a murder plot pt. 1
the idea comes from neville on a tuesday night. two-months since the start of the school year. two months full of itchy, pink wool sweaters and 'hem-hems'
"why don't we just kill her?"
the suggestion is intended to be a joke but harry motherfucking potter is motherfucking ti-erd.
he sits bolt upright from his cuddle pile in front of the fireplace with hermione and ron, who grumbles 'harry-'
"neville," he says abruptly, "that is the best idea i have ever heard." he launches himself off the ground and runs up to the dorms.
"what the actual bloody hell did yah just fuckin' do?" ron slurs as he sits up.
"Mione, hermione," he tugs on her blouse sleeve, "get up, harry's in his 'lighting and destruction' mode right now."
"scbhgrfhjkxmkbdf," she mutters back exhaustedly, "no, just... turn it off..."
"hermione jean," ron starts tensely, "harry is makin' a fuckin' plan and-"
"NO, HARRY! I-" her eyes snap open, horrified. glancing around, her eyes narrow. "he's not here you dick! you better have a good reason for waking me up!" hermione hisses as she slaps his shoulder.
"ahaha," neville starts, squinting a little, "so i just want to say i was joking i swear i didn't-"
"FOUND IT!" thudthud. harry comes flying down the stairs. "eep! I FOUND IT!"
"found what, harry?" ron sighs.
"oh shut the fuck up and give me a mo." hermione snaps. "i'm gonna cast a privacy charm first. okay? fine." she straightens up and waves her wand in a zigzag move that'd make a dancedance revolution superstar cry, "sonitus intacta"
"huh? where'd you learn that?" ron asks.
"a hundred and one spells and jinxes to keep people in their lane"
"GUYS" harry shouts, "i have a plan."
"literally don't even harry." ron deadpans
neville watches on worriedly. they were lucky the common room was empty, but the moment someone walked in and saw them screaming at each other without hearing them, well, they were gonna suspect something. "umm guys?"
"WHAT?!" they snap towards him. neville fidgets.
"umm, i-"
"NO EVERYONE SHUT UP!" harry yells louder than neville has ever heard him talk before. "I. Have. A. Plan"
"harry, your plans suck." hermione sighs. "like, a lot, you're terrible at planning shit."
"NO-no, okay hear me out..."
"that's,,, not a terrible idea," neville remarks, unsurely.
"harry, that's a terrible idea."
"maybe, but-"
"poison."
"-what?" hermione asks searchingly to neville.
neville fidgets under her steely gaze, "poison."
"umm mate," harry starts, "that's actually a really good idea, and i'm sure snape is down to kill umbridge, but i doubt he's gonna want to collab with a bunch of fifth years to murder a professor."
"collab?" hermione says incredibly, "what is this 2017 youtube-"
"greenhouse four has a lot of rare plants," neville says, "it's why sprout never lets anyone in there, really, the temperature has to stay high, since they're all tropical plants and some of them are deadly."
the three of them remain silent, split between wonder and shock that neville is entertaining harry's ideas.
"like what plants?"
hermione and harry's heads whip towards ron, who looks more considerate then he likes to show. despite his wariness, ron spares them a smile. the weasleys may be bloodtraitors, but hermione was a muggleborn and harry was the apple of the dark lord's murderous intent. he thinks of all the first years he's met this year as a prefect he thinks, these are my friends goddamit and i'm going to fix this.
"atropa belladonna, commonly known as belladonna or deadly nightshade, is a toxic perennial herbaceous plant in the nightshade family solanaceae, it's native around here." ron says, buried in a text.
"dracunculus vulgaris is a species of aroid flowering plant in the genus dracunculus and the arum family araceae. common names include the common dracunculus, dragon lily, dragon arum, black arum and vampire lily. the root of the plant is known to be a skin irritant and is toxic."
hermione shuffles in her seat suddenly, sitting up, "the botulinum neurotoxin is one of the most powerful natural poisons known. it can block nerve functions and can lead to respiratory and muscular paralysis, and foodborne botulism, caused by consumption of improperly processed food, is a rare but potentially fatal disease if not diagnosed rapidly and treated with antitoxin."
"what?" harry says confused, "you mean botox? doesn't that have to be like isolated and treated."
"i'm just looking up toxins, its best if we use regular plants, i don't know what magical autopsies look like, but i'd assume signatures of magical plants would appear. i'm not sure about other plants, i'll look it up later."
there's no conversation for the next few minutes, all of them buried in texts and tomes, reveling in the unity of a soon to be accomplished goal.
suddenly, harry gasps out:
"in psychogenic polydipsia, the volume of fluid intake may overwhelm normal renal functioning, creating a dilutional hyponatremia that often self-corrects with diuresis."
"...what?"
hermione and harry meet gazes over ron's hunched over figure, gaping; smiling.
"psychogenic polydipsia, (PPD), or primary polydipsia, is characterized by excessive volitional water intake and is often seen in patients with severe mental illness and/or developmental disability. there may be no physical effects, but hyponatremia can occur."
"hyponatremia, is a condition that occurs when the level of sodium in your blood is too low. with this condition, the body holds onto too much water. this dilutes the amount of sodium in the blood and causes levels to be low. in acute hyponatremia, sodium levels drop rapidly — resulting in potentially dangerous effects, such as rapid brain swelling, which can result in a coma and death."
neville and ron swap confused looks, "uhm, in layman's terms?"
harry grins violently, "one of the characteristics of diabetes is high sodium, most muggles go on diets and take medications for it, diuretics are pills meant to make you pee more, to flush out high sodium. if coupled with polydipsia, your sodium levels can get extremely low, 'cause the water dilutes it even more. the low sodium can cause hyponatremia, which can be fatal."
hermione smirks back, "and the best part is, she doesn't even have to be diabetic, if we slip her enough diuretics and somehow get her to drink way too much water, incapacitate her long enough to not be able to use the bathroom, we could kill her like that."
"but wouldn't she just piss herself?"
"wait! bill was telling me about some potion that caused extreme thirst!" ron burst out suddenly, "drink of something! it causes you to go batty basically, fear, delirium, extreme thirst, yknow? the pharaohs had this thing i guess, some ritual for awareness, they'd like drink this thing and burry themselves in a box, not a sarcophagus, since those were sacred. but some type of box in the sand and after the sun had risen they'd like administer an antidote."
"like odysseus." hermione breathes out.
ron, hermione and harry share the scariest smile neville has ever seen and suddenly, he realizes i'm fucked
"can you ask bill about the name of it, do you know if he has a recipe? we could have hermione ask to look at it. he knows how much of learner our hermione is." harry asks.
"even if he did, he's bound by oath to the goblins. he shouldn't really go into details."
hermione ponders that for a second, "what about snuffle's library?"
harry frowns, "you think something like that would be in there? not to be blunt, but the black family is pretty,,, white."
"no, i know we couldn't get in this summer, but sirius mentioned that the library had a lot of self-updating books of hexes and curses and potions that were divided by what they did. transfiguration, mind arts, dark arts. we could probably find something like it at least, they've got to have some sort of index." hermione frowns too, "wait neville, the longbottoms are an ancient and noble family too, do you have anything-"
"no," neville shrugs, slightly relieved he's not lying, "the longbottoms have been light-aligned for generations, once the ministry labeled elemental magiks as dark-inclined, we shifted from neutral to light to avoid stigma. our family magiks were elemental, earth-related most of the time, but after the ministry started branding everything as dark, we stopped practicing our traditional rituals and we kind of lost our touch for it. it's more like getting a sense of familiarity now." he added on at their questioning looks.
hermione squinted at him incredulously, "that's what a blood traitor is? someone who doesn't use dark rituals?"
"no," ron states stubbornly, "a lot of familiar rituals were invented to keep wixen as close to lady heckate as we could. they were like a way to thank her for our gift of magic as well as hone into our own strengths. the ministry started labelling a bunch of things as dark around the time the muggle borns became more prevalent in wizarding england. its the main reason pureblood supremacy started, purebloods were angry at them for being so against their traditions and having the ministry restrict them. blood traitors are families who have sided with the fact that the olde ways are not to be practiced."
harry and hermione look at each other faintly. "oh," hermione gasps.
ron looks at them understandingly, seeming to recognize that that's a lot to take in.
"i'd ask snuffles about it, or write remus. one of them's bound to know something or at least recommend a book."
harry nods lightly, "i'll send a letter or something to remus, he's with the werewolf packs right now, i don't know how, since umbridge is monitoring the mail," he glowers slightly, "but i have the mirror from snuffles, i'll ask tonight."
dear moony,
i hope you're doing well, i know the moon was recently so i hope you're feeling better. things at hogwarts have been terrible, not the best. umbridge is an awful teacher, we've been doing theory all year! i've never even used my wand in the class!
i'm writing because i have a question actually, and i know you specialize in creatures, so you may not know, but i though it was worth a try.
i'm doing some personal research, do you know of any potion that mimics muggle halogenics? specifically a potion that makes you really thirsty?
sorry i haven't written, i don't really know your status right now, i hope you get this. and if you could reply as quick as possible? please this is important to me
with love,
harry
"i'M SORRY YOU WANT WHAT?!"
"-sirius, look, please i'm curious."
"harry james, are you kidding me? look i may be a black and i may be stupid, but giving you a borderline dark book about fatal potions is more than a mistake, it's completely inappropriate!"
"siri please! i wasn't gonna try anything! i just wanted to look and hermione has been bugging me for weeks about it! please!"
"..harry..."
"please, siri, it's not like i could use them even if i tried!"
at this sirius stared at him a little more deadpan. sirius had no doubt that this stupidlovely child could use half those hexes. he knew from remus that harry possessed an strong ability at defense, his thirteen-year old godson producing a patronus was proof of that. but really though, what was the harm?
sirius huffed, "just the one book?"
"yes"
"...only until christmas"
"okay."
sigh, "fine, then."
sirius' begrudging relentment of the book was great, but remus's letter told harry everything he needed to know.
phase one was ready to move into action.
sources fuck off
https://www.livescience.com/33265-most-disgusting-deadly-flowers.html
https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/ethnobotany/Mind_and_Spirit/belladonna.shtml
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracunculus_vulgaris
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/botulism
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3153292/
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/hyponatremia/symptoms-causes/syc-20373711#:~:text=In%20chronic%20hyponatremia%2C%20sodium%20levels,in%20a%20coma%20and%20death.
https://bestpractice.bmj.com/topics/en-us/865#:~:text=Psychogenic%20polydipsia%20(PPD)%2C%20or,effects%2C%20but%20hyponatremia%20can%20occur.
yes this is actually possible to kill someone with diuretics, hyponatremia, polydipsia, but its super hard