"Of course, of course. We will invite you to the wedding, naturally," Malfoy said and Severus stood up, forcing himself to not shake his head and headed out of the door.
.
"My mum said," said Ron, sitting on the floor with them, "that she'd rather not have you around for a while."
Hermione groaned, rocking Ted who had, by now, crawled to her. Quite possibly because she felt rather warm and fuzzy after the second, or fourth cup of Irish coffee and because the rocking helped her as well to keep the world in balance.
"I will miss her terribly," she heard herself say sarcastically. ""Kreacher, I want another one, please. I mean, seriously, who does she think she is. Does she give you the same kind of advice? I mean really."
"Is she slurring?" asked Ron and Hermione glared at him instantly.
"I am most certainly not slurring," she said as carefully and in her best posh voice. Her Sunday voice. She giggled. Sunday voice. "I am perfectly fine and my speech is very pronounced. I think. But she has now the audcity, audacity, to tell me what I should do with my life."
"Welcome to my world," said Ron, darkly. "How many?"
"She's on her sixth now."
"I am not. And Kreacher doesn't put enough fuel in them anyway. I feel perfectly fine and Ted feels perfectly fine. Don't we, Ted? Yeah, rocking is good. Oh. No no, love, don't drink my coffee, coffee is not good for babies," she laughed and held onto her cup. Or maybe her cup was holding onto her or maybe the cup was really like an anchor to the world or she was the anchor for the cup or...she wasn't sure which anymore but she could plainly see Ron and Harry talking. "Oi, boys, no talking about me or Ted behind our backs."
"We're not talking about you," said Harry. "It was my idea," he said to Ron.
"What was?" Hermione asked.
"Nothing, Hermione. You can nap with Ted. He seems quite tired as well."
"I don't want to nap. I have coffee. You have coffee because you don't wanna nap. Don't you know the simplest things?"
"I do," Ron giggled. "I don't think I've ever seen anyone being drunk on Irish coffee before..."
"She didn't eat much during lunch."
"Why do you say she when you mean me? Oh, that rhymes. Listen Ted, that rhymes. She and me," she giggled again and didn't even know where all the giggles came from but Ted seemed to not like them and began to cry in her lap. "Don't cry," she said, panic edging its was upwards in her brain. Or rather it was fighting its way through her foggy brain with a machete. But why was her brain foggy at all? She only had coffee with a little teeny bit of Irish in it.
"Come here, Teddy," Harry cooed and the boy readily crawled away from her.
"Oh, look, he's leaving me as well," she mumbled, lying down flat on her back now. Flat on her back was good. The soles of her feet pressed firmly against the floor and the world would stop spinning for a moment before it accelerated again.
"Nobody is leaving you, Hermione," Ron said from somewhere far far away and she suddenly lay next to her, their hands touching. Oh, that was better. He made the spinning stop.
"He did. You did, Harry will once he figures out whether he wants a boy or a girl, Aideen only talks to me because she's afraid of other people, Draco only talks to me because we work on that counter-curse and Snape hates me. No, he probably doesn't hate me anymore but he should because I went behind his back and if he doesn't want his magic back, he will hate me because I have magic and then it will never work out because if I have magic and he doesn't and he sees me doing magic and apparating and all that, he will be jealous and I want him to have his magic back because I want to be equal with him and if I have it but he doesn't, he will leave me too but he won't leave me because he doesn't like me in the first place so it makes no sense that I work on that counter-curse because if he doesn't want it back and...I lost my train of thought," her eyes felt very heavy and she knew she had just said something which she shouldn't have said but she had and it was bad and she should feel unwell about it but her eyelids were too heavy and the floor was very comfortable and if she held Ron's arm and had her feet pressed tightly to the floor, she wasn't on a rollercoaster in her head and it was good to keep the eyes closed...
.
"Draco, we should talk," he said sternly, a plan forming in his head.
"Yes, sit down, please," he said pleasantly but oh so stiffly. And he stood in his own room. Severus had found him looking out the window. No normal twenty year old would stand on a window like this and look out. Nobody. Action — yes, he would take action but his godson had retreated so far behind his own walls, behind the fortress inside himself to protect him that he not talk would work. He knew this. He knew this from experience.
"Why don't we walk for a bit," he suggested, remembering that little button in the car that Granger had explained to him. The little button that locked all doors expect the driver's side of a car. He would have to thank Granger for telling him that. No, he didn't have to and he wouldn't — just a figure of speech anyway but he felt a small smirk of triumph creeping on his face as he remembered that button that Granger, with her finger had pointed out and which she had pressed with the tip of it and...he was doing it again. There was no need to think about Granger at all. None at all.
"If you like," said Draco very politely and Severus knew that he truly did not want to leave the room, much less the house but politeness, his upbringing dictated listening to guests's suggestions. And this was one. He had to follow the rules. Self-imposed rules these days. No matter. Draco would get away from this place and, well, he hated springing this on Aideen but he would maybe be able to text her. Or quickly call Eleanor on the way, even though that would probably be a problem. He would find a way, otherwise he would keep Draco at his house until he had prepared Aideen. Who was still longing for him, he hoped.
"Shall we then?" he tried to smile benignly at his godson but he didn't even look but kept his eyes straight forward and in silence, the two men descended the stairs and left the Mansion, soft clicks (probably from trying to put...golf...Lucius Malfoy and golf) coming from the library.
"You're father's taken up golf?"
"Stupid Mudblood game. Balls in holes. Whoever needs that?" the young man grumbled.
"Hm."
"Completely changed his tune. And I'm the mad one, he says."
Severus nodded wisely and suddenly gestured to the car. "I have my jacket inside, do you mind if we get it first," he asked, happy, astonishingly happy that he had left it in there and that it had cooled a bit.
"Of course not," said his godson and Severus smirked, once more, in triumph. He had left the car unlocked, nobody would steal it in the middle of the country and he had figured there were still Anti-Muggle wards (which there weren't) and so there had been no need but now, Draco stood much closer to the door and the jacket was on the passenger side.
"Oh, would you get it for me, please," he asked pleasantly, standing ever so slightly behind Draco.
The young man groaned almost silently but obediently, opened the passenger side door and with one swift motion and an even quicker shove, Draco was inside the car and the door closed and probably before his godson knew what was happening, he was locked into the car and Severus drove away from Malfoy Mansion.
70. Regularity
People tend to behave in fairly regular ways when it comes to using language. Some of that regularity derives from the fact that people are members of social groups and follow general patterns of behaviour within the group. Within a familiar social group, we normally find it easy to be polite and say appropriate things. In a new, unfamiliar social setting, we are often unsure about what to say and worry that we might say the wrong thing.
(Yule, 1997)
Ron sat up slowly, his hand being held hostage by Hermione's vice-like grip. Even as she snored — more or less adorably — she held his rather rather tightly. Sending a glance at his friend Harry, he used his other hand to pry her fingers from his. It was a pity and a shame that both of them were not truly made for another, that their brief, tumultuous relationship had to be ended and that it had to be him who had seen it first. Seen first that Hermione was not the right woman for him. That in due time, and he had ended it before that could happen, he would resent her for being so smart and for not truly believing he could be smart as well. It was a shame and a pity because he loved her — like he loved Harry. She was his friend, one of his two best friends, and he was glad that she had accepted him back into her life again, that he was, once more, part of a trio, and that she accepted him as someone who would stand by her side and that he was, for her, now again, someone to hold on to. Even if his hand would probably bruise.
Harry had picked up Teddy and was inching his way out of the room as he could finally free his hand and as he watched his friend and his godson leave the room and threw a last glance at Hermione, he shrugged to himself, raised his wand and levitated her on her bed, nodding satisfied to himself and shut her door with a soft click.
"What the hell was that?" he asked, once he and Harry had sat themselves down in the kitchen, Teddy playing at their feet.
"What counter-curse? What did she mean? Did you know she was working on something? I thought she only went to university and had a lot of work there but what does Malfoy have to do with anything? And Snape? Does she fancy Snape?" asked Harry rushed. "What was it she said."
"People leaving her and Snape not wanting her and if he wanted her, leaving her if he doesn't get his magic. What was that about? I know she wanted the book and...do you think she's working with Malfoy on a counter-curse for Snape?"
"Sounded like it, didn't it?" Harry shook his head. "But why wouldn't she say? Did Percy say that she actually got the book?"
"Haven't seen him," Ron mused, scratching his chin. "I think it's possible. Or that she at least made a copy of the part that was important. But why should she...ah, Draco is Snape's godson, isn't he? And if she fancies Snape...but she can't really. I mean it's Snape. He could be her father."
"Hm," shrugged Harry, "And Snape loved my mother."
"There is that but..."
"He could have stopped in the meantime. Do you think there is something? I mean between them?" Harry made a face as if he had bitten into a super-sour lemon.
"Nooooo," he shook his head, mimicking the same facial expression. "I mean they're both bookworms and everything but that'd be just weird. He was her teacher."
"Yeah, but what other counter-curse should she work on with Malfoy? And if it's that one, why should she do it?"
"To please her teachers, as ever," chuckled Ron. "She's Hermione. She could never get a word of praise out of Snape and it buggers her still probably. So if she figures this one out, he gets his life back and he'll be in her debt."
Harry nodded slowly. "That or it's something else altogether. Think we should ask her?"
"And make her remember what she told us while being utterly pissed? No, mate. If she remembers, she will be completely embarrassed and if she doesn't, I don't want to be the one to remind her," he shook her head. "Ginny had that phase after you two...anyway, whenever she could, she stayed with me and George and she drank and I mean...you don't want to remind girls of what they did and said when they were pissed."
He could see that Harry was aching to ask what Ginny had said in those moments but he had learned his lesson well. And Ginny would most definitely have his head if she knew that he had even mentioned that she talked about Harry while drunk. She would have more than her head if she knew that he had told Harry that she was still mourning their relationship and that she still loved him but believed that he would never come back to her because he was maybe liking boys more. Not that she had ever mentioned that while being sober or close to sober but drunk girls were like an open book. And he would most definitely bring up the one thing that Hermione had said as well and which he didn't want to touch. Harry liking boys. That wasn't something he would be able to get used to quickly. Harry liking blokes? That could mean that Harry liked him for more than just a friend and that thought alone was scary. If Harry liked girls, everything was normal, everything was fine. Liking blokes was...well, weird.
"So if she wants to talk about it," said Harry, dragging him out of his thoughts, "we talk to her but if she keeps silent we say nothing?"
"We observe and we watched. I think that's what she'd do in a situation like that," he grinned. "And she gets that pissed from a few Irish coffees?"
Harry chuckled. "Yeah. I didn't think it would be that bad but it was rather cute seeing her losing it like that, wasn't it?"
.
"What. The. Fuck." screamed Draco, glaring at his godfather.
"You're coming with me," he said with terrible calm.
"What? Why should I? Take me back."
"No."
"I want to go back home. I will go back home. You know perfectly well that I can just apparate out of her," he snapped furiously and that, somehow, made his godfather look at him but didn't make him slow down the car at all.
"Yes," he said, risking another glance at him. "I am well aware that you could apparate. But you have never apparated in or out of a moving vehicle and you don't know how that would go. You could risk splinching or worse. But of course, apparate out if you were so happy back at the Mansion with a mad father and a mad house elf for company."
"Get me back home then if I cannot apparate," said Draco, hearing, but ignoring the last part of what his godfather had said.
"You can apparate but I wouldn't suggest you do it but it is your choice. Probably nothing happens if you apparate out of her, or probably not. I never apparated out of anything which was moving, not even from a broom or a carriage. It is your choice but I will not drive you back," he shrugged, something he had never seen his Uncle Severus doing — ever.
"Why shouldn't I want to go back? I want to go back."
"You sound like a broken record," said his godfather. "In case you're wondering, a record is like a CD which I know you have seen and experienced and a record was bigger and black and it could repeat the same thing over and over again if it was broken."
"Well then why shouldn't I want to go back? Malfoy Mansion is my home," Draco shouted angrily. He was angry. He wasn't sure what else to feel. There had been — he had met his godfather and had thought that for once, someone would just talk to him for a while about anything other than a weird Muggle woman, and suddenly, he had felt himself pushed into a car, his feet thrown back and the door locked on him and him being driven off. Without his seatbelt on. His godfather had dragged him away — had kidnapped him.
