The Palmers' Family Reunion

"Sit! Sit!" Lupin relented at Clarissa's second request, but he was tense still. He sat straight up in sunken, patchy loveseat. Moody, no matter how much the old woman badgered him, stood against the ashen yellow walls of her family's room. His icy blue eye swiveled between each door that led out.

That's nothing new for Alastor, but Scott… Manny, for someone so eager to enter only minutes ago he was now as stiff as cardboard on the stitched up couch in the room's center. His golden – brown eyes glanced at the doorways too. Suddenly he doesn't want to be here anymore than we do. But I guess his 'Nonna' has something to do with that. As if on cue the grandmother and the grandson's eyes met, dark brown to brown with yellow bits. The woman let out a few more husky laughs. I would've never guessed the Palmers and the Enzos were related, but… He noted the woman's hair again. It was snowy white and pin straight save for a slight curl at Clarissa's shoulders. The reedy woman also shared the same frame as Manny's niece. Scott would hex me for thinking it, but I can see some of Eva in her.

"I hope Nico hurries here with those tarts! You'd be surprised. We don't have guests all that often." Lupin nodded, Manny rolled his eyes. "Much less surprise guests like yourselves! I really must thank you three!" She smiled. Lupin gave a weak one back. "You've made my day a lot more interesting."

"Glad to amuse." Manny griped. "Obviously our purpose on the Earth was to entertain a decaying ding bat. Mission fulfilled, now we can all die with a song in our hearts!"

"If only you would die." Niccoló muttered. He arrived with a creaky copper trolley. On its dull silver plates were small cakes surrounded by a chipped off-white tea set. "I won't stay around blood filth –" Manny finally grinned. "– longer than I have to, how many guards should I call to stay with you and watch these intruders?"

"None," Clarissa said.

"None?!" The dark haired boy howled. "Hai perso la mente?!"

"You've lost your mind if you think you can sass me, or disrespect my guests!" She sniped back. "Just because you lost your Death Eater parents in the last War, doesn't mean you get to act like an urchin – you're lucky I was around to raise you better than that."

Lupin had to gulp down the bile he felt when Clarissa smirked while the youth looked down at the teapot. Niccoló hands clenched the trolley's handle. She knew it was a sore spot for him. She brought it up on purpose. Niccoló glimpsed at the werewolf, trying to avoid his great – aunt's gaze. Lupin grinned at the boy hoping to cheer him up. Dark brown eyes widened, his lips formed a snarl, and without another word Niccoló released the trolley and turned on his heel, out.

"He's charming, homeschooled right?" Manny guessed. He picked up a tea cup and tossed it back and forth in his hands. "Didn't want him to get the dangerous ideas that your daughter did when she went to Hogwarts, you know, like the idea that she wasn't completely worthless or that blood purity is a load of crock." Manny's light, mocking tone dropped decibels as he spoke next. "Which reminds me, where the hell is my mother?"

"Come now, can't we deal with those trivial things later?" Manny held the tea cup in one hand and stared at it. Lupin wondered if his travel companion was staring to cool his ire or contemplating throwing the china at the Enzo matron. "I've only heard of you in passing, like when my father informed us all that you were probably dead. I've wanted to meet my only grandson for so long, or at least before he got killed." The sweeter and lighter her voice became the more and more Lupin's stomach churned. He grabbed and nibbled a small pastry as if that could settle it. "So tell me about yourself and your family? Is there anymore of you left?"

"No." Manny said. For once, Manny's incapability to hold his emotions in helped. The misery in his voice sold the lie he fed her. "I had a wife, but she died in the last War, this one took my sister and father."

"Ooh!" Clarissa's dark brown eyes sparkled, Lupin swallowed his tea in one swig but the ill feeling wouldn't leave him. "I remember that little Half – Blood, he came around once to 'ask for my daughter's hand in marriage'." Clarissa snorted. "He thought the tradition of it would impress a house full of Purebloods, poor fool. But I do feel for him, and you." Manny snorted this time. "If he weren't so daft, maybe he'd still be around. But tell me about this sister!"

"She was a Squib." Moody said gruffly. "Guessing your father wouldn't have liked that."

"No, he wouldn't have," Clarissa poured a cup for herself. She handed a second to Moody. He glared at it, as if he'd watched her pour poison directly inside. "None for you Alastor? You look so parched."

"None." Moody said only a second after she finished speaking. Lupin blinked, not so much because the oft-paranoid Moody refused but from how Clarissa seemed to have known his name without anyone giving it.

"Too bad, though you should know there's some for you anytime. Teas, cakes…other treats…" Clarissa winked and returned to her seat with a smile. Manny gaped at the woman as if she had doxies coming from out her ears. She shrugged. "People have told me I have peculiar taste…"

I know Alastor's love life isn't the scariest thing we could ever discuss. Lupin shivered slightly. But it's territory I'd rather not enter, let's get back on topic. "What was Aurelia's father like?" Lupin asked.

Clarissa laughed. "Yes, I knew I'd have fun with you lot! He's dead as well, long before you were even born. And you could say he had a thing for animals." At the last word she stared straight at Lupin.

There's no way she should've known that! Lupin stood up as Manny did, the hint worried the ex- Slytherin too.

"Oh! Don't go!" Clarissa cried. Manny headed for the door regardless. "You haven't gotten your answer yet!" Manny stopped. "Plus, you haven't met the other Enzos."

"I've heard of some." Moody told her. "I've heard enough about them, so tell us about Aurelia or we're gone."

"You all are asking for Aurelia?" A new, girlish voice questioned. The door Manny was headed towards opened. Lupin had to catch his breath at the sight of woman with a dazzling white smile. Her skin, unlike Niccoló's pallid color, was sun-kissed. Her hair was bright blonde, almost as white as Clarissa's. Her eyes were the same dark brown of all the Enzos but somehow the color was richer, deeper, and more beautiful on her.

Hold on…A fuchsia – haired woman smiled in Lupin's mind, it brought his spiraling thoughts away from the girl's looks and helped him focus on the girl's words. Thankfully Tonks knows about veela charm already, so she won't kill me for ogling her.

"Gentlemen, this is my niece Chiara Enzo." Clarissa introduced. The blonde did a perfect curtsey. "Chiara, Mister Moody…"

"And Mister Lupin." The girl nodded. "And my long lost family, Manuel Scott. It's nice to meet you." Manny grimaced at the girl, but the girl gave him a smile back. "Eufemia told me those were your names, have I mispronounced any?"

"N-No." Lupin stuttered. So this Eufemia has to be a Seer, a Legilimens, or a spy – no one else could've known. "Eufemia is your…"

"Sister." Chiara cheered.

"Half – sister." Clarissa corrected. The blonde deflated. "She's not a half – breed like yourself." The frown on Chiara's grew even further. Another Enzo had earned the werewolf's pity. "Where is Mia?"

"She headed to Non – Mr. Enzo's room to tell him about your guests." Chiara's answered. "We were in the library when Nico came in growling about degenerates. You know…" Chiara glanced at her purple – painted toes. "Mr. Enzo will probably be upset if you're guests stay for too long."

"Ask me if I give a crap." Clarissa sounded even younger than Chiara with that comment. "The problem with you younglings is that you fear that old coot – tuo nonno, mio padre –" The girl gasped. "Yes, why he refuses to let us call him anything but Mr. Enzo beyond me. If there was any trait that bastard daughter of mine got, it was my cheek."

"I've got plenty of cheek from her too!" Manny whipped out his wand. Lupin inwardly cursed the man's recklessness, but grasped his own wand just in case. "So enough of your nonsense and enough of your stalling, where is my mother?"

Chiara shakily got out her wand but Moody blasted it out of her hand. "Just as well, you're cowardly self wouldn't have been much use to me anyways." The elderly woman scorned. "I'd feel a whole lot safer with my cute grandson over here." Said cute grandson focused only on his grandmother, so only Lupin heard the girl sniffle. "But since he's so insistent, he should know that the Death Eaters asked us to hold his mother for a week. We kept her in the cellar, in a cage."

That's, that's not right…Lupin was astounded once more. Even Sirius's parents never shoved him in a cage like he was a Hippogriff at the zoo.

"Go on." Moody ordered. Manny's jaw was clenched too tightly for him to speak. "What did she say while she was here?"

"Nothing useful, of course, that's what our esteemed patriarch wanted." The matron shrugged. "He went in there an hour each day, using the Cruciatus Curse and whatever else he thought the Dark Lord might use to get at her secrets. Besides screaming I didn't hear a word from her." Her smile was dry. "He might have actually thought he was helping her, preparing her for the Dark Lord's 'hospitality'. A woman named Yaxley –" Manny's body went rigid again " – she Apparated the two of them to one of the Death Eater strongholds, somewhere in Southern France I think she mentioned."

"And you just let her get taken?" Manny didn't wait for an answer from Clarissa. "Confringo!" The old woman was blasted across the room. He ran off.

"Zia!" Chiara ran to the woman's side, tears streaming her face. Lupin watched her shove the younger woman's hands away as she laughed. He forgot how to move until Moody tugged him out the door.

A/N: Lovely family, the Enzos. I had fun with this chapter since it's the first without Eva in it. You'll see her again either next chapter or the one after that but we definitely haven't seen the last of these guys.

Chapter Translations (Italian):

Niccoló:

"Hai perso la mente?!" = Have you lost your mind?!"

Clarissa:

"- tuo nonno, mio padre -" = " - your grandfather, my dad - "

Chiara:

"Zia!" = "Aunt!"