"Severus, oh, thank God, you're safe. Where are you?" she sighed deeply and the guilt grew and grew. He should have called. He should have told her where he had gone, that he had been quite safe the entire time and that Aideen was alright, apart form her arm which would mend in time. He should have told her.

"I'm sorry I didn't call sooner," he choked on his own spit or on the guilt that he felt to have let her — and Draco — suffer and worry like this. About her, maybe, judging by Eleanor's words, about him as well.

"Where are you?"

"I'm on the train home. We'll get to Piccadilly in about two hours," said he hoarsely.

"We? Severus? Who?"

"I have Aideen with me. I will explain when we get home."

"Aideen? Aideen is with you? Where was she? Is she okay? Did something happen to her? Where was she? Severus? Where? What happened?"

"She's fine. She has a broken arm and she was," he took a look around and hoped that nobody heard him. This sounded too bizarre, "taken by," he sighed, "that person who did this to you and to me but she will be locked away and Aideen is alright."

"Can I talk to her? Severus, let me talk to her."

"She's asleep. I don't want to wake her," he said calmly. "But she is fine. A bit in shock, but fine."

He wanted to tell her something else. He wanted to assuage the guilt he felt, wanted to tell her again that he was sorry and that he should have told her before what he had wanted to do, that he had a vague idea where she had been taken to, but nothing else came out of his mouth. Nothing else.

He would — he would have to sit down with her with a cup of tea and explain but now he just...

"We'll be there soon," he only said.

"And she's really fine?" Eleanor asked again.

"Yes, she's fine," he replied, "snoring on my shoulder."

"Give her a kiss from me. Oh she's save. Oh," she almost seemed to cry and then there was only he beeping after she had hung up.

The flaming guilt in his stomach lessened, the fire not completely extinguished but smaller and smaller, especially when he, careful that nobody saw him in that train, bent his head towards hers and pressed a tiny kiss on her forehead.

Kingsley Shacklebolt couldn't stop shaking his head, when he listened to Hermione's version, when he listened to Andromeda Tonks's version under Veritaserum. He shook his head the entire time and Harry could see that he was battling with himself. Battling over what to do with that woman, battling over what to do with Snape, who had obviously caught her almost by himself.

For Harry, things were clear. Snape had to be reinstated into the Wizarding World. He had to get his magic back, forces would have to be drawn up to make sure there was a counter-curse to the one that had been inflicted on him. That man, yes, he was a git but apparently the entire Auror department hadn't managed what Snape had done within one and a half days. Find the woman who had done all those things to various members of the Wizarding World. He deserved it — it was only right. And if he had to make sure of that personally. If he had to go to the library with Hermione himself, if he had to do research himself. The treatment of him had been grotty and shabby and mean. Terrible.

Oh but he would have to get Teddy first. Couldn't let his godson be with a French au-pair. Even if he didn't know anything about raising children. Even if he had absolutely no idea what to do. Ron had offered his help — with his many siblings, he would know more than him, and Hermione had sort of offered her help — and he knew Molly would help too. He couldn't let his godson grow up with anything less than a loving family. He wouldn't allow that.

"We'll have to bring this before the Wizengamot," Shacklebolt said.

"What about Snape?" Ron, yes, Ron, asked. Harry looked at him in puzzlement and Hermione seemed to feel the same way, she looked at him the same way.

"We will have to talk this through. And the girl will have to be obliviated, of course," replied the Minister of Magic.

"What?" Hermione shrieked. "No!"

And suddenly, it was clear to Harry, and probably to Hermione — why, amongst other things, Snape had wanted this to be handled by the Muggle police.

50. Semantic Structure

I will consider a linguistic utterance u to be an inscription ins related by a person p at a time t to a linguistic structure ls:

(D 1) u = {ins, p, t, ls}

The inscription is the acoustic or visual stimulus produced or perceived by p. Thus (D 1) encompasses both speech production and perception. It merely says that ins is an utterance if and only if a person maps on it a linguistic structure ls. The highly complex actual processes involved in this mapping do not concern us here. The linguistic structure ls is a triple

(D 2) ls = {pt, syn, sem}

of a phonetic (or graphic) structure, a morpho-syntactic structure syn, and a semantic structure sem, where syn determines a fairly complicated compositional correlation between parts of pt and components of sem.

(Bierwisch, 1980)

The boy's eyes had shone with a suspiciously wet glimmer when she had given him the news that Aideen was safe, that she was alright, that she was with Severus, that they were on their way home. And a moment later, the boy with the suspiciously wet glimmer in his eyes (and of course those weren't tears — boys didn't cry after all), had thrown his arms around her and had her, old woman that she was, lifted her off his feet and had once, twice twirled her around, before he sat her on her feet again and bombarded her with questions.

No, she didn't know exactly when they would arrive (except what Severus had said about 'in about two hours') but he wouldn't be swayed, had made a huge pot of tea (without her prompting him to do so) and with a cup in his hands, he had positioned himself in the front room, staring out of the window, waiting.

Eleanor had to admit that she peeked as well from time to time, putting her hands on his shoulders. The silence that lay between them was a different silence than before. It was more relaxed, it was companionable, but it didn't keep Eleanor from wandering into the kitchen a little while after Draco had put himself on a chair in front of the window, to make some food.

She had been deadly, deadly worried about Severus as well. He had been gone that morning when she had knocked on his back door. He hadn't been there. There had only been absolute silence inside and she hadn't been able to stop herself from leaning against his house, her stomach in trouble, giving her trouble, her insides a raging torrent of worry, a clenching and unclenching of muscles she didn't remember having, her nerves all worn out, firing shot after shot of new worry into her body — after that sleepless night no surprise. She had not told Draco that Severus had vanished as well. She had kept it to herself, thinking that she would give him time, that he was maybe just out shopping (not that he would, she thought, under such circumstances), maybe just at uni, or somewhere. She had kept it to herself, had promised herself to wait until that evening and when he was still gone there, she had decided that she would go to the police. Until then, she had just sat with Draco.

In that terrible silence she had sat — both not knowing what to do, what to say. Together, the two of them at the table, tea getting cold, not daring to look at one another. Both not knowing how to handle this.

Now, it was so different — Draco sat very eagerly at the window, he couldn't stop tapping his foot on the floor, and smiling softly, as far Eleanor could see from where she stood, half watching her simmering soup (that was best for her nerves and Draco's nerves and probably for Severus's and Aideen's as well) and seeing dimly the boy's reflection in the window. She took a deep breath and turned back into the kitchen, watching her soup on the stove, rubbing her eyes tiredly.

Aideen was alright. Aideen and Severus were both alright. They were on their way home. They were safe.

She had to repeat this in her head, had to do it to calm her shot nerves, to stop that clenching and unclenching of muscles in her stomach.

Hermione shook her head viciously. "No," she said again. "She's Draco's girlfriend and if you obliviate her, she will forget everything." She glared at Kingsley. "And Snape would kill me. He said to call the Muggle police and now I exactly know why."

Harry pulled on her arm, tugged on her fingers, and she whipped her head around to glare at him for a moment. "No. They can deal with that woman but not with Aideen. If they start on Aideen, where do they end? Do they obliviate Mrs Callaghan as well? Draco to make him forget Aideen? Me because I was there? You because I told you? Ron? Where is Ron, by the way? Her in there to make her forget she did that? No." She looked at Kingsley again. "If you obliviate her, I'll snap my wand."

"Hermione, do not be childish," Kingsley said with his eyebrows arched.

She decided to ignore his comment. "What happens if Aideen were to marry Draco? If they get children? Do you send Obliviators as well to make her forget her husband and her children?"

The Minister groaned. "No of course not but that is hardly the case now, is it?"

"Not yet, no," she hissed, "but who knows how soon. You destroy the future of them if you obliviate her now," she shook her head and jerked her hand away from Harry, who held it still. "You changed since you became Minister. And to think that I thought you'd do a good job," she spat and turned on her heel, leaving that office, wanting to leave the Ministry, wanting to get away from those idiotic people.

"Hermione!" cried Harry behind her and she didn't slow her steps, only threw him a look over her shoulder, as she continued rushing away. Idiocy. How could they even think about obliviating Aideen — yes, she had been abducted and probably tortured but she was with Draco. Whether she knew about magic or not before the incident didn't matter much, she knew now and she would know in the future but obliviating her would be like...like rape of her mind, like stealing precious memories from her, or at least important memories, depending on what they ultimately decided they wanted to remove from her memory. Obliviation was...no.

She was strictly against it these days. Playing around with the mind was something which should fall under the same category as Unforgivables.

Feeling Harry's hand on her shoulder, she shrugged it off, knowing that she had to pay her parents a visit as soon as possible.

"Mrs Callaghan!" Draco jumped up and down when he saw the two figures together on the street. "Mrs Callaghan, it's Aideen!" he shouted quite un-Malfoyesque and rushed to the door, flung it open and bounced outside. He couldn't describe what he was feeling in that moment. Overwhelming joy, fear, trepidation, happiness. Oh, but her arm was in a Muggle cast and her eyes had dark shadows underneath them. She limped, or hung onto Severus, or...her arm was in a cast.

He ran to her and her face, tired as it seemed to be, broke out in a beaming smile and tears began to stream down her face. Why was she crying, Draco couldn't help but wonder and she pulled her upper lip into her mouth and pressed her eyes together tightly and shot his godfather a grateful, exhausted and teary smile before she let go off him and walked slowly towards him.

"Aideen," he whispered and before he could say anything more, he carefully wrapped his arms around her, buried his head deep into the crook of her neck, tried to smell Aideen but could only smell hospital and mouldy cellar and something else he couldn't quite distinguish. "Aideen," he whispered again and a second later, he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"We should go inside," he heard his godfather speak in the calmest voice Draco could imagine. "You need to sit down."

He felt his girlfriend nod and hesitantly, he pulled away, but didn't let go of her entirely, kept the arm without the cast safely in his hold. Just to make sure for himself that she really was there. That this was no dream, no illusion, that those two days were really over and that she was really there. That he had her again. With him, by his side. Even if she did look tired and overwhelmed herself and hadn't said a single word yet. But she smiled at him. She smiled and she was there.

"Aideen," he heard Mrs Callaghan gasp and a moment later, she was almost roughly pulled forward and he felt himself beside the old woman, giving her granddaughter a long, long hug and Draco was included then, was hugging Aideen, was hugging Mrs Callaghan and Severus, his godfather stood behind them, as f he was making sure they were all alright and he realised...

"Did you find her?" he asked, disentangling himself from the three arms holding him, turning to Severus.

"He did, Draco. He found me," Aideen whispered softly. "He found me." New tears, he could see, spilled from her eyes and she let go off her grandmother as well, looking at Severus, wiping the tears away with her good hand. "He found me and he got me out."

A look passed between Mrs Callaghan and Severus and she briefly let go off Aideen to go over to him — and hug him tightly and then there seemed to be an understanding when the old woman took Aideen's hand and pulled her gently towards the house. "I made soup, love," she said to nobody in particular and quickly took his place on the other side of Aideen, helping her. Still, Severus was behind them, behind all three of them and it was strange. He seemed to be playing the same role he had at school — always watching out, always wanting to help, always helping in his own way and he had...

He had never once thanked him for that night on the Astronomy Tower. He had never thanked him for caring enough about him, for caring enough about his soul and his fate and his well-being. His godfather had known that Draco would have broken if he had actually done it. He had never thanked him. Not one word.

Now he would. Whatever he had done to find Aideen, whatever had happened. He had some thanking to do.

"Harry?" Hermione blinked rather sheepishly.

"You're not serious," Ron said, his mouth only closing to say the words properly.

"What do you think I'd do?" he snapped. "I'm his godfather. Right, Teddy? I'm your goddaddy and where else would you grow up now?"

"Harry, this is not a good idea," said Hermione disapprovingly.

"You don't know anything about children," said Ron and shook his head.

Harry growled low in his throat and shifted the toddler in his arms. "What do you suggest I do? Bring him to an orphanage? Let that French au-pair who has no idea how to tie her own shoelaces take care of him? Or some distant relation who doesn't know he exist and will put him in a...somewhere?"