"Godfa...well. I came to give him something," she replied. Godfather? That was one thing she had to swallow first. Hadn't known. Hadn't even ever heard rumours. Didn't make sense. Would they, someone like the pureblooded maniacs make a half-blood like Snape the godfather of their only child — only heir? Surprised her. Boggled her mind.

"He doesn't need anything," Malfoy wanted to slam the door shut but she was quicker and put her foot in between. It hurt. He had great strength, put all of his strength into slamming the door. But she had a wand and wasn't afraid to use it. And with that, it was easy. She pushed her way in, pushed him aside, glaring at him, her wand in one hand, her other raised in a fist, close to his face. She knew he remembered her punch and with his wand pointed at her, he watched as she rushed, as quickly as possible, backwards in the direction she hoped the living room would be — and the racket coming from there. It was a distinct noise of things put on the ground, things being picked up and wood on wood. Hermione frowned, her wand trained on Malfoy, then almost fell over a huge package on the ground.

"What the..." she heard Snape mutter and for a moment, her wand still pointed at Malfoy, she looked at him. He sat on the floor, on a greying carpet, between parts of — was that Ikea furniture? She remembered one summer with her parents. Ikea, that wonderful shop. With the tiny parts that had to be put together. And Snape had shopped at Ikea. Was trying to put something together — a chair, from the looks of it.

"I, erm, I came on behalf of the..." she had put a speech together on her way. And it had all gone out of her mind upon seeing Malfoy and Snape there together. Building furniture the Muggle way.

"Out! Both of you! Out now!" Snape thundered, and got up. She could hear his knees clicking faintly but the look on his face was utterly — murderous. "Miss Granger," he came towards her, and this time, she wasn't shrinking back. Or at least she tried to.

"I came here for the Ministry. Minister Kingsley wanted to come himself but he didn't know where and I didn't tell him," she said quickly — fibbing only slightly.

"Get. Out. It's not my Ministry anymore and I have no dealings with it."

"I have money. Compensation. Professor Snape...it's..." she felt herself stutter and stop. Not only her voice stopped, her way backwards stopped as well. He had slowly come even closer towards her and she had backed away. Until there was nobody to back away to. Trapped against a wall, with her wand in her hand, Malfoy by her side and him in front of her. Smelling of wood and Ikea furniture. And tea.

"You can take my kindest regards back to the Minister, the Ministry and all those witches and wizards. Please tell them that they can all go fuck themselves. I'm done with them. This is my house and if you both don't leave this minute, I will call the police."

She glanced briefly at Draco and he looked as stunned as she looked stunned. But she supposed there were different reasons.

"Muggle Aurors," she told him under her breath.

"Ever the know-it-all," he sneered. He stepped away from before her and pointed his finger towards the door. "Do you need any further invitation? Miss Granger, you're in for trespassing. The same counts for Mister Malfoy and I'm sure that you, Miss Granger, will explain in all detail to you, Mister Malfoy, what that means in Muggle law-terms."

His finger still pointed towards the door, his voice, his face, everything threatening. She reached slowly into her pocket, stuffed her wand in as she pulled out the money. It unshrunk itself and she just let the notes fall on the floor as she stepped out, back into the hall, her eyes briefly only meeting Snape's and before he could say anything, throw the money back at her, she rushed out of the house. This had not gone as planned. But at least she had delivered the money and maybe he wasn't so badly off if he could afford furniture.

"Well, Granger," she heard a shout from the house and whipped around just before apparating.

"What?" she asked, seeing a curtain twitch at the house next to Snape's.

"That was very smart," his voice dripped with sarcasm. "Getting me thrown out as well. Thank you."

"I did no such thing," she snapped. "I didn't pull out my wand first."

"What was I to think? Gryffindor Princess coming to my godfather's house? To the house of the teacher we all know you hated? You and your bloody friends?"

"I didn't hate him and I don't hate him now. He's a he..."

"Spare me that. You got me thrown out, you stupid cow. And throwing that money onto the ground. Very smart."

"He would have never taken it otherwise."

"And what do you think he will do with it now?"

Hermione hardly believed her ears. That wasn't the Draco Malfoy she knew. That bloke standing there was passionate, shouted, had not noticed Snape's neighbour watching them, he was angry with her and didn't treat her with, well, sneering arrogance. He truly cared for his, well, godfather. And that was something new to her. She hadn't honestly seen him after the war. Once or twice spotted him but nothing more. She knew her eyes were still wide. They hadn't unwidened since before she had entered that house.

He apparently waited for an answer and when she didn't provide one immediately, he stepped close to her as well, but not as close as Snape had before and continued to glare. "He will use it to make fire. That's that he'll do with that money. You have absolutely no idea what pride is, don't you?" he glowered, then a moment later, he was gone with a pop, leaving her to stand there like an idiot. Knowing, somewhere in the depth of her brain, that he was right.

Eleanor Callaghan hadn't seen such a fuss made on the street since Tracy and John Davidson had moved out about seven years back. Their rows in public had been legendary. Had the entire street using them as dinner entertainment. Other than Severus's parents, who tried (or at least Eileen did) to hush up their marital arguments, the Davidsons had loved the attention. And now this. Which was almost as entertaining — only she knew that Severus wouldn't like it. Which made it all the more interesting, to be honest. They shouted a lot and since her window was open a bit, she could hear them shouting. Burning money? Severus couldn't honestly be that daft. But you never knew with him. He had been rather quiet on their trip home, had looked rather afraid in Ikea.

She shook her head to herself. The poor boy. Had needed some rest after the hustle of Ikea and had then to throw those two out. Whatever the story was behind it. Not thinking but rather acting intuitively, she grabbed the stepladder from its place and took it outside, putting it next to the small wall and climbed, carefully, over it. He would probably not let her in through the front door and she had seen the back door being slightly open again. Too much airing. The house got cold too fast. She made a mental note to tell him — before knocking lightly and stepping in.

"Severus?" she called softly and went to the living room.

He sat there, on the floor, with his face in his hands, his shoulders hunched, and Eleanor couldn't do anything but sigh softly. He didn't look up when she came closer, he only sat there, and looked as if he was trying to hide from the world. To hide from everything.

"You heard them, didn't you?" she asked gently, easing herself on the ground next to him. There was no answer, no indication even that he heard her and she did the only thing that truly came naturally to her. She reached out to him, her hands on his shoulders and pulled him to her, his head on her chest, even though his hands still covered it. She saw plenty of pound notes on the floor. More money than she had ever seen on a heap before but that could be dealt with later. Now, she had to deal with the man she held in her arms, her fingers stroking the back of his neck and his back and running through his hair. Slowly, very slowly, his hands left his face. He didn't cry. He didn't seem like the type to cry but he stared into emptiness, stared as if he was seeing something in the far, far distance but at the same time, his arms, slowly, came around her as well, he clung to her and she only held him back, rocking him gently as his head lay on her chest and his arms were around her.

"You know you can talk to me, yes?" she whispered in his ear gently, rocking him back and forth like a little boy.

15. Alveolars

Alveolars: These are sounds formed with the front part of the tongue on the alveolar ridge, which is the tough, bony ridge immediately behind and above the upper teeth. The initial sounds in top, dip, sit, zoo and nut are all alveolars. The symbols for these sounds are easy to remember — [t], [d], [s], [n]. Of these [t] and [s] are voiceless whereas [d], [z] and [n] are voiced. It may be clear that the final sounds of the words bus and buzz have to be [s] and [z] respectively, but what about the final sound of the word raise? The spelling is misleading because the final sound in this word is voiced and so must be represented by [z]. Notice also that despite the different spelling of knot and not, both of these words are pronounce with [n] as the initial sound. Other alveolars are the [l] sounds found at the beginning of words such as lap and lit and the [r] sound at the beginning of right and write.

(Yule, 1985)

It was the strangest feeling. It was warm and soft and smelled like fresh bread and tea. It felt like — nothing he hadn't felt in a very long time. It felt like nothing he could remember. He knew he worked on a sort of automatic mode, that nothing had been controlled since those two had left his house. He had just sort of sunken together, had wanted to forget, had wanted to be at peace. There had been too much light for it and he had covered his eyes with his hands. He couldn't tell how long he had been sitting there. How long it had been until there had been arms around him. Kind arms, warm arm, with the smell of bread and tea and he felt himself letting go. He felt how his head fell on a warm and good smelling chest and how his hair was stroked, how his back was stroked and how someone — and he knew on some level that it was Eleanor — told him that everything would be fine.

He didn't feel his own arms going around her but at one point, he felt that he was holding onto something as well. Something kind and gentle and something that was worth holding on to. He felt something touching the top of his head, a kind gesture. Lips pressed on his hair. And that small thing, something he had not felt in a long time, if ever, not that he could remember, pulled him out of the deep abyss of memories, of forcing himself to forget and failing.

Severus Snape was in his living room, his front room, sitting on the floor and the smell in his nose, freshly baked bread and tea came from Eleanor Callaghan. Eleanor Callaghan who had her arms wrapped tightly around him and held him almost on her lap. His own arms were around her as well. Didn't know when that had happened, didn't know how long they had sat there. How long she told him that everything would be alright.

And he didn't even know what was supposed to be everything — what was supposed to be alright. He tried hard to pull himself together, wonder what had made her come over. And where she had come from.

"I'm..." he pulled away slightly, looking into an openly smiling face. A kind face, a gentle face.

"I can't claim to know what this is about," whispered Eleanor gently. "But I would like to know," she added quickly.

Severus looked at her, tried even to glare and to throw her out but found that she couldn't. There wasn't any malice in her face, she had no hidden agenda, she was merely curious. And she had probably — just as he had — heard those two dunderheaded idiots arguing out on the street. He only looked at her and shook his head. He couldn't tell her all of his story. He couldn't even tell her the crucial parts.

But something, something wicked inside, almost a voice, almost a conscience told him to. Nagged him to tell her who he was, what he had done, why he was where he was now. That he wasn't supposed to be there in the first place. That his rightful place would be in a Wizarding prison, his soul sucked out of his body. And that he was now there, with a blemished, tarnished, marred soul was merely the work of cruel fate. Or a mocking entity which took pleasure in seeing Severus struggle.

Yes, a mocking, deictic entity. Like that image of God in the Sistine Chapel in Rom — with that finger outstretched but not pointing at Adam,not giving man life — but pointed at him and the face of that painted God, that piece of art he had only ever seen reprinted, wasn't convinced or assured or angry or determined. That Michelangelian God was pointing at him and laughing at the absurdity of the life he had led Severus into. A mocking entity.

He swallowed around a lump in his throat and said absolutely nothing.

"But if you burn that money, I'll box your ears," she said gently.

"I..."

"It's money. I don't care where it came from and if you deserve to have it or not. It's money. I assume you don't have a lot and this will help until you get money from the social. Or a job. They said you were their teacher. You could easily find a teaching job around here."

"I can't teach," he said stiffly.

"Why not?"

"I..." he paused a moment to think. He needed a good reason. Any reason. "I taught at a special school."

"Special needs children?" she asked curiously.

"Yes," he admitted quietly. And in a manner of speaking, that was even true.

"But..."

"I cannot," he interrupted immediately. "I, er, never got a diploma." There. That should put her off track for the time being. "Didn't go to college or university."

"And they let you teach?" asked Eleanor Callaghan with arched eyebrows.

"Yes," he nodded. Didn't know how to say it better. Had no idea.

"You have to go then," she said. "You're smart. And you're young. You have your whole life ahead of you," she shook her own head and ran her fingers through his. He didn't know why. He didn't understand. But this woman loved touching him — or at the very least, liked doing it. Or just did it. He wasn't sure. It didn't matter and he had to keep himself back, every time, from leaning into the touch. From enjoying it. He had to tell himself, firmly, that the woman's hand did not actually belong in his hair. The woman should keep her hands to herself. No, it wasn't as simple as that. Even his mother had eventually, stopped touching him. The Mark on his arm stopped all other people. This was a novelty. This was — he didn't have a name for it. He only knew that he mustn't lean into the touch like that. It wasn't done.