O Beija-Flor - Regulus Black (Complete)

Prologue -

Cecilia felt like she was about to throw up all over herself and on the cement ground of the pathways of the cemetery, because there was no way any organ in her whole-body could keep on working, not when her most beloved person was lying there in the coffin in front of her.

Her father was dead.

How does one keep living after all that happened? How does one ever get up from bed and decide to be happy again once they were alone? How does a child work out how to survive without their parent?

Well, of course... She still had her mother.

But the situation between her and her mother was nothing if not complicated, and her own twin sister could never understand completely her pain when her whole life had been resumed into being the perfect daughter for the perfect mother. Cecilia was the odd one out, the loved daughter of a loving man, who didn't have to do anything to receive what she wanted, though she tried enough to be called an overachiever. If Cynthia had been her mother's daughter, Cecilia had always been her father's.

And now she was an orphan, in all the ways that truly mattered in her heart.

She was suffering in the middle of several people hugging her, crying with her. And yet Cecilia felt like she was suffering alone.

Everything around her was tainted.

The hands on her shoulders would forever be the symbol of her loneliness in the middle of people and sad smiles would forever be pity in her mind and soul. Brazil, such a big country, and her home, became tainted and made her uncomfortable; from the trees, the language to the songs, everything was too much like her father – her grief was so big that it swallowed her whole country and even worse, it swallowed her whole.

The funeral took a long time, or so many people said, though Cecilia couldn't remember a single thing from it. All she could remember was the pain and hesitance of walking again into her own house. Even that didn't feel like it was hers anymore.

The next few days followed with a weight on her chest and body that she couldn't explain, no matter how many words she was allowed to use. Walking was hard, breathing was hard, moving was hard. Thinking was simply unbearable. Feeling was just impossible at that point.

"Things will get easier," people would say. "God will provide better days if you just believe and go to church. Faith will heal you."

But, however disgusting it was, some insisted on leading her towards religion during the weakest moment of her life. She had her religion and every time she felt like she could move she found solace in lightening a candle for her orixás, but nothing seemed to make her feel any less... guilty.

Her mother didn't know what to do anymore.

Dealing with a normal Cecilia was hard, a 'sad' one was a lot harder, certainly. No eating, or sleeping, just standing in the corner of the room looking like a skeleton or a ghost, haunting the house with grief.

So, Adriana did what she always did best; she gave up.

She was always really good at doing that, giving up. After all, it was decided that if Cecilia didn't want to get better, then her mother wasn't willing to help anymore. That was the moment that Adriana did what she always did when things got too hard for her to deal with: she passed responsibility to someone else.

Adriana had passed the responsibility of Cynthia's deafness to Cecilia. She had passed the responsibility of Cecilia's 'attitude' to her husband, who did whatever he needed to please her.

Cecilia was sixteen and scared when she was sent to England to live with a distant cousin of her mother, a family she had never met before that was receiving money to deal with her, by her own mother's words. Sure, she had no hope they had taken her in by the kindness of their heart, but that didn't make her any more comfortable.

Cecilia met the Weasleys after leaving home in the Ministry of Magic of England after travelling through floo from the International Floo Department of the President's Palace in Rio de Janeiro.

Arthur Weasley, her third cousin, met her there with a small smile, his good clothes and with his son Bill standing right beside him, stumbling over to her to apologize for the fact that his wife couldn't come to receive her into the country as well. Bill was quite older than her, but her kept himself looking foolish young with the long hair and grin on his lips. Arthur was awkward and nervous, Bill was prepared and understanding.

Family was there, either she liked it or not.

But so were photographers, because there was no way that – with her luck – her sad arrival would be private. She was escorted out with some aurors and her cousins beside her, ignoring the loud yells for her attention and the blinding flashes.

She was a Salazar.

Not even her grief was private.

Cecilia Salazar, Brazilian Witch, moved to England after father's death.

After being found innocent under Brazilian Law, Miss Salazar moved to England with distant family to finish her education without the fame of the youngest witch put under trial for manslaughter of her own family in South America, at seventeen years of age.

She was put on trial, which lasted six days, leading her to innocence after it was proven that her magic reacted accidently to an old family spell that Carlos Salazar had been doing to put her magic under control. It has been speculated that it was the Salazar family name and its weight world-wide that brought such result to the trail of the young girl. Now, she seems to want a clean slate to start over her life.

Mrs. Adriana Salazar (nee Weasley), an Irish citizen born in Galway in 1968, now lives with her other daughter in Salvador, Bahia (moving from São Paulo), and plans not to follow her daughter back to her homeland, leaving the girl to be taken care by family, including Ministry Employee, Arthur Weasley, and his family.

We of the Daily Prophet wish nothing but the best on healing from now on to all Salazar family, including Miss Cecilia Salazar. From now on, we expect nothing but the best coming from such a talented witch now under the protection of the British land.

WELCOME TO O BEIJA-FLOR.

THIS IS A BRAZILIAN MAIN CHARACTER, WHICH MEANS THAT IF YOU HAVE ANY DOUBTS OF THE CULTURE YOU ARE WELCOME TO ASK ME AND I'LL ANSWER, BUT PLEASE BE RESPECFUL. BESIDES, I WISH NOT TO PLAY INTO ANY STERYOTYPES, THEREFORE I EXPLAIN ONE THING RIGHT NOW: CECILIA IS BASED OFF REAL PEOPLE IN MY LIFE, NOT A SIMPLE ARCHETYPE OF A BLACK-LATINA WOMAN.

I HOPE I CAN HAVE YOU ENJOY THIS STORY!

EDIT: the trial lasted six days, not months. I wrote it wrong, sorry. I was too excited and made a mistake.