Family Reunion

Khaat was truly starting to enjoy her time away from St. Mungos. She had lost her anger at her father for tricking her into taking the medical leave that he had believed was so essential for her health and her baby's, and she was even planning on spending some time with her mother. She was also liking going into Sparks and not going there to work. She would go there often so Rob would cook for her. She liked Rob spoiling her, and he seemed to like doing it. She felt his watchful, protective eyes on her often, and it felt safe. Made her feel secure and loved, and she liked it. It wasn't a nuisance now. She appreciated his attentiveness and his deep devotion and love.

The serious thinnness she was dealing with that had almost caused her to miscarry her baby was fading slowly while Rob was finally in charge, and Khaat was letting him make all the choices, all the decisions. She had just decided she didn't want to be bothered doing it anymore--at least while she was carrying Abbey. She was even truly trying to cut back on her addiction to good, strong, no nonsense, black french roast coffee. She was only drinking half cups now. Never mind that when she got seriously stressed she just drank more of them than she knew she should.

Today, she was sitting at a table by herself, feeling more relaxed than usual, and was equipped with a muggle fashion magazine for pregnant women that she had purchased merely on a whim in a muggle bookstore, and she also had a copy of the Daily Prophet with her. She wasn't truly interested in the newspaper, though. She was flipping through the magazine, and sipping on her coffee and nibbling on a new orange scone that had a delightful orange glaze on it. Khaat was trying to decide if the new flavor was going to become her new favorite or not. The baby girl she was carrying had a definite sweet tooth, so anything sugary was fair game, although Khaat was still relentlessly harping on Rob to get some pistachio ice cream in to ease her cravings. Leave it to a man to not understand how important it is to address those stinking obsessive cravings, she thought, a trifle irked with him for not just putting down everything else he had to do and order the bloodly ice cream. He just didn't get it, apparently. And unless he could develop a pistachio cheesecake, her craving for pistachio was not likely to go away without the pistachio ice cream.

Usually, when Teddy had a break from the ministry, he would go to the Leaky Cauldron and have his lunch there before walking back. Today, he felt like breaking the daily routine, one soon got bored of eating in the same restaraunts after all, and anyway, he had heard of a new bistro-style restaraunt having been recently opened at Diagon Alley named Sparks. So instead of sitting down and having his usual lunch at the LC, he passed by and tapped the bricks to enter the narrow cramped streets of Diagon Alley.

Next to a dark looking book store was the far more easily to be spotted Bistro, Teddy went inside. It wasn't crowded, after all it was only noon, and the only person was a middle age pregnant lady who looked curiously familiar to Ted. "Hi," he said politely, before sitting down at a table.

"Hello," Khaat said casually. Then, she found herself taking a doubletake at the young man. Her seer's powers were activated. She looked at him and it was almost as if she could see Remus in his face. She saw he had Tonk's hair, but he clearly had those gorgeous eyes of Remus's that she had looked into ten thousand times at least. She heard herself saying out loud before she caught herself, "Remus!" She rose and went over to him. "Excuse me, but I feel as if I know you from somewhere. I..know this is going to sound odd, but do we know each other, or should we? I'm Khaat. Khaat Lupin. Well, Khaat Lupin Dent. My uncle was Remus Lupin. Should I know you?"

Three sets of legs waltzed down Diagon Alley in perfect synchronisation. The legs actually belonged to three siblings who knew each other inside out, upside down and round-a-bout. The siblings were none other Jenifer Elizabeth Dent, Robert Andrew Dent and Leroy Jethro Gibbs. The boys had been dragged shopping with Jen and they were unfortunately being weighed down with the bags that they were being overwhelmed with. They had bags from all over the place, Muggle and Magical. Some had owls on them and some had bizarre little drawings that the Muggles had done. Jen had really gone on a spree and Rob idly wondered if she had spent all of her inheritance in one hit. Gibbs was thinking on the same wavelength.

“No I didn’t.” Jen said, looping her arms through each of their arms. She pulled them off towards Sparks and Rob groaned. “Please, Robbie. I have loads of money to spend.”

Jen released her brothers and rushed over to the doors of Sparks. The two brothers watched as their sister ran in heels and leather towards the bistro. Both of them were completely bemused but couldn’t help but admire her. She looked brilliant and the leather looked impossible to wear but she walked so fluidly it was unbelievable. Jen opened the door and bounced inside; her excitement evidently coming from the many purchases she’d made. She noted the magazine Khaat was reading and crept over. Jen plucked it out of Khaat’s hands and span around, walking backwards towards the kitchen.

“....Mother’s grow very large during pregnancy but this is perfectly normal.” Jen said, putting on a healer voice. “Fat Muggles are used as carnival attractions in the summer months. Some shows are popular where as some art. The more popular shows are – ‘Wait, why am I fat?’ and ‘What happened to my period, did it run away?’”

Jen closed the book and chucked it to Rob who caught it awkwardly and received a slap from Gibbs for his trouble. Jen looked pointedly at him and pulled one of the chairs up to the table. Gibbs sat down next to her and she smiled at Khaat. Rob sat down next to his wife and began to flick through the magazine. He made a face and handed it back to Khaat. Jen smirked and looked at Ted Lupin who was probably feeling fairly overwhelmed. “Hi Ted. Um... this is Gibbs and Rob.”

"Ted?" Khaat was flabbergasted. "Ted Lupin? " Then she knew. It was undoubtedly Remus's son. The last she had seen Ted was when Tonks and Remus showed him off proudly to her and asked her to be Ted's godmother. That was first and last time she had seen him. "Oh my God, Ted! We've been looking for you since your parents were killed. I'm your cousin. My father is your uncle--Remus's older brother, Robert." She took a second to regain herself. "Welcome home, Ted. I cannot tell you what a relief it is to know you're alive. We've been hunting you for years."

Teddy looked up, surprised when he heard the woman say his fathers name. As she began to introduce herself and ask him questions. He definately had the same feeling that he knew her from somewhere, but the thing was, he had never really heard of Khaat Lupin. He actually hadn't met any of his family members, ever. He had been told he had none. Before he could reply, the small woman he had seen at the auror meeting entered the bistro along with two men who looked like they might be her brothers. They all came to sit down, and Teddy was speechless about the whole incident for a couple seconds. "You- you've been searching for me?" Teddy asked the woman again, raising his eyebrows a bit. Since as long as he could remember, Teddy had been living at his aunts home, it shouldn't really be too hard to find him. "I didn't even know I had family.." he added, still very confused.

"I--I recognized you right away. You have Tonk's hair, and you definately have your father's eyes. I looked into his eyes ten thousand times at least. I'd know those eyes anywhere. I was 16 when your parents were killed. I met you once, when you were a newborn. Tonks and Remus brought you to introduce you to us. And then--well, they...passed away, and you disappeared. We panicked wondering what had happened to you. We went to everyone we knew. Every place we looked, we were told you weren't there and nobody had seen you. After awhile, we wondered if somehow you hadn't survived either after Remus and Tonks were killed. Obviously, someone lied to us. I don't know. Maybe they felt they needed to hide you from everybody or something. I'm sure they had good reasons for not letting us know where you were. If you were happy and healthy, we had no need to interrupt that. But we did want you to know you had Lupins who certainly loved you.

"I didn't have the chance to get to know your mother very well, but, boy, did I ever know your father! I may have a lot of missing pieces for you, at least about Remus. I was closer to him than, well, probably anybody else--until he met your mother. We were still close after that, but he certainly loved her and you with all his heart. I have a lot to explain to you, I think.

"But first, lets all order and maybe then we can all talk a bit." She looked at Rob. "The smoothie is great. It really is. But I haven't had any coffee all day. Can I just have half a cup, please?" She was such a hopeless addict. She really was trying togive it up, but she didn't think she'd ever manage it. However, she hoped he would notice that she had cut her former constant diet of french roast back to just a few half cups, spread very sparsely throughout the day now. It hadn't been easy, but she really was giving it her best.

[He can't have tonks' hair, as hes a metamorphagi, he changes it to whatever he wants ]

Teddy looked at Khaat as she spoke, for some reason, he didn't feel as nervous with her as with the other three on the table. It was probably cause they were family, even if he had never actually seen her. In fact, it just occured to him that he had never actually seen any of his family really. He looked down as she talked about his father, he never felt comfortable when people talked about him.

Along with that uncomfortable feeling, there was also a feeling of anger. He had had a whole family out there which no one had told him about? He had for a long time thought he was the only Lupin left, apparently that was not true. "Umm.. just some tea," he said to Khaat, still not speaking to the others. He had been quite hungry when he came, but wasn't really feeling hungry at all right now.

"I'm sorry. I know this is really pretty overwhelming for you," she said. "There is so much you dont' know. And so very, very much your father wanted you to know. When you're ready, I'd like to introduce you to my father and mother. When you're ready, I really want you to know the Lupin side of your family and to answer all the questions you probably never really had any answers for. " Then she smiled. "I have something I want you to try."

She rose and got a mug of tea--an herbal tea. It had always been Remus's favorite blend. It was flavored like a comforting cinnamon and vanilla cookie. Khaat had jars and jars of flavored tea blends in Sparks, all made by her father. But this tea was one of the first blends her father had learned to make because Remus had pestered him continuously about making more. She wondered if Ted would like it too. She made the tea and brought herself a half a cup of coffee, a server following her to the table to take orders.

"Try this, Ted. You might like this blend," she said. "What would the rest of you like?"

Teddy nodded, he didn't really know what to say really, so he stayed quiet. This person knew his father, it made him a bit envious really, because he would never get to meet his father. People had told Ted about him, that he had been a lot like Ted himself, and that he even looked like him too, the simple fact was that Ted would never be able to talk to his father. There was no portrait of him, he surely hadn't turned into a ghost, and the only thing that remained of him was his wand, the wand Teddy had now, as well as a couple pictures of him. No one had told Teddy he had a whole family out there. Perhaps his aunt Tonks hadn't known, but Harry Potter surely would have? The Weasleys should have? He had a thousand questions to ask of course, but for now he took the tea, thanking Khaat, before taking a sip. It was a curious taste, and yet Teddy loved it. "Its great, thanks," he said, smiling at her.