a rose by any other name

chapter twenty-six ❃ the birds

Draco and I stopped when I looked at my watch and realised that dinner was in ten minutes. We had been doing this all day, for hours, and we had got nowhere, the birds were still coming out dead and the box was now full of small white bodies. Draco sighed and put the lid on the box, "I guess we should go, have a break, we can do this once a week, that way we won't miss too many classes." I smiled at him for trying to make this easier for me and nodded. We walked towards the entrance to the room and snuck out. The door disappeared behind us as we made our way to the Great Hall. I remembered now, that it was mail day. Once a week our owls would come into the great hall to drop off newspapers and any mail we might have received. I doubted I would receive anything; I hadn't heard from my parents in ages and wondered why they hadn't been required to attend my meeting with Voldemort yesterday.

We arrived at the Great Hall and I was distracted by everyone as they were huddled around their tables, this was odd. When we walked in everybody looked up at me and Draco's direction, but they were all looking directly at me. I gulped and Draco scowled at them causing everyone to look away except for some of the Slytherins. I walked over to the nearest table and picked up a newspaper. When I read the headline, well I couldn't really miss it, it was huge taking up nearly half of the front page, my heart dropped to my feet.

The head line read: "DEATH EATER ATTACK ON THE MINISTRY OF MAGIC THIS MORNING"

I quickly read the small paragraph below it; Devastating Attack on the Ministry of Magic at 10am this morning. Some fatalities that identities are yet to be confirmed, Hundreds of injuries, names on page 15. I gulped and sat in the nearest seat quickly turning to page fifteen. I scanned through the names when I stopped on one, my heart dropped further; Cecilia Rosier, My Mother. She was injured. Was it bad? Was she okay? I realised now that this was why everyone had stared at me and I panicked even more. What if she d-died? It said they were still to confirm the deaths. I felt sick. Why had they done that? I knew what side they had been on and I knew that my father would have taken part too. That's why they hadn't been at my meeting, this was more important, as always. Draco sat down next to me and read the paper, he gasped quietly when he read my mother's name and immediately put his arm around me. "I'm sure she's fine Ris, honestly, your mother is smart, and your father's name isn't there so it couldn't have been bad, or he would have got hurt too, you know they would have stuck together." I sighed, he was right I didn't really need to worry, but I still was, yes I absolutely loathed my parents and I barley spoke to them, but I didn't want them dead.

Me and Draco were interrupted when a group of people walked up to us, I realised now that we had sat on the Hufflepuff table. "Go sit on your own table." The Hufflepuff girl I recognised to be Hannah Abbott said and I scowled at her. Draco stood up to face her and her group of friends. "Have some respect for your superiors Abbott." Draco snarled and I stood up behind him. Hannah didn't say anything, and a boy stepped forward to face Draco. I gulped as he spoke, "I hope you don't mean yourself." He laughed and I grabbed Draco's arm, I could tell he was angry. "Excuse me, Diggory." Draco said shaking me off and rolling his sleeves up. Cedric did the same before looking at me momentarily, for the first time in what felt like ages, something unreadable flashed across his face and to my surprise he walked away from Draco and me. The other people followed him saying things like 'Why'd you walk away Ced?' And 'You could have got him Ced' and Draco just scowled after them. "Come on Draco let's go find Pansy." I said dragging him towards our table. Pansy ran up to me and hugged me tightly, "Oh Parisa, I'm sorry, I'm sure she's okay! God Death Eaters are so evil I can't believe they would just hurt innocent people like that!" I smiled at Pansy weakly, at least she didn't think she was a Death Eater, hopefully the rest of the school thought like Pansy. "Thank you Pans, hopefully." I said before we all sat down, and Draco started complaining about Cedric and what just happened to Blaise. I was relieved that he walked away, I didn't really feel like having to drag Draco off of Cedric right now. But it was so strange, why did he walk away? Nothing was stopping him; it couldn't have been me. Could it? No, he hated me. I can't believe he had finally looked at me, honestly it had made butterflies explode in my stomach, I know it shouldn't of but just knowing he had finally acknowledged me actually made me hopeful, I knew it was ridiculous but I just couldn't help it.

I was pulled out of my thoughts when I saw Snape enter the Great Hall, he never came in here unless Dumbledore forced him too... I felt a lump form in my throat when he scanned the room, made eye contact with me, and then started to walk towards us. "Oh god" I whispered, and Draco, Blaise and Pansy all turned to look at Snape. Pansy hugged me and it looked like she was about to cry. Snape was stood in front of us now and in his slow, strange voice he spoke. "Parisa, please come to my office, I have some news for you." He started walking away and I gulped standing up, I already knew what he was going to say. Draco stood up with me "I'll come with you Ris." He said and I shook my head not saying anything and just walking away, dazed. "I don't care, you're not going alone. I'm coming." I kept walking and Draco was soon beside me, before I turned the corner I turned and looked for the one person I wanted to be with right now, the one person I needed to be with right now but couldn't. And to my surprise when I looked at Cedric, this time, he was already looking at me.

authors note: Hello! I've almost finished writing 5th year today so I will be posting a lot, this story will end in 7th year by the way. Will get sad soon and Cedric won't be in it huge amounts but his POV is coming up soon. Also the next chapter is really long so i might have to split it into two shorter ones. I hope you're enjoying reading this as much as I am writing it and thank you to all those who have voted!