54. Adjacency Pairs
Despite differences in style, most speakers seem to find a way to cope with the everyday business of social interation. They are certainly helped in this process by the fact that there are many almost automatic patterns in the structure of conversation. Some clear examples are the greetings and goodbyes shown below:
Anna: Hello
Bill: Hi.
Anna: How are you?
Bill: Fine.
Anna. See you!
Bill: Bye.
These automatic sequences are called adjacency pairs. They always consist of a first part and a second part, produced by different speakers. The utterance of a first part immediately creates an expectation of the utterance of a second part of the same pair. Failure to produce the second part in response will be treated as a significant absence and hence meaningful. There is substantial variation in the forms which are used to fill the slots in adjacency pairs, as shown below but there must always be two parts. (A being the first part, B the second part)
A: What's up.
B: Nothing much.
A: How's it going?
B: Jus' hangin' in there.
A: How are things?
B: The usual.
A: How ya doin'?
B: Can't complain.
(Yule, 1996)
"What happened?" Eleanor asked gently as Aideen still clung to him, sobbed into his shirt, dug her hands into his shoulder blades, her hair tickling his nose and his chin. A pitiful sob escaped her throat and Severus had to grip her arms as nicely as he could and pull her away. She was a sight to behold. Snot on her nose (and probably on his shirt), tears leaking from her eyes, red blotches on her cheeks, her mouth open to gulp in air as that seemed impossible with her clogged up nose.
"I think," Severus said slowly, seeing that Aideen was in not state to speak, that Aideen was too busy even filling her lungs with air, "that Draco has told her that he's a Wizard."
"Y-y-y-you kn-kn-knew?" it was a mistake saying it like this. Big mistake — and one Severus noticed too late. She would...oh, she would be disappointed. She would hurt even more, knowing that her grandmother had basically been in on the secret. Her red-rimmed, swollen, puffy eyes turned on her grandmother and Eleanor did the only, probably, sensible thing she could do. She pulled the girl to her, pulled her in her arms and trapped her there.
"Severus's mother told me and made me promise not to tell anyone," whispered Eleanor into her granddaughter's ear, just loud enough for Severus to hear and he admired her ability to fib at a time like this. "I couldn't tell you even if I wanted to, love. It was Draco's story to tell you."
Aideen was trapped in Eleanor's arms, couldn't escape even if she did struggle and even if Severus could see Eleanor wince more than once as the girl hit her with her cast. "Severus, get me a bit of brandy, please," she said even softer than before and nodded her head towards the living room and the tiny cabinet full of liquor bottles he knew about. He fetched the alcohol quickly, pondering how Draco could have acted so rashly. If he had only waited a bit, if he had only stopped to think instead of acting like a Gryffindor in love, all of this wouldn't have been happened. Aideen would have been spared this further shock. And Draco — that boy had probably...he was still out. Hopefully still sitting around outside somewhere, feeling miserable and not attempting another foolish thing. He had not heard the entire story — of course not, he hadn't been there — but he knew that Lucius had something to do with it. Well. Draco had only said that his father had explained that there could be difficulties in making a Muggle-WIzard relationship work. And if his godson had listened to his father — had broken the news to her like this and seeing that she had been afraid, or shocked, or scared, even more so by the fact that it had been a witch, one of them, who had kept her in that dungeon, who had hurt her like this, he would have...
If his old 'friend' had told Draco that he did not belong there — and if Draco had seen Aideen's reaction as a sort of proof of this thesis...oh Merlin. If Draco had gone back to his father...must have been his plan all along. He would naturally want his son back in his house, back at his childhood home and not living with some old Muggle woman. He would want Draco to uphold traditions, to marry accordingly to their standards, to be the good heir, the good son he had been for the first fifteen or so years of his life. Draco had destroyed that by moving in with Eleanor, had shattered Lucius's view of the world into a million little pieces by falling in love with Aideen. And Lucius, the way he knew Lucius, would want to re-educate him. Would not stop short of...a sort of brainwash. And Aideen had played right along with that.
If he had only waited. Waited for him to be there, waited for Eleanor to be there. Waited until they had a plan, anything instead of rushing into this...if he had only done the right thing.
He watched, absently, as Eleanor gave her granddaughter brandy, basically forcing it down her throat. That girl needed sleep and relaxation, not alcohol but he supposed that this was maybe the right way to get her to calm down at least a little.
And as soon as she slept, he could, if he dared to leave Eleanor alone with that girl, at least have some sort of relaxation of his own as well.
.
Miss Granger,
we will not obliviate Draco Malfoy's girlfriend and victim of Andromeda Tonks. She however needs to speak in front of the Wizengamot, or at least a delegation of the Wizengamot since there has formed a rather strong alliance against the use of Veritaserum and it will not be longer be used in court to get a confession. You can inform your friend Arthur Weasley that interference like that is not appreciated. The way he, and you, acted is shameful.
Shacklebolt, Minister of Magic
Hermione looked at the baby in her arms. "What did Mr Weasley do?" he asked. "Do you know? Of course you don't know, you're a child," she rolled her eyes at the toddler, then smiled when he gave her one of his own, beaming ones. "You know what we do, Ted? We wait for your goddaddy and Ron and then we will ask them and then I will go to see Aideen and Draco and if your goddaddy and Ron have no clue what I'm talking about, I'll have to brave the Burrow, I suppose. Good plan, isn't it, Ted?"
Ted — and she refused to use Teddy, the boy ought to know his real name — gurgled happily and pulled on her hair, hard. "Ouch, Ted, that's my hair, not a toy. And there I thought that having it cut would stop all the mess done about my hair. Obviously not," she sighed. Talking to a child wasn't that bad altogether. It was really like being allowed, officially, to talk to oneself and that, per se, wasn't bad. Not bad at all. She grinned at the child and hugged him to her chest before she sat him on her lap and tried to focus on what needed to be done before she started university in three days only.
.
He took a deep breath. He belonged there, not in some dingy part of Manchester. He belonged into that house. He had grown up in that house. A part of his family was there. He was no Muggle. He had no business owning a tool box. He had no business to have a relationship with a Muggle. He wasn't supposed to be hugged by an old Muggle woman. He wasn't supposed to be hugged at all. He was an adult. He was all grown up.
He was a Malfoy. He didn't mix with Muggles. He had traditions of his own to uphold, customs that were utterly unknown to anyone not being a pureblood or an assimilated half-blood. He had absolutely no business in the Muggle world.
Working at a shop for clothes — what had he been thinking? Being enchanted by the novelty, probably. A late phase of puberty, wanting to rebel against his parents. Wearing Muggle clothing.
He had been confused after the war. A war their side had lost. He was naturally confused. Naturally. It was all natural. Now that he had this brief thing in the Muggle world, he would appreciate even more what the Wizarding World, his world of purebloodedness and house elves and magic offered him.
He was a Malfoy. Malfoys belonged in mansions not terraced houses.
He stepped into the house, a house elf he couldn't remember ever seeing — they had sold all but one — greeting him with flapping earss.
"I's Gauli, Master Draco," the elf said.
"Not an interesting fact," he drawled arrogantly and looked around, ignoring the elf further, who bowed and seemed almost agitated. The foyer looked the same as it had when he had left — apart from one moving painting right there. His father, his grandfather and him, aged, probably, two and a half. He ignored that painting as well even though it was rather strange to see himself, as a little boy, move in the painting (and he hadn't known this was possible). He looked at himself, Muggle clothes. That would never do.
"Draco," his head snapped up and he saw his father standing in the door between the foyer and the library.
"Father," he said back, in the same, bored tone his father had used. He nodded sharply and without another glance at his surroundings or himself, he walked, slowly as it was the custom with Malfoy-men up the stairs to his old room. There would be decent clothes again. Robes and cloaks and crisp shirts, ironed by house elves. Trousers with creases so sharp one needn't bother with a knife. Custom made shoes and real socks matching the trousers and the robes and the shirt. Normal clothes.
He was a Malfoy, he belonged into this house. This was his world, this was where he was supposed to be. But why did his chest hurt like that?
.
She broke out in a bright, beaming smile when she opened the door to her flat and let him in. It was awkward even though he had been in there before. Well, he hadn't seen that much of the flat the night before. He had seen the hallway and the bedroom and the bathroom. He hadn't seen more.
"Hello Severus," she whispered softly and pressed a brief kiss on his lips. On his lips. Without having to prompt her, or without having to make her, she kissed him. Well, she had kissed him before. Plenty of times the night before. Had stopped counting after the first dozen. It was a miracle on its own.
She didn't seem to pretend anything. She had seemed genuinely happy to see him the night before to dinner. She had seemed genuinely interested in what he had told her about his other papers for university, what classes he was taking, knowing he would not take hers if that night progressed where it seemed to be headed right from the start. And where it had ended.
Hell, in the beginning he had thought it was only...well, that she was playing games with him, and that he needed proof that he would never in his life lay hands on a woman again. Much less bare hands on a bare woman's skin. But as she had reached over the table to grasp his cold fingers and as she had smiled while doing it, he had known this was no joke. Not that it wasn't surprising. It was absolutely, stunningly, terribly, horrifyingly surprising. She had touched him. Of her own free will, with her hand on his and a bit later, their fingers entwined on the white tablecloth in that restaurant. She had beamed at him and smiled at him, and had laughed with him, or at his jokes and her entire body had leant, it had seemed towards him even when there had been a table between them.
And then, well, they had left the restaurant and he was convinced that he would have to go out a few more times with her before...but that hadn't happened. The moment they had stood together on the dark street, she had looked around, almost furtively, and seeing that nobody was about, she had flung her arms around his neck and barely a second later, he had her tongue in his mouth. Oh, he hadn't minded. It had been, well, surprising. And exhilarating. And arousing. Very, very arousing and he had, from that moment on, functioned on a lesser level. He hadn't quite lost his head and hadn't been quite capable of keeping it. He had let her take him to her place. To her bedroom and to her bed. The rest was, well, history.
Had left with her making hopeful eyes, asking him to return the day after and he had replied with a non-committal, 'we'll see.'
And he had. Just because it was too surprising to be true. Have a woman touch him voluntarily and without her misjudging her apparition or her thinking of him as a surrogate son. A thirty-five year old woman who smiled at him and who touched him. Intimately. And not so intimately. Who seemed to have fun touching him and who seemed to consider it fun being touched by him. Miracle.
"Good evening," he said stiffly, making a mental note to dis-enrol from her class. It would be utter nonsense to stay in it and make her grade him objectively, even if those two nights remained just that — two nights.
He knew he was a pig. He knew he didn't feel much towards that woman. He maybe, by now, liked her a bit and she was intelligent and the conversations so far (after that disastrous first) had been adequate. Plus, she touched him voluntarily.
She flung her arms, as she had done the night before when they had exited that restaurant, around his neck and kissed him. Again. Voluntarily. Him. Severus Snape. He didn't have to be told twice. When he saw an opportunity, he took it, naturally, and kissed her back.
.
"I'm happy to see you here again," said Mrs Weasley and squeezed Hermione's upper arm affectionately. Whether her statement was true or not, Hermione didn't know and in all honesty, she liked ignorance on that particular aspect. She had gone to the Burrow because the boys had been clueless and because she was curious what Mr Weasley had done to the Minister. What kind of thing they were plotting — or had plotted.
"I'm happy to be back," she replied politely and focused her eyes on Mr Weasley sitting across from her, grinning into his tea cup.
"I think I know why you're here," said he with a smirk.
"Oh?" she asked, barely able to hide her own grin.
"A certain letter from a certain person told you that I had a little hand in making sure Veritaserum isn't handed out like sherbet lemons were from a certain other person," he winked at her. "Correct?"
She nodded, looking at the man whom she had liked quite a long time. Who had always treated her fairly. Who had always been kind to her. "I'm curious, Mr Weasley, you should know that."
"Arthur, what did you do?" asked Mrs Weasley, planting herself too close to Hermione for her comfort.
"You know what I did," he chuckled. "You hosted the occasion."
"Oh that," she smiled at him and stood up again. "Well, if it's only that, I'll make supper. Will you stay, Hermione-dear?"
"Erm...if that's okay, yes, why not. Thank you."
"Oh, it's nothing. Charlie will be here as well and you two haven't seen one another in a long time, have you?"
