NEWTs were over, Harry had not been at home to celebrate with her and with Aideen, it had just been the next best thing, really and a short phone call had been enough, then apparating to Manchester, and there she was. Of course with Aideen she celebrating being done with the A-Levels but that didn't matter to her at the moment. She had done what she had always wanted to achieve. NEWTs taken in Potions, in Transfiguration, in Charms, in Arithmancy, in Herbology, in History of Magic, in Ancient Runes, in Astronomy, and in Defense against the Dark Arts. As many as she could, basically. And she felt she had done rather well. But since the Uni at York wouldn't care...well. It was for herself, she had always known this. She could have had a decent job at the Ministry without any NEWTs. But that wasn't what she wanted. She wanted, for now, to be seen as the person who did well academically, not the war heroine.
Alone the fact that Aideen had no idea who she was, what she had done, was great. That she could just have a cup of tea with her and talk about Uni and about Draco (that was mostly Aideen...that girl was besotted) and about Snape. She was glad that she had, in fact, stopped at least the most of the silly crush. She had just suppressed it in her mind. She didn't pretend anymore, wrapped in her duvet at night, that it was her head-Severus's arms holding her. And she was trying not to think too much about it. It had worked extraordinarily well. No more thought about it. Well, almost.
"Hey," she answered Aideen finally and hugged her back.
"Oh, listen, I have to go to gran's. I promised to go and see her and, well, Draco will drive home on the bus with us, I forgot to mention it on the phone. You don't mind that we'll go there for tea? She's alone today because Severus has his last exam today and so I want to check on her and my term's over as well and before I go to see Mum and Dad over the summer..."
"No problem," Hermione smiled. She hadn't seen Aideen's grandmother since that day that she had helped Snape with his computer. Had seen Draco, but not him, nor her. "I don't mind."
Aideen smiled and squeezed her upper arm. "Great. We'll go down to Selfridge's and pick up Draco and then catch the bus if that's alright:"
"That's alright," Hermione smiled. And it was. It really was.
.
Severus felt like a student again. Well, technically, he was a student again but the way his hair fell over the parchment, the way he scribbled furiously, the way he felt, he had felt all of that before. Decades ago, probably before most of those who sat like him, bent over the paper, been born. It was a rather simple exam, he thought. He had read all of those things that were asked a thousand times. And yet, he kept writing and writing, wringing every last bit of information from his brain. It was systematic, it was clear, it was concise. It was absolutely logical and he liked logical. He truly liked linguistics and — if what Dr Deveney had said and what his other two professors had confirmed was really true, he could speed up his studies, and would soon be teaching again.
Not that he missed teaching. But it would be a good thing to do and it would help his finances.
But he truly didn't understand, and wondered, as he thought about the last question (Discuss the difference between polysemy and the variation of meaning due to metaphorical shift, metonymical shift, and differentiation) what Dr Deveney wanted from him. She had constantly looked at him during the last few classes, had asked him more than once to coffee, had told him, more than once, to call her Annie (which he wouldn't) and it almost seemed like she fancied him.
Fancied him. What a ridiculous thought indeed. She was a good looking woman, even he could see that. Not that she was there at the moment, this was pragmatics after all, not semantics, what she taught. But yes, he had to admit that she looked rather, well, nice. Long brown hair, blue eyes, a little nose, a nice figure. A bit too thin and a bit too tall but, yes, nice looking. And so he would have coffee with her, if only she stopped bothering him. He would show her his best face, his Severus-Snape-dungeons-face and even though she tried to act almost the same way towards some of her students in her class, she just didn't have the stamina to keep it up. She was, he thought, a woman. They were never any good at this. Minerva McGonagall had tried and succeeded most of the time but not always. And Dr Deveney was even worse at it. She just caved when she saw a sad face. Not very conducive to teaching loads of dunderheads.
He looked up briefly to refocus his eyes and saw one of the other girls who had taken the course with him winking at him and smiling at him.
Oh, this was just ridiculous. He would write this exam, would meet Dr Deveney for coffee briefly and then spend his summer writing papers and preparing for the next term. Simple.
And the question (Discuss the difference between polysemy and the variation of meaning due to metaphorical shift, metonymical shift, and differentiation.) not so difficult. He was almost done. And then a meal, maybe, with Eleanor in the evening. That would be nice indeed.
.
"Harry," Arthur said brightly. "Molly says to tell you that we miss you and that all of that is forgotten and that you should come over to the Burrow as soon as possible."
Harry beamed. This was — lovely.
"Now that that's out of the way..." the older man hesitated. "Why don't we, for a second, go into my office again? I have...someone in there and I think you'd be interested."
"Who?" Harry asked but Arthur only shook his head, magically opened his door and let Harry stepped in. At first, he didn't see anything, and then, the back of a blonde head, sitting in a chair. Well, the person was sitting in a chair. And he only knew two people who had such hair. Malfoy.
"Mister Potter," he heard as the chair swivelled and he saw the face of Lucius Malfoy, looking at him.
"Mister Malfoy," he answered, utterly puzzled.
"Lucius," Arthur nodded. "I haven't filled Harry in on anything. This office, at least, is safe."
"Hang on," Harry said, impulsively, wishing, for once, he would have that impulsiveness under control but it never got better, "since when do you two get along? The last time I saw you..."
"Mister Potter, people change. And people get changed, for the lack of a better expression, by circumstances."
"Harry, we all have a common interest. We want to know who is behind what happened."
Harry nodded curiously. "And?"
"It seems that so far, there is nothing. We know nothing and the Minister knows nothing," Arthur replied while Harry tried, as covertly as he could, to look at Malfoy. He looked almost the same as he had done before. The one corner of his mouth though was hanging down slightly. A stroke...yes, it almost looked like a stroke, like the one he remembered one of the neighbours in Privet Drive having.
"What can I do?" Harry asked. "I'm playing Quidditch now, I'm not in the Ministry anymore."
Malfoy arched one of his eyebrows and got up from his chair. "Weasley, Potter," he said slowly. "Good day to you."
Harry watched as the man got up, and apparently nothing was left, no bad feelings between Arthur and Malfoy. Instead, the red-headed man shook the blonde's hand and gave him a smile, promising him to inform him if he knew something. Nothing left of the hatred because of Ginny's almost death and her possession of Voldemort. Nothing. They seemed friendly with one another. And that was rather strange, Harry thought.
"His wife left him," Arthur said a moment after the door closed and they were alone once again. "And he truly wants to know who cursed him. Since the Minister doesn't trust him any further than he can throw him, he turned to me."
"Are you using Legilimency?" asked Harry, stunned.
"No. I'm just reading your face," he laughed.
"His wife left him? Draco's mum left him?"
Arthur nodded. "She...moved, apparently, to Spain. Those curses were probably too much for her."
Harry frowned. This was too much information. Narcissa Malfoy leaving her husband? The perfect marriage so imperfect? Well, Draco had mentioned nothing when he had met him that one time. But he wouldn't.
"Why was he here?" he found himself asking.
"We...have our suspicions, of course, who it might have been. Lucius never saw who did it. But did you see his face? The Ministry has tried very hard to damage him as well. There are a lot of hard feelings left, Harry, don't...
"That's why I left," he said sadly.
"I gathered," Arthur smiled and squeezed his upper arm. "Lucius is...a Slytherin. He doesn't tell you anything unless he gets something in return. And..."
Harry frowned. "Yes?"
"We want to...well, first of all we want to find out who is behind those curses."
"But Malfoy and you..."
Arthur smiled still and nodded. "Yes. I know. But it all has a reason. I will tell you, in due time. And I think we'd very much appreciate your input on who you think could have put the curses on people. We need to think, what's the expression, outside the box."
"But I can't do anything? Why did you ask me here?"
"You can do a lot of things, Harry. First of all, we need to, and I hate to say this, but we need to think Slytherin. And that's what Lucius is for." The Weasley almost smirked evilly, "We have a plan. And we need you for it."
35. The Counterfactual Cue
Clearly, an ironic interpretation may be appropriate if the speaker's statement deviates from reality. Of course, there are many other possible interpretations for a counterfactual statement (e.g., perhaps the speaker is being deceptive, or mistaken), but the use of counterfactuals is perhaps the most salient cue for ironic content. The listener may employ the following heuristic when the speaker utters a counterfactual statement:
(A) The larger the deviation from reality, the greater the certainty of ironic intent.
As an example, consider the following utterance:
(2) "What lovely weather!"
If (2) is uttered on a warm, sunny day, there is no deviation from reality, and the statement may be interpreted literally. If (2) is uttered on an overcast day, the statement becomes a bit more ambiguous. For example, if torrential downpours had occurred every day during the preceding week, then a day without rain might indeed seem 'lovely'. In this case, the use of the heuristic specified in (A) is problematic; there is a deviation between the utterance and reality, but because it is not extreme, an ironic interpretation may not be warranted. Finally, if (2) is screamed at the hearer over the howling wind, as speaker and hearer crouch in a tornado shelter, the use of (A) allows and ironic interpretation to be made with some certainty.
(Kreuz, 1996)
Hermione perched on the seat in the bus. And this was, she realised, one instance where she actually preferred magic to the Muggle way. Dirty buses, dirty seats with stains on them that she couldn't — and didn't want to — identify, a drunk man two rows behind her and in front of her, Draco and Aideen, holding hands. Oh those two. Seriously. Alone the fact that Draco had walked out of Selfidge's with a self-satisfied smirk on his face, and then the lighting up of his face upon seeing Aideen — and the ensuing kiss — had astounded Hermione Granger to no end. But honestly, what astounded her even more than the part with Selfridge's or Aideen was the fact that he looked like Draco Malfoy, talked like Draco Malfoy but didn't act like him at all. True, there had been only one kiss and while that had seemed rather stormy and passionate, it had been brief, and he was very discreetly holding her hand. But they were holding hands. In public. And Draco had grinned like a madman when he had seen her (the grinning had stopped though, as soon as he had seen Hermione but that much was to be expected). He asked her questions, talked to her softly ever since they had gotten on the bus.
And this was really a waste of time. This entire bus journey was a waste of time. Apparating was so much more practical, even if it sometimes induced nausea. Sitting there, unable to pull out her wand to even cast a quick Scourgify on the seat. But, yes, she had, briefly, seen Draco's wand sticking out from his back pocket. So he carried it there — and, Hermione almost giggled to herself — if he worked on commission, a wand and a Confundus would come in handy.
"It's the next stop," Aideen suddenly said, turning around to see her.
"Granger, why exactly are you here again?" Malfoy asked, coldly.
"She's done with her A-Levels and she wants to celebrate, Draco," Aideen shook her head and rolled her eyes. "I told you this morning."
"You didn't."
"I wrote you an email," she huffed.
"I didn't get to read any emails all day long. It's not like I can, at work," he argued.
Hermione only smiled a little. She wasn't sure exactly why she had chosen to meet Aideen, other than the fact that she didn't want to be alone, but this was better than to sit at Grimmauld Place, thinking and waiting. Even though, if truth be told, she itched and itched and itched to ask Draco's opinion about some questions. Or better yet, Snape. But then again, Aideen had said he wouldn't be there and it was maybe better this way. Especially since she only wore jeans and a t-shirt. A plain t-shirt. And plain jeans. Nothing special. And the sandals on her feet were nothing special either. But she couldn't explain to Draco that the silence in Grimmauld Place could be oppressing and that she truly had to cut down on the internet because she landed, automatically, on some marvellous site named Amazon which sold books. And books. And they were cheap and the delivered to the doorstep. And while there was nothing compared to perusing tomes in a bookshop, she knew that she could order them, on that marvellous site, without wondering what she looked like or whether she was in her pyjamas or not. And that was the beauty of it. Retail book therapy without having to care what she looked like. Brilliant.
But she had to cut down on that. It cost her a lot of money. And her bookshelves were overpopulated.
"Come on," Aideen said, pulling her up from the seat and she wondered, very briefly, if Draco used the bus usually, or if he apparated. She was glad she could — and she would. Apparition and none-dirty bus seats were magical.
.
Harry blinked confusedly. "What?"
"It is rather simple. We want to catch the, let's say, culprit. And the best way to do it is...what's the Muggle saying? In flagrante."
"Almost, yeah, so far I get it but you want me to do what?"
"Throw a party. It's been over a year since the end of the war..."
"This will never work," Harry argued. "Seriously, I'm hearing Hermione in my head. She'd tell you that it would never work because the person who's done it has never used their own wand, only Bellatrix Lestrange's. And what good would it do for them to show up at Grimmauld Place with, I take it, Malfoy in attendance, and if possible Snape in attendance, which won't happen, and then nothing would happen? Because nothing would happen. They're not completely stupid," he paused, "I truly have Hermione in my head. Must be living with her...seriously, she can be quite nagging and after a time..."
