The Pureblood Princess | Sirius Black

|97| Mystery Lad

The weather that Sunday afternoon, April 20th, was perfect. The air was crisp, cool, and still smelled slightly of rain from the shower earlier that morning, with a slight breeze that blew the wispy clouds through the blue sky and rustled the wildflowers blooming far below them. Adelaide zoomed faster and faster, higher and higher through the atmosphere, reveling in the feeling of wind whipping against her skin, hair flying out behind her, and the little swoop in her stomach when she'd throw in a loop. For the first time, she understood why Regulus envied all those damn birds.

Flying like this, untethered amongst the vastness of the open sky; It felt like freedom.

Usually, the only time she got to fly during the week was at Quidditch practice, and while she loved playing, the methodical structure of practices had a knack for sucking the fun out of flying.

But this wasn't practice. This was just her and her best friend flying for the hell of it and she was having a ball.

Something between a laugh and a shout of glee tumbled from her lips as she looped over to where Regulus was hovering. "Reggie— This is hands down—the best idea—you've ever had!" she beamed, reaching out to ruffle his slightly windblown hair.

Regulus smirked, patting his hair down. "I don't know why you sound so surprised—All my ideas are brilliant."

Ignoring his egotistical comment, Adelaide took a deep breath then shouted, "I FEEL LIKE A BIRD!" out to the clouds, arms out stretched and flapping in a very avian fashion—coincidentally startling a few of her feathered brethren from the trees below.

Regulus laughed loudly at her ridiculousness. "You look like a bird!"

Adelaide moved forward on her broom, flapping her 'wings' 'gracefully'. "What kind of bird?" she asked wistfully, sweeping in a circle around him. "A swan? A dove?"

Regulus smirked wide. "I was going to say a goose..."

Adelaide stopped abruptly then rounded to scowl at him. "Excuse me?!"

"Nah, you're right, not nearly awkward enough... You're more like a penguin...or an ostrich... or a... Oh wait, I know! You're a blue footed booby! Bet you anything that's your patronus!" he laughed, looking entirely too pleased with himself.

Adelaide didn't know what kind of bird a blue footed booby was, but the way he was laughing told her it was not the sort she should consider a complement to be compared to. Scrunching up her nose in annoyance, she shoved his arm just hard enough that it hurt, but not enough to knock him off his broom. However, Regulus didn't seem to notice as he was nearly doubled over in laughter at her reaction.

"Oh Ha ha! Very funny! I'll have you know my patronus is a cat!" she said primly, nose in the air.

Regulus managed to rein in his chuckles enough to say, "What? How do you know what your patronus is?"

Adelaide froze for a moment. Was he supposed to know she could do the patronus charm? She supposed it wasn't a big secret; wasn't illegal like some of the other spells she knew... just a little more advanced than what one would typically expect out of a fourth year. "Erm... well I cast the spell and it was a cat sooo..." she trailed off, trying to sound casual.

Regulus, who assumed she was lying at first, eyed her carefully. "You—You can actually cast a patronus?" he asked in disbelief. "A fully corporal patronus?"

Adelaide shrugged, still trying to play it cool. "Yeah."

"Holy shit, Addy! That's—that's—" he was gawking at her, trying to find the right words.