.
Systematically, he put the newly acquired pens on the newly cleared table and then pulled the reader from his leather bag. It still looked new, despite the fact that he had flipped through it at University and on the bus on the way home. He even understood bus travelling now; it wasn't as bad as he had thought the first time. And — Aideen had told him that he could get a cheap pass to use for a month and he had. That girl was full of information, really. Despite the fact that she hadn't warmed to him in the first place. And he could understand that. To a certain extent.
He had found some coloured sticky paper as well at the shop and had bought that as well and with new enthusiasm, pulled it from his bag as well. He would have something to do. He could dig his heels into this. And with this, with this subject, he could forget all about the Wizarding World. He had something to do and it was terribly interesting.
Carefully, Severus looked at the syllabus, then flicked open the page of the text they were supposed to read for the next week and eagerly, picked up the green pen and with a ruler under the lines, he began to read. Slowly and carefully. Underlining those things he considered important and — in addition — he made notes on his pad. He would be prepared.
And this was — fascinating. So many things were said every day by so many people — and so few people knew that there was always a second meaning, that there was always room for interpretation. So few people knew how much was going on in their brain, by hearing an every day expression like 'good morning' only. Somehow, he felt like he was being let in on a secret. Somehow, it felt like he was one of those few who truly understood. Who truly knew.
.
Severus wasn't aware that a smile had appeared on his face. A happy and content smile that nobody had seen for almost thirty years. Severus wasn't aware that he sighed happily, that he stretched his back, that he straightened his shoulders and that his nostrils filled with the scent of freshly copied paper. Severus didn't realise that he felt, deep inside, like he was stretching his legs again after being boxed up for too long.
He never noticed the smile. He never noticed how quickly the pages of his pad filled themselves, how quickly he learned.
.
"Do you honestly believe that?" Harry asked her as they stepped from the lift.
"Why should he lie?" shrugged Hermione, her hair annoying her greatly. This was what happened, she thought, when she left the house with wet hair and a hat only to prevent herself from catching cold. The curls tumbled down her back bushily, tickled her hair and the back of her neck and her cheeks. One of these days, she promised herself, she would cut it off. Just very short hair that could do whatever it wanted.
"It's Malfoy," he grumbled.
"Harry, you know how it is," she admonished, "in a situation like this, suddenly everyone is a suspect and he seemed an obvious choice. Besides, he offered to let us see the memory. He must know that we've seen enough to actually know when it's been tampered with. I honestly don't doubt that the Ministry would stop short of drugging people."
"But Kingsley..."
"He is no saint," she said darkly. "Think about it, Veritaserum is tempting, using it is tempting. It's so easy to know that you will hear exactly the truth. Imagine Muggles had it. Nobody would be in prison innocently. And I don't think they'd hesitate to use it either. Why shouldn't he? He has those great means of knowing that he will hear the truth and..."
"But it's unethical," he all but cried.
"So? This is the Ministry, Harry, not a nursery school. This is beyond unethical, they are the people who decide what's ethical and what isn't," she rubbed her eyebrow. "I'm getting a headache. I don't think I want to be here. They can do whatever they like but I want no part of it. Tell Kingsley I..."
"Hermione?"
"No, Harry, I'm sick and tired of people thinking they're doing the right thing and then using such methods. What gave him the right to drug Malfoy? Nothing but his own suspicion. And just because he was a Death Eater doesn't mean that he necessarily has to be bad. Look at Snape. He was..." she shook her head. "I'm going home. I'll have some revising to do which is far more important than this. You talk to Shacklebolt, see if he can justify it. I can't do."
"But we're already here and you're smarter than..."
She shook her head again and silenced him with a brief hug. "Sorry. This place is...I can't be here." She turned around to leave when a thought hit her. She stopped and turned half back to him. "You know," she began hesitantly, "I'm beginning to think that the curse on Snape wasn't such a bad thing. He doesn't have to deal with all these corrupted...people. It's not right, Harry. They're using Machiavellian methods and I just...sorry."
He frowned at her, then shrugged one shoulder. "If you're sure."
"I'm not sure. But I'm sure that I don't want to talk to the Minister. And Harry?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't take any drink from him," she said solemnly and stepped back into the lift. Yes, she had changed her mind. Everything in her head jumbled around — right and wrong seemed to have switched places, thoughts needed to be sorted. Machiavellian methods, yes. Means to an end. No matter what means. They had not stopped short of drugging Malfoy. They had not stopped short of taking Snape's wand. What else wouldn't they stop short of?
The Muggle world in comparison seemed like a sane place at this moment.
.
"Draco, your father wasn't himself. He wants you to come back. We have standards to uphold..."
"Standards I could never live up to, Mother," he replied coldly, looking into her cold eyes, then immediately turned to Mrs Callaghan and looked into her pale green ones. Eyes that were warm and loving. Woman had given him more love and more understanding in a few weeks than his parents had given him in their entire life. In his entire life.
"We were in no position to..."
"I don't want to hear it," he shouted angrily, banging his tea cup back onto the saucer. "I was told that I had to do this and that because my family expected it, because I had a duty towards my family. And what did it bring me? What, Mother?"
"Draco, love, no shouting," Mrs Callaghan admonished mildly.
"Would you please leave as alone?" his mother had the audacity to ask.
"It's her fucking house," Draco spat. "And you think you can ask her to leave? What're you going to do next, curse her, like your sainted oh-so-under-the-Imperius-husband did? Or obliviate like Severus's mother did? I will not have it," he pulled his wand from his pocket and raised it towards his mother. "Try it."
"Draco," Mrs Callaghan said softly and put her hand on his arm. "If you need a minute alone..."
"No, we don't need a minute alone. I'm done with you," he shouted again. "You come here like you own the place and at home, you'll wrinkle your nose because it's so dingy and so Muggle. You will laugh about it with Father and you will order that house elf around to do your dirty work. You never lifted a finger in your life and you think you can order honest, decent people around. You and Father. You never needed an Imperius curse to send me out of the room. 'Do as you're told, Draco'," he mocked. "No."
"Draco, we only wanted your best," his mother said softly.
"Best? Was this for the best?" he shoved his sleeve back and pushed his left, marred arm towards her. The faded Dark Mark, though only a faint, greyish scar stood out from his pale skin. "That was what was best for me?"
"You wanted this, Draco. We didn't force you."
"You didn't force me? That's rich, Mother. 'Oh, Draco, we have to...your Father...disgrace...you're our only hope...' Not force me? What then?" he got up and glared down at his mother.
.
Something was wrong, Severus thought, as he had stopped reading his fascinating text. There was shouting next door. Loud shouting. Draco shouting. He couldn't hear Eleanor but Draco shouting...that boy lost his temper so quickly and so viciously...
He didn't hesitate a moment, didn't wait and went through the back door, pulled himself up on the wall and jumped over it. Astonishing how quickly his physical strength had returned. Truly astonishing. He fell on his feet on Eleanor's patio and risked a glance inside the kitchen — and his eyes widened.
.
"Draco!" Eleanor said loudly and walked around the table to where the boy stood next to his mother, his wand pointed at her neck. She rested her hands on his arms and pulled them gently but with enough strength, to her, pinned them to his sides and effectively, pulled him to her, hugged him from behind. "You mustn't do that," she whispered in his ear. "You'll only get into trouble, and I don't want that."
He slacked against her, his left hand grasping hers when, at the same moment, the back door was pushed open and Severus, in his beautiful black jumper stood there, his growing hair tucked behind his ears, a curious expression on his face.
"Narcissa," he drawled coldly. "Stealing more books?"
29. The Semantical Conception of Truth
The word "true," like other words from our everyday language, is certainly not unambiguous. And it does not seem to me that the philosophers who have discussed this concept have helped to diminish its ambiguity. In works and discussions of philosophers we meet many different conceptions of truth and falsity, and we must indicate which conception will be the basis of our discussion.
We should like our definition to do justice to the intuitions which adhere to the classical Aristotelian conception of truth — intuitions which find their expression in the well-known words of Aristotle's Metaphysics:
To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, or of what is not that it is not, is true.
If we wished to adapt ourselves to modern philosophical terminology, we could perhaps express this conception by means of the familiar formula
The truth of a sentence consists in its agreement with (or correspondence to) reality.
(Tarski, 1944)
Severus sneered. It was what came easiest to him upon seeing that woman. Narcissa Malfoy. Hair perfectly coiffed, in clothes that would be considered old-fashioned in the Muggle world, but could, at least, be considered Mugglish enough for her to wear. A long, Victorian skirt (or plenty of skirts, Severus didn't have a clue about women's dresses), a ruffled blouse, a fur coat, mink, probably, which she had carefully no doubt and with a Dirt-Repelling Charm, hung over the chair she sat on. Draco behind her — and behind him, Eleanor, holding him to her.
And it was so easy to make her glare at him. That woman's mask slipped with so little effort — if one knew which buttons to push; and Severus, from years of having to interact with her, did.
"We weren't stealing your books," she snapped. "We were selling them for you. Lucius was doing it for you."
"How nice," he sneered still, wrinkling his large nose minutely — but effectively — in disgust. "Sinking so low now? And once more pulling the Imperius-trick from the hat. Ministry must be as daft as ever."
"It wasn't a trick this time," she spat. "And you know it. He wouldn't hurt a friend of yours."
"Yes. But you would, wouldn't you? Any Muggle..." he only looked at her and from the corner of his eyes, he could see how Eleanor pulled Draco out of the kitchen. The boy wasn't protesting and the boy wasn't fighting against her. Why Eleanor knew that it was best for him to talk to this woman alone, he didn't know — but he, honestly, preferred it that way. There were a few things that he wanted to tell her now — now that he had recovered from his shock. Now that he could so easily see through her without the need to try and use Legilimency on her.
He heard the door to the kitchen close with a soft click and then sat down, across from her, both his hands on the table, fingers stapled together.
"May I ask what you do here?"
"I came for my son, as you very well know," she said angrily. "I don't know what you tell him or what that old hag did..."
"Tsk, tsk, tsk, Narcissa, forgetting your manners? She is your hostess..."
"She's a Mu..."
"Careful, careful," he smiled maliciously.
"Muggle then. She's just a Muggle."
"And lose the 'just a'," he cautioned, his eyebrows raised in mock exasperation. Yes, he was aware of the fact that she could hex him at any moment, that she probably would, but that didn't mean he would be intimidated by her. He could break that woman's arm quicker than she could pull her wand. "Ever the Black, aren't you, Narcissa?"
The high and mighty pureblooded princess who had to marry Lucius because the parents thought she had been too spoilt to be with a man with less means and needed someone nouveaux riches. Even if his ancestors came from France and even if there was, he knew, a half-blood great-grandmother in the mix somewhere. The Blacks, back then, had been desperate for money — and the Malfoys the one to provide it. Unfortunate though that Lucius really seemed to love her — or seemed to have had loved her. No. Lucius, he figured, wasn't the only dark one in this family — he might have been even lighter than his wife. Even though she did love the son that her husband had given her. Strange family — and what utter dysfunctionality compared to the Callaghans.
"What's that supposed to mean?" she spat. "I'm a Malfoy."
"No, you're a Black, through and through. Arrogant like the rest of them, always thinking you're a bit better. Always thinking you can order anyone around, including your own son. You will lose him," he smiled evilly again, "Like your parents lost your sister, like your aunt and uncle lost that good for nothing son of their. Oh, think about it, Narcissa. Your son and Sirius Black being considered the rebels."
"I've trusted you."
"You bring up old stories," he shook his head. "You did not trust me, you needed me. And you wanted me dead. I had the place of Lucius and you couldn't stand the thought. Draco might have been a child but you thought he would live up to your expectations. And your expectations for him were to kill Dumbledore. You wanted me to take the vow because you wanted to see me dead."
"That is not true."
He shrugged one shoulder nonchalantly. "Truth is a matter of opinion in this."
"I trusted you then. I trusted you to keep your godson safe," she shrieked.
"The walls are thin, Narcissa. Very thin. I don't think I owe you any kind of explanation but for the sake of it, I will. If only for entertainment, I will provide one. I had ever intention of keeping Draco safe, with, or without the vow. If he had listened to me, if he had trusted me the way you claim you did, he would have come to me. He did not because you told him what needed to be done for the family. Your high and mighty family. I hear you only have one mingy house elf left? He tried to do what you wanted him to do. Lucius wouldn't have allowed it and you know it."
