O Beija-Flor - Regulus Black (Complete)

LIII -

CECILIA HAS AN OFFICIAL FACE-CLAIM! 

CECILIA CAN BE IMAGINED AS YOU WANT, OF COURSE, BUT I WANTED SOMEONE WITH A DARKER SKIN THAN WILLOW SMITH, SO: TATI GABRIELLE!

Seeing Dumbledore angry, again, was not on Cecilia's plans and she had tried her best to find a way to get through the whole plan without involving the rest of the Order of the Phoenix, but even Sirius agreed that it was safer to involve them on the next step of the plan that clearly was complex (which she was proud of, seeing that she had been the one to organise everything). While Remus presented the plan with firm words as if he was teaching a class, Cecilia met the man's eyes across the table.

He looked like a statue.

Due to the curse, Dumbledore was looking paler every day, but now he was unmoving and his eyes were so cold that the twinkle had died, making them look glassy and clearly annoyed by her plan, which he had guessed correctly that it was hers by the way that he didn't look away when she shifted uncomfortably in place. She stared back, gathering all courage that she had in her body.

The mistake was clear, because in the next second, she felt a much lighter presence in the back of her mind than Severus' pounding inside of her thoughts had been. She tried looking away as fast as she could, but he was going through everything in her mind – most people wouldn't have noticed, but something in her screamed something wasn't right. And then the feeling was gone just as fast as it had started and Dumbledore had looked away from her, but there was still something in her mind; it wasn't going through anything, it was just standing there almost as confused as she felt.

It was Regulus' magic, she realised at once with a start. She turned to look at her boyfriend who was slowly blinking, going back to his mind, face as cold and emotionless as he had been the whole meeting, but his hand met her knee underneath the table in a clear message that they would talk later about it.

"The plan can work," Remus finished, pointing at the diagrams and maps on the dinner table of Grimmauld Place. "But the plan will only work if we all work together in this. The children will mostly stay in the castle, am I correct?"

"There are few children who signed up to leave the castle," McGonagall agreed, glancing at Dumbledore but not commenting on the way he was looking at his own hands on his lap. "If there is a moment for the boy's extraction, this would be the safest."

"And the flashiest," Moody said, glaring at the inside group of the Order of the Phoenix. "Is it attention that you want?"

"No, it's Draco Malfoy, keep up," Cecilia spat towards him.

"Girl, I swear to –"

"Alastor," warned McGonagall.

Moody took a deep breath. People had been warning him not to explode with Cecilia, fearing that her explosion could be a lot worse than his screaming and belittling.

"Listen," he started calmer this time around. "This plan might work, but it requires a lot of people, which we don't have and a lot of specific details to work in our favour. How do you intend on making sure the train would stop on the bridge as you wish it to happen?"

"Well, it happened before in 1993," she said, glancing at Sirius, who nodded in confirmation. "There was the whole search for Sirius at the time and it happened."

"Yes, with advanced warning to the Ministry," Moody said. "Do you intend on warning the Ministry you will kidnap an underaged boy or you'll figure it out when the time comes?"

"That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that who made the train stop was not from inside the Ministry, even if there was a previous warning about it, it was magical elves. House-elves, like the one completely devoted to the House of Black, to which Draco, either he likes it or not, belongs," Cecilia said.