Snape looked peculiar though and she seemed to be the only one noticing it. Mrs Callaghan, as well as Draco stared into thin air, into nothingness and seemed far, far away in their thoughts. But she hadn't apparated up North just to stare at those two worrying.
"Pr..erm, Mr Snape?" she asked carefully, looking at him and for a moment, considered giving him her teacup. He looked a little...weirded out. A little strange. Had never seen him like this at school. At school, no matter what happened, he had always looked to be in control. The only time she had seen him out of control was in the Shrieking Shack and — those were rather different circumstances. Now he didn't look as bad but he seemed — shocked. Or surprised. Only for a moment, only until she opened her mouth though, then his face fell into the mask, the visage she remembered from Hogwarts.
"Miss Granger," he replied evenly, looking in her eyes.
"Do you have, erm, an idea? I mean..."
His eyes seemed to search for something in hers, then opened his mouth as if he was preparing to say something — then closed it again. She frowned.
"Yes?" she asked.
"Nothing," he replied coldly. "Are there..." he seemed to think for a moment, "any more strange incidents?"
Hermione shook her head, glad, somehow, that he asked her that. "Not that I know of but I would have to ask the Minister, or Ha..erm, would have to make enquiries into it." She wasn't sure whether it was wise to mention Harry at all but he didn't seem to mind.
"Mr Potter still is in Auror training?"
She shook her head. "He had reasons to give it up...he's playing Quidditch now."
He smirked. He actually smirked. Despite the situation and despite the gloom surrounding them, he smirked and nodded slightly and her frown grew.
She drew a deep breath and decided to give him information, thinking that if she gave him something, he would give her something. "You know," she began softly, trying not to bother those two lost in thought, "that Malfoy's Imperius was cast with Bellatrix Lestrange's wand? And they suspect the one on Hestia Jones as well but they don't know. Scabior was Imperiused with hers as well."
"What?" he spluttered, apparently before he could stop himself.
"Bellatrix Lestrange's wand," she nodded, "it is in the Ministry and nobody knows who took it. It apparently comes and goes. And while there is a log..."
"Whoever takes it would not sign their name;" he growled, "Why don't they snap it? Or snapped it right from the start? They snapped mi..."
Hermione was surprised. Anger. And it was true — why hadn't they just snapped the wand? Maybe not right after they had won the war, maybe it would have been wise to do so though, after Malfoy had been Imperiused. Stupid Ministry. Whatever they thought or if they thought at all. She could only shrug.
"I don't know whether they're thinking at all," she mumbled but he seemed to have heard her and arched his eyebrows — and, oddly enough, the corners of his mouth twitched as if he was close to smiling. Or smirking again. Was amused by her comment.
"But it is her wand for sure?" he asked, catching himself and bringing his eyebrows back to their normal, regular position.
She nodded again. "Yes. The one she used in the Final Battle," she said, then closed her eyes. Was it okay, she wondered, to mention that? She desperately didn't want to offend him, not now when he had obviously an idea. Not now when he talked to her like this, more or less like he was taking her seriously. When she had information that he wanted, or needed. Not now. Now she had to be careful. "I mean...I, erm..."
"The mahogany wand with the dragon heart-string?" he asked, his eyebrows arched again.
She nodded, "I think so."
"Interesting," he muttered.
"What is?"
He shook his head and said nothing.
.
It added up. Somehow, in his mind, it added up. Of course, naturally, it was only a suspicion. She certainly had unfinished business with him. And with Lucius even more so. With Scabior. Goyle? He wasn't sure about that and the youth? Unlikely but those could be coincidences. Additionally Bellatrix Lestrange's wand and — Draco. Aideen.
He suppressed the gasp. If it was her — if his suspicions were correct — unthinkable. The entire Wizarding World would be put upside down, it would all be topsy-turvy. What was right would be wrong. Light would be Dark. If he was correct in his assumptions...if he was right, the martyr would have morphed into the killer. The victim into the perpetrator.
He was so lost in thought, trying to connect the dots, trying to make sense of it, trying to make everything fit into his theory that he didn't notice he was staring at Granger still.
But — if she hadn't mentioned Salvatore Scabior, poor soul — he would have never made the connection. At first, his money had been on Narcissa Malfoy. Then on Regina Parkinson, Pansy's mother who hated both him and Lucius to no end. But this? Salvatore Scabior. He nodded to himself, and focused his eyes on Granger.
Both Draco and Eleanor were useless at the moment. Weak and helpless and she at least, that much he would have to admit, had kept her head so far. And usually had during her time at Hogwarts. A brief image of her conjuring a glass vial in the Shrieking Shack appeared in front of his inner eye and he pushed it away impatiently before he could focus on it.
She cleared her throat and got up from her chair, standing in front of him and looking up at him. She had to look up as well, the top of her head barely reaching his own chin. "Mr Snape?" she asked softly.
He nodded. "I need to use my computer," he said.
"Erm, do you know, I mean, we could...try...I mean, is there a spell or something? Potion?"
He groaned loudly. "Miss Granger..." he said threateningly.
"I'm sorry, I just thought it would be helpful to, well, locate her."
"And you with your extensive reading, have you ever come across a spell which can locate people? Do you think you would have survived half an hour in that bloody forest if there had been such a spell, such a potion? Use your head, Granger!"
She clenched her hand in front of her stomach and nodded slowly. "But your computer?"
"There are some things you cannot find out with magic," he sneered.
She frowned, still looking up at him. If she continued that, she would have a stiff neck soon. Would be fitting, he thought. "I trust you to keep an eye on those two and not to do any..."
"I want to help," she interrupted. "I can use a computer and I can help. I want to find Aideen. She's my friend," she continued, determined, a little line appearing between her eyebrows.
He measured her with his eyes. What he had was a serious accusation to an otherwise upstanding citizen of the Wizarding World — and he didn't trust her with that information. Nevertheless, he took a deep breath and shook his head. "You will help most if you make sure that those two are reassured."
"But you can't do any magic," she blurted.
It didn't take him even half a second to phrase his answer to this. "As I am well aware of," his voice was cutting, snide, cold. He turned around, left her standing with her head bent back, looking up into air and with a quick word to Eleanor, he left the house. He had a plan to make, he had to find an address, he had to locate a person, he had to find Aideen and he had to figure out how to get her out from where he expected her to be without actually using magic.
Mace and a rope might be helpful.
.
"This is not going to be pleasant but as means to an end, we need to do this," the female, nondescript voice said.
Aideen had pushed herself back into the corner. The soup had tasted watery and a little bit like lead. Not that she had ever tasted lead, but she imagine it to taste this way — and it had left her aching inside. A pain in her lower abdomen she usually experienced once a month. There was no bleeding though and she was glad about that — at least one thing.
She couldn't tell how long she had been in that relative darkness, the torch shedding a bit of light, after she had drunk the soup. She had tried counting, but that had felt when she had reach about two thousand three hundred and seventy-five. Could have been a day, or only an hour.
Pushing the fear aside, that was what she tried hard to do and failed. She didn't want to die. She was eighteen. People didn't die in damp cellars with eighteen. Well, some did but she had never thought she would be one of them. She hadn't thought she wouldn't ever see Draco again, or grumbling Severus, or smiling and hugging Gran. She wanted her mother and her father and her siblings and Draco and Severus and her gran. She wanted to see her friends from Uni and even Dr Dorfmann, the mean German anatomy professor. She wanted to see all of them. She didn't want to die in that damp cellar. She didn't want to die.
But she was dying. That was, she thought, why that woman had come again. The light flickered and Aideen closed her eyes. She bit her lip, hard, didn't want to die like this. Not without saying good bye. Tears began streaming down her face and she heard her own sobs echo on the bare walls.
"Oh, calm down," the voice said. Voice without a visible body. There was something, yes, but it was more of a blob in dark clothing and a hood that covered the entire face. How that person could see, Aideen didn't know and Aideen didn't care.
"I don' wanna die," she sobbed. "Please, let me go. I haven't done anything. I wanna go home, please. Let me go."
"Soon, girl, soon you'll be able to go. But not yet. Now, you have a job to do," the voice said and before Aideen could think, before Aideen could react, there was a piercing pain in her arm, on her wrist, her fingers, her elbow, up to her shoulder and it felt...it hurt. It just hurt. She cradled her arm and felt warm, sticky liquid on her good, left hand. It was bleeding. She tried to make out her arm, and a second later, there was the briefest, brightest light she had ever seen. Almost like the flash of a camera. It wasn't enough to see completely what had happened to her arm but it hurt and it looked twisted and it felt twisted and there was some blood. Not much blood but enough to make her scream.
"Eat your soup," the voice said, barely registering in Aideen's brain and as the door clicked shut, the torch on the wall went out as well and she sat in darkness, the only sound she could hear her own laboured, hitching breathing, and her pain-induced whimpers.
.
Hermione fumed — then made tea for Mrs Callaghan and Draco, who talked softly about anything but Aideen even if she knew, and even if both of them knew that it was the only thing on their minds. On all their minds.
Snape had made a connection in his mind that she hadn't seen and she went through their conversation in her head again and again. He had started to look strange as soon as she had mentioned that Snatcher. A lot of people had been hurt by those, caught by those especially Muggleborns on the run, and others on the run. Malfoy, Snatchers, Snape, Goyle, the young man. Malfoy, Snatchers, Snape, Goyle.
The Snatchers. He had begun to look astonished by the time they had come up.
Some dots in her head connected suddenly.
Oh, but it couldn't be — he couldn't think that, could he? Not seriously. He couldn't...no. That was absurd. She wouldn't do something like that. She wouldn't hurt Muggles, she wouldn't use Unforgivables. Not her. She shook her head to herself and decided, for the moment, not to dwell on it. She would talk with Mrs Callaghan and Draco. And in a little while, she would go over to Snape's house and would listen to him talk instead of only talking to him. She would apologise and would try to be a bit sneakier about getting answers. He couldn't think it was her. It couldn't have been her. She couldn't be behind all this.
She smiled encouragingly at Mrs Callaghan, then at Draco and sipped her tea — and couldn't stop her mind from thinking about her suspicion.
.
Severus took another deep breath. He had an address. He had a name. He had absolutely no evidence but she was the one who made most sense. And even if she hadn't been it — she wouldn't be a bad person to just ask. Nobody could possibly blame him to try and find out what had happened to his neighbour's granddaughter and to his godson's girlfriend. If he could find no trace of Aideen being there, being held there, he could still think about the possibility that the Wizarding World had nothing to do with her disappearance.
But he had to do something. He had to catch the train, he had to go and look for her. Nobody could blame him. He would just say, if he didn't find any trace of Aideen, that he had come to...apologise. He would spin the tale of the contrite former spy, who was trying to atone for the sins committed to apologise to everyone he had ever in any way, shape or form, wronged. And he had, without doubt, wronged her and her entire family. Her daughter, her son-in-law, her husband, her sisters.
It made sense. He had been the first because he had pretended to be something he hadn't been. He had let her family down when they had trusted him. That would most definitely work.
Severus took his leather jacket — it would be cold as soon as the sun set — and left his house, the bit of paper on which he had written down the address in the back pocket of his jeans. There was a name on top of that bit of paper, above the address, a, he thought, boring old house, in a boring old Muggle area. Living in a Muggle house and still not hesitating to use Muggles to reach her goal.
He just hoped that he was right. He would hate to play the contrite, sorry man who begged for forgiveness. She wasn't the one to give it to him, nobody but himself had to forgive him. Nobody else counted. But he would pretend if he had to.
He strode quickly to the bus, knowing he would get the train, knowing the train would take him to where he thought Aideen was. If he was wrong, if those genes didn't come through...no, he didn't want to think about that.
Those genes had to come through, she had to be the one. She was the one being hurt by him, by the Malfoys, by Salvatore Scabior and by every other Death Eater, dead or alive. She was the one who had lost — most.
45. Deixis
Some sentences of English are virtually impossible to understand if we don't know who is speaking, about whom, where and when. For example: You'll have to bring that back tomorrow, because they aren't here now.
Out of context, this sentence is extremely vague. It contains a large number of expressions (you, that, tomorrow, they, here, now) which depend for their interpretation on the immediate physical context in which they were uttered. Suck expressions are very obvious examples of bits of language which we can only understand in terms of speaker's intended meaning. These are technically known as deictic expressions, from the Greek word deixis (pronounced day-icksis), which means 'pointing' via language.
