"Shush, I said. I don't want to hear about, 'I don't want a wife or a woman', or 'I don't need love'. I don't care. But be happy. Fully happy. And fully happy will only be when you allow yourself to have feelings towards other people. Other than me. You can tell me what you like, I know you love me. And I love you and it's good but I'm an old woman. I won't be here for ever. I will be kicking the bucket sooner rather than later and who's to look after you? Just think about it and don't be scared of being yourself again."

"I," Hermione said slowly, putting the good butty back on her plate. "I would like your advice on something."

"Our advice?" asked Harry. "Wasn't it always the other way round?"

Ron smirked. "Of course it was. Hermione, you never came to ask our advice."

"But now I have and I mean no offence and I just want an opinion," she said very quietly and blushed.

"What is it?" asked Ron.

"Mi-Oh-Knee," interrupted Teddy who was trying to crawl over the table and who could only be held back at the last minute by Harry who handed him to Hermione. Hermione, strangely enough, cuddled him immediately and buried her nose in his hair. Ron hadn't ever seen her act like that and his curiosity was piqued. She had a problem and she was coming to them with her problem. The world had clearly been just put upside down.

"I, erm, this is so embarrassing...I think, no, I know that..."

"What?" Harry was growing impatient.

Hermione swallowed, it seemed and wiped her hands over her eyes. "I have a crush on Snape," she said.

75. Understanding

What we are suggesting is that the notion of 'understanding a sentence' be explained in part in terms of the notion of 'linguistics level'. To understand a sentence, then, it is first necessary to reconstruct its analysis on each linguistic level; and we can test the adequacy of a given set of abstract linguistic levels by asking whether or not grammars formulated in terms of these levels enable us to provide a satisfactory analysis of the notion of 'understanding'. Cases of higher level similarity of representation and higher level dissimilarity (constructional homonymity) are simply the extreme cases which, if this framework is accepted, prove the existence of higher levels. In general, we cannot understand any sentence fully unless we know at least of it is analyzed on all levels, including such higher levels as phrase structure, and, as we shall see, transformational structure.

(Chomsky, 1957)

Her two boys exchanged glances but for the life of her, and as much as she knew those two, she didn't know what it meant. Their looks seemed to border on the bored, on the uninterested. Hermione frowned. This was not how she thought it would go. Harry should have, by now, exploded, and Ron's eyes should have bulged and his ears grown bright red before he began to shout. But they still sat quietly, only looked at one another.

"I have a crush on Snape," she repeated in case they hadn't heard her but at least her dreamy Luna-gaze was absent.

"Yes, and?" asked Ron, looking almost — bored.

"Didn't you hear me?" asked Hermione back. "I have a crush on Snape."

"We heard you alright," replied Harry, bored, shrugged.

"I don't..." she shut her eyes tightly and pinched her thigh before she sat Ted on the table. He wouldn't mind.

Once more, she found herself transported into a universe which wasn't hers. Twilight Zone, surely. It was a ridiculously stupid dream, maybe. A dream that lasted an entire day — first Snape and Draco staring at her butt, then Harry and Ron were understanding of her crush on Snape? She got up and walked around the huge table in the kitchen once, then twice before she banged her head against a cupboard. Only slightly. She didn't want to hurt herself after all. She only wanted to wake up. Or if she was up, she wanted fate, or a superior entity, controlling her life, to get a grip again and push everything back into the ways that everything had been in.

"Hermione, what are you doing?" asked Harry angrily, picking up Ted and cuddling him to his chest.

"Explain to me why you're not foaming at the mouth? Why you're not shouting angrily and why you don't tell me that I'm stupid and that I should have my head checked."

"If you keep on hitting your head against that cupboard, you will have to get your head checked," remarked Ron, grinning.

"Ron!"

"We just assumed," he shrugged. "You worked on that project for him and who would do so without an ulterior motive? Or feelings?"

Harry nodded. "And besides..."

"You mentioned him a few times," interrupted Ron quickly. "We just figured it out. We're not as stupid as you seem to want us to be."

"I don't..."

"He's joking, Hermione," said Harry, soothingly and bounced, once more, Ted on his knee.

"You only figured it out?" she asked, suspiciously.

"What's there not to figure out? It was either you having a tiny crush on Malfoy or one on Snape. Or you are really the most swotty swot there ever was. And since you have the academic, you know, challenges with your plus and minus stuff, we figured it was a crush," Ron smirked lopsidedly, boyishly. She could tell that he was magnificently happy that he had, apparently, found this out. And they had. Or had she...huh. Maybe. It seemed more likely that she had, possibly, blurted this out in her drunken Irish coffee stupor than those two being so perceptive. She frowned.

"I didn't say anything while I was drunk, did I?"

"Nope," said Harry quickly, grimacing.

"You only talked about the curse, Hermione."

"You don't think we could figure this out by ourselves? Seriously, you really think we're stupid or something," added Harry.

"I don't," she back-pedalled very quickly. "I just didn't think I was that obvious."

"To be honest, you weren't," said grin and pulled on her hand — made her sit down again and as soon as she sat, he shoved a cup of tea in front of her. "But we are capable of finding out one thing or another in due time. And we've had some time since you told us about the curse. We even, almost, went so far as to make a list why you would do that but in the end, it wasn't necessary."

"We just didn't think you'd tell us."

"I almost didn't," she said, "I mean I wasn't sure of it myself and I just am so confused about this."

"Everyone would be confused, Hermione. Having a crush on Snape. Really."

Those words — Harry's words — were a glimmer of hope on her pseudo-Slytherin plan. Maybe, she thought, she could still get them to talk sense into her. Or maybe, she thought, she just had to ask them to talk sense into her when it came to that. Imagine — her, the most sensible girl this planet had ever seen — falling for someone like Snape. Well, she wouldn't go so far yet. She hadn't fallen for him but there were a twinge of feelings when she thought about him. And what he had...hadn't he told her what to do about her eyelashes?

She shook her head slowly. It was no good. "And what should I do?"

"Nothing," exclaimed Harry. "Absolutely nothing. If you tell him we have to handle weepy Hermione and weepy Hermione..."

"Harry's right," interrupted Ron. "What are the odds of this coming out okay? I mean we support you in this but..."

"I don't understand you!" cried she. "What happened to you? This is Snape! Snape! Not Tom, Dick or, erm, yeah, well, not Harry. It's Snape. You hated him. You both hated him. And now he's suddenly considered good enough for me?"

"He would be," shrugged Ron. "But what are the odds? Even if you..."

"He loved my mum and my mum was friends with him. He did something stupid and he had to live with the results. And he did."

"But you hate him."

"I don't hate him anymore," shrugged Harry again. If there was a World Championship in shrugging, those two would clearly win. "I don't see him anymore and he's not trying to kill me at the moment, is he? He hasn't even been unfair to me in the last...well, quite some time. And when we went to see him, it was alright what he did. I don't hate him. It would be kinda weird to have him as your boyfriend though..."

"Yeah, mate, it would. Imagine Snape coming out of the bathroom wearing nothing," laughed Ron.

"Or making you tea in the morning and bringing it up to you in bed," Harry made a choking noise.

"Oh, with a flower on the tray. And scowling at us for using the last of the milk," Ron sniggered.

"Oh, oh, or standing in front of the door after you had a fight and proclaiming his never-dying love for you."

"Singing, Harry. Snape would be singing."

"What the..." Hermione shook her head. "What are you doing?"

"Just having a bit of fun," answered Ron. "Or maybe, he wouldn't be the romantic bloke. But just, you know, coming in here with that scowl and seeing Hermione and throwing her over his shoulder and carry her straight..."

"Alright, I understand," she huffed and got up once more. "You're not..."

"Don't say we're not helping matters," said Ron, quickly. "This is what you want? Being serenaded by Snape? Or being thrown...ack. Really, Hermione. We would be okay with that but it would have to happen at his house. At least the throwing over the shoulder bits. And maybe the snogging bits."

"Nah, I wouldn't mind seeing them snog," shrugged Harry.

"What?" cried Ron and Hermione at the same time.

"Seriously, at least then he couldn't berate either of us," he laughed and Hermione quickly, after that, left the kitchen, shaking her head. Something was wrong with her. She had somehow slipped into another world — an upside down world.

Ron still sniggered when they heard the door to Hermione's room shut with a loud bang. Kreacher hated it when either of them banged doors but the old elf only scowled but didn't say anything. Teddy didn't understand what all the fun was about and shot Harry and questioning glance while he tried to stuff another biscuit into his mouth.

"No, Teddy, that's enough biccies for today. Don't want you an a sugar high," he scolded softly. The boy looked crestfallen and pouted, earning him a kiss from his godddaddy.

"Overkill, mate. That last one was..."

"Why didn't we tell her she told us drunk?" asked Harry, pulling Teddy's sticky fingers which he had put on his cheeks away.

"Because if we tell her that she told us while she had too much to drink, she will never get drunk again. And drunk Hermione is rather entertaining," Ron laughed.

"But seriously, what if there is something between her and Snape?"

Ron shrugged. "There won't be anything. Can you honestly tell me that you can see it? He's probably still a git and besides, as you said, he was in love with your mum. That's just wrong. She's fifteen thousand years or so younger. Snape probably already has a bit of stuff anyway. And if we can be there for her, maybe she will..."

"You want her back," stated Harry.

"No, I don't want her back," said Ron sadly. "But I feel bad that I did that to her. We should have never began something and I'm just happy that she talks to us like that again. And I want her to be happy. And I can't honestly see her being happy with Snape."

"Hm. But I suppose we need a plan if there truly is something between them in the future."

"I suggest," answered Ron slowly, "earmuffs and some sort of goggles. Make us walk around deaf and blind."

Harry laughed, then paused a moment before he looked at his best friend again. "Would you, I mean, could you mind Teddy tonight?"

"Oh? A date?" Ron tried to wriggle his eyebrows suggestively.

"Yeah, mate. But don't make a big deal out of it."

"Sure I will mind Teddy. If you tell me if it's a boy or a girl."

"Teddy's a boy, I'm a boy."

"Oh haha," he rolled his eyes. "Your date."

"You don't have to believe anything Hermione says when she's drunk, you know? She somehow got it into your head that she thinks that I am not with Ginny anymore because..."

"Ginny thinks the same thing."

"They're both wrong," he said with a huff and kissed Teddy on the cheek again before he gave the boy to Ron. "For your information: It's a girl. Her name is Tina and I meet her in the shop the other day while I bought your milk."

"Good looking?"

"What do you think?" grinned Harry. "And she doesn't look like my mother, or Ginny, at all."

Eleanor's word were still ringing in his ears. He heard them in his head and they made him think. Those words had struck something inside of him. He wouldn't say that it would change his life — he was too set in his ways — but he had listened to her. This old, wonderful woman had found the words that he, apparently, needed to hear.

Love. One could easily think that Severus Snape, as a person with all his flaws, was allergic to that particular word. Love, so far, had brought him nothing but terror. He had listened to the old man waffling on about it, had experienced a strange kind of love with Lily and it had only brought pain. And yet — he soaked up every bit of affection that Eleanor (or Aideen) directed his way like a dried out sponge. He revelled in the fact that Eleanor never hesitated — not even a second — before she hugged him, or pressed a kiss on his cheek or forehead. She never waited for the opportune moment to put her hand gently on his cheek or chin but just did it. Not even his own mother had done that. And to have something like this to return to every night was a thought that...overwhelmed him. To return to affection in the evening, and then to sex at night.

Severus snorted. As if something like that would ever happen to someone like him. He was one of the solitary figures that life, or fate, sometimes produced. He had gone through all of his life alone. He had never, apart from Lily, wished for the kind of love that Eleanor had spoken about. He was the metaphorical Steppenwolf. The lone rider.

Nobody had so far asked — not even himself — whether he truly wanted that life. He had never questioned it. Potion making, to take an example from his former life, was an art form which was best practised alone. And he, the spy, had to stand alone. Any other people knowing what he was up to, and he would have, most likely, ended up dead.

He would have died alone and he wouldn't have cared. The last time, he had almost died, he hadn't been alone, however. Had it made any difference? Had it been a consolation that Potter, Weasley and Granger had been there when he had, seemingly, drawn his last breath? So far, he had pushed the thoughts of this night so far back that he even had a hard time remembering, like a dream from the night before last. But hadn't it been a consolation that the last thing he had seen were the eyes that had looked, still looked, presumably, so much like Lily's? Delving deep into his own psyche and into his own thoughts and into his own feelings, he knew that, yes, it had been a consolation. It had made it simpler. Not knowing if the antidote had worked, not knowing whether he would ever wake up again had been simpler while seeing those eyes. And — it had made it simpler waking up and knowing that he would never see into those eyes again and feel the urge to protect, the bond with the son and his mother. He had been able, due to looking into those eyes at his apparently last moments, to let go off Lily. He had been freed from the bond, from the Vow. He had been free, upon waking in Azkaban, to pursue another life.