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

I do seem to be failing brilliantly at this 'updating regularly' business. Do forgive me. I am bound and determined to finish this story, no matter how awful I think it is. There's too many that I never could finish, and I'd like to not count this among their number. Besides, it has its good moments.

Well, hang on, there's going to be maybe five to ten more chapters maximum. Enjoy!

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Chapter 20

"It's strange to be dining somewhere so nice on my own tab," Odin whispered in Hermione's ear, smirking, and she smiled faintly.

The gesture was not lost on Lawrence Muffler, Fred Jamison, and Bunter Forbes, the Longbottom lawyers, who looked at each other conspiratorially as they seated themselves at the table in the private room of Le Vie Violet, the finest restaurant in the town of the deceased Augusta Bernice. Disapproval shone in their eyes, doubtless bred by distrust of their companion and his girl, who was clearly not a pure-blood. Odin, in his haughtiest cavalier manner, flouted them by sweeping Hermione's chair back in the approved fashion, gracefully sliding it forward once she was seated, and then landing himself with the utmost delicacy in the chair at the head of the table. She took the gesture as being beyond necessary, as a dramatic signal to the lawyers as they observed him. 'Hey, I may be a black sheep, and a squib, but I know manners worthy of my heritage!'

Such refinement and elegance is the pureblood way, Hermione thought, though it seemed very strange to associate Odin in the same class as the Malfoys. However, Odin had grown up (however abused) in a wealthy pureblood home, and, while his usual manners were far from un-chivalrous, he seemed to be accentuating his poise and dignity for the benefit of the lawyers.

And then, Neville came into the restaurant.

This was the first time since the funeral that Hermione had seen Neville, and she had not spoken much to him then save the usual condolences. It became obvious to her now that, besides Odin, he was fairly alone in the world, and he was well aware of the fact. His eyes looked hollow, as though he had not slept, and his face showed signs of stubble.

No wonder. His grandmother's dead not even two months after the Battle of Hogwarts. And he had just gotten so much more confident, too! It upset her most to see his most scared, intimidated look, akin to that with which he usually regarded Severus Snape. Only, it was directed at her, at Odin, and the lawyers. It gave her a creepy feeling, besides the violent pang of her heart when she thought of Snape.

Don't think about him. You've got Odin, now.

Neville and Odin's interaction had not been unpleasant at the funeral, but it had not been pleasant, either. Neville had not seen Odin in many, many years, and to be re-introduced to his own uncle by his school-mate who was dating him, all at his grandmother's funeral, made the boy look a little ill. Looking at them together, it was obvious they were relations--their ears were very similar, as were their eyes--but otherwise they did not seem to reflect each other very much. She did not see a hitherto-unnoticed intellectual streak in Neville, nor did he act more charming than awkward.

Currently, the Gryffindor famed for cutting off Nagini's head still did not seem nearly himself. When he noticed Hermione, he waved, but otherwise he sat motionlessly.

"Mr. Longbottom", began Muffler, the pompous one, once their dinners had been ordered.

Both men looked up immediately; Neville had been contemplating his grubby fingernails and Odin had been telling Hermione what he knew about the arrangement of cutlery.

"I suppose," mumbled Forbes quietly, the most sensible one of the three, "That we shall address you by Mr. Odin and Mr. Neville accordingly in these situations."

"I hope you realize," added Jamison, the slightly malicious one, "That it will hardly be necessary, considering by the adopted name of the former. Mr. Temple and Mr. Longbottom are two disparate entities."

Odin waved away the comment. "Temple was a pseudonym donned for a particular place and a particular time. I have not legally changed my name."

Hermione still sensed that he was nervous about that point, though. Malfoy-esque graces or no, Odin was a far cry from the cool, manipulative hand of Lucius.

They had dropped the careless reference to 'Mr. Temple' earlier that evening as they came to the restaurant, and Odin had, as he confided in her, no idea how they had found out about his assumed name, considering how they addressed the letter to him as 'Odin Longbottom', but there was a lot of fishiness about the whole situation. Ever since he introduced himself to them, before the funeral, he felt that they regarded him in callous suspicion. Since he had no desire whatsoever for the money, he was going to endeavor to wiggle his way out of accepting it.

At that, Jamison snorted in disbelief, Muffler squinted superciliously into Odin's eyes, and Forbes smiled weakly at everyone. They were almost like a rehearsed comedy troupe.

Odin tried to not take offense. "Gentlemen," he said sweetly, "I do not understand the importance of this triviality. Please, if you have no objection, is there an issue you wish to take up with me?"

Muffler stood, frowning in distaste at the speaker. "To be quite certain, Mr. Odin, there is. An issue of another will."

Hermione felt eyes on the back of her head, and turned to look at Neville, who was staring at her with odd consternation. He whipped his head around to look at Muffler as soon as they made eye contact.

"Another will?" Odin said with a smile. "One in which I get closer to nothing, I imagine."

"Far from it, Mr. Odin," began Forbes, and all three of the lawyers said in conjunction, "You get everything."

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He was certain that Becky was not in love with him. Severus had spent hours trying to figure out why he had taken her to dinner, besides this fact, and could come up with no answer.

She had a husband, did she not? Then what was she doing, tempting fate by taking another man to dinner?

Maybe her husband was dead, and she was loathe to admit it? Or maybe there was bad blood between them, and taking Severus out to dinner was something to spite him? Either way, he disliked the idea intensely, and next time he would categorically refuse. He had enough to attend to, without worrying about a woman who was trespassing her professional capacity as a Realtor.

The biggest issue on his mind was that Lily had left him after that night.

He had not noticed until he got into bed and...desired her presence, for lack of a better explanation, and she had not appeared, smiling, scowling or otherwise. It was very disconcerting. He felt a little as though he had left her in England, for some strange reason. But that was silly, he told himself, ignoring the fact that his little fantasy was sillier.

Huckleberry House, as a result, was a little more dim, but sounded a whole lot prettier, because he had foregone the use of the phonograph in favor of the grand piano in the music room. It was the only way to keep him from going mad.

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Odin was plainly shocked. He already knew that the house and a quarter of the fortune was going to him, but the entire fortune?

"What does my nephew get?" he asked quietly, looking as sheepish as if he had stolen the money from Neville.

Muffler rubbed the side of his nose. "A mere pittance."

"What percent?"

"No more than five percent of your total income, Mr. Odin."

Odin's face convulsed in disgust. "But I don't want any of it!" he exclaimed in shock. "Give it all to Neville. I don't want it. Christ!" He closed his eye, and carefully resumed his composure. "Did she give any reason for doing as she did?"

"As she wrote, in the will she made out to you the week before she died, you ought to get it for various reasons, the most flattering of which is her wish to reconcile her memory, because she is sorry for the way she treated you in your youth, and the least flattering of which is that she does not trust her older son's son to spend it wisely. She considers him," he paused, as though to listen to her ghost and repeat the same words, "'too tender-hearted to be trusted with it'."

The sound of a chair being thrust back startled all of them.

"Too tender-hearted?" exclaimed Neville, angry. Hermione watched him, observing that she had never seen him so hurt in all his life. "And she said that a week ago?"

"Sit down, Mr. Neville. However," Jamison said, looking pointedly at Odin, "The will was not sent to us, but verified by a London solicitor that Madame Augusta was not in the habit of calling upon, and deposited in her safe-deposit box at Gringotts. We only accessed it three days after her death."

"It is not a forgery?" Neville exclaimed, looking at Jamison.

Jamison shook his head. "It was signed in her handwriting, and sealed with her own wand. But!" he postulated angrily, not taking his eyes off of Odin, "We at Muffler, Jamison, and Forbes have reason to believe its unreliability!"

Odin shook his head. "I don't care," he drawled, "The money is none of my concern. I say let the former will stand, in which Neville gets most everything. That's how I prefer it, and that is how I'm sure she would prefer it."

"That is not why we brought up the issue, Mr. Odin," Muffler said, in dangerous tones.

"May I reiterate," Odin said, standing, "I want nothing to do with this. I am comfortable--"

However, he was interrupted by the swinging-open of the door.

"Oh, pardon me intrusion," said an oldish wizard in a florid Continental accent, "I thought that zis was the room where Mssrs. Longbottom were 'aving their dine-er."

All eyes were upon him.

"I am Count Francis Leonarde Michelange Renault, at your service," he said, bowing. He had an enormous Poirot-ean moustache, and it dipped when he did. "I was," he said, putting his hat to his breast, "A dear friend of the late Madame Augusta."

The lawyers evidentially knew just as much about Count Renault as Odin did, and all three shifted uncomfortably under the gaze of the tall and imposing, if aged, foreigner.

The Count's eyes seemed to sparkle with dismal charm.

Hermione looked at him, then looked back at Neville. They looked much more alike than Neville and Odin, though Neville was more inclined to roundness and had no facial hair, nor was he so tall as the dark foreigner.

She wondered if he knew that this was his grandpa. He did not seem any more surprised than she would estimate him to be in any other situation, so maybe Augusta had never told him.

Granted, if Odin had told the complete truth at all. She was not about to go barge into Neville's life and tell him that his father was technically a bastard, even though his uncle was the one treated like the bastard.

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Becky came calling, of course, not too much later. Only a week had passed before she was again on his doorstep. Rather, her doorstep that she was offering to him at a meager price.

Of course, it just had to be when he was brewing something that was really volatile. Covering it with a statis charm, and hiding the cauldron with a notice-me-not, he ran to the front door and opened it just a crack.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Mr. Snopes!"

"Mrs. Hawthorne. What brings you here?"

She grinned. "Just checking to see that you aren't keeping dead bodies in there, it's so dark. May I come in?"

He had no choice, so he let her in. "I'm particularly busy," he said.

"Oh?" She sniffed. "I think I smell it."

He sniffed too, and admitted to himself that the citrus-lemongrass smells of the Tamenastic! shampoo potion he was mass-producing had permeated the house.

"What is it? It's not food, is it?"

She looked somewhat worried.

"Heavens, no. Soap."

"Oh." She smiled faintly. "It smells absolutely divine. Could I buy a bottle?"

Without a word, he went to one of the crates in the hallway, picked a bottle out, and gave it to her.

"Glass bottles, too? Wow, this must be special stuff. How much do I owe you?"

"Nothing, now would you kindly leave? I have some cauldrons that are going to boil over."

The sharp intake of breath that followed this statement was his, however, not hers.

She laughed. "Don't worry, I don't care if you're a warlock. Heaven knows, there's enough around here."

Oh. She thinks I'm... he cringed. Wiccan.

"I'll see you later, Mr. Snopes," Becky said with a smile, "And thanks very much. This smells delicious. Mind you don't work too hard, and get some nourishment into you, all right?"

She paused.

"If you like, I'll stop by the store and bring you back some groceries?"

He puzzled over this, and then he realized why he had been taken out to dinner and sent home with leftovers. The look in her eyes was identical to that of Poppy Pomfrey when she told him to stay in bed and not go patrolling, because he had lost so much blood. Like Molly Weasley, admonishing her children to eat all that was on their plates.

She was mothering him. Apparently, she had got it into her noggin that he was not eating enough.

The riddle was solved, and he knew how to finally get her off of his back.

"I would actually find that incredibly helpful," he said, trying not to sound as sarcastic and bitter as he felt. "Here." He gave her an amount of money from his pocket. "That ought to be enough for something decent."

"Do you normally eat meat, Mr. Snopes?" asked Mrs. Hawthorne.

"Yes," he said, turning towards the kitchen.

"Hm," Becky said, "You're certainly very curious. Most witches and warlocks won't touch anything that isn't tofu."

"And what may I ask is tofu?"

She shrugged. "I guess you in England don't do things the same way."

And she left him in peace.

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