"Why am I here?" she asked but the light vanished for a moment, then a torch was lit on the wall opposite to where she was sat. A single torch, casting orange light on her — cell.

Nowhere. He had walked from the train station down to the university, to where Aideen was living. He had even taken a look into the room, had walked back, checked in all the places one could get coffee. She was nowhere and when he had seen someone who seemed fairly familiar as someone who usually surrounded Aideen crossing Piccadilly Gardens, he had followed her and had asked her. And even her, whose name Severus could not remember but who was indeed a friend of Aideen's, hadn't heard a word from her.

It was all rather — worrying. And somehow — strange.

There had been the attack on him (which had turned out to be a kind of blessing in disguise, anyway), then Lucius...and...if someone wanted to hurt Draco without actually touching him and if someone wanted to...

What, he wondered as he took the bus home, if this was all the same person? One person who wanted to see...wait, there had been — first, his own magic that had been taken.

Then Lucius, under the Imperius had tried to hurt Eleanor, who was, indubitably, close to him.

Then Aideen, who was connected to him through Eleanor, who helped with laptop problems of all kinds, and who was connected to him through his godson, vanished.

All of these three incidents were more or less directly linked with him. All of these incidents could be meant to hurt him.

The first one, well, naturally.

Eleanor who was defenceless, Aideen who was defenceless, and both dear to him. What if, he pondered, it had nothing to do with Draco but with him? He had seen Aideen in London. Aideen could be seen at his house and him with her at Eleanor's.

Someone...someone had been watching them, that much was clear. Otherwise it was all a rather strange coincidence and those occurrences together seemed unlikely to be coincidental. Occam's razor. He was targeted. Whoever it was meant to hurt him.

Hermione's newly acquired mobile phone rang shrilly just as she was waiting for Ron to appear on their doorstep. Couldn't wait, it seemed, to move in and so Harry had left again to help him get his things. It was curious to say the least that she sat in the room and still listened to them arriving. It didn't matter and she didn't care. Not really.

"Hello?" she answered her new mobile (which was truly pretty), not recognising the number it displayed.

"Miss Granger?"

"Erm, yes?" she asked, unsure who spoke to her on the other line.

"This is Eleanor Callaghan, you remember me? I'm Aideen's grandmother."

"Oh, Mrs Callaghan," gasped Hermione. "Of course I remember you." But — she thought — she would have never expected the older woman to call her. Especially after she had left her house that way. Back when...oh well. A while ago.

"Draco has your number from Aideen and...she doesn't happen to be with you?"

"Aideen?" Hermione frowned. "No, she emailed me this morning that she will be back in Manchester later today and that we should meet up if possible before the term starts."

"Oh," Mrs Callaghan said.

"Why? What's happened?" Hermione's frown grew. Aideen...not there, obviously. And she had left London for sure, had said so in the email.

"She never arrived here and she said she would take the train at...nine-oh-nine, I think."

"Yes, she said nine. Or a bit past nine. But she should have been up there..." she glanced at her watch, "more than four hours ago."

"Yes," Mrs Callaghan sighed, "And she doesn't answer her mobile either, and we're currently ringing all the people who might..."

"Do you think she...do you think something happened?"

"I don't know," her voice was tired and the old lady sounded deeply, deeply worried. And distressed. And almost out of her mind.

There was another soft noise and a click on the other end of the line, then a clearing of a throat. A masculine clearing of a throat. "Granger?" she heard Draco suddenly.

"Draco, hello," she said, slightly bemused. And bewildered. And a bit worried herself.

"Look, we can't find Aideen. She's missing. She wouldn't not answer her phone. It's not like her and we..." he stopped abruptly but Hermione understood. She nodded to herself and began, mobile lodged between ear and shoulder, to dig for some pen and paper, or quill and parchment, on her desk.

"Listen, Draco, I'll be up in about ten minutes. I'm sure she just..." she couldn't finish the sentence. Aideen loved Draco. She would want to rush to him as soon as possible and she would want to see her grandmother, that much Hermione knew. It was not like her to be more than four hours late.

"Erm," Draco Malfoy, former Slytherin prince and almost Death Eater cleared his throat again, but didn't say anything more.

Hermione frowned once more, then coughed softly. She wasn't quite sure whether she was welcome up there, whether Snape would be there but Aideen was her friend as well — and she knew how to help. She knew how to stay calm, or at least appear calm, in situations like that. She was well versed in keeping her head when being confronted with a crisis. "Ten minutes, Draco," she said again. "See you then."

"Erm, yes," Malfoy said and she wasn't sure whether he meant to tell her thank you or meant to tell her to stay away. She didn't care, she could help.

Furiously, she scribbled a note to Harry and put it on the kitchen table, the first place those two boys would no doubt go to, then threw a cardigan over her shoulders and apparated from the doorstep, careful that no Muggles could see her.

She knew it was too early for assumptions — maybe her battery had gone low and maybe she had fallen asleep as soon as she had arrived in her room and couldn't hear her mobile. Maybe she had met some friends and had forgotten the time. So many maybes but...

First Snape, then Malfoy senior, Scabior, now Aideen? Could there be any link between those occurrences? Anything they had in common? Well, attacking former Death Eaters if she left Aideen out — or, if they wanted to hurt Draco through Aideen he was right in the middle. Oh, Goyle senior had been found dead in his cell in Azkaban as well, she remembered from a few months back. But that could have been Azkaban and the rotten circumstances under which prisoners there lived. And that teenager in Knockturn Alley. But that was supposedly a fight between him and some other bloke about a girl.

She landed softly in Mrs Callaghan's garden, unsure why she had apparated straight to that spot but the backdoor was flung open immediately and the older woman, followed by Draco stepped out.

"Thank you for coming, Miss Granger," she said solemnly, her eyes tired and her shoulders sagging.

"I need to help find her. Has someone checked on her room?"

"Severus is there at the moment," Draco said softly.

She had no longing to see him, not really, but there was nothing to be done now. This was a crisis, even if Aideen was only four hours late, those two people were decidedly worried — and that counted as a crisis. But at least now he was gone and he was unlikely to throw her out under such circumstances. But she wasn't so sure about that...

"What if the person who...Draco's father was under a curse when he cursed me...and Severus's...what if it's them?" Mrs Callaghan asked quietly.

"I've been thinking that but for that, they would have to know about the connection between her and Draco," she said slowly, rather surprised that Mrs Callaghan had made the same assumption. "Did someone watch you?"

He shook his head, then his eyes grew colder. "Do you think I wouldn't notice if someone was watching me? My godfather was one of the greatest spies the...they have ever seen. And I picked up a thing or two from him. Apart from the fact that I am a Slytherin and used to watch my step."

Hermione sighed. Her mind was, for the moment, almost blank and she needed, no, she had to sit down and focus her thoughts. Maybe make a list, or a graph. Or...something.

The — room — was a cell. It had no window, only four walls and something that looked like a stone-door. Barely different from the walls apart from what looked like a tiny window on the top, which could be opened and closed and had little bars on it. At that moment, it was closed and only the torch set light on the cell.

Maybe 40 ft². Maybe a little more. Not much bigger. Four walls and they seemed to be alive in the light of the torch. They seemed, from time to time, to close in on her until she closed her eyes and screamed or, alternately, tried to control her breathing.

She was in a cell. Had nothing on her. No mobile, no nothing. Only the clothes on her body and those were cold and damp by now as well. The bowl of soup stood where she had left it but it was still steaming and seemed hot.

She forced a bit of the musty air into her lungs before she rolled on her front and then up on her hands and knees and crawled, like a baby, towards the bowl of soup. She had no idea how long she had been in this darkness but she was hungry and she was cold.

And — she had no idea where she was and why she had been taken. Or from whom.

He knocked on the front door but didn't wait to push it open. He knew he was welcome in Eleanor's house and entered it with the usual familiarity. Or — not quite. He had, most likely, brought this upon them. It was his fault. He had done this. Most likely. It all came down to him.

He entered the kitchen with a sigh. He could beat himself up over it when they had found Aideen. Now was the time for action — not for self-centred and self-pitying thoughts. Even though it was his fault. Most likely.

He almost stumbled over a pair of legs. Not Draco's and certainly not Eleanor's. Legs, encased in jeans. Female, average long legs. With a pair of sandals on feet. Toenails painted in...black. Not Aideen's legs. Eleanor would throw a fit if she painted her toenails black.

His glance rode up the legs, stayed for barely half a second on the t-shirt, and stopped at the face. It was certainly — different. The hair. The hair was different. Shorter, less bushy, darker, wavy, not insanely curly.

"Before you say something, Uncle Severus, I asked her to be here," Draco said quickly, interrupting his observation of Hermione Granger with new hair and his deduction that a mop of hair could change rather a lot about a person. Not that she was beautiful, but she definitely looked less like a school girl now. More adult.

"She's nowhere," he said darkly, ignoring his godson's statement — and, in the end, decided upon ignoring Granger as well. He fixed his eyes on Eleanor and spoke to her. "She wasn't in her room and I met a friend of hers in town and she hasn't heard from her either."

Eleanor rubbed a hand across her face, letting it rest across her eyes. "Where is that girl?" she muttered worriedly.

"Sir, I've been thinking," Granger spoke to him, softly, yes, but determined. Almost the way she had always blurted things out in class.

"That's news," he said sarcastically.

"Uncle Severus, please?" Draco shook his head — or so it looked like from the corner of his eyes since his eyes were now on Granger again.

She arched her eyebrows and sighed. "I'm here because I'm worried," she said steadily, "And because Aideen is my friend. And I have been thinking that there might be wizards behind this."

"I've had the same thought, Severus," Eleanor nodded.

"You, then Draco's father, Goyle senior was found dead in Azkaban and nobody bothered to do an autopsy, Scabior, then what was his name...Oh, I think Reginald Bale, dead in Knockturn Alley, now Aideen who's with Draco..."

"Scabior?" Severus asked, his eyes widening a fraction, "Salvatore Scabior?"

Granger nodded. "You know him?"

"The Snatcher? The one who..."

"He was amongst those who found us, yes, but he was working legally again, they let him out."

"Scabior?" he asked again, then pulled his lower lip between his teeth, chewing on it. "What happened to him?"

"Imperiused to Avada himself," she said quietly.

"That's possible?" Draco asked.

Severus nodded. It was. But not often used since it was boring, for some people, to watch. It was quick, it was painless, it was...well. Murder without murder. Scabior had no connection to him. And Reginald Bale had been a Hufflepuff in his fifth year when he had taught him last. Both had absolutely no connections to him.

Maybe it wasn't about him. Maybe this was...

He blinked rapidly, then looked at Granger again, then at Eleanor, and at Draco. He had a vague idea but...it couldn't be. It really couldn't be.

Him, Goyle, Lucius, Scabior, Draco...

It couldn't be. It couldn't be.

44. Transactional Function

There is a major function of language, the transactional function, whereby humans use their linguistic abilities to communicate knowledge, skill and information. It is unfortunate that we tend to imagine our cave-dwelling ancestors solely as hairy, grunting, bonechewing individuals who mugged their mates, when a lot of that grunting may actually have been in the form of messages informing the junior caveboys and girls on the best way to hold the bones while chewing. The transactional function must have developed, in part, for the transfer of language from one generation to the next. This transfer function of language remains fairly restricted in time and space as long as it can only be realised in speech. By its nature, speech is transient. The desire for a more permanent record of what was known must have been the primary motivation for the development of markings and inscriptions and, eventually, of written language.

(Yule, 1995)

Hermione stared. Obviously Snape had just thought of something, something she was missing, naturally. She couldn't see any connection apart from, well, Death-Eater-Snatcher-Voldemort. But a fair few people were out there who disliked Death-Eater-Snatcher-Voldemort and who had reason, more or less, to take revenge. And if this was about Draco...if it was about Draco. She hadn't even considered the possibility, so far, that there was something else involved.

But, it could have just been...something else. A coincidence. Someone taking her just...randomly. No, that thought was too terrible. If it had something to do with Draco and the entire Death-Eater-Snatcher-Voldemort-thing, they had something to go on. They had clues — if it was random, they had nothing, absolutely nothing.