Black Rose [Regulus Black]

45 - flying adventures & odd ghosts

Alessandra knew that nearly all the wizards she'd met (and liked so far) loved Hogwarts, but until that day, she didn't know why.

It was magnificent.

It was a castle, like a literal castle from the fairy tales, in the mountains and everything. With turrets so high they practically kissed the clouds and lush green lawns that stretched on for kilometers, it was an absolute fucking dream. Hogwarts' appearance was the least whimsical thing about it though. It had everything, from moving staircases to actual live (but dead) ghosts.

She couldn't help but feel a little devastated by the fact that she'd never gotten to experience any of this. She'd grown up receiving an education of such poor quality (although the matrons at the orphanage had tried their best, bless them), when she could've been going to an actual magic school and properly learning magic instead of being so clueless. It was unfair.

At least you get to experience this, a voice in her head consoled her. Think of all the Muggles who can never use this magic or even see it. It's a gift.

The feeling of bitterness did not subside.

"You should see this place when it's not summer break, it's so full of life." She smiled at Reg as he led her down the halls, chattering as he showed her around Hogwarts with an enthusiasm he had clearly lacked when showing her Grimmauld Place. "That used to be my History of Magic classroom. Our teacher, Professor Binns, he was an actual ghost."

"They had a ghost teaching you?!" Alessandra asked, almost longingly. She wanted a ghost to teach her things. "Was he just really fantastic or could they find nobody else for the job?"

He snorted. "Definitely not the first one, because I dropped that class as soon as I could."

"Oh, you guys also get to select your classes later on? In my school, we used to take all the subjects, and then once we turned fourteen, we got to choose what exactly we wanted to learn, like the sciences or the arts or something like that. You guys have something like that too?"

"In a way," Regulus hummed, a faraway look in his eyes. "For us, we have some general subjects till the second year, and then we can choose a couple of other subjects in the third year. We learn those till the fifth year, and then depending on our O.W.L.s, we choose our specialization later on."

"Owls? Like, the birds, owls?"

"Hey, Alessandra," Sirius chimed in, startling both of them. They'd completely forgotten the Marauders were trailing behind them, also laughing and reminiscing about their school years. "Where did you go to study? Y'know, because you didn't go to Hogwarts? You seem like a Beauxbatons person."

Alessandra's throat dried. She'd never told them her circumstances, out of fear that they would hate her for who were father was, but her education wasn't something she could lie about, simply because she didn't know how exactly it worked in the magic world.

Thankfully, Regulus beat her to it. "Beauxbatons? Please, she's out of their class. They wish," he scoffed. "Come on, Al, let me show you the Quidditch pitch." He laced his fingers through hers and tugged her through the halls, taking a right and going down a flight of stairs.

"Nice save."

"I wasn't lying though."

"Oh?" she didn't know what he meant when he said that she was "out of their class", but it sounded like a compliment. "Right. Um. What's Quidditch?"

He stopped in his tracks, nearly causing the two of them two tumble down the stairs. "You don't know what Quidditch is?"

"You forget that until less than a year ago, I did not even know what magic was."