"He did not even have the bravery to face death," she smiled softly. "He was afraid of death because he knew what was coming. And for the likes of him, there can only be hell. Eternal, burning hell. And he was the coward for not wanting to face that."

"Wizards are no Christians, Mrs Callaghan," Draco said softly, probably, Eleanor thought, glad that he was out of the focus for the time being.

"Severus said a similar thing," she smirked, "strange how you two are alike. But you must have an afterlife. You must believe in a sort of afterlife. Most people do. And most believe that there will be...consequences of what you do in life. What you do in life, every good deed, and every bad deed, it will come back, it echoes in eternity and wanting to escape that eternity, is cowardice. Severus told me things — and what did that man have? He had no love, he never felt love. Think about the basics, Draco. What did he come home to?"

"He had his snake," the boy said in a little voice.

"Yes. A pet," she sighed. "He was a coward. He never wanted to let anyone in. But of course this is what I know only from what Severus told me. I can't judge it really. But you're not a coward for not being able to kill someone. And Severus is the least coward that I've ever met. And look at you, Draco. You come here, you come into a completely different world and you adapt and you deal with it and you...you're no coward. A coward would have hidden at home and would have never wanted to see anything but his own four walls. You went out into the world anew. You made a fresh start. That requires bravery."

"I didn't do anything, I just...what could I do? My parents they're...my mother...when my father was Azkaban, she...Severus was right. All he said was right," he put his face in his hands and Eleanor couldn't resist slowly stroking his back and run her fingers through his hair, "I grew up like...I never was hugged just because. I was hugged as a reward. I was told to make friends with Harry Potter and when I failed...I...they let me know that I've failed them. They let me know that I wasn't worthy. That I couldn't even manage such a simple task."

He fell silent. Eleanor knew from Severus that Harry Potter was the boy who had come in front of her house at Christmas, she knew that he had been the one, ultimately, to dispose of that Lord Voldemort person. She knew that there was no love lost between all of them.

"But I went to him this morning when I went out."

She nodded only. She had, naturally, wanted to know where he had gone but he had told her that he needed to go out for a while — and nothing more. Now to hear that he had gone to see that Harry Potter — strange.

"I wanted to know...my father...I haven't...did my mother say where he was? Before I came in, I mean."

She nodded again but he couldn't see it, had his face still almost pressed against his hands that rested on the top of the table. "She said he was in hospital."

"In hospital?" his head shot up. "She didn't tell me. Why didn't she tell me?"

Eleanor shrugged. "I assume...she would have." Oh, she did not want to defend that awful woman but what choice did she have?

"Did she say why?" his eyes were full of — fear — worry? She wasn't sure.

"Sorry, love, no," she smiled and didn't hold back this time but hugged the poor boy who had never been hugged just because. In this house — hugs were no rewards. In this house, hugs were for...just because.

Carefully, Severus read the syllabus, the lesson plans once more, the information this professor, Dr Deveney, had given on it. Her office hours were on there and phone numbers and...email. Whatever email was.

Essays can be sent in via email.

Otherwise, please print your paper in Times New Roman or Ariel, font size twelve, double-spaced.

Print? Times New Roman? Ariel? Double-spaced? He had lived most years as a Wizard. He knew quills. He knew ink, he knew parchment. Times New Roman? Ariel? Font size twelve?

There was only one thing to do. He was sure that some people, who had known him as a Wizard, could answer those questions — Hermione Granger would know — but he'd be damned to ask that witch for advice. No. Aideen, although she didn't know that he had been a wizard, thought that they, him and Draco, were indeed strange, and she would answer.

Besides, how had Eleanor phrased it? You and me, Severus, in her eyes, we're old.

Gingerly, he picked up the phone he had had installed just after Christmas, the phone which rang about twice a week, either Kathleen or Stephen who were wanting to know how Eleanor was faring. But he had a few numbers collected, and one Aideen had written down for him, had told him to use it if he had any problems. And Times New Roman, email, Ariel, font size twelve, double-spaced, that was a problem.

With a finger on the number, he dialled it. It was as it had been when he had been a child. There was no round dial plate. There was no sticking your fingers into holes and turning the dial. He only had to punch a few buttons.

"Hello?" he heard almost immediately and there was a lot of background noise. Oh yes, she had explained that this was her mobile phone. Something that hadn't existed when he had been young. A phone you could carry around with you, a phone that you could use everywhere.

"Erm, hello," he said hesitantly.

"Severus?" she asked. "Hi."

"Yes, it is I," why she called him by his given name, he didn't know. But she did and had been since she had almost slapped him.

"Everything alright?" she asked brightly.

"No," he said. This was embarrassing. Asking a child a question which he couldn't answer himself.

"What's the matter?"

"I...er...I have a, er, paper here from my class."

"Okay?"

"And it says: Essays can be sent in via email. Otherwise, please print your paper in Times New Roman or Ariel, font size twelve, double-spaced."

"Oh, you don't have a computer?" Aideen asked innocently and Severus looked utterly confused. Computer. Yes, he remember faintly. Big things that ran bigger things. Like...a calculator, only bigger. He remembered.

"No," he said.

"Gran doesn't have one either even though I've been telling her to get one for ages," she laughed. "Erm, listen, I have one more class now but if you meet me in front of the Arndale in, erm, let's say two hours, we can get you one. I know that they have an offer in Comet. And I think they install the internet as well for you but we'd have to ask. I need to go in anyway. Curious what they did already after the bombing, wasn't it?"

Bombing yes. Or not. Things were often perceived differently by Muggles. Didn't matter. Didn't matter that this had been, well, a well-placed Imperius and, for the first time in Death Eating history, a decent Muggle cover-up. Didn't matter.

He nodded. He could catch the bus and meet her there. Anything to find out what all of this was about. Besides, he had checked his balance on his account lately — and the Social gave him rather a lot of money. There was a lot on his account. Eleanor had been surprised about it at first, but then the next day, she had never even mentioned it again. Maybe she got less, maybe the Social had made a mistake but for the time being, he didn't want to think about it. Obviously he needed a computer — and such things couldn't be cheap, and that's where the money came in handy.

"Severus? Are you still there?" Aideen squealed into the phone.

"Yes. I will come into town," he answered shortly.

"Oh good, listen I need to go, my class is about to start and...stop hitting me...bye Severus."

He shook his head. Those phone calls were always strange but he would — well, he would buy a computer with Aideen. And that would, most certainly, make him completely forget about Narcissa's unfortunate visit.

31. Concept and Object

In the sentence 'The Morning Star is Venus', we have two proper names, 'Morning Star' and 'Venus', for the same object. In the sentence 'The Morning Star is a planet' we have a proper name, 'the Morning Star', and a concept word, 'planet'. So far as language goes, no more has happened than that 'Venus' has been replaced by 'a planet'; but really the relation has become wholly different. An equation is reversible; an object's falling under a concept is an irreversible relation. In the sentence 'The Morning Star is Venus', 'is' is obviously not a mere copula; its concept is an essential part of the predicate, so that the word 'Venus' does not constitute the whole of the predicate. One might say instead: 'The Morning Star is no other than Venus'; what was previously implicit in the single word 'is' is here set forth in four separate words, and in 'is no other than' the word 'is' now really is the mere copula. What is predicated here is thus not Venus but no other than Venus. These words stand for [bedeuten] a concept; admittedly only one object falls under this, but such a concept must still always be distinguished from the object. We have here a word 'Venus' than can never be a proper predicate, although it can form part of a predicate. The Bedeutung of this word is thus something that can never occur as a concept, but only as an object.

(Frege, 1892)

Well, she had not been able to disentangle any of the curls on her head and it looked like a very huge bird had built a nest there. Magic didn't help when it was like this, she knew and so, she washed her hair, put in massive amounts of Sleakeazy's, before she apparated away, before she went to where she had to go, where she wanted to go. Not that she had any new information on Lucius Malfoy, or new if he even was still at St Mungo's, but she felt like Draco would shed light on the entire thing, that he could, maybe, even make her own thought process clearer. Hell, ever since she had been sorted into Gryffindor, it had been clear that there was right and wrong and Gryffindor and Slytherin. And now that image was, well, shaken. A lot.

And so, because she knew that Draco was staying with Snape's Muggle neighbour, who had seemed rather old and probably conservative, and because Malfoy was still a wizard (though, as far as she remembered, he had worn jeans the day before when he had come to see them), she opted for a knee-length black skirt and a light blue blouse and threw her mother's vintage coat over her shoulders. The one she had never before been allowed to wear and had now, that they didn't come back, snatched up (as she had most of her mother's other old clothes, well, the pretty ones and the mini-skirts from the sixties).

With a last glance in the mirror and a last look at her soft and gentle waves (she really had to thank those Sleakeazy people), she stepped out onto Grimmauld Place and apparated away.

"Draco, there's a job advertisement in the paper," Eleanor said gently. She couldn't make it more obvious than this, really, but it wasn't even the middle of the month and money was running, well, out. Not that she minded having Draco living there but with him and Severus staying there so often for meals, she had to buy more than she usually had to buy for herself, and even though Severus was getting a lot of money from the social and that money Draco had mentioned from those Wizarding people, she was loath to ask him for money. And if Draco could just chip in a little, it would make it so much simpler on her. And if she could only bring Draco, who had no money himself, bring to get a job, even a part-time job, and if he could just give her a little, well, rent...

"What kind of job?" he asked, looking only mildly interested.

"It's retail," she answered, a little snippy. Yes, she had to be patient with the boy. It wasn't his fault that he had been privileged enough to grow up completely unconcerned with money. But maybe, and as embarrassing as it was, she would have to explain to him (and maybe to Severus, even though he would be utterly mortified) that money was scarce.

"What?"

"Selling things."

"Ikea?"

"No, not Ikea. Clothes," she replied, her patience wearing thin. She wasn't usually that way but she had slept badly after Aideen had brought Severus home with one of those laptop-computers and after she had asked her for twenty quid. Twenty quid she had given her granddaughter. And now, there wasn't so much left. She had thought and thought and thought and there was only...Draco needed the chip in. That was all there was to it. And her bones had hurt, her joints, everything had hurt. Her back had hurt and the scar on her, well, breast, had itched, again. She usually wasn't one to complain. But she felt tired and worn out. Listening to those stories of Draco's and of Severus's, stories of dead people, of torturing, of how she had herself almost died, it had made her thick skin thinner. And Severus had grumbled away most of the night — she could hear it through the wall. She had known a laptop-computer-thing had been a bad idea.

Draco stared at her for a moment, then frowned. "How do I..."

"You go to the bloody shop and ask," she almost shouted. Her back hurt. She hadn't slept. And she didn't have the nerve, at the moment, to listen to Severus shouting through the wall (which he did) and having to explain to Draco how to get a job. She swallowed, tried to walk through the pain in her back as she had been told decades ago by her late husband. It had never worked, hadn't decades ago and wasn't now. She needed to...

"Are you alright?" the boy asked, and almost seemed worried about her. That kind of broke her and her bad mood, but only kind of and she arched her eyebrows and nodded.

"Yes, fine," she nodded and tried a little, tired smile and decided on, well, partial honesty, "I just didn't sleep well."

"Severus was up quite long, wasn't he?" the boy smiled gently.

"I knew it was a bad idea to get a laptop-computer-thing," she huffed. "You will check about that job?"

The boy looked at her questioningly, then, suddenly, nodded. "I will go later."

"Good," she fell silent and pretended to read the paper. Maybe, she thought, he had understood. Most likely, he hadn't, but how could she tell him that they were basically broke and that it wasn't even the middle of the month? She was so deep in thought that the doorbell ringing was making her jump. "I'll get it," she said, clutching one hand to her chest, the other, as she was getting up, supporting her aching back. Maybe, she thought, not looking at the boy, she needed a new mattress. The old one, in her old bed, the bed she had shared with Michael, was well-worn, was lumpy. No money for that at the moment.

Eleanor sighed softly just before she opened the door.

"Bloody bugger," Severus swore, loudly, and glared at the bloody laptop in front of him. Whatever Aideen had made to make him buy this thing, he would take it back. Yes, yes, the bloody shop-person had explained everything and for a quick second, he thought, he had been able to be on the mysterious internet. For a quick second only, that modem thing he had used, the one he had to put a cord into and the other end of the cord into his laptop (which said, mysteriously, ThinkPad on the front. Not that it helped him thinking), had made a weird noise, and had then fallen silent. Had then made more weird noises and then silence again. He had a book in front of him, a manual but that wasn't any help either.