Disclaimer: I own Thea, Mel's Café, and all the patrons and workers therein save Remus Lupin. Because he's there you get the café and the OC's for free, and I claim neither credit nor compensation for this story. J.K. Rowling gets it. You're welcome to it, Ms. Rowling.

The Man at Table Seven

"Will you close up, Thea dear?" Whit asked Thea about half an hour before the shift was due to end. She looked apprehensive. "I wouldn't ask, but it doesn't look like anyone else will come in tonight, and Carl's alone with the baby, and you know how useless men are with things like that, love. I don't normally take this shift for just that reason…"

She would have gone on, but Thea cut her off, smiling. "It's no trouble, Whit, don't worry. Go. Save the baby from that useless Carl. I can handle things here."

Whit's eyes brightened, and she calmed down. She seized both of Thea's hands in hers and kissed her on the cheek. "Oh, darling, you're a gem!" she cried. "A real lifesaver, honestly! Thanks!" She grabbed her purse from under the counter, and disappeared into the kitchen and out the back door of Mel's café, the restaurant where they both worked.

Thea didn't resent her for it. Whitney Blake had a husband and a seven-month-old daughter to get to, and it was true, she didn't normally work the night shift. Thea did. She usually volunteered to work late on the weekends, after her homework was done for the next week at university, after the crowds and even the cook crew had departed from Mel's. Thea had never been fond of crowds. Whit's chatter actually annoyed her whenever they were scheduled together. But working in an empty café late at night was still far more cheerful than sitting up in her cheap, dreary apartment with Larry the Goldfish.

Thea looked over the café's dining room. The old couple at Table Twelve had just left. They were regulars. Thea smiled and got the bin and the rag to go bus the table. Mr. Morris had left her a very nice tip. She tucked it into her apron pocket and began to clean off the scraps they'd left, humming an old Beatles song to herself quietly. That was another reason she preferred to work the lonely night shift. In her apartment people banged on walls anytime she raised her voice to sing, and Mr. Foster, her boss, had gotten onto her for singing while she worked at busier hours. No one really minded this late at night.

Well, she thought no one minded. She eyed the single customer left in the café. He was a newbie. Whit had bought him his sandwich and crisps right before she'd left. He was watching Thea now, the man at Table Seven.

"Sorry, sir," she said. "Does it bother you?"

"Your singing?" he said, apparently surprised to be addressed. "No. I don't mind." His voice was quiet, and pleasant in tone, if a little husky. "You have a nice voice," he added. Then he looked back down at his book. Thea finished wiping down Table Twelve and smiled to herself. She went back to the kitchen to put the dishes in the sink to wash later. She got down the broom and dustbin and returned to the front.

As she swept, she surreptitiously watched the man at Table Seven. He was an interesting one, she thought. One nice thing about working in a café like Mel's, Thea thought, was the number of interesting specimens of humanity she saw every day. Though she wasn't particularly fond of society, Thea had always liked to people-watch.

The man at Table Seven obviously wasn't very well-off. To Thea's experienced eye, the clothes he wore looked second-hand, maybe third-hand, and about ten years out of date. He carried it off well, she thought. They matched, and he didn't look awkward in them. At any rate he definitely wasn't a bum.

They did sometimes get those at Mel's. When they came in on her shift, Thea sometimes offered them a sandwich, if they'd help her to do the dishes. It was a policy she'd mentioned to Mr. Foster and his wife and they'd approved of.

Thea wondered if the man at Table Seven had ever been a bum, or if he would be one in a few months. She decided he probably hadn't ever been a bum before, though she wouldn't answer for his future status. He looked tired, but not hard like all those that lived on the street or had lived on the street did. But furthermore, he was so very, very young. At least, she thought he was. The fact that she couldn't determine his age was actually what had made Thea decide he was interesting in the first place. She was usually very good at that.

His clothes, his bearing, his face all suggested that the man at Table Seven was no more than two years older than herself, if that. But nevertheless his face was lined, and he looked so very tired. Sad, too, Thea noticed. He looked so sad he could be middle-aged, much sadder than she'd ever seen any young man of twenty-one look before. As she swept the last bits of dust and food-crumbs into the dustbin, she decided to talk to him.

"Sorry Whitney walked out on you, mate," she said casually. "Apparently Carl's useless with the baby."

The man looked up, confused. Thea gave a comic little shrug, indicating she didn't understand it any more than he did. "I'm Thea," she told him. "You'll find I'm just as quick to get a cup of tea as she is. Do you need anything?"

The young man looked down at his nearly empty plate. "No, I don't think so," he said quietly. He looked around at the deserted café and then at the broom in Thea's hand. "I beg your pardon," he said. "It's just you, isn't it? Are you trying to close?"

Thea shook her head. "I'm in no hurry, sir," she told him. "I've nothing better to do at home like Whitney. To tell the truth, I'd just as soon be here as anywhere else."

The man gave a bitter little smile. "That makes two of us…Thea, was it?" Thea nodded. "It's been nice just to sit here and rest a bit," he said.

"Stay as long as you want then," Thea offered. "I'll just be in the back doing dishes. You're not going to run off or anything, are you?" She framed the words as a joke, but the man answered seriously.

"Not tonight."

"Right then. Just yell if you need anything."

Thea went to the back and started to rinse the dishes Clyde and Erin hadn't already tended to before they left earlier. As she worked, she sang some more- some of the arias she'd learned a few years back before she'd finally given up voice to pursue Literature full time. She wondered what book the Table Seven man was reading back in the Dining Room- if she'd read it or if it was any good. She wondered, more, what he'd been doing that made him so tired and so glad of a rest. She realised that without knowing it, she had switched to a sadder song about things lost and not regained, and she shrugged, drying the last plate and placing it on the rack. She tended to do that: to switch tunes according to the thoughts in her head. It was almost like speaking another language.

Thea began heating water for a cup of tea. She put in the bag once the water had heated, and breathed deeply of the peppermint steam. She felt her nose clear and her brain open up. She'd never liked regular black tea, but she had to confess a terrible weakness for the peppermint herbal variety.

She walked back out to the dining room and up to the sign at the door. She flicked the neon 'Open' light off. She then walked back to the counter and leant up against it, sipping her tea.

She sat there a while before the man at Table Seven looked up at her. "You must be tired," he said. "Thank you for letting me stay." He closed his book, and Thea caught a glimpse of the cover. It had a cauldron of all things on it. Thea thought for a moment she had seen the spoon in it move, but then the man had turned it over.

"Like I said, it's no trouble at all," Thea said. "Do you mind?" She gestured at the chair across from him.

The man shook his head. "Please."

Thea sat down. "You have a name?"

"Remus Lupin," he said, offering his hand. Thea shook it. Remus Lupin's grip was strong, Thea thought approvingly, but his hand was cold. Very cold.

She raised an eyebrow. "Remus," she repeated, rolling the word around on her tongue. "That's interesting. Like the story? Romulus and his brother Remus, raised by the she-wolf before the founding of Rome?"

Remus blinked. "Not many people know about that," he said.

Thea shrugged. "I read more than I sing," she said. Remus' lips twitched in understanding.

"You're a student?"

"Yes, sir. I'm working here at Mel's to pay my way. It's a common enough thing. What about you, sir?"

Remus shrugged then, looking slightly embarrassed. "I've done a bit of everything, I guess," he said quietly. "Right now I'm in between jobs. But I try to teach myself anything I can in the meantime."

Thea nodded, sipping her tea. They sat there in silence for a while, and then Remus looked at his watch. "It's near eleven," he said. "You did say it was just us?"

"Yes, sir," Thea answered, wondering what he was getting at.

Remus Lupin frowned. "You need to get home," he told her.

Thea was slightly annoyed. "I said I didn't."

Remus shook his head. "It's late for anyone to be out, let alone a young lady by herself."

The frowned. "I can take care of myself," she said firmly.

Remus Lupin looked up and directly at Thea, meeting her gaze for the first time that night. Thea bit back what she had been about to say about sexism. She didn't think he was speaking out of sexism, somehow. The man looked like he'd been spending weeks of nights lying awake, grieving over some great sorrow. His amber stare held her, and he said now in the quietest tone he'd used yet, "Maybe you can." Thea heard every word as clearly as if he'd been shouting. "But London at eleven isn't a place for anyone to be out alone, as I said. Not now." Thea got the feeling he spoke from experience. Then Remus Lupin reached into his back pocket and withdrew a cracking leather wallet. He pulled out a few crumpled bills, and some coins. He took longer counting them than usual, but eventually he pressed the money into Thea's hand.

He looked at the bill Whit had left on the table. "That's how much I owe, isn't it?" he asked, like he didn't know. Thea looked at the figure, and then counted the money. She wondered at it, for he was one of the few people she had ever met that had used exact change.

"That's exactly how much you owe," she said dumbly.

"Oh, good," he said, seemingly relieved. "Good night then, Thea." He stood, grabbed his book, and headed for the door. "Thank you. And honestly, be careful."

Thea stared at him. "Sure, Mr. Lupin," she said. He left, and Thea began to clean up.

A/N: Okay, before you start calling Remus is out of character, I have several excuses. 1) He's twenty-one years old, neither fifteen nor in his mid-thirties. Time changes a person. 2) He's in the Muggle world. 3) He has JUST (we're talking in the last few weeks) lost James, Lily, and (he thinks) Peter, and seen his other best friend carted off to jail for betraying and/or killing them all. THAT will affect a person's demeanor, too.

The next item of interest is of course where the story is heading. Don't worry that I'm going to make this a romance. Remus isn't up for a romance, as broken as he is right now, especially with a Muggle girl that doesn't have the faintest idea what he's been through and can't possibly begin to know. (Though I'd like to point out that RemusxTonks can hardly be considered sacred at this point in time as Tonks is twelve or thirteen-ish). Thea WILL be a friend to Remus, for a little while. The story will follow Remus and Thea through about a year directly after the end of the first Wizarding World against Voldemort.

Please, tell me what you think, taking the above into account, of course. Honest, thoughtful, constructive criticism is always welcome. Honest, thoughtful praise makes my day.

God Bless,

LMSharp