With satisfaction, he saw Hermione stutter for words and Ron turn quite red in the face. He had, subtly, reminded them of not only his own past, but of the past of some well, remembered Dark Wizard who had been unloved, cast away. Of course he had been mentally ill as well but with Teddy's grandmother a bit barmy, who was to say what would happen with Teddy once he grew up? Not that Harry believed Teddy would ever grow up to be something like evil Snakeface had been, at least not with the rather fetching blue hair he sported at the moment and the gurgling noises he made. But Teddy was his responsibility nobody could stop him from taking it.
"He will sleep in my room until we manage a nursery or something. And I'm sure Kreacher will be delighted to make clothes for him or we buy clothes for him. But he stays," he said and cuddled the boy to his chest and had, almost immediately a rather large, well, huge wet spot on his t-shirt where Teddy had bitten into it. He wasn't sure whether eighteen months old children should do that still, but he took it in his stride and glowered at his two friends, daring them to say something.
"I'll ask Mum for advice," Ron said suddenly and stood a little straighter and a little taller and the blush had left him completely. "We fought Voldemort. We can manage a toddler."
"He needs to be brought up," hissed Hermione. "Do you know anything about bringing up babies? About...you rushed into this without thinking."
"No, I did not rush. It was made necessary. I am the only one he has. And don't you think I would have preferred to grow up with Sirius than to be stuck in that bloody cupboard at the Dursleys? I may not know much about bringing up children, but he will be loved," he said angrily and not paying attention to what Teddy gurgled (or whether he spoke real words), he rushed up the stairs with the child in his arms, shouting for Kreacher at the same time.
.
"You know, Hermione, seems for once I'm not the insensitive clot," remarked Ron, shrugging his shoulders.
"I'm being just...ergh, I'm just being reasonable. He takes off from the Ministry and the next thing I know is that he comes back here with Teddy. Did he even think about it? He should really think about those things first."
Ron sighed softly, then took her hand. "He's had too many bad experiences with people being brought up. He has to do this."
"But he doesn't know anything about it," she almost shrieked. Why, why, why didn't they understand? She understood that Harry wanted to take care of the child but what did he know about children? What did she know about children? And Ron was the second youngest — he didn't know much about children either.
"Well," Ron grinned the way she hadn't seen him grin in quite a while, "you're the bookworm, aren't you? Stick your nose in your book and see what you can learn about raising children."
She gasped, then knew that he was joking and she had to shake her head. "You stick your nose in a book," she huffed, "I'll go out for a bit."
Ron nodded, then stopped her as she was about to turn away. "Hermione?" he asked, his hand on her upper arm.
"Yes?"
"I'm, erm, glad we can...you know, that you don't mind me...you know."
She smiled a little, then nodded, "So am I."
.
Severus was glad to be able to sit down and to be able to spoon his soup in peace. He knew that both Draco and Eleanor waited for the entire story but he also knew that it was maybe unwise to tell Aideen in her state. He had underestimated how weak she was, how she had been affected by those two days in the damp cellar, by the almost constant darkness. The pain in her arm was probably bearable but she had shoved the soup as far away from herself as she could and hadn't said a word about it. She hadn't said a single thing — but Severus knew that she would have to talk eventually. Instead, she had dragged herself to the kitchen and had returned a moment later with a packet of crisps and some chocolate. Not the healthiest food and usually, he knew, Eleanor would berate her for this, but she didn't even glare. Aideen's grandmother only smiled at her and looked questioningly at him.
But since the girl had no recollection of being apparated, he wanted to tell Draco and Eleanor all the facts before they decided on what to tell her. It was the sensible thing to do and she had to sleep first anyway — the crisps gone entirely, the chocolate almost gone entirely.
He looked at his godson — that boy was happiest at the table so far. He didn't move from her side once and when he head drooped and almost hit the table, he picked her up.
"Draco, what are you doing?" the girl asked sleepily.
"I'm bringing you to bed," he replied softly.
"I wanna shower," she moaned. "Please."
Severus and Eleanor looked at one another and when she nodded towards the plates on the table and when he nodded, she got up. "I'll help you bathe. Showering should be difficult with that cast," she explained gently and followed her in Draco's arms up the stairs.
This was when Severus could draw the first relaxed sigh. This was the moment he could finally feel the muscles in his shoulders and in his back loosen a bit. Aideen was in the arms of those she loved (apart from her parents but he wasn't sure how much Eleanor had told them) and she would sleep, she would have to talk about what had happened and if she wanted to talk to him, well, it was better than not talking at all, but she was out of harm's way.
He took a sip of water before he began to put the plates together. It was hardly appropriate for him to be close when the girl bathed — and nor was it appropriate for Draco but he relied on Eleanor for that. That woman's sense of morality was...Irish Catholic. He sighed again as he got up to put the plates into the kitchen when he heard Draco come down the stairs again. But he could do with a bit of sleep as well, to be honest and he dreaded answering all the questions his godson and Eleanor would have. He put the plates in the sink when he thought he heard a soft knock somewhere but it was probably just his overworked brain, still trying to process the events — seeing Aideen cowering in the corner in that damp, cold dungeon, her almost hopeless, lifeless eyes and her unbelieving smile when she had recognised him, him falling on Hermione Granger and feeling her underneath him, her hand on his thigh and the elf-heads on the wall in that old mansion, Aideen clinging to him and whispering something about hurt and pain and darkness and then Granger apparating her away and him taking this dreadfully expensive cab to the hospital, taking her home, kissing her forehead, then Draco and Eleanor and both of them so happy to see them again. Him feeling so guilty about not calling Eleanor sooner, not helping her any. Eleanor hugging first Aideen and then him and squeezing so tightly that he thought there was no air left in his lungs.
He put his arms on the kitchen counter and his head on his arms. He needed sleep desperately. Exhausted — that kind of exhausted that he hadn't felt since his spy-days. The kind of exhaustion that usually came with three large glasses full of Firewhiskey which always had let him sleep. The kind of exhaustion that usually came with wanting to forget what had happened before.
He pushed his head deeper between his arms on the counter and took a deep breath. Just telling the story, then bed. Wasn't long now.
"Oh thank God," he shot up when he heard the voice behind him. Female. Annoying. Soft stomach. Firm thighs. Warm skin. Bossy. His head turned so quickly that the thought of whiplash briefly crossed his mind but the woman standing there, hand clutching her chest chased it away. "I was so worried about you," she continued, speaking quickly. "I rang the bell and rang the bell over at yours and there was no answer and I thought something happened or they had obliviated you and Aideen already and I'm so glad you're here."
Severus frowned. This was the last thing he needed now but somehow — weirdly enough — it was kind of strange to notice her being worried.
51. Entailment
Semantic entailment is defined as follows (Levinson 1983: 174)
A semantically entails B iff [f and only if] every situation which makes A true makes B true (or: in all worlds in which A is true, B is true)
According to Levinson (1083), this relation is basic to semantics and captures inferences derived solely from logical truths or semantic content. Levinson also notes that while pragmatic inferences are defeasable or cancelable, deductive or logical inferences are not. The consistency constraint of semantic entailment can be evoked to explain the cancellation of implicatures of disjoint reference from the use of a marked NP [noun phrase] in instances where the meaning of the anaphor is semantically entailed by the meaning of the antecedent. In other words, the predicated M-contrast in reference between a marked and an alternative unmarked expression can be overruled by semantic entailments. Such entailments depend on the semantic features of the lexicon and the language users' knowledge of the lexicon.
(Blackwell, 2002)
"They want what?" thundered Severus, the meaning of her words seeping into his brain. ...they had obliviated you and Aideen already...
"They want what what?" asked Granger, standing there, scratching her eyebrow, making some of the hairs stand up straight, others look flat. Snape wasn't sure eyebrows were supposed to look like that at all but she didn't seem to mind.
"You went to the Aurors," he said suddenly, understanding her words. "Didn't you?"
Granger shrugged defeatedly. "I wasn't sure how to explain to Muggles what she was about to say, I mean, if I had given her Veritaserum before bringing in the police and she had ranted about wands and wizards and you and Malfoy and breaking Aideen's arm with a spell, how could I have explained that?"
"Not. You wouldn't have explained it at all," he shouted angrily. "That was the entire point. They would have brought her into an institution, she would have been declared insane as soon as you and me and Aideen would have testified against her and she would have been locked away. That was the point."
"Why didn't you say so?" she cried, glaring at him.
"Because I considered you smart enough to figure it out yourself," he growled. Yes, he had considered her bright enough to know that bringing Andromeda to any Wizard's attention, and especially the Ministry's would result in serious consequences, not only for her but also for him and especially for Aideen.
"I..." she faltered and looked at him with a serious expression in her eyes and tiny, shallow lines formed on her forehead. "What?"
Severus rolled his eyes. "You will fix this," he snarled. "I will not have wizards trampling all over this place and they will not hurt Aideen or anyone else living here. You will make sure they don't even consider trying to obliviate her."
"I tried," she interrupted quickly. "But..." she rubbed her hand over her face and looked up at him tiredly, almost vulnerable. "I will try. They're so stubborn though. I mean Shacklebolt is. It's like...every Minister has to undergo a sort of lobotomy, cutting out the parts of their brains that are reasonable and decent and...it's not striving for power or anything, I don't think, but rather having to do the right thing but only by the book. You know it's like they're all the same way once their Minister. I had expected so much more from Kingsley, like really doing the right things and really having it all under control but what does he do? Give everyone he considers sort of dangerous Veritaserum, allows suspects (in inverted commas) to be almost tortured and what does he gain? Absolutely nothing. You know," she looked at him and her eyes were almost glassy, "It took you not even a day to find her, and the Ministry has been going on about this for months and months and they didn't have a single clue. And you, with only a map and that horrid book and with nothing else but pepper-spray and rope, find her and make sure that she can't do any harm anymore. The Ministry with all their Aurors and research people and all the possibilities they have, they find nothing. For months and you — a day. Less than that."
Severus could only stare at her, he had no idea what to say to this. This was — he blinked — almost a kind of worshipping of him. This was explaining — in babbling language — that he had done well, had done better than the Ministry. Not that this was an achievement, almost every fool could do better than the Ministry of Magic. But she had complimented him. In a weird way.
Draco, standing in the door frame seemed to think so too and he clapped his hands together (like a mad seal, to be honest) and cried, "Bravo, Granger, bravo."
She spun on her heel and stared at Draco now. He grinned, relief so obvious on his features. "How does she know all this though?" he asked, his mad-seal-clapping finally finished.
"I was there, Draco," she said softly, having run out of steam, probably, her cheeks almost the same shade of pink they had shown when he had landed on top of her.
"You were there? You helped him? Uncle Severus, you allowed her to help bring Aideen back?" he asked, confused.
"I didn't help, I just..."
"She helped," said Severus suddenly. She had after all, not that it was helpful what she had done afterwards, but she had obeyed and she had done what he had told her to do. Apart from the mucked up Apparition. And all that that had entailed.
Draco, by those two words, seemed literally struck dumb. His mouth hung a bit open and he looked searchingly at Granger.
"I just apparated," said she, and now her face was the colour it had been after she had wriggled out from underneath him.
His godson shook his head. He pointed at him, then at Granger. "You let her apparate you?" he asked voicelessly and Severus could only glare at Granger and her pretty blush. It was still there but there was determination in her voice when she spoke.
"This is not important right now. I just wanted to check if Aideen and him," she nudged her head towards himself, "were alright and wanted to know if the Ministry did something stupid already. Now that I know they didn't, I can go and work on, as you put it so nicely," she didn't only nudge her head at him now but pointed her finger at him, "fixing my mistake."
"What mistake?" Eleanor came into the kitchen, and gave Hermione a small smile. "She's asleep."
"Yes, what mistake?" asked Draco.
"I," she sighed, "informed the Aurors instead of the police as Snape suggested."
"I didn't suggest," he growled, and her blush was gone. "I told you to do it."
"No, you said I should tell Harry or call the Muggle police. Nothing else. I called Harry and he came and we talked about what to do and decided on the Aurors because it seemed simpler," she was grinding her teeth.
