"Listen, young man," she set her best gran-is-angry-face on, "you are in my house. You are my guest. As such, I should treat you properly. But if you decide to just storm in here without invitation, I do not feel obliged to observe these rules. You either sit down with me and your son and have a civil cup of tea and tell me what it is you need to speak so urgently to Severus about, or you leave."

She glared, put her hands on her hips and looked absolutely sternly. "What's it going to be?" she asked again.

He huffed, threw his hair, almost like a girl, over his shoulder, and suddenly, her stomach was burning and tingling and stinging and it was pain. There was pain in her stomach. Pain. Blooming, red, hot, white, cold, pain. She clutched her stomach and sunk, without realising it, to her knees.

"Hiya," the silly girl said to Severus, much too cheerful for his taste.

"I would like that thing in your shop window," he said sternly. Didn't know what it was called.

"Thing, sir?"

"Shawl. Wrap. That thing," he pointed.

"The pashmina, sir?" the silly girl asked.

"I do not care what it is called. I would like to purchase it."

"Yes, sir. Certainly," she looked at him and smiled. "There are matching gloves and a matching hat, sir. Would that interest you as well?" She looked at him cautiously but with a little smile still playing on her lips. Would he be interested in the matching gloves and matching hat? If the money from the Ministry was enough, yes. Even if it wasn't enough, yes, he was.

"Yes," he snapped as if she should have known already.

"Well, thank you, sir."

Severus rolled his eyes. He didn't care about that eager politeness. He wanted to buy that thing and she wanted to sell that thing, there should be no eager politeness. "Get on with it, girl," he snapped before he could help himself.

The smile that was one the girl's lips died — and she dumped the thing and the gloves and the hat into a bag and he, in turn, took money from his pocket, counted it and dumped it, just as unceremoniously, on the counter before he grabbed the bag. This was the sort of transaction that was only ever necessary. He nodded, scowling, took the bag, and vanished, as quickly as he had appeared, from the shop. There was money from the Ministry left — and he would put that somewhere securely. He would not use it for himself. He'd rather go hungry than buy food from the bribery-money of the Ministry. Those people — he knew — would never ever get into his good books again. Not that many people were in his good books. Not many people at all. One. Currently. One and a half, if one counted Draco — which Severus didn't. Not really. But on the other hand, he didn't doubt that the boy would go to Mrs Callaghan's Christmas. He had been invited and the boy liked Eleanor. That much was obvious and he, if he waded through his memories, probably needed such a person in his life. Draco had always been surrounded by other adults — adults of the variety that either ignored him, or treated him like a child, no matter what his age, and sent him away. Draco had never been taken seriously by anyone. He himself was one of those people who had never believed him capable of anything — and that had not only cost Severus a part of his soul. Draco had, unknowingly, subconsciously, whether her wanted to or not, only fed those beliefs in him when he had not been able to carry out the task the Dark Lord had set him. He had put himself back into the role of the child that had to be protected. Mind, Severus had been against him having to do that. And he was all for Draco being protected but for a child who wanted to be looked upon as an adult, he had done a poor job. Had left it to others, again.

And naturally, ever since then, Lucius would probably be adamant on proving to Draco that he still was a child.

It made little sense to Severus's mind — but that was how the elder Malfoy probably felt. Or — he didn't know. He didn't know those people anymore. Not Lucius with his sudden urge to help him by stealing his books, not Draco with his sudden fascination with Muggle furniture and his obvious liking of Mrs Callaghan. Well — he couldn't blame him for this. Eleanor was — as people went — rather a nice specimen. One of the nicest he had ever met at least.

And he had just bought her a Christmas present. He only hoped she liked it.

Draco heard the noise of the door being opened and closed and a second later, as he still hoped that his father had left, his thoughts were rudely interrupted by a sharp thump he heard from the hall and something inside of the young Malfoy stirred. Something was off — and he had a bad feeling. A very bad feeling and he rushed out into the hall.

His father was nowhere to be seen (so he had left, his brain processed) and at first, he saw nothing. Absolutely nothing until his eyes fell on the floor. There, on the soft, flowery carpet lay the still form of Mrs Callaghan, her eyes shut tightly, her arms wrapped tightly around her own stomach, her knees drawn up to it, her skirt riding up almost indecently.

"Merlin's dirty pants," he muttered and his eyes wide, he rushed to her side and fell to his knees. She was a Muggle — and she something had obviously happened — and the way this looked, probably his father had happened.

"Mrs Callaghan?" he asked and grasped her shoulder. "Can you hear me?"

The old woman said nothing, she breathed shallowly, her eyes were closed tightly, and she didn't move on her own, not even when he shook her shoulder gently. She just lay there, her knees in sensible stockings (he had read up a bit on Muggles) pulled up as far as they would go, and her arms tightly around her stomach. Her aged, weathered, wrinkly hands cramped.

"Mrs Callaghan?" he asked again, feeling despair creeping up on him. "Shit. What did he do? Can you hear me? What did my father do?"

She didn't answer.

"Sod it," he muttered softly and pulled out his wand. He had to, somehow, make this better. But he had no idea what to do. None at all. Healing spells had never been his forte, finding out what was wrong, Diagnostics, even worse.

In that moment, he heard another slight noise — and he jumped up on his feet, hoping against hope that it was his godfather returning and when he dashed to the door, he just caught him — opening his front door.

"Uncle Severus," he gasped.

"Draco?" he replied, puzzled, looking at him strangely, "What are you...How dare you..."

"Not important," replied Draco urgently. "I think my father hit Mrs Callaghan with something and I don't know how to find out what it is. You have to help. Please?"

18. Lexical Morphemes

Lexical morphemes:

What we have described as free morphemes fall into two categories. The first category is that set of ordinary nouns, adjectives and verbs we think of as the word that carry the 'content' of the messages we convey. These free morphemes are called lexical morphemes and some examples are: girl, man, house, tiger, sad, long, yellow, sincere, open, look, follow, break. We can add new lexical morphemes to the language rather easily, so they are treated as an 'open' class of words. [...]

(Yule, 1985)

Severus dropped to his knees. It wasn't conscious, or wanted, he just dropped, next to Eleanor. Anger and resentment flooded him — and worry. Worry about that poor woman lying lifelessly on the ground, If he had a wand now, if only he could use magic now, it would be a matter of seconds, probably, until she was well again, standing, smiling, making him tea, talking to him like nobody had ever talked to him before she had come back into his life.

Carefully, Severus lifted her head, the grey hair surrounding it like — a halo — and held it in his lap. Her forehead, which he touched briefly, was warm, almost feverish and she lay almost curled together, as far as her arthritic limbs would allow it, on the floor, on her carpet.

"Eleanor?" he asked softly, sure that she wouldn't answer, sure that she was out, sure that he was just losing another person. Sure that — this had all been too good to be true. Sure that the magical world was, once more, taking that, which was dear to him.

"Uncle Severus?" Draco stood there, wand limply in his hands, beside them, a bit stiffly, a bit awkwardly and in that moment, in this tiny moment in which Severus saw the almost defeat in his godson's eyes, he knew, he realised that he couldn't let the Wizarding world yet gain another victory over him. They would never take anything which was dear to him. Never again. If he had to fight with all that was left inside of him.

"Did they teach you nothing at that sodding school?" he snapped, glaring up at him. "Cast a bloody Diagnostic and a Counter Curse."

"I don't know how. They didn't and Father didn't..."

"Oh for the love of..." Severus felt more angry than before. "You do know how to wave a wand, don't you?"

"Unc..."

"Stop that nonsense now and stop whingeing. It might have worked with other people but not with me," he said rushedly. "Try a Finite first. You know how this works?"

Draco nodded quickly, paling further, Severus noticed and pointed his wand at Eleanor. "Finite omnis incantatis," he said quickly.

"Oh, the advanced version," Severus sneered.

"Father said..."

"I don't care, Draco," he spat, touching his hand to her forehead again. Still feverish, still warm. The cancellation of all spells had not worked on her. There were spells, curses, that resisted this. Not that it was a bad spell — it cancelled so many things, minor curses, all hexes, charms, even those supposedly long-lasting ones, like cosmetic charms, or memory charms, but not any Dark ones. He delved deep into his memory, those that he wanted to forget, had decided to forget but this was an emergency and truly neither the Ministry, nor anyone else could control what he said to someone with a wand.

"A swish and a figure-eight and say 'Incantare communicando," he hissed.

Draco nodded, a lock of his hair falling into his face and obscuring one of his eyes but Severus knew that the boy was nervous. And why the hell had nobody taught them that? If he had known, he sure would have never failed to explain to them when he had had the position of Defence against the Dark Arts Master. But this was a basic spell, third year at the latest. It was simple, it could be life-saving. And nobody had taught them that. Shame. Absolute shame.

"Incantare communicando," Draco almost shouted and flicked his wand just right. A moment later, there was a glow on the tip of his wand and a few sparks shot out of it — before they settled over Eleanor in the shaped of runes.

Severus scanned those quickly — it wasn't using magic. It was using what was stored in his mind. The boy, on the other hand, looked absolutely lost.

"Tell your father to send you back to school, preferably Beauxbatons, where you will learn something," he remarked sarcastically.

"I..."

"Shut up," he hissed again. This was a disgrace. That Lucius had dared to hit Eleanor with that. Tapeworm. In her guts. Slowly eating its way through her stomach, her intestines, everything. They had to act quickly, otherwise there wouldn't be anything salvage. She would bleed to death internally, the tapeworm having chewed his way through her.

"Banishing the tapeworm first, you have to destroy it but be careful, otherwise you will kill her."

"Tape..."

"Oh for fu...your sainted father used Eucestoda corporis devorat," he explained, wanting to hex that boy into the week after the next. "If you had paid attention either during Defence against the Dark Arts in your fourth or fifth year, or if you had listened to your Uncle Rabastan, you'd know what it does."

"Oh," Draco nodded. "Yes, it's eating..."

"Not time for reciting fact. Get rid of it!"

Draco nodded again and even through his haze of anger, worry and resentment towards the Ministry, he could see the boy being afraid. Very afraid. His voice dropped to a mere whisper but the moment he pointed his wand at the woman, and the moment, spoke the incantation, he had the necessary conviction in his eyes. "Evanesco eucestoda."

Eleanor's head dropped, became heavier in his lap, the temperature on her forehead sank immediately. "The Healing, now," he said urgently and when the boy fell on his knees next to him, he sent him a glance. "I know you know this one. I taught you," he said softly and — almost gently.

Draco nodded again and ran the tip of his wand over her stomach, chanting rapidly in Latin.

Severus felt the magic soaring through her, he felt the slight vibrations, the shifting of air around him, so subtly that he had never noticed it when he had been constantly surrounded by magic. So gentle a whisper that made him long for his wand, for his magic, for the marvellous things he could do with it — and had never truly appreciated. He longed to snatch up Draco's wand and if only to produce a few, small sparks with it. He couldn't. He truly, honestly couldn't. He knew rationally that nothing would happen if he tried. But suddenly, and for the first time since the verdict, he felt like he was missing a limp. That someone — the Wizengamot or the caster of the curse — had cut off a vital part of his body. Something, he felt in that moment of despair and fear for the woman he had come to like so much, that he couldn't live without. He was only faintly aware of Draco chanting and of Eleanor's body temperature returning to normal. He was only faintly aware of her hand twitching and of Draco sitting back on his heels, he was so deep in thought.

"What happened?" uttered directly from his lap pulled him out of his thoughts — and he looked down immediately to see Eleanor Callaghan looking up at him, puzzled and curious with her pale green eyes.

"I, erm, my father..." Draco began but Eleanor cut him off with her hand. She sat up slowly, grasping Severus's arm for support and leaning back against him after pulling down her skirt. None of them had thought to do so.

"I remember now. I remember where I have heard all those words before," she said slowly and very clearly. "I remember it more clearly. Your mother, Severus...she explained."

"How was he?" she asked anxiously.

"Fine," he replied.

"Fine?"

"Fine."

"Really?"

He grumbled and refused to look her in the eye.

"Tell me," repeated she.

"I think...I'm not sure what to think."

"Why?"

"Because...well, I thought that, you know, maybe...and now I'm not so sure. He asked...and she had to give him permission, really. Dunno."