InsaneJournal

Everything was perfect. The plan would go off without a hitch. She would have an alibi: the potion shoppe had several customers inside when she went to visit her brother in tears. She couldn't say what had happened, not in the middle of the shoppe, so Alexander took her back into his office to calm her down. After she used his floo to get to the family manor, he waited a few minutes before going back out into the shoppe and conferring quietly (but, of course, loud enough to be overheard by the customers) with his employees that his delicate little sister was horribly upset by all the death happening lately and just needed somewhere to rest away from everyone else for a while. She was napping in his office and not to be disturbed.

Persephone stepped out of the floo into the parlour of the home she had grown up in. Her entire life, it had been falling into disrepair. Her father was certainly no businessman, and he had nearly run the family business into the ground; family heirlooms had been sold off, anything to keep the family in their home and with everything appropriate to make it appear as though they had never had the slightest financial difficulty.

The parlour was dark, of course. No rooms were lit unless somebody was in there, and Pamela was likely in the study, which she had claimed for herself after her husband's passing. It was from there that Pamela had been working for the past months to secure a second husband for Persephone. Lists of the eligible bachelors in British society, lists of ones she knew from other countries. She had information about their families and their standings in society. Naturally, of course, she would only approach those who were of a higher status. The whole point of marriage was to elevate oneself.

Persephone made her way to the study, surreptitiously checking the cuffs of her sleeves to ensure that the vials were ready. She always carried two, of course, just in case. She would only need one to rid herself of her mother, but there was always the chance of somebody stopping by unexpectedly and needing to be taken care of.

It was, of course, the work of only a few moments to convince her mother that she had decided to visit for tea. Persephone sent the one house elf to prepare the tea; he was as run-down and ragged as the rest of the house, but they could hardly free him or sell him to another family. He knew too much. Once tea was prepared and brought to the parlour, Persephone took the role of pouring it for herself and her mother. With her back to her mother, and Pamela therefore unable to see what she was doing, Persephone slipped one of the vials out of its hiding place in her cuff and dumped its contents into her mother's tea. Thanks to her tests, she knew that the poison would be tasteless.

"I do believe we will be able to have you betrothed within a month," Pamela commented blithely, smiling at her daughter as she took a sip of her tea. Persephone's grip on her own teacup tightened moderately, but she kept a sweet and stupid look on her face. Drink more of the tea, she wished furiously. It would take more than just a sip or two to get enough of the poison to do its work. "An old friend of your father has a son, and his arranged marriage has recently fallen through because the girl ran off with some filthy muggle. You would, of course, have to move to Bulgaria, but I imagine you would love it there. At the very least, you would be able to get away from these dreadful creatures that are about and killing people. As long as they only kill mudbloods it's fine, but they are beasts, after all; there is hardly anything to keep them from attacking us. Yes, Bulgaria will be much safer for you."

Throughout her mother's monologue, Persephone fought to remain composed. As long as her mother was talking, she was not drinking. If she did not drink her tea, she would never go away.

"I'm sorry, Mother, I think I may have put just a bit too much sugar in your tea. Would you mind terribly tasting it? I can never remember exactly how much sugar you like in your tea." Persephone called up tears to brim in her eyes and ducked her head modestly, playing the role of the shamed daughter, the daughter who was not good enough for any of this. The faux modesty should make up for the rudeness of the interruption. But of course Pamela obliged and drank more of her tea. After a moment, she frowned and took another drink, draining her teacup.

"There is something slightly off abou--" Pamela started to say, but then she vomited, a puslike substance that was blackened with blood. A gleeful smile split Persephone's face as the teacup and saucer fell from her mother's hands and shattered on the floor, as her mother vomited again, blood dripping from the corners of her mouth and from her nose and ears. Pamela's body slumped to the floor, her fingers and face twitching as the poison flashed through her bloodstream. Her very skin began rotting away.

Persephone stood, dropping her own tea to the floor. As blood and thicker things began to soak into the threadbare rug, she stepped over to her mother's body, not caring about what was sticking to her shoes.

And then she laughed. Gleeful, cackling laughter that exploded from her lips and spilled out to fill the room.

"Monster," came the voice from behind her. The all-too-familiar voice. Her laughter dying immediately, Persephone spun around, drawing her wand. Florence stood there, still dressed as she had been the day that Persephone had killed her. "She was your mother. You've killed your own mother."

"And you don't think it would have killed your mother to learn that you had sold out her son to the Ministry? After you already disgraced the family by marrying that filth and daring to bring its child into the world? SHE," Persephone gestured roughly to her mother's body, "was preparing to sell me off to the highest bidder." The fact that she was arguing with a ghost no longer fazed Persephone, it had been happening for months. "What good am I to the Lord's cause if I am in BULGARIA?" she screamed.

"You should not be fighting in this war, anyway," came another voice from behind Persephone. Another all-too-familiar voice, one that Persephone had thought to never hear again. She spun around again and saw her mother standing there, skin still rotting off, eyes open and staring at her. "Proper ladies do not engage in such things," Pamela informed her daughter.

Persephone screamed and threw herself at her mother, only to fall on top of Pamela's body. She beat at the body with her fists, screaming, "You're DEAD, you're supposed to be leaving me alone now!" She struggled to her feet, the entire front of her dress covered in disgusting things, her hands coated. Both her mother and Florence were standing in front of her, even as Pamela's body lay behind her.

"You're both DEAD ..." Persephone spat out. She looked down at her shaking hands. Fresh, clean, red blood covered them. Not blood that would have come out of her mother's body. Tobias' blood. This was how her hands had looked in their room at the bed and breakfast, after he was dead. "NO. HE DESERVED TO DIE. HE WAS A HORRIBLE MAN, UNWORTHY OF HIS PURE BLOOD." Of course, she had not known anything about Tobias or his "hobbies" before she had killed him; everything she knew had been learned after she had been living with his parents.

"You are the one who deserves to die," Pamela said, shaking her head as she watched her daughter. Florence nodded in agreement. "You were never worthy of anything. Your blood is not pure enough."

"AND THAT IS ALL YOUR FAULT!" Persephone screamed, tugging at her hair and squeezing her eyes closed. She didn't care that she was getting bits of her mother in her hair. "YOU SULLIED FATHER'S BLOODLINE WITH YOUR DIRTY BLOOD. AND THEN YOU SPEND MY WHOLE LIFE TELLING ME THAT I AM UNWORTHY BECAUSE OF IT. I JOINED THE CAUSE TO PROVE THAT I AM WORTHY. I AM MORE WORTHY THAN THOSE BOYS WHO ONLY JOINED BECAUSE THEIR DADDIES TOLD THEM TO. THEY DON'T CARE. AND YOU." Persephone turned her screaming on Florence. "YOU AND THAT FILTHY COUSIN OF YOURS. YOU SOLD OUT YOUR BROTHER TO HIM, AND HE'S THE ONE WHO DRAGGED MY NAME INTO THE DIRT BY DARING TO ACCUSE ME OF KILLING TOBIAS. I WAS TO BE NOTHING MORE THAN A GRIEVING WIDOW, AND INSTEAD HE TRIES TO GET ME ARRESTED FOR MURDER. IF WE HAD NOT MADE CERTAIN THAT NOTHING COULD BE TRACED BACK TO US, THEN HE MIGHT HAVE SUCCEEDED. AND YOU WOULD CHOOSE HIM OVER YOUR FRIEND." Nevermind that this friend had been the one to coldly kill Florence. It would never have been necessary if Florence had not betrayed her brother to Podmore. "I WILL MAKE HIM PAY."

Eyes wild, Persephone pulled out her journal, which was contained in a pocket of her robes. She fumbled with a quill and ink, opened her journal to a new page, and began writing. The notion of warding it private did not occur to her at all. The only part that occurred to her to be warded was the bit to Florence's mother, and even that was sloppy: she didn't realise that she had warded it to Xavier, as well.

"What are you hoping to accomplish?" Florence asked, startling Persephone into dropping the journal. It fell to the floor and fell closed, 'posting' the entry.

"I DON'T HAVE TO EXPLAIN MYSELF TO YOU. YOU'RE DEAD!"

"She should just kill herself," Pamela suggested to Florence. "Take that other vial of poison she has hidden up her sleeve, drink it, and do the rest of the world a favour."

"After a journal entry like that, she just bought herself a ticket directly to Azkaban. She wouldn't survive there. They might even just give her the Kiss and get it over with," Florence added.

"If your mother doesn't get to her, first." Pamela shook her head. "You never taunt a mother about her children, Persephone. We ought to have just stopped with Orion, your father and I. We had an heir and a spare, we had no use for a daughter but for an attempt at bettering our social standing, and you were a miserable failure at that."

"SHUT UP. SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT. UP.!" Persephone screamed, lashing out at her mother and Florence with an incendio. Of course, it did nothing but light the threadbare armchair behind them on fire.

Persephone looked at her mother's body on the floor, at her mother and Florence standing in front of her, at the blood and other things on her hands.

She sank to her knees, squeezing her eyes shut and repeating over and over again: "You're dead, just go away. You're dead, just go away." Over and over, like a mantra. She freed the extra vial of poison from its hiding place inside her cuff. The stopper was removed and dropped to the floor. Real tears, possibly the first real ones of her entire life, fell down her cheeks as she lifted the vial to her lips and drank the contents.