Rebuilding Restaurants and Relatives

Sparks had been a total loss. It had been heartbreaking for Khaat to lose Sparks. So many of her customers who had been regulars had come to feel like family and they had been ruthlessly and needlessly killed for no apparent reason that Khaat understood. The Lupin clan felt decidely a lot smaller without the warmth and the laughter and the love that she had gotten from so many of them that had adopted Sparks as a second home and the Lupins as part of their family.

But, nevertheless, it was her father who had met the fire with a ruthless determination to not surrender. He had rallied the family and decided that the bistro needed to be rebuilt even better than before. The family had hired an archetect, and on the snowy day Khaat had arrived at Sparks, the building site had been encased in an enormous wizarding tent to keep the construction crew warm and dry as they worked.

Khaat was grateful at how quickly they had started to clear away the blackened rubble. She had gotten Angus to make a huge basket of breakfast pasties and scones, and she had included with it industrial sized pots of french roast coffee and of her father's blend of Christmas spice tea. She was delivering it to the bistro for the crew. She entered the tent and looked around at the debris that was still being cleared away. The foreman thanked her for her kindness and announced her gifts for the workmen. And then he turned to her and reassured her that any reconstruction project always looked worse before it got better. He promised they'd have the ash and rubble cleared away in another day or so and then the rebuilding could actually begin.

Teddy had heard about Khaat Lupin's restaurant only recently, when he'd read that it had been burned down. He'd never met his Dad's side of the family, because the Potters hadn't known them well and they'd never met in the Order. Heading into the tent-covered, he thought it smelled delicious even if the place was near rubble.

Walking up to a woman who looked rather sad and matched the description of Khaat, he asked. "Er...are you Khaat Lupin? I'm Teddy Lupin...Remus' son."

He looked nervous, a bit worried at what she would say. "I uh, I came to help and to get to know my family if...that's alright with you."

Khaat looked up at the young man who introduced himself as Teddy. She felt like she should have known him. The resemblance to Remus was strong.

"Teddy. I should have recognized you straight off," she smiled. "You look so much like your parents. Its good to meet you." Khaat realized that she and her parents were going to be the closest thing Teddy ever would know to actually knowing Remus. They had been glad that Teddy had been so loved by the Potters and the Weasleys and they had never moved to interfere. Khaat's parents had understood that the family of the heart was, often times, worth far more than family by blood. "I think its time we got to know each other, don't you?" She motioned to the coffee, tea, and the basket of pasties and scones and handed him a styrofoam cup. "Help yourself. I think there's some crates and barrels that we can sit on over there if you like."

Teddy blushed when she said he looked like his parents. No one had ever told him that before even though he was all natural at the time, no edits to his person. Shrugging it off, he took some tea and went to sit down, waiting on her to get there at the boxes.

When she did, he said, "I've been working with the Order lately, and figured you guys would need my help getting this place fixed up. I also figured it would be as good an opportunity as any to meet my father's family. What do you think, Khaat?"

"I'd like that," she smiled. She found a place sitting on top of a wooden barrel and sipped on her cup of French Roast. "I'm such a coffee addict," she confessed with a laugh. "Your father preferred just a good cup of tea. You know, I know you must have a million questions. I'm sure that we can answer some of those.

"If I were you, my biggest question for us would be where the devil have we been? I can tell you what I know. When your parents married, the world was an exceptionally dangerous place. Perhaps in the deepest danger our world had known up to that point, and your parents put themselves right on the frontlines to try to stop Voldemort from coming to power. And in order to do that, they had to make contingency plans for you. Plans that they felt would not only keep you hidden in case things went sour, but also to give you the life that our family could not do for quite awhile after the war.

"The good thing about Remus was that he became legendary because he was probably one of the most famous professors in Hogwarts history, and also because he was a powerful fighter for the greater good and a firm ally with Dumbledore. The negative for Remus was his curse. It was not a time when werewolves were accepted in the way they are now. They were complete social outcasts. Remus had to remain in hiding most of his life after he was infected.

"I do know he never wanted you to have to live with that. He deliberately wanted to separate you from us because he knew that in the wizarding world, at that time, to be a Lupin was to be a rogue and a bum. The Potters and the Weasleys had impeccable reputations for standing for the greater good. They weren't wealthy, but that wasn't important. They had the right morals and were strong enough in reputation and in number that they could give you what we could not. Remus and Tonks made it abundantly clear that they believed that it was far safer for you and better for you to be with them than with us. And, at the time, he was right.

"When times changed socially and people weren't so stupid about those affected with the werewolf curse, the Potters and Weasleys were the only ones that you knew. And we had no doubt that you were deeply loved. We chose deliberately to not try to contact you because we didn't want to confuse you or make you think we were uprooting you. We figured you would come around in your own time if you chose to want to find us or to know more about your parents.

"But you have no idea how glad I am to finally be able to meet you. It feels like the missing piece of our family isn't missing anymore."

Lupin blinked. That had been the exact question that was on his lips, and he wasn't sure how to respond to such an overload of information. He was quiet for a moment, mulling it over. "I'm...sorry, and this is going to come off rather rude, but my Dad's dead. Both of them are, Remus Lupin and Harry Potter. I understand he did what he did for a reason. Both of them died for what they believe in. That's not what bothers me.

What bothers me, is that his contingency plans didn't include you guys. I've heard wonderful stories about you in the past, and I have been wanting to talk to you for a long time. I'm very happy to have finally met you as well. And...I think I'd like to meet the rest of our family at some point." He stressed the word our slightly, mulling it over in his mouth as he said it, liking the way it felt. Maybe...just maybe...he could be a link to bring the Potters and the Lupins back closer. They were mostly Order members, but they weren't exactly close anymore. That might change shortly.

She heard the bitterness in her cousin's voice. She understood it. She understood that bitterness far better than he knew.

"Remus always had a reason," Khaat said. "Any choice he made was as well thought out as he knew how to make. I'm not saying that to defend him. Its just fact. We knew the Potters and the Weasleys. My father knew James and Lily. I knew Harry, but that was a long time ago. But yes, it is definitely time that we bring our family back together. The fact that you've heard stories about me doesn't surprise me, but I am surprised they were good ones," She laughed. I'm in the public eye enough that there's a lot of horse manure out there about me too. I've gotten used to that. But I presume you'd like to meet the rest of your family at some point too. There are probably more of us now than you've heard."

"Yeah, I really only know about you and Robert. I guess he's...my uncle? I'm a little confused on how exactly we're all related, but I guess that's the only real problem with Wizarding Families, the fact that most of them are interrelated in some whacky way."

He laughed and felt a little more relaxed. Khaat seemed like a cool person, and he was glad he'd came. "How many of you are there, then?" he asked, now a bit more serious. "And...uh...what can you tell me about my father that I might not know? I've read some things, and Harry told me he was a good man but...I don't know much else."

She smiled a bit thinking of Remus. The thought of him warmed her heart like no other. "My father, Robert, is a year old than Remus was. Of the two, my father was the more geeky one, and Remus was the more adventurous. That has changed a bit over the years. My father learned to be more adventurous, but Remus had a love for it like no one else I've ever known.

"When my parents married, my father bought a farm, much preferring a quiet life. And it worked out well for Remus, actually. In those days, there were few places anyone bearing his curse could go and not be hunted to be killed. Remus always had a suite of rooms in my parents' house. Long story short, when I was born, somehow I inherited far more of the Lupin's love for defiance and adventure. My parents soon found that Remus and I got along like two peas from the same pod. He ended up raising me for the most part. It wasn't until after he was...well,...murdered...that I ended up really learning how to be close to my own parents.

"However, there are more of us than that. I am married, and I have 5 children and a granddaughter. So, I guess, technically, that means that, including you, there are eleven of us. Not counting the other children I am the legal guardian of. And there are lots and lots of those.

"Are you interested in meeting the rest of your family? We can do that. And--there might be a way for you to have a conversation--of sorts--with Remus, if you like," she said slowly, broaching that whole idea cautiously.