The Lame God of Fire
Disclaimer: I only own things in my mind. In Reality, I'm nothing but a poor homebody.
Hephaestus
Hephaestus was sad and lonely, but that really wasn't unusual for him. In fact, it was rare for him to be anything but. He had experienced so few things other than gloominess, that it really didn't bother him much anymore. He didn't know what he was missing. Oh sure, he saw the happiness and love of others, but he never experienced it. He was sad and lonely, but he didn't know it and he was all right with that.
Hephaestus was… a special case. He could be called a victim of unfortunate circumstances, and it would be correct, but mostly, he was an outcast. Nobody loved him. Not his mother, not his father, not his wife. In fact, his wife housed a particular hatred for Hephaestus, or at least, it seemed she did. The heartless Cruelty of the three who should have loved him most made the Strong, Proud being that could have been the sad creature that he actually is.
Of course, creature implies something savage, guided by instinct, of lower intelligence and Hephaestus was anything but a creature. Hephaestus was a God. The God of Fire, of Technology, of Stone Masonry, of Metalworking, it goes on and on. Hephaestus was Important. Powerful. Brilliant. His imprint was always there, everywhere you turn in history, and a part of him is there. Helios' Chariot, that was him! Achilles' Armor! Eros' bow and arrow! Aegis' breastplate! Any weapon of any God and it's almost a guarantee that it was made by Hephaestus.
The downtrodden God should be basking in the glory of all of his creations, for it is his creations that make the Hero's great, not their Godly Parent! But Hephaestus could hardly go out without looks of disgust thrown his way, Thrown, by those who wield Hephaestus' weapons, by those who are protected by Hephaestus' walls, by those who should worship him but would rather ignore his existence. All of this, because of something as inconsequential as the skin which Hephaestus' brilliant mind hides behind. It was enough to infuriate most Gods, but again, Hephaestus knew no different.
When Hephaestus was born, he was lame, deformed. And his Mother, Queen Hera, was disgusted, So disgusted in fact, that she threw him from her home, the home of the Gods, Mt. Olympus. And it was quite a long fall. Luckily for Hephaestus, the fall seemed to shock some of his more physical deformities back into place. Unluckily, the scarring was horrendous. But Hephaestus, being a God, lived.
So Hephaestus grew up, without the love of a mother or father, and he learned his trade. He grew up exiled from his family, his rightful home, because, in his mother's eyes, he was ugly, and she was ashamed. He grew up with the knowledge of his family, and the knowledge that not one of them ever came to meet him. Hephaestus grew, as did his hatred, and Sadness, and loneliness. He planned, revised, and executed his revenge against his mother. Hephaestus succeeded, and then the Gods begged for him to return and undo his deeds. He refused, and they dragged him back anyway (1).
After following the order of his Father, King Zeus, to free his mother, Hephaestus was once again put aside. This time though, he was put to use. His Father ordered him to make the weapons of the Gods, The Thrones of the Gods, Anything, he said, that the God's require, you will make. And so Hephaestus did. But he thought over the next few millenniums that that was the only time his father had ever spoken to him. His Arranged Marriage to the Goddess of love, was out of the spitefulness of the King and Queen of the Gods, and Hephaestus learned of it from Hermes and He realized how alone he really was. They hated him, and he couldn't change that. No matter how much the knowledge of Aphrodite's infidelity hurt, or his mother's many plans to kill him, or his father view of him as only a resource. It hurt, but Hephaestus accepted it and retreated into his work. He was forcefully content. But he was still, sad and lonely and he knew nothing else
(1)Referring to, of course, The Myth of Hephaestus fashioning a great golden throne for his mother as a gift, but cursing it so that once she sat in it she would never be able to get up. So, once she sat on it, the God's begged for Hephaestus to come and undo his trickery but he refused, saying "I have no Mother." Dionysus, the god of Wine, was sent after Hephaestus. He got him drunk then carted him off back to on the back of a donkey.
Harry
Harry was happy. He was content, his life was going in the right direction, and everything was going his way for once, everything, except maybe, his personal life. But that was a story for another time. Life after the war was something different than he had ever dreamed. Nobody, he thought, expected him to live his life how he is. They probably didn't expect him to live actually. But the truth was, Harry was an excellent cook.
After a childhood of full of cooking and cleaning for his Aunt and Uncle, you would think he would hate anything that had to do with household chores, but he didn't. His apartment was a cluttered mess, but it was an organized chaos that was far from dirty. The clinical cleanliness' of his Aunt was something he did hate, the cold feeling of it was not the feeling of a home. But he really couldn't stand cobwebs or dust, so he cleaned, and he didn't mind it.
Cooking, on the other hand, was something Harry just loved. He adored it, it adored him, and people adored his works of culinary excellence. Although some people had reservations, Harry's food wasn't the prettiest around, most just dug right in, they knew they taste far outweighed the physical appearance. Much like the saying, it's what's on the inside that counts.
The restaurant Harry was head Chef for was something that had been transformed once Harry touched it. Harry had that talent, as many could attest. He had been looking for a job, a way to support himself without having to mooch off of the wealth of the Potter Family vaults, when he found the help wanted sign. It was a struggling little muggle restaurant, simply titled Poe's after the owner's dead grandfather. The old Chef had left to travel the world and expand his culinary techniques, but he'd somehow forgotten to give his Two-Week Notice. So the restaurant was left in the inexperienced hands of the assistant chef, sales dropped, food quality dropped, and the poor new head chef almost dropped.
When Harry popped up looking for a job, they were skeptical. Who wouldn't be? But he cooked them a meal, they fell in love, and Harry was given the job. His life as assistant Chef was short lived however, as the Head chef threatened to quit if they didn't give him his old job back. So Harry was saddled with the title of Head chef and sales increased, quality increased, and the happy new/old assistant chef was once again, lacking gray hairs.
Harry thought that they Fate's were finally finished playing with him. He had a job he loved, he was alive, most of his friends and adoptive family were alive and successful, and he had his own residence, he never had to see the Dursley's ever again, life was great. Most of the structural damage from the war had been fixed, the new Minister of Magic Kingsley Shacklebolt was meticulously going thought the Ministry with the help of the new Undersecretary, Hermione Granger, and weeding out the corrupt and ignorant from the helpful and good. Things were looking up for Great Britain. Ron was flying through the ranks of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and the Head, Amelia Bones, was said to be looking for a replacement. The Light had well and truly won.
The only Dark Spot on Harry's seemingly perfect life would have to be the fireball of a woman know as Ginny Weasley. Harry knew, as he had always known deep down, that Ginny was not the person for him. She was the little sister he never wanted. But Ginny it seemed, didn't see things that way, and was a bit miffed that Harry did. The resentment she felt now was only slightly mollified by the fact that no other woman was in Harry's life. Harry was actually a bit scared to bring any woman he might meet to his adoptive family. The Weasley's in general didn't seem to mind Harry's rejection of Ginny, but she was sure to frighten off any potential partners.
So although, Harry was happy and content, he was just the slightest bit lonely. His friends were out living their lives with each other, and although he was doing the same, he was doing it without someone to go home to every night. He felt the longing inside him for a Love, someone to hold and share his life with. But, he figured, that would come in time. He was only twenty-three; the family he wanted could wait a little bit. He had time now.
That First Encounter
Hephaestus didn't usually venture out among the mortals; he preferred the solitude of his workshop inside Mount Regen, which was under The Laacher Lake which was located in the Eifel Mountains, in Germany where the closest civilization was an abbey full of nuns. So, he liked his privacy, sue him. Anyway, Hephaestus didn't like going out among the mortals, but sometimes it was just unavoidable. Now was one of those unavoidable times that Hephaestus hated. He simply couldn't send one of his automatons out, it would cause a panic with its appearance, of course, he wasn't much better. He looked like a psychotic masochistic freak, he thought. But at least he looked human.
So there he was, single mindedly walking towards his destination with a fedora hat pulled low over his face and a jacket and scarf as the only protection between him and the cold outside world. Hephaestus was looking down, as he always was when he was around other people, he was a god, and he didn't need to look up to see what was around him. It helped that people tended to walk around him. So maybe he should have been less surprised than he was that he ran into someone on the busy streets of London.
The ingrained instincts, solid muscle mass, and firm hold Hephaestus immediately graced the person he ran into with were all that kept the young man up. He looked a little dazed though; running headfirst into a god will do that to you. He seemed to regain his senses soon enough, shaking his messy black hair slightly as he stepped back from Hephaestus and raised his slightly frantic eyes to meet the god's.
"Oh my god! I'm so sorry! You're soaked!" The stranger's exclamation made little sense until he realized that the young man was holding an empty cup and the previous contents of said cup were coating Hephaestus clothes. Upon closer inspection, the god realized it was hot chocolate.
"Ah….so I am," was the awkward reply. He reached down and pulled his shirt slightly away from his body and looked down at the mess as the stranger fretted. He was sure that, if he had been human, the scalding hot drink would have hurt terribly. As it was, he was used to far worse from the fires in his forges. As he was thinking this, the stranger was rambling about something, Hephaestus tuned back in just in time to catch his closing sentence and the questioning look throw his way.
"…it's just around the corner. What do you say?" the stranger was now looking at Hephaestus the same way a little girl would look at you as she begged you to pretty please help her get her kitty out of the tree?
Hephaestus didn't know what to do about the pleading look, and was doubly unsure since he had missed what the man had said. But he was sure that if he refused, the Strangers face would fall the same way the little girls would if she was refused. Hephaestus hated making people sad. The, "Alright," was muttered just before the pause went awkward, and the young man's face light up with a smile to replace the concerned turned pleading expression he had been wearing.
"Great!" Then he grabbed Hephaestus' wrist and started dragging him along behind him as he walked with a single minded determination toward his unknown location.
Hephaestus was shocked by the physical contact, he had received so little of it that he didn't quiet now what to do. It hadn't really hit him until the stranger grabbed his wrist that, here was a person, a normal mortal human, who hadn't flinched and cringed away from him. He was touching him! He was talking to and treating him like he was just some normal mortal who he had spilled his hot drink on in the street. It was like his looks, his deformities, didn't matter! Then Hephaestus grew suspicious. This ignorant mortal intends to try and take advantage of me, he thought. It didn't even cross Hephaestus' mind that the stranger was being legitimately kind, but it wouldn't, not with the way Hephaestus had lived, not when he had endured so little kindness.
Lost in his thought as he was, Hephaestus didn't notice when they arrived at their destination and came to a stop. He was only pulled out of his thoughts when the stranger stated speaking again.
"Here we are. I'll make you something nice to eat to make up for your shirt and troubles. It doesn't look cheap." He was unlocking the door of some little building as he said this.
Hephaestus was unsure whether he was talking about his troubles, or his shirt. How like a thief, to recognize the worth of something, Hephaestus thought. Just wait until he tries something.
"Come on inside, it's freezing out here. We are the only ones here I think, the other's are off today, as I should be." He led the way inside, and Hephaestus hesitantly followed after. He was a God, he thought, he could handle anything this little mortal could throw at him. The only reason he was still here, he told himself, was curiosity. He wanted to know if it was possible for a person to genuinely not care about his ugliness, if they were such a person on this planet. Or was this just a despicable mortal who wanted to lead him on.
He had to know.