"Because Aideen wants to be your friend still and I thought...well, she still wants to be your friend. But to cut your hair...Granger...Hermione, come on. I certainly didn't intend to hurt you and Severus is...he's..."

"I had the idea because of all of you at first, alright?" she almost screeched, "But then I decided that I wanted it different. And then I didn't think about your comments anymore."

"Okay," said Draco slowly and observed her interestedly. She didn't seem too happy with it altogether. More like...sad. And almost-teary-eyed.

"I like it, okay?" he huffed and a tear slid down her cheek.

"And that's why you're crying?" he asked softly.

"I'm not crying and I like it," tears leaking from both eyes now.

"Granger...Hermione," he groaned. He had no idea what to do with crying woman. He didn't know anything about it. And she was unleashing a veritable flood of tears.

"I know, I'm silly," she cried, "I like it but I don't like it at the same time and it's not me but it is me and I miss my hair," she fell silent, only the odd sob escaping her mouth.

Draco, awkwardly, patted her shoulder. That was the way he had seen Aideen do it if she didn't hug to console and just as awkwardly, he cleared his throat. "I like it," he said quietly. "Suits you."

41. Onomatopoeic

While it is true that a number of words in any language are onomatopoeic (echoing natural sounds), it is hard to see how most of the soundless, not to mention abstract, entities in our world could have been referred to in a language that simply echoed natural sounds. [...] It has also been suggested that the original sounds of language came from natural cries of emotion, such as pain, anger and joy. By this route, presumably, OUCH came to have its painful connotations. Other injections, often represented as AH!, HEY!, WOW! or YUCK!, are not actually uttered via the consonants and vowels we use in trying to write them down. They also are often produced with sudden intakes of breath (the opposite of ordinary talk). Basically, the expressive noises people make in emotional reactions contain sounds that are not otherwise used in their language and, consequently, seem to be unlikely candidates as source-sounds.

(Yule, 1995)

It was dark.

It was cold.

It was damp.

She couldn't even see the hand if she held it before her eyes.

Her eyes hurt.

Her hands hurt.

She crumbled to the wet, damp, cold, dark floor and put her head between her knees.

She tried to breathe calmly, and tried to sort her thoughts.

Summer was over. Well, almost. He had spent a week with Eleanor in London, after much wheedling on her part and with him stuck in Stephen's library the entire week. No, him holing himself up in Stephen's library, making notes, working on his future classes, having discussions with Stephen. He hadn't really left the house and nobody had asked him to. They had gone home again and he had been glad to sleep in his own bed and to sort all the notes he had made in London, in Stephen's library.

And now, it was a week before term started, Aideen would come back to Manchester as well, and Draco was more than happy to see his girlfriend again, being unable to meet her in London often — how would have explained that he could just pop down there to see her? But then again, he had been the one to suffer under this — Draco spending almost every night at his place, Eleanor in tow, emailing back and forth frantically.

He still shook his head when he remembered his godson's soppily happy face.

Other than that, the summer had been — calm. Eleanor had cooked for him, he had helped with the garden, had, naturally, looked over her shoulder when she had cooked, and she had looked over his shoulder when he had looked after the garden. The little hiccup about Miss Granger had been forgotten by both of them and he was glad about that.

She wasn't sure what time it was.

It was dark, not a bit of light.

She knew she couldn't have been where she was now for long but how could she tell the time?

It was silent.

Absolutely no noise.

She was scared.

Harry had spent his summer playing Quidditch, and rebuilding his bridges with the Weasleys. Molly, for now, had succeeded in telling Arthur that she thought the party was a stupid idea and it had been put on ice. Not that they were any closer to figuring out who was behind these attacks. And probably behind the death of Salvatore Scabior, whom Harry remembered as a Snatcher under Greyback's command. However, Scabior had defected from the Death Eaters and the Snatchers, had offered names and deeds and had confessed in full and after three months in Azkaban, he had been free and worked, legally, in Florean Fortescue's re-opened ice-cream parlour. And he was now dead, too. It made no sense. Stripping Snape from his magic, Imperiusing Lucius Malfoy who was then forced to attack Muggles, Salvatore Scabior dead and Goyle Senior had died in Azkaban. But that was no surprise, really.

But, in all honesty, Harry hadn't thought all that much about it during the summer. Quidditch filled his days, either professionally, or playing at the Burrow. In the evenings, he returned to London, talked to Hermione for a bit, went to bed. And that was it. He liked it. It was easy, it was simple, it was carefree. Despite the mystery of the unknown person, curse-caster, killer.

Suddenly, she heard a faint noise and a moment later, she was blinded by the faintest ray of light coming in from somewhere, a door, presumably. There was the faintest clink, no other sound, then the ray of light vanished, a door clicked close again, no key turned in a lock.

It was dark again.

She crawled, on hands and knees on the most likely dirty, wet and smelly floor to where she had heard the clink and feeling with her frozen fingertips, she found something — a glass of water and a bowl of something.

She drank greedily, thirsty as she was, then fell back on her bottom, despair washing over her in waves and tears fell on the dirty, soiled flagstones.

Eleanor had enjoyed the summer greatly. She had seen her son, had done some things in London with him and her daughter-in-law. Had seen her great-grandson, Brooklyn (what a name!) and had been more than happy to be back at home. She had not quite forgotten how odd Severus had behaved the days following her inviting Hermione Granger for that meal — he had been most forthcoming, the most polite and he had even (and that had never happened before) brought her flowers. Not that he actually said he was sorry, but everything said so.

Now, she wasn't sure how she felt that term was about to start again — Aideen would be coming back and Draco would be more than glad to have her around once more, but Severus would not look over her shoulder again while she cooked and she couldn't almost hear him making mental notes on what she did. He would only be doing that on the weekends and she would miss those evenings in his house. Those evenings when she could just sit quietly with Severus while Draco sat waiting behind the laptop or typed frantically while smiling soppily.

No, she would miss having her boys around at the evenings — Severus would be sure to have to prepare for classes and Draco would want to spend some time with Aideen. But, Christmas wasn't so far away and she would have her entire family (and yes, she counted Draco and Severus to her family now) with her. And she still had a week in which to spoil her boys, and spoil herself by being with them.

It was dark.

She was hungry.

She didn't dare to touch the bowl even though she could smell the soup from where she had rolled herself into a ball. Her tears had stopped and as soon as she had some rest, she would try to find a way out. But rest first. Her entire body hurt.

Someone had grabbed her hard, and then there was only darkness she remembered. Nothing else. Darkness, coldness, dampness, smelliness.

Draco couldn't wait to see Aideen again. Had only seen her twice during those long weeks. Gone to London twice, had apparated on Friday after work and had fibbed about having half a day off when in fact, he had worked the entire day and had told her he had taken the train. But it wasn't nearly enough, even though he had been allowed to sleep in the same room with her. Two different beds, naturally. Her family was rather strict about that and while he wouldn't have minded to have her in his arms during the night, it was just soothing to hear her breathing and snoring slightly.

Returning back to Manchester had been rather hard then but Eleanor and Severus had done their best to distract him. Well, Eleanor had. Severus had been annoyed by his use of his godfather's laptop to email Aideen. But so what?

He had seen Granger a few times in London, and had been close to seeing his father but had then backed out. Wasn't ready and couldn't even say why exactly. He would though. With Aideen. To make it clear to his father that this was the woman he loved and, well, absence had made his heart grow even fonder and he truly never wanted to be parted from her again.

Granger had apparently grown used to her hair, at least judging from the way she had tossed it around her head the last time he had seen her. No particular reason for that, really, except that Aideen had wanted to meet her in London and the pub had been closed.

A muggle pub! That had been fun. The ale had tasted good and Aideen and Hermione had giggled a lot after they had something called Bacardi Breezer. Of course the way home had been an adventure (and he had to make sure that Granger hadn't splinched herself) and Aideen's louder snores had been adorable.

Yes, it had been a different summer. Not to be compared with the cold, boring ones at Malfoy Manor, let alone the one he had to spent with the Death Eaters — but what a lovely summer it had been and how lovely it would be to have Aideen return.

She crawled through the darkness.

There had been a door.

Someone had brought in a glass of water and a bowl of soup.

She couldn't feel it, it was only damp stone on the wall. Nothing but cold stone.

No wood, nothing to dig her fingernails in and she had no other tool on her. Nothing. Just her clothes. Nothing else.

It was dark and cold and she shivered violently before she rolled herself into a ball again, her knees hurting.

It had taken her a week to get used to her image in the mirror and it had taken three to figure out how the hairdresser called Ray had styled her hair and another week to get her wand to do what she wanted and to get her hair to be the way she wanted it to be.

She had visited York, the Uni, she had enjoyed it greatly. Her parents had been great but she had only been in Australia for two weeks. She was looking forward to begin her term, to dig her heels into mathematics. She didn't expect to make friends — but it was the challenge of learning something which she hadn't done in ages. When had been the last time she had done any kind of maths? Well, apart from the voluntary stuff she had done over the summer?

Hermione still had to grin when she saw Aideen's shocked face and Draco's grimace when they had spotted her notes. Hadn't been difficult to explain to Aideen about Grimmauld Place — she had stuck to the truth, an inheritance. But she had still been impressed. Wouldn't ever forget Draco in the pub and how he had made sure she hadn't splinched herself when Aideen had taken a cold shower and he had apparated back to Grimmauld Place secretly. If she hadn't been so tipsy, she hadn't seen the gentlemanly side and only the annoying, controlling bloke who didn't even trust her to apparate drunkenly.

Still, she had figured out her plan, how long it took her to get from a secluded spot she could apparate to her lecture halls and her building in York, how long it would take her. She had her schedule, and she was prepared. She would allow herself a day or two off, would maybe go to the Burrow with Harry — he had asked her so often and had told her so often that nobody bore any grudges. But so far, she hadn't wanted to go. Not that she never would. She would. Maybe soon. With her new hair. She liked her new hair now that it behaved.

Would have to thank Snape, really, for giving her the idea in the first place. Well, not really. Would stay as far away from him as she could.

Time had no meaning anymore. She tried to count slowly in her head, then aloud to stop the silence from engulfing her. And when that didn't help, she pulled herself up, her back against a stone wall, her knees drawn up to her chest and when Aideen could only hear the silence, she took a deep breath and screamed as loud as she could.

42. Conversational Interaction

In simple terms, English conversation can be described as an activity where, for the most part, two or more people take turns at speaking. Typically, only one person speaks at a time and there tends to be an avoidance of silence between speaking turns. (This is not true in every culture.) If more than one participant tries to talk at the same time, one of them usually stops. For the most part, participants wait until one speaker indicates that he or she has finished, usually by signaling a completion point. Speakers can mark their turns as 'complete' in a number of ways: by asking a question, for example, or by pausing at the end of a completed syntactic structure like a phrase or a sentence.

(Yule, 1995)

"Sit down, Draco," Mrs Callaghan huffed.

"But she said..."

"I know what she said, but this is Aideen. If she's half a day late, she's half a day late. She has that from her mother. She won't be here any sooner just because you pace," the older woman said kindly and moved behind him, pressed her hands on his shoulders and, just after guiding him towards a chair, pushed him down. "She will call."

"I don't know why she didn't want me to come to the station," he pouted.

"Because she meets some of her friends, as she told you. What is it with you lovey-dovey people?" she mocked good-naturedly, "always forgetting things?"

He pouted some more and, in a move he knew he would have never dared back with his family, he put his head sideways on the table, but a moment later, he felt soft, wrinkly fingers carding in his hair, "Be patient. When girls are together, they forget about the time, and as much as she misses you, she hasn't seen her friends in a long time either, and bringing all her things back. She will be here soon."