Severus took a deep breath. He could do this. He could. He opened his reader and smelled the new paper, saw the thick theory texts in there and knew that this would be a lot of fun. And he'd find a way around the active participation part.
.
He had thought long and hard. He honestly had. This wasn't just an impulsive thing. This was something he had to do and since he trusted no one, since his trust came in various degrees for various people (and none reached a hundred percent), he had to chose those that came closest to those hundred percent. And, as much as he hated it, he trusted them at least...twenty percent. Odd, considering their history but there he was. And they had fought for his godfather, had made sure he had a steady income now, even if it did come from the Ministry (and no, he had not seen it yet, and Draco did not want to be in the same room when he did).
And so, because he did want to know how had cursed his father, and because the number of people who would know if there were news was minimal (two, to be precise), Draco Malfoy apparated to Grimmauld Place. Someone would be in. Potter would probably laze around and Granger would have her nose stuck in books. He landed on the doorstep and without hesitating (he didn't even trust himself at that moment not to back out again), he banged the knocker on the door.
"Coming!" he heard Granger shout from inside. "Just one sec," she hollered.
Draco rolled his eyes. No manners. Absolutely no manners at all. Shouting like that.
The door was opened carefully and Granger looked at him first before she flung it open. "Oh, it's you," she nodded, her face neutral. "Come in."
"Not asking me any questions," he sneered, "making sure I'm no Death Eater?"
She arched her eyebrows as she shut the door. "Would be pointless, wouldn't it?" she challenged him.
"Yes, I suppose so," he grinned maliciously, then looked at her. She was wearing shorts. In the dead of winter. And one of those things that Aideen had called tank top. Her bosom almost falling out of it though there wasn't much there. A handful, his eyes guessed. A towel around her head.
"Sorry, was just in the shower," she blushed. "Come through in the kitchen. Kreacher!" she shouted again. Why did she have to shout? It was unseemly for a woman to shout. Aideen shouted but that was endearing. Because she grew a little red when she did and that was cute. Granger was anything but cute. Her legs were okay and that handful was okay, but apart from that — she definitely wasn't cute.
"You called, ma'am?" the house elf asked.
"Yes," she nodded, then turned back to him, "Did you have breakfast?"
"Yes, I did. It's ten. Of course I had breakfast," his eyebrows shot up — what kind of a household was that anyway? Breakfast at ten? Eleanor had woken him at seven thirty. And she had made him breakfast. Lazing around, as he had suspected — only it was Granger doing the lazing.
"I was up late last night revising. You're redoing your NEWTs? Kreacher, breakfast for me please and Draco..."
"Tea," he said and followed her, "And no, I'm not redoing my NEWTs."
"Shame. Not a lot of people do. Don't know why. Nothing more important than a good education." She gestured at a chair. "Sit. Kreacher will be ready in a moment."
"You use an house elf?" he asked spitefully.
"Erm, yes. Kreacher likes it. Kreacher explained," she blushed. "I could make it myself but I'm a hazard in the kitchen really."
Draco almost sneered. But only almost. He wanted to get information from her after all. And maybe he didn't even need Potter — those two shared anything anyway, the way he suspected. And she was a Gryffindor. He would come straight to the point, otherwise, despite her indisputable intelligence, she wouldn't understand what he meant.
"Who put the curse on my father?" he asked as soon as he had taken a sip of the tea that had suddenly appeared in front of him. That house elf was good. Good tea. Excellent tea.
"Erm," she frowned. "I don't know."
"So they're suspecting my mother now? Or still my dead aunt? One of my dead relatives?" he growled.
"Malfoy, er, Draco, I don't understand...why should they suspect your mother?"
"Why did they suspect me?" he almost exploded.
"They didn't..." she shook her head and pushed the plate full of cooked breakfast away from her.
"They didn't?" he sneered, "What was that Veritaserum about then?"
"Veri...what?" her mouth stood open and that, combined with the towel around her head looked ridiculous (Aideen would look cute like that though).
"Oh, so the precious Minister didn't tell you that they drugged me on Christmas? When Potter told me to come?"
"Harry? What did Harry have to do with...HARRY!" she shouted. "COME DOWN HERE! I'm glad he's got the late shift today," she shouted, then mumbled to herself. No manners. Women did not shout like that.
"Whassup?" he asked, rubbing his eyes. Wearing pyjama bottoms and nothing on top. Oh lovely, Draco thought. His hair stuck up to all places. It was after ten. Did nobody get up earlier than ten.
"Oh Malfoy," he ran his fingers through his tussled hair. "Coffee?"
A cup appeared on the table and he gulped it down — and a moment later, Granger, with a face like thunder, summoned a t-shirt and threw it at him.
"Nobody needs to see you naked," she complained and thankfully, Potter put it on immediately. So — interesting. If those two had something going, which had been a possibility, she wouldn't have done that. Maybe Potter was gay after dumping the Weasley that way and looking like that. Walking around half-naked. Not that it mattered. And not that that was the point.
"Did you send Draco to be dosed with Veritaserum?" she accused.
"What?" he frowned.
"I always knew you Gryffindors weren't quick on the uptake," Draco sneered and Granger rolled her eyes.
"Harry, did you send Draco to the Ministry on Christmas?"
He nodded. "I told you. I told Snape to tell him that he should go there as soon as possible. Kingsley said something about needing to have a witness when removing the curse," he answered and gulped down more coffee.
"And then they drugged him," Granger shrieked. No manners.
"No, they didn't."
"Want to see my memory?" Draco sneered. "But of course the sainted Minister wouldn't do that. Yes, they suspected it was me and gave me Veritaserum. Well, the Minister drugged himself as well, but that is not why I'm here. I want to know who cursed my father and my godfather," he drawled, trying to sound bored.
"Well, Jones did the latter, but maybe on Imperius as well," Potter said, yawning.
What news," he drawled again.
"Draco, we don't know. But if they're illegally using Veritaserum..."
"Illegally?" Potter shrieked — and that sound almost confirmed to Draco that he was indeed queer. No straight man could be caught making such a noise.
"What do you think?" he drawled. "That they asked a Death Eater's permission to drug him?"
"They only drugged you then? Tricked you into drinking it?" Granger asked, frowning still.
He quickly told what had happened, including the fact that the Minister had drugged himself and had then let an Auror do the questioning. On Granger's insistence, he described the Auror and Potter's face fell and fell and fell. By the end of his speech, Draco had the feeling that he could pick it up from the ground. It amused him — and would amuse him more if the situation hadn't been so serious.
"I have to go and talk to him," Potter said suddenly and stood up. He eyed Draco for a moment, then raised his hand to him — for him to shake. Draco eyed back, then took the hand.
"Thanks for telling me. This is not right. And I thought it would all be different with Kingsley in the position," he said and Draco couldn't help but sense the trace of sadness and resentment in his voice.
"It never is different, Potter," he answered.
"Nothing ever changes," Granger said and she sounded — agitated. "I'm going with you, Harry. Do you want to come too?" she looked at Draco.
He shook his head. "I just wanted to know if there were news."
"We'll let you know," Potter said and Draco couldn't shake off the feeling that there had been a shift — a shift in how they treated one another, how they looked at the other, how they perceived the other. And the trust he felt towards both of them had grown — at least five percent.
.
He needed more colours. He needed to mark the text, write in the margins, colour-code things. He needed to sort of all this, he needed a system. He needed to get to the different pens in different colours. He needed more room on his table.
Severus felt, for the first time in years, the rush of joy of learning something new, of digging his claws into new things, new material,finding out the last aspect of something, knowing more than the rest and with his step lighter than it had been in an eternity, he hopped off the bus and towards the shop to buy his pens.
28. Syntactic Structures
One result of the formal study of grammatical structure is that a syntactic framework is brought to light which can support semantic analysis. Description of meaning can profitably refer to this underlying syntactic frame work, although systematic considerations are apparently not helpful in determining it in the first place. The notion of 'structural meaning' as opposed to 'lexical meaning', however, appears to be quite suspect, and it is questionable that the grammatical devices available in language are used consistently enough so that meaning can be assigned to them directly. Nevertheless, we do find many important correlations, quite naturally, between syntactic structure and meaning; or, to put it differently, we find that the grammatical devices are used quite systematically. These correlations could form part of the subject matter for a more general theory or language concerned with syntax and semantics and their points of connection.
(Chomsky, 1957)
Draco quickly debated apparating towards the University in Manchester and then finding his way to Aideen, but he supposed that it would do no good. He would look forever, would probably be found out using magic, would probably not even find her and so he decided to just go home. He had, well, planted the seed of suspicion in both Granger's and Potter's mind. But then again, he had suspected that they had known before. That they just were okay with the fact that random people (well — relatively random) were illegally drugged. And it didn't matter. He wanted nothing to do with the Ministry ever again.
He apparated, as always, into Mrs Callaghan's garden, behind the large bush, then walked through Severus's garden to the front door. Eleanor Callaghan had given him a key and he used it. He could have used Alohomara — but sometimes, Muggles were in her house, Aideen had been there and she didn't know he was a wizard. And the click of the door, the noise the key made in the lock, that was missing if he didn't use the key. It alerted the people in there that he was coming and Mrs Callaghan wanted that tiny alert. Wanted to greet him and usually always came towards him, met him in the hall when she had sent him out to get food or a paper or something else.
Not this time. He heard her voice coming from the kitchen and another voice he knew. His eyes grew wide and his stomach dropped.
That voice, that other voice he heard — it belonged to — his mother. His Mother. Narcissa Irma Malfoy.
Draco wasn't sure what to do. Clearly, there were only two possibilities — stay, or run. Severus would still be away, his back door had looked locked. To find Aideen, well, he had debated that. Wandering around? Being a coward? He shook his head to himself and quickly took two breaths, letting the air hiss out between his teeth.
The door to the kitchen was only open a crack and before pushing it open and stepping in, he listened for a moment.
"I do want him to come home," his mother said.
Mrs Callaghan sighed softly and Draco heard something poured into a cup — probably tea. Most likely tea. Knowing her the way he did. And his mother did enjoy a good cup of tea. At least he knew that about her. But he wouldn't go back. Even if she sounded like she really wanted him to go. Not everything had been the Imperius — the sending away hadn't been the Imperius, the being left out, the being sent to his room like a child hadn't been the Imperius.
And that was why he had left, why he was living with Mrs Callaghan. Not only that his father had hit her with that evil curse, not only that he had to heal her with spells he had never performed before — no. Here, he was being treated like a nineteen-year old. And despite the locked door and the mistrust concerning him and Aideen, he was someone who took part in conversations, who was asked his opinion. Who was asked to use his tool box to fix things. He received a book on do-it-yourself-projects and who was allowed to make those projects. To build things without being laughed at. Not forced to be the good boy all the time. He liked it in Mrs Callaghan's house. He liked having his godfather next door, even if their talks were limited and even if he was grumpy most of the time. He liked looking at Aideen and not having to justify why he liked her. He liked the cosiness of this house, the lack of gilded things, the lack of gold. The lack of uncomfortable chairs, the lack of silver and green only rooms. The lack of canopy beds. He liked the thin mattress he slept on. And he slept well.
And he loved having someone around all the time. He loved talking to Mrs Callaghan. Just talking, having meals with her.
No, he didn't want to go back to his parents.
"I'm not sure this is wise. He, I think, needs a break from your world."
"Our world?" his mother asked.
"Witches, wizards," Mrs Callaghan replied immediately. "After what happened to his godfather and, well, me, I..."
Draco took another deep breath and pushed the door open before she could say anymore. Besides, Merlin only knew what his mother would do now that she knew Mrs Callaghan knew about witches and wizards. He didn't know what his mother did in a situation like this. And come to think of it, he didn't know his mother very well at all.
"Hello Mother," he said with a slight nod of his head.
"Draco," he could see no shock on her face. Just that artificial smile he had known all his life — no — not quite as artificial. It was a teensy bit warmer than usual. Barely noticeable though.
"Hello Mrs Callaghan," Draco smiled brightly at her though. Couldn't bring himself to smile at his own mother. Too much.
"Want a cup?" she asked, her Irish lilt stronger than when she had talked to his mother.
"Yes, please. Thanks," he still smiled, then, just as Mrs Callaghan moved to get up, he decided to go in for the kill. "I'll make it myself though," he added, sending a short, malicious smirk towards his mother, the woman dependant on house elf, the woman that had actually almost cried when they had to let go most of their house elves. Who stressed out the one they still had. Oh no, she had to understand that he wasn't like this. At least not anymore.
