O Beija-Flor - Regulus Black (Complete)

II -

There was a change in tone now that the children knew that she wasn't deaf and, surprisingly, it wasn't for the best.

At first, she was happy with the change. They took almost two whole days to explain her well-enough (to their own satisfaction, Cecilia would like to specify) about Hogwarts and the four Houses, and then another half-a-day convincing her that she somehow her English wasn't as good as she insisted it was, because there was no way someone could think that Slytherin sounded so cool. After that, she started noticing the secrecy and the odd silence and swift change of the course of the conversation once she walked into the room. All of that just made her feel like she was out of place.

By the fifth day of Cecilia being there, she found herself sitting on the kitchen table in the middle of the night, bored and writing a letter to her sister and trying her best not to sound like a spoiled, jealous brat, which she sorts of felt like she was.

"Are you alright there, kitten?" asked Sirius, walking into the kitchen.

"Yeah," she dismissed quickly, looking up. She cleaned the quill and put it down, rereading the letter she had already written to that point. "I just made some coffee, if it's of any interest for you. I hope I didn't overstep."

"I came here for tea, but I think I can deal with some waking up with coffee," Sirius said, glancing at the clock. "But may I ask why you're drinking coffee at two-fifteen in the morning?" he raised an eyebrow.

"I'm too awake –"

"Because you're drinking coffee."

"And since I'm already so awake," she continued, ignoring his sentence. "I decided to drink some coffee to wake up fully, I suppose. Might as well write my family. I mean, my sister," she specified the last part in a low voice.

Of course, he saw the hesitation and clear sadness, but as a gentleman, Sirius asked no questions right away, though he really wanted, because – although he liked to say he was a gentleman – he was nosy person. James had always gone to him if he needed some type of gossip from Hogwarts and Remus relied on him to know what the people were saying about him when he was away, 'sick' for another full-moon.

"When I was disowned, I kept writing to my brother for a while, I think it was for a few months," Siris said. "It kept me in touch on how he was when, miraculously, he would answer. He read all of them, but he never really answered me more than once a year."

Cecilia looked up again from the words in Portuguese, aware she wasn't sure he could manage both languages at once.

"Are you trying to tell me that my sister will stop talking to me sooner or later?" she asked, raising her eyebrows in disbelief from his words.

He felt his whole body go cold as she threw himself to sit down on the chair across her in the round table of the kitchen. He looked scared of how his words had been understood by the girl.

"No! Of course, not!" he exclaimed in a high-pitched voice. He cleared his throat before going back to talking. "Just telling you a bit about me," he explained.

She smiled at him, making him smile back, relieved to notice that she had been teasing him all along, she had never been truly upset about his words. She chuckled once he sighed and pushed his hair out of his face.

"Are you expecting me to open up at two-thirty in the morning over a half-written letter and two cups into the coffee pot?" she asked, this time seriously.

Sirius hesitated.

"I'm saying that you went through a traumatic situation," he said slowly, thinking through his words carefully. "And, if you want, you can talk to me, because I think I can understand a lot of what you went through and, if I can't understand, then I can just... listen."