O Beija-Flor - Regulus Black (Complete)

I -

It was the first time that Cecilia saw in real life a case of a Secret Keeper Property after studying about it for the last year in school. She had only seen cases in her schoolbooks or in wizarding fantasies, listening to stories from her mother. It wasn't all that common thing in Brazil, there magical households and magical schools (both of them in her country) were often hidden by nature itself (Castelobruxo being one example, caipora always ready to defend the property and its students) or under the pretence of being a building of religious background (her own childhood house being fit under that category, being seen by most as an Umbanda centre in a farm; unfortunately, that led her father's death to be seen as a sacrifice by many fanatics of other religions that had no idea the peace Umbanda has).

Grimmauld Place, Number 12, was a normal British townhouse, the sort that she saw in films, but it certainly felt different from what she had imagined once she had seen the outside of it. It felt a lot heavier and darker; it felt like grief and madness, like she had felt as she watched her father being put under the ground, unable to open her mouth to say one more goodbye to him.

"It stinks to Dark Magic... Rotten Magic, really," Cecilia commented, curling her upper lip in disgust.

Arthur was quiet behind her, holding her bag, though he very quickly agreed with her in silence, just moving his head. Bill just smiled at her, a lot more extroverted than his father, besides he thought her accent was cute – a mixture he had never expected hearing of a soft Latino accent in some words and a heavy Irish tone all-around.

"Welcome to the Most Noble House of Black, cousin," said Bill teasingly, he sounded amused by her reaction.

Though she knew that she ought to be grateful to them, her distant family, for taking her in thought they were bond to receive bad press and reputation for it, she still felt disgusted by the house itself. It was not only filled with Rotten Magic, but it was old, dusty, musty and clearly just now being lived-in once again. She'd have no surprise if she found dead bodies on the wall or skeletons in the closets.

Though, she didn't have to go too far in her imagination to be proved right – there were dead house-elves, well, just their heads, in stakes besides the stairs.

She felt light-headed for a moment.

She knew that some families still did that in Brazil too, following European roots for lack of desire of adopting the true Brazilian way, she had heard of it, especially in the South (because of course it's the South), but seeing it first hand was not a pleasant experience; in her school, Sagora, Sao Paulo's Institute of Magic, the students were allowed to leave the school for funeral of house-elves, they were extremely well-seen in Brazil and being buried in lot of the family they served was a great honour to them. Having their heads on stakes made them nothing short of traitors in Cecilia's head.

She stared at the corpses, knowing that there was a spell that made them unable to rot; well... rot enough to stink up the house any further than it already stunk.

"Shocking, isn't it?" said a voice.

Surprised, she turned, making herself stop just before she grabbed her wand from her pocket.

She hadn't seen the man coming out of the dining room adjacent to the kitchen but there he stood just a metre away from her in all his glory. He was a handsome and well-groomed (for the most part) middle-aged man and it took her just a moment to recognize him; Sirius Black was staring at her with his grey eyes and black hair.

Fear set in as suddenly as her startlement came to her. He was a criminal. He was a mass murderer and, although she was a pureblood, she knew that he was as dangerous as they could be.