He aims an eyebrow at Albus. "Headmaster, I wasn't aware that you believed in lost causes. How flattering. I think." Shrugging, "Although there will of course be a period of evaluation, assessment, and--" detoxification "--recovery," although he hasn't quite worked out yet how to arrange this, since Minerva patently does not want the elf around...
...complicated, and the balance of the cost-benefit equation has been shifting, but then there's this business with Lucius, and can he really afford to increase his degree of separation from an ally by moving now, especially when the two of them [Minerva and Lucius] have been getting along? But there's the balance of responsibility, too, and why should he let Lucius, without even intending to, drag the burdens of his old life back onto his shoulder? Who wants his help, anyway? He'd asked Albus about putting forth the effort to stop meddling, and it may go double for him, but even if Lucius doesn't want a war, even if his ultimate goals are as acceptably moderate as they were painted, Severus deeply suspects that he still thinks like a terrorist. Damn the man for carelessly forcing Severus to choose between thinking like a man and like the spiked shield of an unappreciative subworld again, obviously, but the question is which way to fall, and how to learn to be selfishly stupid--how to close his human eyes to an oncoming future--or how to be wielded again while clinging to what's left of his soul.
The whole train of thought, just lightly occluded enough to catch Albus's attention if he's paying attention, sits side-by-side with his speech, and it's without missing a beat that he finishes, "but her state when assigned to the dungeons was appalling, and with individual attention and a personal realm of responsibility, she recovered quickly."
I hope what was going on up there was clear, but if it wasn't, just ask. :)