O Beija-Flor - Regulus Black (Complete)

XV -

It's been four days since he woke up, and Regulus still feels as dead as he felt the moment that he found out that the only person that really mattered in his whole world, Pandora, was dead. They had refused to tell him how, lying about how they didn't know, but he knew that they did just by the way that they looked down at the ground before answering him.

Food tasted horrible, even if it was the same food that he ate when a child, made by the caring hand of Kreacher, who was terrified of losing him again, often watching him forcing himself into a spoon or two of the food, just to make the elf slightly happier. Sleeping was horrible, the nightmares were there and his Sweet-Eyed Girl was nowhere to be seen, not even when he tried dreaming about her. But boredom was the worst of it all – in the long hours where he had nothing to do but stare at the wall, his darkest thoughts made their way from his mind to his heart and choked it out of any good emotion besides grief, besides anger and besides bitterness. It was hard to do anything other than try not to cry.

Pandora. His dear Pandora. The girl that sat him down and said, very clearly, that his image of love wasn't real-love, but a disturbed version of it that he watched as he grew up. That was the girl that was kind even to the people who didn't deserve it, all for the simple possibility that it might make people be kinder in the future. That was the type of girl that only existed in books, until there was one standing right beside him, ready to fight the whole world with him.

And now that girl, who became a woman without him to watch in pride, was dead.

Nobody said anything else to him after that, giving him 'time to comprehend the information', but what he needed was more – he needed as much information that he could chew on, so maybe his mind would fixate on something other than imagining how she died, how her body looked bloated like the corpses that dragged him underwater.

Now, Cecilia, however, was more than busy with all the housecleaning that Misses Molly Weasley insisted that they made in the old house, especially because Kreacher seemed to be mostly confined in his own bedroom crying, standing near Regulus' room in case he called – but he never called, he always wanted to be alone and away from people (even the non-humans).

And the start of the day, Ginny, Fred, George, Harry, Hermione and Harry were instructed by Molly what to do in the visiting room as Cecilia watched by near the doors, uncomfortable with the simple idea of cleaning.

"Can't we just pay someone to do that for us?" Cecilia said, unhappy with the development that the situation took.

She had never cleaned anything herself in her life. Cooking was one thing (and she was good at it), but cleaning usually was made by someone the family had paid for while Cecilia was eager to help by fetching what she needed, but cleaning was something that she hadn't done and she was a bit scared.

"No. We can't," Molly said loudly. "Protect your face and take a spray," she instructed. Cecilia did so, frowning at the black liquid moving inside. "It's Doxycide. I've never seen an infestation this bad – what that elf has been doing for the last ten years..."

Though everybody's face was half-hidden, Cecilia saw Hermione's eyebrows twitch as she tried her best not to say what was on her mind about that. Cecilia found herself liking her a bit more than before at that moment. They both knew that Kreacher was not completely to blame at the state the old house was in, especially because Cecilia was aware enough of what Kreacher had been doing: mourning. He had spent the last ten years or so mourning the death of the person he loved the most in the house.

"Kreacher is quite old and probably couldn't –" started Hermione.

"You'd be surprised with what Kreacher can do when he wants, Hermione," Sirius said in a worse mood than before now that Remus was with Regulus in his bedroom, probably not sharing a single word as Regulus stared at the ceiling and Remus read a book, not having to clean. He had a big sack in his hands. "Rats," was his simple explanation to Harry.