Black Rose [Regulus Black]

"I'm a novice at this whole wizarding thing, so I'm confused. Do we need to dance around a cauldron at midnight during a thunderstorm? Do we have to sing as we sacrifice a frog?"

"What?" Regulus asked.

"I'm just asking! In Macbeth, they chanted and moved around the cauldron as they tossed in the ingredients. There was this entire verse, I don't remember what it said, but there was something about eye of newt and toe of frog."

"Well," he said amusedly, gesturing towards a box in the apothecary. "They have frog legs and other animal's body parts too."

Alessandra's face twisted into one of disgust. "Ew, I can't believe people actually touch that stuff and put that in their potions, only to consume it."

"I used to think that too but I kind of got used to it. The trick lies in not thinking about it. As for your other question, no, we don't need to sing or dance or any of that nonsense."

A look of disappointment crossed her face. "It's a pity. I'd have paid all my savings to see you do that."

He raised an eyebrow.

"No offence, you're just very...suity."

"Suity?"

"Like...formal, you know? It's why you prancing around a pot like a lunatic would be a sight to witness."

"I'm not that formal," he frowned.

"I mean, you are dressed in a suit in your own house sometimes, and talk more formally than most of our politicians."

"I need to do that to keep up appearances. Purebloods are supposed to be proper."

"Speaking of, what's a Mudblood? I heard your mother muttering something about it a few days ago."

"It's what purebloods called muggles."

"But why? It just sounds very derogatory, I can tell from the spelling of the word itself."

"Purebloods just hate muggles in general, Sandra."

"But why?"

"What do you mean why?"

"Why do the purebloods hate muggles?"

He stared at her, the quest for the potion ingredients long forgotten. Why did they hate Muggles anyways? Now that he thought about it, he didn't really have a definitive answer. It was just something that had been taught from the very beginning of his childhood, and he accepted it. He'd been told that Muggles were uncivilized barbarians and stole their magic and killed anyone with magical blood. So far, he hadn't seen any behaviour like that from Sandra despite her upbringing in the Muggle world.

"Maybe we should buy all the ingredients first, we'll talk about this later."

Translation: let's not talk about it at all.

Her eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly as she wondered why he became so closed off so suddenly. He didn't actually hate Muggles, did he? Would he still be her friend if she was a Muggle, or would he have left if he didn't know about her magic? Her heart sank as she remembered why they were here in the first place: he just wanted answers, and now that he'd gotten them, he no longer had any use for her. Would this be their last interaction, after they found out who her father was?

"Okay," she muttered sourly. "What exactly is the plan here?"

"We're using a potion to determine your ancestry. We'll just have to brew the potion with these ingredients, add a drop of your blood and pour the potion out on to a piece of parchment. You'll see what happens then."

"And what do you think will happen?"

"I'm not sure," he frowned, collecting all the ingredients and handing the galleons to the owner of the shop. "According to the book, the potion seeps through the parchment and traces your family tree. If you put another drop of blood, you'll see the generation before, and with another drop of blood shows another generation, and so on."

"I won't die, will I?"

"No," he chuckled.

"Thank goodness, I'm too beautiful to die," she replied, modestly flipping her hair as she looked around. "Reg, why is the alley so empty nowadays?"

He paused, not sure what to tell her. "It's a long story."

"Shorten it, then."

He huffed. "I can't, or I would've."

"Can't or won't?"

"Look, there's a lot going on that you wouldn't understand. I will explain some other time, but we need to leave, we can't risk being seen by too many people."

She remained silent, pondering over what he meant by 'some other time'.

He held out his hand for her to take, causing her to flinch in surprise, and he laughed a little. "For Apparating."

She shook her head and grabbed on to his hand. "I sometimes forget that I've been introduced to this whole new world of magic. It's hard to adjust sometimes."

He apparated them to his house, and she didn't even sway in the slightest. "You don't seem to be struggling particularly now."

She rolled her eyes. "Not in the physical aspect. It's the mental aspect, I've gotten used to living in the other non-magical world and classifying my powers as some kind of freaky accident. Sometimes I forget there's a magical world. Wait, is that a tattoo?"

His sleeves had lifted up, revealing part of his Dark Mark, and he cursed inwardly. "Wait, don't-"

She touched it.

She touched the Dark Mark.

Fuck.

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