"And?"
"And he said nothing. He seemed to think a lot."
"Oh."
"I don't know. I don't think he'll think that. He would have said it straight out," said Harry.
"I can't go back anyway," replied Hermione calmly. "I got a letter from my parents and they say I should sell the house."
"Oh," Harry moved to her side and put his hands on her shoulders.
"I'm fine. It's the best decision they could make."
.
"Severus?" he heard from the door, destroying the wall between his former bedroom and his parents' former bedroom. He would make a spacious one. A big one. A huge one. One with a lot of light and windows. He swung around, the hammer hitting his thigh painfully and stared into the face of Eleanor. Worried. She looked definitely worried. Oh, the thin walls. He had forgotten about the thin walls. And his anger had almost all been put into the hole in the wall. He was, by now, only very angry at Lucius Malfoy still.
He, however, turned back to the wall — only a thin one, supported by wooden things holding up the attic (he would keep those in — didn't want the house to fall down), and hit it with his hammer again.
"You could have told me before, Severus," she said gently and he didn't notice her having come to stand behind him and putting her hand on his arm. "But I understand why you couldn't. Draco told me."
He stilled. His entire body rigid, his hammer in his hand hovering in mid air.
She knew. She knew. She knew.
"I can tell Draco to wipe my memories again. If you want it. I could forget about it again...but I don't honestly want to. I know what you did and I don't want to forget how brave you were. I don't want to forget what brought you here to me. It's God's will. It's the way he wanted it. The way it was meant to be, and I don't want to forget about it. It's all happening for a reason, Severus. I know you don't see it, you can't."
Severus remained very quiet but the hammer fell from his hand and with a thump on the ground. He could only look at her, in her pale green eyes. A slow, lazy tear fell from her right eye onto her wrinkled cheek, rolled down her pale skin, dropped onto the carpet.
"I wish you'd told me sooner, last year. I would've supported you. I could've helped. You didn't have to do it alone," she let go of his arm and rubbed it over her cheek, rubbed the tear away. "What you must've gone through."
He shook his head. Simply shook his head. Couldn't say anything.
"You were so alone. You must've...For heaven's sake, Severus," she sounded angry now and her pale green eyes twinkled madly. "Just one word. One single word! Why not? Do you think I would have told on you? Would have told anyone? Would have looked strangely at you? Not believed you?" Another tear trickled down her cheek. "If I had known..."
"I..." he tried to speak but there was a lump lodged in his throat and he could only look at her — helplessly.
"My silly boy," whispered Eleanor and the tiny woman stepped forwards again and wrapped him in her arms, pushed his head against her neck, rocked him a little, held him.
.
Somehow, she could just enter Grimmauld Place by pressing her wand against the door. The door basically swung open and since the house was very quiet, she stepped in. She knew she should have made her presence known, she knew she should have called out, or cried out for someone, tell them, if someone was home, that she was there.
It didn't look like someone was there, actually. That horrid house elf was nowhere to be seen and there weren't any voices or any other signs that someone was home. Nothing. Just quietness.
Maybe those two were out, if it was, in fact, as her children had said and Harry and Hermione did live together. She was, after all, a little like a mother to both of them. She was just seeing if the two of them were alright. After all, two such young children living together? Even if an house elf, it was bound to be difficult. Maybe, Molly thought, she would cook something for both of them. That house elf wasn't as good as she was, after all. Quickly, she went to the kitchen — and opened the door.
What she saw, made her, well, she wasn't sure what she felt. Hermione and Harry stood, together, in a close embrace, hugging, Harry's arms around Hermione and Hermione's arms around Harry. She gasped and her gasp was loud enough, apparently, to alert them to her presence. She pulled herself up to her full height and glared at both of them.
She crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her foot, lightly, on the ground.
"Hi Molly," Harry said, smiling a little uneasily.
"Hello Mrs Weasley," Hermione added, smiling just as uneasily.
"So what is going on here?" she found herself saying — coldly.
20. The Dialect Continuum
The dialect continuum:
We can view regional variation [of language] as existing along a continuum, and not as having sharp breaks from one region to the next. A very similar type of continuum can occur with related languages existing on either side of a political border. As you travel from Holland to Germany, you will find concentrations of Dutch speakers giving way to areas near the border where the Dutch dialects and the German dialect are less clearly differentiated; then, as you travel into Germany, greater concentrations of distinctly German speakers occur. Speakers who move back and forth across this border, using different varieties with some ease, may be described as bidialectical (i.e. 'speaking two dialects'). Most of us grow up with some form of bidialectalism, speaking one dialect 'in the street' and having to learn another dialect 'in the school'.
(Yule, 1985)
The light filtered dimly through the curtains that Eleanor had put up there. He disliked them, but it was what she had leftover and she had said it would do for a bedroom. There were flowers on them. And he could hardly afford to buy new curtains after he had bought that bed as well — a large one, a double bed. Simple, and with the new mattress close to the floor and rather comfortable. He hadn't taken Draco this time — he had gone with Eleanor alone. More room in the car for the bed and while he understood his godson's motivation at moving out from his parents, he could not understand his motivation at moving in with his neighbour Eleanor Callaghan.
Eleanor had tried to explain — but he hadn't wanted to listen. In his own right, he knew that Draco wanted to rebel and sooner or later, he would get tired of the drudgery of Muggle live — even if it was no drudgery. He talked to Eleanor nevertheless. Unwillingly at first, but that woman had the knack of asking the right questions at the right time, in the right tone of voice, with the right expression on her face. He had told her about Hogwarts, not everything, but about Dumbledore and Eleanor had been angry at the man, had demanded to see him, had demanded to ask him for an explanation. And that had been when he had told her about that night. About that night and Draco's involvement and about what he had been asked to do.
The first time that he had talked about this. The first time he had been forced to tell the truth and he had done so without leaving out anything. It had taken more than two hours and had ended, as most of their talks did, with her beginning to cry, muttering something in her broadest Irish and wrapping him in her arms. As always, he had been stiff at first and after a moment, he had melted in her embrace.
But on this morning, he had no longing to revisit any of those talks in his mind. He didn't want to think about it. Not that morning. Not when he had to prepare himself mentally for that day — a few hours away — when he had been forced (more or less) to attend that Christmas dinner with Mrs Callaghan and her entire family. And his godson. The present he had had bought for her was safely in his new bedside table. And for Draco — oh, Eleanor had insisted she get him something. As a godfather to a godson. And as a godfather to a godson, he had bought him, on Eleanor's insistence, a set of tools. Muggle tools. She had said that Draco was fascinating by fixing things and building things and this would be the right gift.
He wasn't sure that was right — but he had no other idea. And it would be fine. He was a Muggle now. What other present could represent that better than a set of Muggle tools? Things that wouldn't be needed if he learned to wave his wand properly.
Didn't matter. He would show up, would hand over his presents, would leave again. Maybe eat a little. Then leave again. Christmas did not mean anything to him and he had refused to go to church the night before with Eleanor (and she had dragged Draco with her, apparently). It just did not seem right. It would not have been right. And if she forced his godson, it was all the more rebelling against his family. Didn't truly matter.
Severus opened his eyes slowly. It was already a bit later in the day than his usual wake up time, he thought, judging from the light that fell in through the flowery curtains. He had slept better since he had torn down the wall, since nothing reminded him of his parents anymore. Since this was his room and his room only. With a huge bed, flowery curtains, a cupboard for his few clothes, a bedside table and a still empty book shelf. Well, almost empty. He had the linguistics textbooks on it, and another book Eleanor had found about it in her attic. He would definitely acquire more in due time. Even though, it seemed Eleanor had planned his future already and it wasn't anything he could possibly object to.
She had dragged him to a weird sort of office building, to a person who seemed overly maudlin, had helped him fill in forms, had gone to the bank with him, had him open an account, and apparently, the social now gave him money. Every month. And as if that hadn't been enough, Eleanor had made him apply for a mature student scholarship. Whatever that meant.
And all that in less than a week. He had heard back from those University people — those he had applied to, and apparently, as the letter had said, he was entitled to begin as soon as term began in the new year. It had all been too quick in his opinion, but as Eleanor had said, 'at least you have something to think about then and studying to do and won't destroy your house even further'.
So, by January, he would be a student again. What utter insanity.
.
Hermione looked — with trepidation — at the tree that she and Harry had put up a few days ago. The day, to be precise, after Molly Weasley had come invading their home (she thought of Grimmauld Place as her home already), had demanded answers and had not truly been happy by what they had told her.
What was there to tell? She had been infinitely sad that her parents wanted her to sell the house she had grown up in, this had sealed the fact that they would probably never return from Australia, that she was cut off from her parents. Harry, the one he truly considered family, had consoled her. Yes, with a hug. They weren't snogging, they weren't shagging on the kitchen floor, they had just been hugging. Nothing more, nothing less. But Molly Weasley had put her nose in, Molly Weasley had demanded what they thought they were doing, lying to them (which they weren't), and had left in a huff. Not to be seen ever after.
What was the sense, Hermione wondered, not for the first time, in asking a myriad of questions and not waiting for an answer? Well, they had been prepared to explain, again, that there was nothing between them except friendship, but she had only left afterwards.
However, both she and Harry had sent Christmas presents (with an attached note each) to the Burrow, to everyone. And they had sent a gift each, not together. She had written to Ron, he had written to Ginny. To Arthur, to Molly, even to George. But — under the Christmas tree were only the presents that she and Harry had put there for each other and four others — two with the stamp of WWW (apparently from George) and two that she didn't know the origin of. And by the looks of it, she had gotten a gift certificate from Flourish and Blott's from Harry — again. Well, it didn't truly matter. She had her NEWTs to think about, she had her future to think about. And if she was being honest with herself, some of the Wizarding World had lost its appeal.
It was, she thought as she sat there underneath the lights of the Christmas tree, never changing. Things always remained the same. They had fought a major battle, a major war against the Dark, and so many people these days just went back to their normal lives. Pretend nothing had ever happened. Pretended that they hadn't thrown out one of their bravest and smartest and brightest, pretended that Severus Snape had never happened, pretended that all was well. Nothing was well at all. There were nights when she couldn't wake Harry from his nightmares and there were nights when she wouldn't wake from her nightmares. There were days when she didn't want to open a single book to learn yet another useless fact. But she couldn't pretend that all was well.
Molly, who had lost so much during the war, who had lost a son, had two injured severely, had almost lost her husband, thought it was more important to be scandalised that the two of them might be together, than to be scandalised about the fact that half of Diagon Alley and all of Knockturn Alley still lay in ruins, that so many things had to be rebuilt, that few people went out after dark still. And she was more concerned about the status of their relationship than about George who, she knew, was at this very moment, growing a very serious addiction to various mood-lightening potions and Muggle anti-depressants but then again, Hermione guessed that Molly didn't even know about that. To be fair, the woman would probably take her son home, lock him into his room and wouldn't let him out until she was sure that he wasn't taking anything stronger than Pepper-Up Potion anymore.
Still — after that incident, Harry had reset the wards. Wards that allowed nobody to enter but the two of them. All the others would have to wait at the door, like in a standard Muggle household. Ring the bell, knock the knocker, and one of them had to answer the door. The Floo was warded as well now. Better that way.
No, but all of that considered, she wasn't sure whether she wanted to work for the Ministry, work for those people who had pulled the rug our from under Snape's feet and who had, stupidly, allowed Hestia Jones to be Kissed even before she could give hints of a counter-curse (oh, Hermione had looked in her spare time. But she couldn't even find the curse itself much less a counter-curse.
Draco, good person that he was trying to become (or so it seemed) had even written to Harry — telling Harry just two days before that Snape had now a Muggle account. And Harry, with that information, had run to Gringotts — and then to the Ministry. Simple way to let him have money he deserved. And simple way of the Ministry, she thought, to soothe their guilt. To iron out all the bad feelings that they had concerning Severus Snape. And even the protests had stopped.
