O Beija-Flor - Regulus Black (Complete)

XIII -

Regulus Black died before he completed nineteen years of age at the day he was born, December 24th. Still, as he woke up, there was no cold winter breeze embracing him; there was only warmth around him.

His last memories were of strong, cold and wet hands holding onto his body too tightly and long, sharp and curved claws digging into his skin and flesh. It burned. The dark-magic of those creatures got into his blood as he screamed. Blood tainted his clothes and the water around him in the memory. His lungs and throat burned, too, water was invading his nose and mouth as he screamed – for help, for mercy, for pardon. Whatever it was, it made all the air abandon his insides as he died.

His last memory was of his death.

In all his moments of spiritual research and the wonderings of the world on the other side of the veil, he had never thought he would actually wake up after death as if he had just gone to nap.

Life after death had been a concept he had fantasied about only when thinking of Pandora, but it was never something that he really believed him so blindly. To him, Death was always the final stop. If he was wrong, which he had – regretfully – thought about from time to time as he thought in solitude in his bedroom, he would never think about the fact that his afterlife would start in his own bedroom in Grimmauld Place.

For a moment, he even allowed himself to think that he had dreamed for a long time.

Until he saw her.

A girl.

The girl.

The girl that he dreamed of almost every night for years at that point, no shadow of doubt in his soul.

There she was. Her back was turned to him, her dark skin almost glistening as light similar to an early morning sun (or whatever it was on the world of the dead) shined through the window. The tight braids in her hair were spread out on his pillow and on his bed. Even without seeing her face, he had never felt so... utterly taken by someone. She had him under her complete control without even seeing his eyes once in her life (or death).

Regulus was happy with death if she was his guide to the other side. Perhaps, he thought, she was Death. Perhaps he had been flirting with Death in his dreams for a long time at that point, and he wouldn't blame any other fool for doing the same.

He tried to move as little as possible as he watched her ribcage moving lightly under the thin shir that she was wearing to sleep, going up and down with her breath. So calm. So deep. For a second, he thinks that he has never, ever, slept so wonderfully well like that. He swallows down the tinge of envy in the back of his mind.

Slowly, he moved his toes, feeling the sharp pain the small movement brought upon him. He grunted and the noise made him flinch – his voice was hoarse and his throat scratchy. The feeling of flinch made his whole body hurt with the movement. However, it was the movement on the other side of the bed that made him hold back a scream, biting his own tongue down to keep himself from screaming.

He had been from a rich family, but that didn't mean his mattress was one of the nice ones that only one side moved or anything like this. He had a twin-sized bed, not a couple's one. Any movement could be felt by the whole bed and it squeaked most of the time.

Being dead hurt a lot more than he had imagined it would.

He opened his eyes a bit more, looking around his own bedroom, he sighed. It was so familiar and it so weird at the same time. His room looked almost exactly how he had left it when he walked out the last time. He was surprisingly glad that he had left him room somewhat tidy before going away, at least that's the memory his mind conjured to make him feel like he was back there, but there was one small thing out of place – his journals were scattered around the room; on the ground, on the bed and even on the table near the window. That was new to him. He would never put his journals in such open spaces like that.