a rose by any other name

chapter thirty-five ❃ the poisoned mead

It was the first day of March when I finally came up with a good plan. I had spent the last three months desperately trying to think of a good enough idea before Voldemort got impatient, Draco had given me some help, but we were both as useless as each other at thinking of ways to kill someone. I was cuddled up in bed with Cedric having a random conversation about what alcohol we both liked when it dawned on me... poison.

Cedric had tried to help me too; against many of my protests to keep him out of it, but Cedric was too pure I didn't even know why he wanted to help. He was being extremely understanding and casual considering I was realistically planning someone's murder; I had really fucked this precious boy up. I quickly sat up and Cedric looked at me confused, "We can poison him." I said and Cedric looked slightly uncomfortable at the change in topic... as he should be – maybe he was still good. Of course, he was still good what am I saying it's Cedric? He doesn't have a bad bone in his perfectly toned body.

"I mean yeah, but how? Where are you going to get poison?" he asked and I thought for a moment,

"Maybe Draco will know." I shrugged and Cedric just nodded, "Maybe you can put some poison into one of his drinks? I'm not really good at this am I?" He said and I leant down to kiss him "No you're not, and that's a good thing – I worry sometimes that I'm making you bad." I said looking down, but Cedric gently grabbed my chin forcing me to look at him, "You are not a bad person Parisa." He said and he kissed me again, "You're just doing what you have to do, to protect yourself – no one thinks you're bad Angel." I smiled sweetly at him and kissed him again, "I better go find Draco, I'll come back as soon as I can okay?" Cedric smiled at me, "Of course Angel, I'll be where I always am." He kissed me again, this time for longer before he hesitantly pulled away, "Be careful." He said as I walked towards the door, "Of course Cedric, I love you."

"I love you too." Cedric replied and I left, disappearating straight to my... very risky but I had already done it so all I could do was pray that the dorm was empty when I landed. To my relief only Pansy was there, "Hey Pans, have you seen Draco?" I asked and she smiled, "Yeah I think he's in his dorm – he was looking for you earlier actually." I was so happy now me and Pansy were perfectly fine again, she had thought me, and Draco were actually secretly together at one point, but she was over all that now and it was as if nothing happened. "Thanks, I'll see you in a bit." I said and she smiled.

I headed over to Draco's dorm and knocked, "It's Ris, can we talk? I think I have a plan." I said through the door and he quickly answered, "Yeah of course, where have you been all day?" he asked, and I stuttered "I-uh I was reading up on stuff in the library." Draco nodded and I sat on his bed, "Oh Pansy said you were looking for me earlier?" I asked and he sat on the floor opposite me, "Yeah I just thought we should try to think of a plan soon because we only have four months left." I nodded and began to tell him the plan I had thought up, "Well do you still have Madam Rosmerta under The Imperius Curse?" Draco nodded, "Good I was thinking, we could give her some sort of poisoned alcohol to give to Dumbledore as another gift, but instead of going through a student, we get her to give it to like Slughorn or something – a teacher wouldn't open it if it wasn't meant for them." Draco looked thoughtful for a moment, "The only problem is; I don't know where in the world were going to get poison – it's not something that people just tend to keep around." There was a short moment of silence and I was about to ask Draco if he was even listening when he spoke, "I'm sure we could ask Snape, I mean he's bound to have some, and he is supposed to be helping us. Look I'll quickly go now and find him and try to get some poison and you try to get some mead from Rosmerta or the kitchens or something like that. Then we'll meet back at The Three Broomsticks?" I was pleased me and Draco were finally doing something again, I had almost forgotten what we were actually doing but I've found that the best way to get this over with is just not to think about it. "Yeah okay, I'll see you in a bit." I said before we left his dorm and went our separate ways. The only problem now was how I was going to get alcohol, I was only seventeen so no one in The Three Broomsticks would sell it to me, and the house elves would already be in the kitchen preparing dinner so stealing from there was out of the question. There was only one person I knew that was old enough to buy alcohol that would help me with this... but how could I ask him to do that?