His father sat hunched over a chessboard, playing with himself and his mother sat, quietly reading. On the outside, just like the Manor, they looked very much like the aristocratic couple still. But he knew that soon, everyone would see what it had cost them.
He hadn't changed his clothes. Almost as a rebellion, he wore the Muggle clothing and as he closed the door with a louder than necessary click, his mother looked up and her eyes widened a fraction.
Draco coughed. "I went to see my godfather today," he said, his voice steadier than he thought it would sound.
"Severus?" his father looked up from the chessboard, his forehead lined deeply. "Hence your clothing," he added.
"Hence my clothing. I went to see him and..."
"And?" his mother asked, gently. This was a different kind of gentle from Mrs Callaghan. Gentle, yes, but not openly so. Not openly affectionate as the old woman had been. He couldn't even remember the last time he had been just touched like this by his mother. Or his father for that matter. Not if there weren't any special circumstances.
"He is..." he began and felt lost for words. How had he been? Judging by when he had seen him first — not well. Judging by how he acted during the meal and afterwards — alright. "He doesn't have any furniture."
"No furniture," Narcissa asked. "But when I was there...he does live there, does he not?"
Draco nodded and pushed his hands deep inside his back pockets, fumbling with the piece of paper on which Mrs Callaghan had written the recipe.
"Does he know about the curse?" his father asked.
"I told him, yes. He doesn't care, Father. He says he can't do magic anyhow anymore."
"Cissy, we have to get him out from there. There might still be a..."
"No," Draco interrupted. "He doesn't want to. I asked him to come and live with us but he doesn't want to. He seems almost content." He fibbed and he knew it. Or half-fibbed.
"He can't be," said his mother. "It was a hovel."
"It's small and there is not furniture yet but he said he would go to Ikea and get some..."
"What is Ikea?" asked his father.
"A shop where you can buy furniture for little money. Swedish, I think," Draco repeated exactly what Mrs Callaghan had said.
"But he can't...Lucius, do something," his mother stood up and put her hands on his father's shoulders as she bent forward slightly, her long hair obscuring Draco's view as she whispered something in his ear. He heard murmuring but couldn't make out any words and only saw his father as he nodded. "I shall," he said then, after a moment.
"Draco, would you please leave us alone?" His father stood up, kissed his mother on the cheek and led Draco out of the drawing room — anger welling in the young man yet again for being treated like a child.
.
It was truly easy to pack if you had a little wooden stick with a magical core to aid you. Hermione's things were in boxes and those Featherlightened and Shrunk within minutes. She did not belong to this house anymore and she wondered what had made her come back there in the first place. Maybe some sort of sentimentality, thinking that after all the wounds war had left, after all the horrid months when nobody knew whether they could get alive, she could get back some sense of normality, resorting to being the child.
But in order to be a child again, Hermione would have needed parents. And parents who were there. And hers, weren't. And so the house remained just that — a house, empty and while full of memories, they didn't even seem to be hers. She had to leave the empty house that was too big for her, too empty, too full of memories that didn't seem to be hers. Being with Harry would be beneficial. Kreacher was there to provide them with meals, the library was full of books she longed to read, or read again, there would be talks in the evening, and not just mute staring at texts, practising wand waving movements or if desperation overcame her — the telly. It would be good. It would give them both a chance to calm down after the whirlwind of trials and proceeding war.
No, Hermione wasn't unhappy to be leaving her old home which wasn't her home now. Not like this. She would be with Harry — and would maybe even figure out whether he was fishing on this, or that, side of the river. Not that she minded either way and his explanations about why he had broken up with Ginny had seemed sound.
But she couldn't help feeling curious — it was in her blood. As she was very curious about one Severus Snape. But that could wait — until, well, until Harry had either received a reply, or not.
More or less elated, she stepped into Grimmauld Place, relieved that Sirius's mother was finally shut up, relieved that she was now living with someone who liked her.
.
It was only the next morning when Severus woke up in his bed, that he realised two things.
One — he had in at least ten years not slept this amazingly.
Two — he enjoyed someone's company like Mrs Callaghan's — Eleanor's — more than he ever dared possible.
He wasn't sure whether those two were linked. Whether the food and the company he had enjoyed during his lunch and after his nap, when she had brought him another cup of tea in the garden as he had pushed the mowed of grass to the side and into a plastic bag she handed him then, after the cup of tea, over the small wall. She was just there, she talked, she asked, she accepted his answers. She accepted his silences and when there was one that was awkward, she filled it. Just filled it. She was nosy, yes, but it wasn't exactly pushing him. She was there and watched him work, mentioned the shelf again and he would probably have to go over there, repay her for the tea.
But of course, she beat him to it again. There was a knock on his door, and he could see from his window upstairs that it was her, not anyone else. With anyone else, he would have ignored it but as it was her, with another steaming mug of tea in her hands, he knocked against the window from the inside and as she looked up, he nodded. Quickly, he pulled on his jeans and threw a shirt on before rushing down the stairs. He wasn't sure why he was rushing but it didn't feel right to leave her standing there.
"Good morning, Severus," she smiled brightly, then, as her eyes looked him up and down, she frowned. "You can't wear that", she said disapprovingly.
He looked down at himself. Those were still clean clothes. Not freshly washed but he hadn't quite gotten around to the washing machine yet.
"You can't go to mass like that," she said sternly. "Don't you have a suit?"
Oh. No. He couldn't possibly. He had just woken up and it just didn't feel right. "Mrs Cal..."
"Eleanor," Mrs Callaghan said sternly. "I told you."
"Eleanor, I can't go to mass. I'm sorry."
She huffed, and pushed the tea in her hand. "Fine, I'll let it slide this week. But this discussion is far from over," she said, again the sternness in her voice and in her face. "And when I come back, I want you to come over. I have something for you. And Sunday lunch."
He nodded, almost obediently. But even if he felt she was invading his privacy, which she clearly was, he wasn't sure he minded — if it came with tea. He would have to find the shop she had mentioned and buy some for himself. And for her. And a new kettle and mugs. He wasn't heartless and the silence in the last months had been painful almost. And despite the fact that he had lived most of his live in more or less silence, he now wondered if it had always been that good. Should he have ignored Minerva every time she had invited him for a game of chess? Should he had engaged in lively conversation with Pomona Sprout?
No. He was who he was. And so far, Eleanor Callaghan had only done what she considered best for him. There was nothing in it for herself — apart from the shelf he was supposed to put up. He didn't know how to put up a shelf. Absolutely no idea. He only knew how to destroy furniture. But it couldn't be that difficult.
He honestly needed a kettle and a mug but in the meantime, he enjoyed her cup of tea, looking out of the window. It was a dreary day and he was beginning to get cold and hungry.
Well, he would see when she returned from mass (what was she thinking wanting him to go?) and he would go over there. He had seen books there — maybe he could borrow one, seeing that he had read the magazine cover to cover, the newspaper cover to cover and was almost through with the book he had bought. He knew now that the US president had done something which might, or might not have been sex, he knew that there was something going on in Iraq, something he would have to read up on. And on the American presidents definition of sex. Clearly. He knew continental Europe was about to get a brandnew, common currency but that Britain, as always, luckily, kept out of it.
But now, he needed more and maybe, Mrs Callaghan — Eleanor — was willing to lend him some. He was almost certain she would.
As he stood, drinking his tea and then sat on the floor (furniture — needed), and read the book, he managed to stop his thoughts. Managed to focus on what he was reading until he heard people outside and slowly got up, still in his jeans and the shirt, and saw her, Eleanor, waving good bye to a few other, older women and as if on cue, her eyes fell on his window and on him as he stood there and she smiled and nodded her head a little towards her house.
Severus nodded back, solemnly, and left his house, not knowing that Mrs Callaghan had very specific plans for him that day.
10. Minimal Pairs and Sets
Minimal pairs and sets
Phonemic distinction in a language can be tested via pairs and sets of words. When two words such as pat and bat are identical in form except for a contrast in one phoneme, occurring in the same position, the two words are described as a minimal pair. More accurately, they would be classified as a minimal pair in the Phonology of English. (Arabic does not have this contrast between the two sounds.) Other examples of English minimal pairs are fan — van, bet — bat, site — side. Such pairs have been used frequently in tests of English as a second language to determine non-native speakers' ability to understand the contrast in meaning resulting from the minimal sound contrast. When a group of words can be differentiated, each one from the others, by changing one phoneme (always in the same position), then we have a minimal set. Thus, a minimal set based on the vowel phonemes of English would include feat, fit, fat, fate, fought, foot, and one based on consonants could have big, pig, rig, fig, dig, wig.
(Yule, 1985)
She ushered him in with a smile on her face, a gleaming smile, some sort of mischievous glint in her pale, watery green eyes. "I've found something for you," she told him, almost impishly and as she made him sit down on the old chair at the kitchen table and put a large box on the table.
"All of that belonged to Stephen," explained Mrs Callaghan — Eleanor. "But now that he's living in London and has a family of his own, he wouldn't want this anymore."
She pulled an old, black, worn leather jacket from the box and handed it to him with a beaming grin. "He was just as thin as you are but with that woman of his, he's gone bloody round," she chuckled. "Try it on."
He didn't know what to say and he wasn't sure what was appropriate but the leather jacket — it looked nice. Old and worn but — nice. The kind of thing you could wear and wear and wear and it would never get cold in it and you'd always be — protected — in it. A different kind of armour from what he had been wearing back when he had been a wizard, but an armour, nevertheless. A shield.
She, in the meantime, rolled her eyes, walked around the table, the jacket in her hands and without further ado, lifted his arm, then the other, and put it on him.
"You'd think I was done dressing children," she muttered, good-naturedly, under her breath. "There," she added a moment later, "fits wonderfully."
Severus cleared his throat. This woman made him stumble in situation after situation after situation in which he was rendered absolutely speechless. In the Wizarding World he remembered, there was no charity, there was no such thing as giving someone your old clothes. It might have been different in another wizard's world, but in his, it was tit for tat, an eye for an eye, nothing like this gentle generosity of this woman.
"Thank you," he said quietly.
"Ah, be quiet," she ran a hand through his hair, "I'm happy to be rid of the boxes," she continued, resting her old, wrinkled, liver-spotted hands with the plain, gold wedding ring on his leather-clad shoulders but she suddenly straightened, grabbed his chin and looked deeply into his eyes.
"There are books, too. From when Stephen went to college. You might have them too. And some more. But...you get all the clothes and all the books only under one condition."
Well — that much for charity. It was always an eye for an eye, tit for tat. That he knew. That he could work with. That he understood.
"What condition?" he asked suspiciously, shrugging off the leather jacket.
.
Hermione grinned and handed Harry the sports section of the Daily Prophet and kept the rest of herself. It was a joke, since she knew that while he was interested in Quidditch, he didn't much care about the rest of Wizarding sports and she didn't like the paper at all. But he understood. She had made breakfast for him, and had greeted him with a kiss on the cheek, a 'good morning, darling', and had flitted around him like an over-fussing wife. He had grinned, she had grinned and somehow, only this little thing made her feel better. Pretending to be an old married couple. He smiled at her over the top of the paper and sighed.
"I'm happy you're here," whispered Harry.
"I'm happy I'm here," she whispered back and smiled.
"Do you want to do something today?"
"Like what?" she asked.
"Dunno. But..." he was hesitant.
"But what?" Hermione arched her eyebrows. He had something up his sleeve. He had a plan. He wanted to go somewhere, specifically. He wanted to...
"I, erm..., thing is, that...it's weird, really, but..."
"Harry," she groaned. "Spit it out."
"The Weasleys invited me. Well, us."
"What?"
"They invited us. Arthur wrote an owl. And he said that Ginny was alright and that I wouldn't vanish from their family just because...well, because I messed it up with her but I can't go, can I? I don't..it's so soon."
Hermione sighed. "Are you asking because...you want to go and want me to go with you? Or asking my opinion?"
"Your opinion, please," he flicked his wand and their teacups filled with more tea. She took a sip (not quite happy with the taste of the conjured tea but it was alright) and scratched her left eyebrow (which needed plugging — the right one as well). She thought. She had no longing to see the Weasleys. And she didn't honestly think that Harry was ready to go there already. There hadn't been time between breaking up and now. Two days and just the night before, they had curled up on the couch together, well, her feet in his lap, actually, and they had talked about their time together, all of them. Hermione, Harry, Ron. And Neville, Ginny, Luna, the good times at school, the not so good times not at school. It had been therapeutic, she had thought. It had been nice to talk about it with someone whom she trusted, with someone who had been there with her. Talked about how Ron had just gone and how it had changed — a little — their relationship without him there. Had talked about what had happened then, how it had been when Harry had been having his 'dead moment' as they called it.
