"It's not working the way it should," Malfoy helped and Snape swung around and glared at him. She just stood there, figuring out what she had stumbled into. And how this day had...turned so weird. So odd. She wanted to go home to her books. She wanted to read, she wanted to revise, she wanted to — not be there. And at the same time, she wanted to be there. She could, she thought, smell a bit of manly, male scent waving over her. Not stinky male scent, but male shower gel or aftershave or shampoo. It was faint but...oh if that was Snape, it definitely brought him closer to her head-Severus.

"The screen went black suddenly," he said, and sounded a little choked. Sounded as if he didn't want to say it. As if he wanted to deal with it on his own. She could understand that, definitely. She liked solving her own problems and didn't want another person just butting in. But this was the only way, at least, to be close to him for a while. And she would try — try hard — to be as little know-it-ally as she could.

She smiled and it was a bit weak, she knew but she nodded. With as much dignity as she could muster, she walked towards the laptop. It was an ugly thing, really. Black and thick and the screen was open and the letters on the keyboard close together. Snape with his big hands would get cramp writing on it. No, not thinking about his hands. No.

"Erm, the, er, battery?"

"Battery?" Draco asked before Snape could say a word.

"I think it has a battery. Did that run low?"

"What. Do. You. Take. Me. For?" he snapped. "Of course it ran low, so I plugged the cord in to have it recharged and since the manual said to take the battery out if you're using the laptop with the cord only..."

Hermione swallowed. She stood on the other side of the table and he couldn't possibly get too near to her. Yes, the cord was plugged in. In the socket. Not in the laptop.

"Erm, this?" she asked, holding up the disconnected cord.

Snape kept his face in a neutral mask. He didn't show anger. He was probably over anger now. He was probably seething inside and he would throw her out for sure.

"Oh, you must have pulled it out when you were..." said Malfoy and for a moment, the neutral mask on Snape's face slipped and showed a grimace of anger. Deep anger. Horrible anger. If she had been a lesser person, she would have ducked. Well, but then again it was kind of embarrassing to find out that you had taken the battery out of the laptop (why did he do that? Save battery? Make it last longer?) and the power cord had, well, been disconnected. She put it back in and the laptop made a weird noise. She tried to ignore the threatening "Draco," Snape hissed and bustled around a bit on the other side of the table. A strange looking little box stood there, various cords sticking out of it and connecting it to the laptop and the box where usually the phone was connected.

Oh, she was definitely out of her depths. 'Pretend. It can't be that hard. You installed that VCR,' she told herself sternly and while both Draco and Snape seemed to be completely caught up in a glaring contest, she grabbed the manual of the little box. Modem, it said.

She remembered having read about one of those. Things that connected you to the internet. Hence the phone line. They were still glaring at one another and so she thumbed through the manual. Maybe, she thought, she would get lucky and it was just another cord that didn't sit correctly.

She checked every single one according to the manual and found they were all rightly put in.

"Do you think I'm unable to read a manual?" she heard the voice — that voice — next to her ear and the scent was so strong in her nose.

"I was just checking," she almost stuttered, sounding rather defensive. "And you never said you had problems with the modem."

"It won't connect me to the internet," he growled. "I am very well able to read a manual and plug cords in."

Hermione bit back her comment. Obviously, well, he had pulled one out. Had made the laptop just crash. Oh but he was still rather close. Not touching and not so close that she could feel him per se, but she could smell him. Very much so. Oh, that smelled divine. Really. All...oh, back to that task.

"Did you look for the troubleshooting?" she asked in a little voice.

Instead of berating her, instead of throwing her out, which she had half expected, he only looked at her, then shook his head briefly.

She smiled back, was all she could and opened the manual on the troubleshooting page.

"Erm...you installed it?"

He rolled his eyes and snatched the manual out of her hands and managed to do so without touching her and pulled the laptop to him, and sat down on a chair, leaving her there, half-crouching, half-kneeling. He didn't look at her, but instead he handled the laptop with a sort of forced ease already, the manual next to him, propped up against a cup of tea she hadn't noticed before. He used his finger on the lines of the manual then clicked a few times.

He said absolutely nothing and she was damned to watch him standing behind him, seeing his hair (it wasn't greasy — that was a first, probably), his shoulder, the soft material of his jumper teasing her to touch it. No, she had to back away. This wasn't right. She wasn't that way. She wasn't crushing on teachers. Or former teachers. Who smelled good. Well, Lockhart but she had been, well, a baby then. She wasn't crushing on Snape. She was, yes, daydreaming about a sort of phantasm that could resemble Snape if one squinted and looked at it sideways. Nothing more, nothing less.

It didn't hurt that he ignored her. That he hadn't even greeted her, that he merely checked — what? The...ISP-Parameters? That he punched a few numbers into his keyboard (yes, punched) and that he, with a without making a noise, rebooted his laptop, then clicked a few more times on something and that suddenly, the modem-thing behind her made whirring, dialling noises, weird noises and with the same silence he had shown before, he stretched. Almost touching her. His head, almost, almost, touching her belly.

Hermione jumped to the side.

"What are you still doing here?" he asked snarkily, looking at her again.

"Er..." she blushed. "I thought that maybe, you know, needed my help with something? Draco said to make sure it won't keep him and Mrs Callaghan up another night. Oh, she's in pain, by the way. I'm not sure if you know but her back...and" target="_blank">back...and her left leg. She pulls..."

"Miss Granger, do I have to ask you to leave one more time?" he glared.

"You haven't..."

"What are you still doing here is an implied order to leave. One would think you'd understand your mother tongue."

"I do understand my mother tongue," she answered. Oh, this indeed would destroy her head-Severus-image. This man, sitting there, he was mean and he was arrogant and he was bullying, and he smelled so lovely and his eyebrows were perfect and his fingers resting on the keyboard as if he was protecting it and splayed possessively over it and if they were on her stomach...no. Snarky. Sarcastic to a degree which bordered on emotional cruelty. "Good day to you, sir," she said simply, swallowing all the replies she wanted to give him about not wanting to be there, about being shoved by Draco, about wanting to help.

He, once more, only rolled his eyes while at the same time arching his eyebrows and she fled. Had barely time to grasp her coat which hung over another chair and apparated a soon as she slightly behind his house, hidden by the rest of the world.

Maybe, she thought, she had needed that. Sarcastic Snape was just as mean-spirited as he had ever been. No difference. No difference. I see no difference. She could get rid of that head-Severus now. She hoped.

Severus leant back in his chair, sighing happily. Some numbers, ISP-Parameters had been wrong. He had corrected them and now he was, officially, on the internet. What he could do with it, he didn't know. But he had done it. And almost alone.

With another satisfied sigh, he shut the laptop down, when Granger's words came back to him. He had interrupted her and hadn't really listened but...hadn't she said something about Eleanor? 'Draco said to make sure it won't keep him and Mrs Callaghan up another night. Oh, she's in pain, by the way. I'm not sure if you know but her back...and her left leg. She pulls...' That's what she had said.

He shoved the laptop away from him, making sure he had not disconnected that bloody power cord again and growled low in his throat. He had been so preoccupied with the thing, as fascinating as it was, that he had forgotten about Eleanor. Had he been so loud again to keep her up?

Shaking his head, he got up and knew he needed to make sure Eleanor was fine. And to tell Draco never to bring that Granger into his house again.

33. Semiotics

I propose to define as a sign everything that, on the grounds of a previously established social convention, can be taken as something standing for something else. In other terms I would like to accept the definition proposed by Morris (1938) according to which 'something is a sign only because it is interpreted as a sign of something by some interpreter ... Semiotics, then, is not concerned with the study of a particular kind of objects, but with ordinary objects insofar (and only insofar) as they participate in semiosis'. I suppose it is in this sense that one must take Peirce's definition of the 'standing-for' power of the sign 'in some respect or capacity'. The only modification that I would introduce into Morris's definition is that the interpretation by an interpreter, which would seem to characterize a sign, must be understood as the possible interpretation by a possible interpreter. [...] It suffices t say that the human addressee is the methodological (and not the empirical) guarantee of the existence of a signification, that is of a sign-function established by a code. But on the other hand the supposed presence of a human sender is not the guarantee of the sign-nature of a supposed sign. Only under this condition is it possible to understand symptom and indices as signs.

(Eco, 1976)

January 30th, 1999

From: Hermione Granger

To: James Granger

Subject: Hello!

Dear Mum and Dad,

I bought myself a laptop as well since you told me about your email address in your last letter and I thought this would be quicker. It has been a bit of a hassle to have someone come in an install a phone line in Grimmauld Place where I seem to reside permanently with Harry now, but now all of that is fixed and I'm slowly learning how to use this computer. But maybe, we can use this to communicate quicker and cheaper. I bought a book about it as well :)

Love,

Hermione

February 3rd, 1999

From. Severus Snape

To: Annie Deveney, PhD

Subject: Essay

Dr Deveney,

find attached my essay on associative meaning.

S. Snape

February 4th, 1999

From: Hermione Granger

To: James Granger

Subject: re: re: re: Hello!

Dear Mum and Dad,

Harry is absolutely fascinated by the computer. He told me that his cousin used to have one but that they never had the internet on that. And I find myself sitting hours in front of it, perusing all the information that I can find on there. It is like a wonderful, lovely library and I don't have to leave the house! I even found out that I could buy things like books on here and they deliver straight to the door. I'm so glad there are no Muggle-repelling charms on this house anymore! Phew! So, is it very hot in Oz? (I can't believe you're referring to Australia as Oz!). It has been rather cold and windy here but we don't have any rain or snow at least. Will you be coming to visit soon?

Love,

Hermione

February 5th 1999

From: Aideen Callaghan

To: Severus Snape

Subject: Draco told me

Hey Severus,

Draco told me all about your new found internet-addiction ;) And about your email address so I'm using this way of asking how it's all going. Shame our campuses are not closer together or we could get together once in a while. Is gran okay? I heard you took her to the doctor, or made her go to the doctor or anything because of her back. Is that alright? Will you tell her that I'll come visit next weekend? Thanks :)

Aideen xx

February 6th, 1999

From: Severus Snape

To: Aideen Callaghan

Subject: re: Draco told me

Aideen,

your grandmother is well. The doctor gave her painkillers and a few shots in the back since it was apparently her sciatic nerve. He however said that she should get a new mattress and we bought one straight after.

S. Snape.

PS: What are the two xx about?

February 6th, 1999

From: Severus Snape

To: Aideen Callaghan

Subject: He's in the shower

Aideen,

Severus is in the shower and he left his computer running. I sneaked on it and will now try to write my first ever email. Did it work? Don't answer or he might get it. Will I see you on the weekend? Do you think we could get out for a meal?

Draco xx

February 6th, 1999

From: Annie Deveney, PhD

To: Severus Snape

Subject: re: Essay

Severus,

please find the corrected version of your essay attached. I was rather surprised by how well it was researched, especially for a supposed first essay. Have you done any linguistics before?

Annie Deveney

February 6th, 1999

From: Severus Snape

To: Annie Deveney, PhD

Subject: re: re: Essay

No.

February 9th, 1999

From. Severus Snape

To: Felix Smith, PhD

Subject: Essay

Dr Smith,

find attached my essay on NPs.

S. Snape

February 13th, 1999

From: Hermione Granger

To: James Granger

Subject: re: re: re:re: re: Hello!

Dear Mum and Dad,

I have been talking to a department of the Ministry (even though I was loath to go) about taking my A-Levels at the same time as my NEWTs, or maybe having my NEWTs seen as A-Levels, since I'm not sure I want to continue my education in the Wizarding World. I haven't yet decided for sure yet what I want to do but I've read a pamphlet about doing Maths at Uni and the chances of employment after this and I'm actually considering it. It's just an idea. :/

Love,

Hermione

February 14th, 1999

From: James Granger

To: Hermione Granger

Subject: University?

My dearest Hermione,

your mother has not yet read your email but she would be proud. Mathematics are a noble subject and there are plenty of open spots of mathematicians down here as well. I'm not saying stay away from the Wizarding World but I'm sure there will be opportunities within it with maths, aren't there? Let us know what you decided and when you can come visit.