ALL NOVEL Chapter 436: Three-Way
A glimmer of green twinkled in the leftmost window on second storey of Amelia Bones's house.
The girl dressed in form-fitting snakeskin robes vaulted over a chimney, her eyes widening slightly as the glimmer suddenly turned into a deadly beam of light seemingly aimed at her. The instant her feet touched the ground, the girl tucked in her limbs and performed a somersault to dodge the stray Killing Curse, but as she recovered from her forward roll, she found that she had lost control of her movements!
Oleandra's hands scrabbled at the slippery roof in a desperate bid to find some purchase to hold on to, while her feet helplessly skidded across the damp roof tiles. But just as Oleandra was about to fall off the roof, her fingers snagged onto the roof's gutters, causing the rest of her body to twist and slam rather painfully against the side of the house… also causing roof tiles to shower down onto the streets below.
"Oi, look!" cried one of the Death Eaters below, pointing upwards. "There's summat up 'ere!"
Feeling rather vexed, Oleandra kicked off the side of the building and swung herself back onto the roof like a gymnast, almost losing her footing again as a particularly nasty Reductor Curse vaporised half of the house from right under her feet.
"Hagal!" Oleandra shouted, performing a brief hand sign to bolster her magic's power.
The Death Eaters below her soon found themselves being pelted with golf ball-sized hailstones— and judging by the yelps of pain, many of them had found their marks.
Out of the corner of her eye, Oleandra caught sight of a series of flashes of red and green light. The Death Eaters in the street below were merely lookouts— the real threat had already made its way to Amelia Bones's bedroom! Taking a running start, Oleandra leapt from the roof to the neighbouring house— Amelia Bones's detached Victorian home.
As she sailed through the night sky, Oleandra tucked in her elbows and knees, bracing for impact— and she flew straight through the window that had been shattered by the stray Killing Curse, before leaping to her feet.
"You!" Voldemort hissed.
"Me," Oleandra agreed.
Oleandra was acting much more flippantly than usual. She had prophesized that she would die at the end of the year, so didn't that signify that until then, she would be effectively unkillable?
"You!?" Madam Bones blurted out in shock. "How!? Why!?"
She looked rather ridiculous; duelling the greatest Dark Wizard of all time wearing nothing but a night gown and a night cap, while her opponent was dressed for business…
"I decided to divine your future after our meeting," said Oleandra lightly, as she ducked under a green ray of light. "I predicted that you would die tonight, so I decided to pay you a visit, and lo and behold…"
Oleandra wasn't lying.
Right after Daphne had left her bedroom, Oleandra had cast her rune stones to read Amelia Bones's future— she had needed a reasonable excuse to drop by her house out of the blue, because doing so would inevitably cause Voldemort to suspect that Daphne had been the one to leak his plans to Oleandra.
However, Voldemort also 'knew' that Daphne's twin sister was a True Seer. By claiming credit for the timely rescue with her prophecies, it was Oleandra's hope that Voldemort wouldn't find out the full truth and punish her sister too harshly…
"Should I thank you saving me the effort of hunting you down?" said Voldemort coldly, as he hurled Killing Curse after Killing Curse at Oleandra, who dodged them all with her preternatural grace and speed. "You have irked me for the last time, Greengrass— I shall reduce you to cinders, and that will be the end of you."
Voldemort was rather perplexed at the way Oleandra kept coming back from certain death, much like a certain boy that people had annoyingly taken to calling The Chosen One. If it hadn't been for all of the details being wrong, he would have been inclined to believe that it was Oleandra, and not Harry, who had been the true subject of the first prophecy all along!
"Stupefy!"
"Stupefy!"
Twin bolts of crimson magic streaked across the room, but Voldemort effortlessly parried them. Oleandra and Amelia had tried to take advantage of the fact that Voldemort had opened his mouth to converse rather than to chant, but it was all for naught— his defensive skills were impeccable.
"I have an idea," said Oleandra, as she lifted up Amelia's mahogany bedside table to block a Killing Curse; causing it to burst into flames. "I hope you're not too attached to your house's structural integrity."
"What in the world are you talking about, you madwoman?" said Amelia Bones incredulously. "Protego!"
Oleandra cocked her arm back and threw Amelia's flaming bedside table at Voldemort with her prodigious strength. Naturally, Voldemort easily repelled the fiery projectile with a flick of his wand— but Oleandra's goal had merely been to temporarily obstruct his vision.
"Deprimo!" chanted Oleandra, pointing her wand at Voldemort's feet.
Voldemort was good at defending himself against direct attacks— but Oleandra very much wanted him to see parry this. Floorboards cracked and splintered, as Oleandra's magic blasted a large hole right under Voldemort's feet, causing him to…
…not fall into the hole.
"AVADA KEDAVRA!"
"He can fly!?" Oleandra blurted out in surprise.
Being a flier himself, Voldemort was rather suspicious of the fact that Oleandra had not attempted to fly yet. It was a widely known fact that she had flown under her own power during the Triwizard Tournament, but for some reason, she had stopped flying soon after…
"Descendo!" shouted Amelia Bones, pointing her wand at the ceiling. "Don't stand there and gawk, help me!"
Amelia's plan was now the opposite of Oleandra's; she wanted to bring the entire house crumbling down upon their heads.
"Descendo!" Oleandra shouted, mimicking Amelia's movements.
But to her shock, her magic fizzled out into sparks. Oleandra held a hand to her chest, feeling her heart drumming in her breast.
She was here— Oleandra could feel it in her blood.
"You've finally stopped moving long enough for me to catch up to you," a very familiar female voice rang out in Oleandra's ears. "At last, my sacred duty is finally coming to a close…"