Black Rose [Regulus Black]

04 - green witches & fainting mothers

"Whoa," she whispered, gawking at the scene in front of her.

It was majestic.

She remembered going out in London when she was seven, with the other kids in the orphanage. They were walking on the street, when she saw a bar in the corner. It looked fairly ordinary, like any bar would, except the bottles were floating. When she'd pointed it out to her friends, they'd all looked at her like she was mad, claiming that there was no building on that location. She used to wonder if there was something wrong with her, whether she was hallucinating or it was just a recurring dream.

But it wasn't a dream.

It was real.

Regulus was right, it was all real. Magic was real. There were more people like her.

Regulus had taken her to a place called Diagon Alley, which was apparently a shopping destination for wizards. She'd scoffed when he told her that people actually spent their times buying strange ice creams (like chicken and lemon-flavoured ice cream) and even stranger ingredients (like crocodile hearts).

But he wasn't joking.

Perhaps this wasn't a scam... although it still seemed too good to be true.

"What's that?" She pointed at a random shop where hundreds of owls were gathered, hooting and flapping their wings.

"An owl emporium. You can also buy other pets there, like cats or toads. Owls are useful because people can deliver handwritten messages to each other."

She scrunched up her nose in a way that he would've found endearing if he wasn't impatient to discover more about her identity. He was considering just grabbing her arm and cutting it to gather some blood for his research, but decided against it because she was slightly...fierce.

"But don't they use pigeons?" she asked curiously.

"What?"

He didn't have time to ask her to elaborate, for she'd already moved on to the next store. "What's quidditch?"

He straightened up, eager to explain. Finally, there was something interesting. "Quidditch is the best sport in the world. There are seven players: three chasers, two beaters, one keeper, one seeker. There are four different kinds of..."

Once he was done explaining, his speech incredibly passionate in a childlike way, with tons of wild hand movements, she nodded slowly. "So it's like...handball on broomsticks."

"I...yes?" He didn't know what handball was, but just agreed with it, knowing that it was some sort of Muggle sport.

"Speaking of witches," she turned to him. "Are there any requirements for me?"

"Requirements?" he questioned.

"I haven't really grown up in this society so I don't know much. But in the books, they were green and had warts. Is that how they grew up here? Am I supposed to be like that too? Do I need to have a black cat? I'm allergic to cats."

He stared at her for a long moment, and then burst into laughter, startling people around him. It had been a while since he'd laughed like that, so happily and freely without having a care in the world. "Is that what the Muggles really think of us?"

"Yes..." she muttered, feeling slightly embarrassed.

After recovering, he straightened his jacket, pulling it more securely over himself. He'd taken multiple precautions as he didn't want to be found by the Dark Lord. He'd worn grubby, oversized clothes that everyone knew the real Regulus would never wear. He'd also placed a large, curly wig on his head given to him by Alessandra. It was in all the colours of the rainbow, she'd said it was some kind of fashion trend so he went with it.