The tea shop was as unassuming as most tea shops I suppose. It was as small as a cottage, it was red and brown, it had bricks, and its bronze roof was rather crooked.
Inside was where the real treasure hid. Not the sort of spooky treasures you'd find at Borgin and Burke's in Knockturn Alley, and not the sort of golden treasures one could find in a vault at Gringotts.
No, the tea shop unsurprisingly held tea. But I suppose if you'd never known the delicate pleasures of tea then you wouldn't understand how truly wonderful it can be.
The owner's name was Lori, and she well and truly knew the natural and unnatural magic of tea.
Lori, I suppose, was as unassuming as her tea shop.
She was 30, she was plumper than most, and she was shorter than most. She wore so many scarves everyone assumed she was hiding some terrible secrets on her neck such as a vampire bite, but actually she was just cold most of the time. The most assumed thing about Lori was that she was a metamorphagus, her hair was always changing colour seemingly from week to week. But actually, she just dyed her hair like the muggles did. She finds it more fun that way.
Some remembered Lori from her school years at Hogwarts but most didn't. After all she was a Hufflepuff, they tend to keep to themselves. She wasn't on the quidditch team either so no glory there, but if you must know she was the leader of the Hufflepuff secret society, whose secret business we don't talk about. Lori mostly got average grades, but she did get exceeding when it came to herbology and charms, which she uses daily to help her tea business flourish and blossom.
Lori's personal history is also quite fine and normal. She was the only child of Jane and Merrick Wayne, who raised her with unconditional love and unfailing grace. They all lived as a family in Ireland, specifically in Dundalk, in a cottage by the bay. Her childhood is full of happy memories and lots of cuddles from her mother, and lots of sea shell collecting with her father. She loved her parents, her home, her whole life. It was warm. And it was happy. And when both her parents passed in an accident when she was 23, she remembered only the good, and only the best of her time with them.
As it seemed, Lori was just a witch. And Lori's tea shop was just a tea shop.
Then why was it that Remus Lupin found himself struck and stunned, staring over the page of his book very obviously at Lori through the window of her tea shop?
Any being with enough sentience who happened to observe Remus at this moment would've thought he had been struck by Medusa herself. Or that he had just found the cure for dragon pox. Or that he was staring the most precious jewel dead in the face.
It was a thursday morning, it was sunny but a bit brisk, and Remus Lupin was dumb struck at the woman he didn't know working in the tea shop.
Lori had no idea that there was a man staring at her from across the road. She was too busy brewing Jasmine tea with a charm that would make the drinker blush. She called it her brisk and beautiful tea, and it was quite popular among the younger witches.
About 20 minutes had passed, and funnily enough Remus was still staring at the woman, who's hair this week was dyed bright green, quite like the sea he thought.
Remus had mostly always been a very rational man. Then why was he now staring at this strange woman very irrationally. He knew he wasn't exactly being subtle. It was broad daylight, the bench at which he sat was only a few metres from her store front, and he'd since stopped peering at her from behind his book and was now blatantly staring at her in plain view.
From Remus's point of view it was like a picture you'd only seen in a fairytale. The sunlight catching the coloured windows of the tea shop making it twinkle like stars, the soft breeze blowing autumn leaves across the cobbled streets, and the most lovely woman he could ever hope to see stirring tea with her wand.
It was then that Lori felt the prickle on the sides of her neck that someone was indeed watching her, and she took that moment to look out across her store, and she locked eyes on him.
His sweater was old, much too old to be worn she thought, her hand itching for her knitting needles to fix it. His scarred hands were lain in his lap, which held a beaten up book of which she couldn't read the title. His hair was like sand, and she liked the way it fell into his face. He was handsome she thought, and she knew she was looking at him, so she waved her hand, and the door of her tea shop sprang open with a wooden smack.
Remus jumped from his daze and stared at the now open door of her shop. It didn't take him long to make up his mind, and before he knew it he was in the shop and standing right in front of her, his tall frame easily towering over the small woman.
They didn't say anything at first, they just looked at each other. This might have been awkward for some, but they were the kind of people who didn't mind the quiet, and for now it would do.
He looked at her more closely now, as closely as he dared. She had rounded cheeks, like a porcelain doll, and they were sprayed with a flash of dark brown freckles. Her eyes were brown, simple as that, but they made him warm inside, like he had never seen the colour brown so inviting before. Her green hair was brighter now, and it hung in very short curls around her face like a sweet vine. He thought he could look at her forever, and he probably would have.
Lori broke their shared stare, making him blink at the place she once stood. She walked behind her desk, reaching along the wooden bench on her wall and taking down a warped purple jug and a bright yellow teacup about the size of a rather chubby Pygmy puff.
Remus didn't know exactly what she was doing, he thought for a second maybe he'd made her uncomfortable, his hands lifted naturally to his stomach where he fiddled with his jumper as he usually did when he was nervous, but before he could start to fiddle with the threads, the yellow teacup was pressed into his hands.
"There you go, this will help I hope" she spoke softly too him, placing the steaming cup gently from her hands into his.
He was baffled, the scent of the tea wafting up to him, it smelt faintly of lavender and violets, and the smell of it seemed to steep into his bones and it felt almost like he had just been hugged.
"Help with what?" he asked, looking genuinely into her happy, brown eyes.
"Don't take offence, but you look rather like you need a good sleep. That's a special lavender tea, and I've charmed it to bring rather sweet dreams. But of course if you don't like lavender we have chamomile" she said matter of factly, chuckling slightly at his stunned face.
"I don't think I've ever had chamomile tea" he answered honestly, feeling quite bashful at the admittance.
"Well you'll just have to come back for more then won't you" she laughed, and to Remus it sounded like bells in the wind.
They must have talked for hours then, the sun moved in the sky as it always did, and soon it began to grow dark. They talked of everything two strangers could talk about. He talked about how he would start a teaching position at Hogwarts next month. She talked about how she preferred oranges over apples. All sorts of topics ran across their lips, and they never even once grew bored.
Many cups of tea later, Remus Lupin left the shop, with 5 bags of herbal tea in his satchel, and a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
Lori stood in the door of her shop, her arms crossed across her chest and she beamed.
"I'll see you again?" she asked, but deep down she felt she knew the answer.
"I'll surprise you" Remus answered.
Lori watched as he apparated away, and she turned back to her shop and smiled.
Tea really does bring all sorts of people to your door, and maybe tonight she just met the right one. She'll just have to see when he comes back next. In the mean time, she'll need to brew a new tea just for Remus Lupin.