring this to your godfather first thing in the morning. I took his books and sold them and got their strange currency," he said in a strangely choked voice.

"You took his books? Did he tell you to do that?"

"Draco!" said his mother sharply. "Do as you're told and bring the money to your godfather tomorrow."

"Why don't you bring it yourself?" he asked sharply.

"Draco," his father glared at him. "Do it. And make sure he uses that money for important things. Furniture would be a good idea."

"Oh," Draco said suddenly. "I'll just...Ikea."

"Go, to your room now please. And take those infernal clothes off," said his mother.

Draco was almost ready to go but then he turned around and looked at his parents. "Why do you do this? What do you get in return?"

"This is not for you to know," hissed Lucius and pointed at the door.

"Is this...?" Harry gasped as he saw the woman sitting alone in the questioning room.

"Is that...but why?" asked Hermione, just as surprised to see her sitting there.

"Well," Kingsley said tiredly, "we asked, naturally. And she confessed to everything."

"But she...she's in Auror."

"Was," said Kingsley solemnly, "Hestia Jones was an Auror."

"Why she?" asked Hermione, looking at the woman again. She remembered Hestia Jones from Order meetings, she remembered she had brought Harry to Grimmauld Place, that she had taken the Dursleys away. That she had always seemed so loyal. "What's he done to her?"

"She believes," Kingsley sighed, "that Severus Snape is a liability. She wanted to stop that liability. Not knowing, she said, what he was up to and by taking his magic away as soon as she heard that he was not to be Kissed, she made sure he couldn't be a threat to the Wizarding World we've established now. She wanted to make sure that he couldn't regain entry into our world again..."

"But there's not reason," Harry threw his hands in the air.

"Apparently enough reason for her," sighed Kingsley. "She is of the opinion that once he killed, he would probably do it again. And he did kill."

"Is she deranged?" asked Hermione suddenly.

The Minister shrugged. "I don't know. She seems rather lucid. Explained how she found the book in the Auror Department. It was there for a reason. We kept it there because it is a dangerous, old book and we never assumed a top Auror to use the spells in there. We never had reason to think that she might...turn so against him. She never spoke of him but so many didn't, neither good nor bad. She just kept out of it. And..."

Hermione couldn't believe her ears, couldn't believe that someone was vindictive enough to do that — to rob someone of his self. To so completely...she was close to tears again, angry tears this time. Oh but she would have to turn them into something else. She would have to make sure that Severus Snape...

"Compensation," she said aloud.

"Excuse me?" Kingsley Shacklebolt turned to her.

"He deserves compensation. Money. From her. From the Ministry."

"Yes, he does," Harry was quick to agree.

The Minster looked at both of them strangely, then nodded slowly. "I see what can be arranged."

It was good enough for her — especially since he knew that she would come back and ask about it. If she had her teeth in, she had her teeth in and he knew that. But if some good came out of it, if it made Snape's life a little easier, it would help.

"And she only did this because she feared Snape might turn dark again one day?" asked Harry, suddenly.

"Yes. That, and that she thinks that being magical, being a witch or a wizard is a privilege."

"A privilege...that sounds remarkably like..." Hermione exclaimed.

"Indeed," said the Minister sadly. "I don't...We will...she will be taken to Azkaban and we'll have to have some talks with some people. I just thought you should know who cast the curse."

The first cup of tea he had made on his own. It tasted, well, okay. Definitely not as good as Mrs Callaghan's but he couldn't always traipse through his garden when he fancied a cup of tea. He had left his house early to go find that shop she had mentioned — Aldi — and had returned with a square block of German chocolate that Eleanor had mentioned that she liked and with two packets of tea — one for him, one for her. It was only fair to bring her that. Not that he had ever bought a woman chocolate and especially not weird shaped German one, but this old woman had helped him. And if it hadn't been for her, he hadn't been up almost all night, trying to figure out what that book meant by