I'm not just kidding when I say that I'm not J.K.

I will reiterate: I am probably not going to answer any reviews still right now because I am very busy. It is only by depriving myself of sleep that I am able to produce this chapter. Thanks so much for reading, and do review! It makes me more happy than I can express in words.

By the way, people are concerned that this is not going to end up HG/SS . . . for those of you who have asked, fear not! I simply feel that they (both) need to mature a little bit before they can actually get together. Hermione, as I have hitherto written her, has been rather an inconsistent upstart, on the cusp of womanhood but assuming she is more advanced than she is. Snape's simply bonkers, and I'm going to develop his relationship with Becky just a bit until circumstances allow for his full adult attention to be focused upon Hermione. It's the process that counts, y'all, but there'll be plenty of romance in the between-times, as this chapter will reveal.

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Chapter 14

After Snape left, Hermione went through an emotional dance that verged between hysterical and coldly practical. Harry had left as quickly as he could without leaving her out to dry, wisely leaving her to tend to the hypersensitive and still rather queasy Ronald Weasley. Her father had come home, surveyed the situation with a desperate sigh, and went to his library with only a sparse word to the accord that "well, you're smart, honey-bunch, you'll figure it all out."

And that was that.

A week later, Hermione was sick of studying and writing and thinking, and decided to go out and do some good work for the community. It was not as though she were an invalid, after all.

That was what led her to Odin.

Working in a food kitchen in London's most foul underbelly was hardly pleasant work. Quite honestly, Hermione thought on her first day, If my parents knew exactly where I was and what I was doing, they'd freak. And have me home in an instant. This isn't really the place for young ladies.

Indeed, her evaluation was quite correct. Moriaty's Bread-and-Butter Kitchen was the name of the place, but it sounded much more cheerful than it looked. Grimy walls, dingy tureens of boiling soup made from sickly yellow powder, linoleum flooring long past its prime, and cobwebs in every rafter and curtain was not the worst of the ineptly titled food servicing counter. Not a single plastic bowl that was not chipped, nor a single plastic tumbler that was entirely clean existed on the property. Every spoon was bent to some degree, most of the forks were missing a tier or two, and the knives were of no use than to butter bread. This last was of small consequence, however, as nothing was served at the establishment more difficult to slice than a pungent morsel of cheesecake or flimsy green jello.

If it were only the utensils provided, or the housing, Hermione might not have thought so badly of the place. Indeed, her parents would have loved her to go, if not strongly encouraged her to do so. They were, after all, not miserly people, and believed in the concept of voluntary community service. "Better voluntary than forced," Dr. Granger always reminded his ladies at dinner if the subject was broached. The Grangers were well-acquainted with a few choice charities in London whom they supported ardently with annual checks. As it was, however, Hermione told her parents (when they were home to see her go) that she was off to the movies with Ginny and Harry, and perhaps Ron if he felt up to it. This was because the people who frequented Moriaty's were not all that scrupulous.

Ex-cons, violators of parole, mental cases, desperate singles and drunkards--those were the ones who came to Moriaty's. The majority of them would not have come if they were not starving, sick, fatigued, or all three at once. Hermione observed with some shock upon her first day that most of the people who came into the place were bedraggled, depressed, and apathetic. The men's hair was usually unkempt and uncut, their beards were swarthy and grizzled, and they almost invariably wore frayed jeans. The most well-groomed man she ever saw enter the door had a two-day beard that looked revoltingly like gray mold over his chin. The women usually carried a tot or two, and generally were helplessly overweight, wearing skirts that were too tight on their lumpy matron's bodies and sweatshirts that smelled of sweat, lust, and vomit. Many wore faded mini-skirts with holes, and Hermione often saw too much of the sagging, lifeless, unclothed flesh beneath them. Undergarments were anathema to these poor people, who seemed to be little more than shades of their former selves, and most of them had no more clothes than the ones they wore. It was all very sad.

Why did Hermione ever apply to such a place to enlist her services, and why did she return when she had better evaluated her circumstances?

To answer the first of these questions is simple: Hermione merely flipped through the phone book under 'Social services etc.', and immediately espied 'Moriaty's Bread-And-Butter Kitchen'. It made her laugh at the time, as she recognized the name of the arch-villain in the Holmes books, James Moriaty. However, to contradict the sinister prefix to its name, the rest of it sounded cheery enough, and so she made the call. The phone was answered within three rings by a childish voice belonging to the establishment's prime advocate, Dorothy Warner. Upon Hermione's inquiry, Ms. Warner was very quick to claim the girl's services, and they laid out the time and dates for her employment at the kitchen right then and there.

The second of the aforementioned questions is more complicated, however. Hermione arrived to her first afternoon shift at Moriaty's very apprehensive, noticing with increasing anxiousness the drab alley upon which the faded Georgian townhouse faced, the grime and dirt on the porch and doorstep, and the noxious fumes emitting from a barrel across the street from the door. Her nervousness did not decrease when she saw the clientèle of the kitchen, the quality of the services provided to them, and the lack of staff--no one save the proprietor Ms. Warner, too light of heart and too heavy of build to do much but rush about like a bull in a china shop, trip over the ridges in the creaky old floorboards, and generally do little to improve the situation of the place. She was on the verge of deciding never to come back to the place after the first day, until she looked into the eyes of a particular old man who seemed to have some spark left in him. Granted, he seemed to be about eighty or so, and he wheezed dreadfully, and he never seemed to leave Moriaty's, but in him Hermione was reminded of Sirius Black. The devil was still in that man, and his quiet quirk of a smile whenever she looked closely at him was inspiring to her.

He was called Marty, and seemed to be a wise and stolid fixture at Moriaty's. (1) Ms. Warner could not remember when he had first shown his face there, but she figured it was before her time. Hermione looked at him with curiosity every chance she got, taking special time in preparing a thin film of beef soup to nourish his frail frame. He said nothing as he accepted it, along with a semi-stale roll and a square of cheap milk chocolate, but his eyes smiled at her. He rarely spoke, and Ms. Warner could recount but few words he had said to her. Every morning when Hermione arrived he was sitting there, quite contentedly smoking a pipe and watching the flickering fireplace as though the flames held the answers to every question in the universe. Ms. Warner reported that he was one of the few people who spent his nights at Moriaty's, indubitably comfortable on a little pallet in a closet only used to house Ms. Warner's coat, hat (for she was very old-fashioned) and purse during the day, along with Hermione's trench coat. There were facilities enough available in the house for ten people, but it was very rare to have more than five beds to make in the morning. Marty was the only person to stay longer than a week, and he made his own bed.

Marty was why Hermione returned to Moriaty's--it was somehow incredibly inspiring to see such a resolute optimist (or at least a realist) amid the dreary crowd of pessimists, and she wanted to discover the man's secret. Why is he different? she asked herself, continually puzzling over the question and trying to discern the facets of his nature.

In any case, he was the only reason she felt at all safe at Moriaty's, and it was his influence that helped her to realize that she really was needed at Moriaty's. It was also because of him that she later met Odin.

One week, two weeks, three weeks went by; it was a full month after Snape had picked up and left her life, and she had almost convinced herself that she had dreamed the whole thing up during an absurdly emotional period. At night she tried to dream of Ron, and she actually had reconciled and gotten back together with him. However, she was fully aware that she did not love him, and never could love him, in a way that was not equivocal to a brother. Not that it bothered her at all to be back in his company--to be quite truthful, after Snape left, she really did miss Ron's company. Perhaps not his slobbery kisses (though she knew she was going to get him a book called 'The Art of Kissing Like a Gentleman' for Christmas!) or his puppydog-like affection for her, but she did somewhat miss being the one chased rather than the one chasing. She did not have to work at a relationship with Ron. She would have her work cut out for her if she ever intended to win Snape. Which is rather impossible at this point, so there's no reason not to appreciate a good thing when one sees it!

Hermione spent about half her time at the food kitchen, eventually admitting to her parents that she was working 'on an internship to a really top-secret organization within the Ministry of Magic that I can't tell you about' and then dividing the rest of her time between Ron and studying. Life, for her, had gone back to relative normality.

This changed when she first met Odin.

She first saw his round, thoughtful face when the door jingled at Moriaty's with a ferocity that was reserved for her own entrance, and she immediately looked up to see who had arrived. As it was ten past one, and the lunch hour was over, and since most of the people who came to Moriaty's were well accustomed to the mealtimes, coming to feed like pigs to a trough, anyone's entrance was indeed unexpected. A cynical smile painted his youthful cherry-red lips, and a jaunty soft driving cap perched on his enormous head. He seemed to have shaved that morning, and Hermione judged him to be about twenty or thereabouts. Brown, bovine eyes and a fringe of graceful curling locks framed his face, and he squinted intelligently at his surroundings, appraising them with almost surprise, as though he had apparated there by accident.

Hermione was in the middle of scrubbing a nasty greasy pot, pondering on the apparent meaninglessness of her life as she was wont to do when occupied in dish-washing. In particular, she was thinking about Snape, and was bemoaning how foolish she had been to fall in love with him when his heart was so clearly engaged elsewhere, in the worshiping of Lily. Obviously, she did not know to what extreme he regarded the dead woman, but it was clear from the few clues she had gleaned that he was still prone to missing the woman deeply, too deeply to engage in a relationship with anyone but 'that woman'. Christ! There were so many indications and I never picked up on them! He's still in love with that dead woman, no matter how he tries to hide it. I don't know what I ever was thinking to flirt with him like I did. That damned woman! Harry's mother, for crying out loud! It's as if her hand extends from the grave, grasping at the poor man's wounded heart, burning it further like liquid nitrogen but even as it burns it digs deeper into his heart's core. How horrible! I do so wish I could have realized this and worked to free him from her bonds while I had the chance. But I never tried; all I wanted to do was get his arms around me and come to a mutual understanding beyond friendship. He probably saw me as an immature little child incapable of understanding true love and all that bull and all because of her . . .

But that is when the stranger entered, and Hermione grudgingly laid down her work. When she saw the intelligent, quirky young face that immediately peaked her interest, she quickly squirted anti-grease dish soap on her hands.

"Hullo, what can I do for you?" she asked politely, washing her hands hastily and rubbing them dry on her heavy canvas apron.

He was, she could easily see, not one of the sort that usually came into such a place as Moriaty's. His shirt was dingy, he wore the customary denim of the street men, and his shoes were worn until she could see the toes of his socks--but this did not disguise the fact that he was wearing socks, socks that were very white. Also, the tweed jacket he wore looked as though he had acquired it recently from a rummage sale or resale shop; the cuffs were not too threadbare and overall the coat appeared just old enough to be comfortable. In short, he rather resembled a man of leisure going out to do gardening or painting in the oldest clothes he had, as opposed to a homeless vagrant.

"I'm looking for Marty," the man said in perfect accents, unmarred by the drunkard's slur or a slummy drawl. "And I see him."

"Ah," Hermione said, looking to the old codger in the corner. Marty beamed with perfect serenity upon them both, and kicked at a nearby chair to indicate an invitation.

The young man paused a moment, looking rather incredulously at Hermione for a moment. After the lapse of perhaps thirty seconds, he pronounced the question: "How old are you?"

"Coming on nineteen," Hermione replied, then, upon meeting the stranger's eyes, found herself blushing.

"Hm, and I'm coming on twenty two. And old Marty's over there coming on ninety four. Ah yes, we're a nice assortment, if you count our lovely Ms. Warner who turned sixty-odd last May."

He's clearly someone who knows this place well, Hermione considered.

"Well, miss nineteen, you're new, aren't you?"

"Rather."

He regarded her with some apparent consideration. "You're far too pretty to waste your time slaving away at this wretched place. I heartily recommend you abandon this frightful blizzard-bearing kitchen and soar to a more hospitable climate, little sparrow. Pray, though, petite piaf, surely you have a name?"

She felt herself melting like butter in his hands. "My name is Hermione. And yours?"

He did not immediately reply, but seemed to ponder for a moment. Then he exclaimed: "Aha! A tante cure, o amiche, riconoscente io son; ma offrite indarno. Sollievo all'alma mia, che vendetta sol pasce, e gelosia. La mia sventura a chi non è palese? Chi non conosce i torti miei, le offese? Osa la friga schiava il cor di Pirro togliermi . . . iniqua! e della rotta fede esulta il traditore." (2)

Hermione was startled at this, not knowing very much Italian. "I'm sorry, I don't speak much more than English and a little French."

The man smiled. "It means, ' I am grateful to you, my friends, for your great concern; but it is in vain that you offer relief to my soul: it feeds upon revenge and jealousy alone. To whom is my hapless state not evident? Who does not know of my wrongs, the offences I have suffered? The Phrygian slave dares to snatch the heart of Pirro from me . . . evil woman! and the traitor exults in his breach of faith.' Does this strike a chord, mademoiselle?"

For, indeed, Hermione felt suddenly as though the quotation applied to her in a way that such a stranger could not, should not be able to perceive. So startled she was, especially as she had been thinking against Lily with violent jealousy for the past half hour, she could do nothing but nod.

"It was only a guess, but by the most deuced of coincidences I suppose got it right on the spot. I guess, though, I can tell when a woman is wishing death upon another woman. There's a brooding on your brow, my dear Hermione, that is not attractive." He gave her a smile, then added, "For irony's sake, I must note that the particular line came to mind with the knowledge of your name: Hermione. The Italian for it is Ermione, and by that name there is a little-remembered opera by Rossini. If I were not such a particular aficionado of Rossini, I probably would not know it."

Hermione had indeed heard of such an opera (for everyone has an interest in anything that involves one's own name) although she had never read the text. Her stomach dropped to her intestines, and without a word to the man's impertinence, she turned and began to scrub a pot vigorously. She heard him chuckle, and say: "You can call me Odin, if you ever care to speak to me again."

She banged the metal pots as much as possible in anger at both him and herself--for she did want to speak to him again.

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(1) I named him Marty in honor of the dude that always used to call the Sean Hannity show, who died just this past month. My memories concerning him are few, for I never really thought much of what he said, but I do remember always hearing 'Martyyyyyy!' and wondering why the heck Hannity liked his calls so much.

(2) There really is an opera called Ermione. See some of it here: h t t p : / / www . opera - rara . com / media / productsounds / Ermione . doc

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