Black Rose [Regulus Black]

Tom Riddle.

Tom Riddle.

Her father was Tom Riddle.

But Voldemort was Tom Riddle?

Or Tom Riddle was Voldemort, and Tom Riddle was her father?

No matter how she phrased the words, she still came to the same mind-blowing conclusion.

Beside her, Regulus appeared undeterred. She wasn't sure if it was because it hadn't clicked in his mind or because he was trying his best to hide his real emotions or because he simply didn't care.

"I'm sorry," she let out a high-pitched laugh which sounded absolutely nothing like her own. "Tom Riddle?"

She schooled her expression into one of mild curiosity when Dumbledore's analytical gaze slid over to her. She didn't want to let on more than she had to, because she did not trust the man. She felt a slight intrusion into her head and tried to push any and every bit of random information to the forefront of her mind to stop him from accessing that one little bit of knowledge that could condemn her.

She wasn't sure if it was the lighting or her perception, but the twinkle in Dumbledore's eyes seemed to fade when he realised that he couldn't properly enter her mind. He merely sighed (again) and raised his wand to write:

I AM LORD VOLDEMORT

With a wave of Dumbledore's wand, the fiery letters rearranged themselves to say:

TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE

If she even had a sprinkle of hope left in her, it had evaporated from her body, leaving a cold, clammy, unpleasant sensation to churn in the cockles of her soul.

"Fantastic," Regulus nodded.

Her body was wracked with vertigo, her vision tilting repeatedly as though the world couldn't decide what orientation it wanted to be.

"We'll be off now..."

Voices were bouncing around but she couldn't understand what they were saying. It may have been a small bit of information, insignificant considering she'd never met the man in her entire life, but she still felt like ice shrapnel had entered her bloodstream and was making its way to her heart.

She felt someone shake her shoulder and looked up to see concerned grey eyes.

"Alessandra? It's time to go."

Fear rose up in her. She didn't feel safe. What if Dumbledore would find out and was going to dangle her as bait? What if Regulus hated her because of her father and was going to kill her for vengeance?

She blankly followed Regulus out the door nevertheless, soul feeling like it had been ripped from her body.

Discomfort crawled up her skin as she felt his hand settle itself on her back. Her brain was swimming with all sorts of horrific possibilities pertaining to her fate in that moment, and her paranoia was only amplified by that one small action that she subconsciously knew was supposed to be comforting, so she shrugged his arm off. She was trying to speed up a little but his strides were longer than hers so he easily caught up to her, albeit a little breathless.

"Are you alright?"

Regulus wanted to smack himself when he asked that question, because anyone with two eyes could see she wasn't.

"Perfectly fine," she replied, her voice high-pitched, a sure sign that she wasn't going to hold it together for that long. "Never been better. Lovely. Fantastic. Splendid."

He didn't look very convinced. He also didn't know what to do because he felt helpless; he had no idea on what to do, whether to comfort her or just leave her be.

"Splendid," he echoed, at a loss for words himself. His family had instilled it into his mind that he mustn't ever look like a fool, but he definitely felt like one in that moment.

"A Black is never speechless!" his mother's voice screeched inside his head.

He had no qualms telling her (it) to shut up.

He held out his arm for her to take, and she stared at it as though he were handing her a weapon.

"You're supposed to grab it and let me apparate you to your house." He shook his hand in front of her face a little, and she didn't even blink. He was now beginning to feel desperate, because he could feel eyes on him from within the house and the person beside him had become about as responsive as a wall. He reached out and grabbed her arm, apparating them into her house, where she collapsed onto the sofa.

"Tea?" he offered, feeling stupid for offering her tea in her own house.

She didn't reply, but it didn't stop him from making the tea (he made a hot chocolate for himself, he'd grown rather fond of the drink). He made a big show of putting chocolate biscuits on a platter from a tin he hadn't noticed before to give her some time before the confusing conversation that would ensue.

He placed the platter on the table and sat down, sipping on the hot chocolate, his gaze bouncing everywhere but the blonde sitting in front of him.

"Er... the tea will get cold."

She jolted slightly at that and reached for the cup in front of her, her eyes set on it but not quite seeing.

"So," she laughed mirthlessly. "Apparently, we don't need to look for my father now."

"I wouldn't recommend it," he murmured.

She didn't reply, instead closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. "Do you think he knows?"

"No," he assured her, "Otherwise he would have come to retrieve you a long time ago."

They both knew he meant as a weapon and not as a daughter.

She felt sick to the stomach. How was she so unlucky? Even though she hadn't gotten around to looking for her birth father just yet, she'd never imagined that her father would be someone like... that. A blood supremacist, maybe, but not an actual killer. She really had struck out in the familial department.

It's okay, she tried to reassure herself. Maybe your mother was forced to give you up by her strict family, or your father didn't know you existed and therefore never tried to be a father to you.

She still felt terrible and nauseous and dizzy, her head and heart swimming with agony, and she'd never felt this...exhausted. It just felt like too much to handle — less than six months ago, she wasn't even aware of the existence of the Wizarding World, and now all of this information was being piled onto her.

It wasn't like she could retract herself from the situation now. Dumbledore and Sirius were aware of her existence. Walburga was undoubtedly keeping track of her, although by what means, she wasn't aware of. Her mother may have also found out because Alessandra simply could not shut her mouth.

But even without those factors, she didn't think she could just throw in the towel. Her kind — the Muggles — were beginning to be affected by this: it didn't take a genius to figure out that something was going on. Conspiracy theories had begun to show up in the newspapers and people were growing more and more terrified by the second, because the death and destruction caused was glaringly obvious.

The only problem was that she already felt a little guilty that she was plotting to kill her own father, who may have been a good father if he was given a chance (who knew?). She then felt pathetic for feeling some sort of emotional bond to someone who had never been in most of her life. This emotion was then followed up with pity, pity for the boy sitting next to her because he must have felt the same cycle of emotions in his head when being around his mother.

Her head snapped to the side as she was suddenly aware of his presence beside hers, and she was a little startled by seeing a pair of intense grey eyes blink back at her.

"Are you going to kill me?"

His eyes grew so wide that she could see the dark ring around his irises. "No! Why- why would you think that?!"

She shrugged, not knowing what to say. "He has caused you a lot of grief, so it would be good revenge."

He looked like a lightbulb had went off in his head, which made her feel worse.

"Well," he began hesitantly a few moments later, "You aren't necessarily what your family is."

If only he could believe the same when it came to himself.

She supposed saying it out loud was the first step to realization.

Hearing him say it out loud was also reassuring because he did have a point.

"But that doesn't mean people don't think that."

He let out a soft exhale as though hearing the words physically pained him. "No," he agreed. "But people are also dumb, so it doesn't matter what they think."

"Does it? Thoughts lead to actions, and if... you know exactly what I'm thinking, don't you?" She said it like a plea, which in a way it was, just not intended for him. If luck was an entity, she hoped she was on their good side.

"Nobody's going to find out," he reassured her. "There are no birth records to trace you back to him and you don't even look like him. There's a negligible chance that someone will suspect, don't worry."

"Doesn't your mother know?"

"I obliviated her."

"I think my mother may know."

"She definitely does but I don't think she'll do anything about it."

"Why not?" she asked.

"The thing about infidelity in the pureblood world is that it's commonly practiced... it's just that nobody has the courage to admit it out loud, even if they know everyone knows. Saying it out loud actually confirms it and puts a black mark on your family, but leaving it as a rumor isn't quite as damaging. Also, I don't think there have been any rumors about it, so it wouldn't make sense for her to go and blurt it out to the world."

"That sounds fucked up."

He snorted. "Nearly everyone's miserable in their lives, it's just their pride that stops them from doing anything about it."

"That, and the fear of losing their money." Her lips involuntarily curved up at that because the image of Walburga dressing like a 'commoner' had popped up into her mind and would not go away.

"True," he admitted, looking like he was smiling too. "But mostly status."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You know, like..." he made a few wild hand gestures, as though hoping to pluck the words he was looking for from the air. "If... I don't quite know how to explain it. See, there's a hierarchy applied throughout the wizarding world at this point, and purebloods are at the highest rank of it. Which means that if you choose to... not conform, you're automatically demoted. It's not just about attending parties and making alliances, it also influences other aspects of your lives."

Like your job and how much justice you get in courts and even how fairly your children are treated in schools.

The system was broken everywhere then.

"You seem very aware of this," she commented, having forgotten all her worries in that moment.

"Again, it's not something people say out loud, it's just stuff you observe."

She didn't say anything to that.

⚜

"This is way too difficult," Alessandra complained two days later, placing the wand back on the wooden table in her house.

"It takes time," Regulus said patiently. She felt bad — she'd been complaining the entire time while he had been nothing but supportive, but she still couldn't bring herself to stop because magic was so annoying. "Remember, we're trying to cram seven years of education into a few months."

"Can't I just wave a wooden stick to make it more convincing? I can just move it around randomly and use wandless magic."

He hummed. "Good idea, but it doesn't change the fact that you need to learn potions."

"But why?" she whined.

"All wizards learn potions, it would look suspicious if you haven't."

"But I haven't even been in the wizarding world that much, I hardly think anybody would-"

"You live in a Muggle neighbourhood," he interjected. "Which means that Death Eaters may come knocking on your door or something like that. If that happens, you'll need to show you're a witch, just to buy yourself some time."

"That's depressing."

"Better be depressed than oblivious."

"I could just pretend to be very dumb."

"Nobody would be so dumb as to not know what the most basic potions are."

"I mean..."

"Your case is different."

"Can't we just take a break?"

"When has taking a break ever ended with us actually coming back to do this?"

"Now?"

He squinted his eyes at her when she gave him a sheepish grin. "Fine. What do you have in mind?"

"Haunted house?"

"Absolutely not."

"Alright, how about an amusement park?"

"Is that the thing with those crazy death machines?"

"Rollercoasters? Yeah, but they're not death machines, people have only died-"

"No."

She pouted. "You didn't even consider it!"

"You were talking about people dying on it, I said what any rational person would have said."

"If you're so rational, then why don't you come up with something?"

His fingers tapped incessantly against the table, the rings making tiny clanks as they made contact with the wood. Her lips involuntarily curved upwards when she saw the paper-clip ring she'd made planted firmly on his finger, but then she was reminded of what happened right after. Her mood soured infinitesimally and she got up, making her way to the kitchen.

"I never took you to Hogwarts, did I?" he wondered out loud.

"No, but I didn't think I could go there. Didn't you say it wasn't visible by Muggles?"

"No, it's visible to magicfolk," he reassured her, his eyes glazed over. "I should take you there one day, show you the Quidditch pitch and the Giant Squid and-"

"Giant Squid?!"

"Yeah..." he mumbled. "Don't worry, it's harmless. I could even take you for a ride on a broomstick-"

"Right now?"

He frowned. "Maybe next time, under pretext of meeting Dumbledore, over winter break..."

"I need to buy apples," she muttered, trying to check what she had in her pantry and what she didn't. "And bread, maybe biscuits."

"What?"

"Oh, sorry," she turned around, "I actually need to go buy something. Do you mind coming along? You can tell me all about Hogwarts."

He nodded. "How long will it take? I need to go in an hour."

"Yeah, that's fine, it won't take that long."

As they crossed the streets hand in hand, with Reg passionately talking about his school, she couldn't help but think that he was more fond of his school than he was of his house. It was almost like the school was more of a home to him than his house ever was, which was understandable considering a certain someone who resided at Grimmauld Place. She couldn't relate to how he felt, because everybody in her school was constantly itching to leave, but she could definitely understand it.

"What's that?"

She followed his gaze to the entrance of the shop, and laughed. "That's a shopping cart."

"What does it do?"

"It- sorry," she mumbled, clapping her hand over her mouth to muffle her giggles, because he looked so cute in that moment. "People put their stuff in while shopping, so that their arms don't hurt.

"So like a basket?"

"Yeah, but this has wheels so your arms aren't sore from carrying it around, you just have to push it."

"Fascinating," he whispered, walking up to the carts in an almost-trancelike manner and kneeling to take a look at the wheels. "How does this work?"

"Er- they rotate?" she said dumbly, struggling a little with pulling one out, and then finally getting it to come out.

"So like the cart in Gringotts?"

"Grin-what?"

"Wizarding bank."

"Right." She tossed a nervous glance at the security guard, who was eying them with suspicion. "Look, we can talk about this later, we should probably go inside. We look dodgy, especially with you tinkering with public property."

"Yes." It looked like his body was coordinating with his mind though, for he remained in that position. Her heart rate was now beginning to pick up as she caught people staring at them with narrowed eyes, and she was worried that the two of them looked like terrorists planting a bomb or something like that.

"Regulus!" she hissed.

"Hm?" He looked up to see her panicked expression and instantly got up. "Oh, my bad."

She didn't say anything, just laced her fingers through his and pulled him towards the store, ignoring the goosebumps raising on her skin. She spotted the security guard cautiously approaching them, probably to inspect the area behind them.

She was overcome with the urge to laugh yet again as they entered, because of the way Reg was shamelessly staring at everything and everyone, as though he'd never been to a shop before. His jaw was slack and his eyes were wide and it was one of the most adorable things she'd ever seen.

He made a beeline for the ice-cream freezer beside the cashier counter, much to her surprise. She didn't understand his reaction — hadn't he had ice cream at her house on multiple occasions?

"What's that?"

"Ice-cream, Regulus," she replied, amused. "It's ice-cream, you've had it before."

"No, but what's that stuff on the side, the stuff that looks like snow?"

She stared at him, bewildered. "Have you not seen ice before?"

"Yeah but this is smoking."

"It's dry ice."

"That makes no sense, ice is frozen water and water can not be dry."

"You have a point, but I don't think dry ice is water, it's carbon dioxide."

"Carbon what?"

"Carbon dioxide. It's the stuff we exhale."

He looked like he'd been hit by a bus. "So ice is not water?"

"No, ice is water, but there's a different kind called dry ice."

"I see."

"Do you?"

"No. What's that?" He pointed at the small packets neatly arranged beside the cashier's desk.

"That one's tutti-fruttis, those are gummy bears. Have you really seen none of this before?"

"Nope," he murmured, turning the packet of gummy bears around in his hand as he peered at them with intrigue.

"Do you know what cereal is?"

He rolled his eyes. "Of course I do."

She frowned, shocked that he knew what cereal was. Most Muggles had it, it didn't make sense for his family to 'approve' of it. "You have cereal at your house?"

"No, but we had it at Hogwarts."

That made a lot more sense.

Thirty minutes and many more questions later, they moved past the checkout counter with two bags of groceries in their hands. Alessandra couldn't help but feel extremely happy even though there wasn't much to be joyful about — seeing Reg's childlike excitement just evoked this bubbly warmth inside her for no reason.

"So..." she began. "Since you enjoyed the shop so much, does this mean you'd be open to coming to an amusement park with me next time?"

"Absolutely not."

"But why?"

"I do not have a death wish just yet."

"You won't die."

"Is what people hear right before they die."

"Not necessarily. It could also be "go to sleep" or "take some rest" or "WE'RE GOING TO DIE!" or-"

"Hello, little cousin," a voice rang out behind them, causing them both to halt in their tracks. "I thought it was you I saw at this Mudblood shop."

Well, shit. We're going to die.

⚜