The standalone invocation of Raidhu, the riding rune, allowed its caster to ride anything with the proficiency of a world-class pilot or rider. In effect, this meant that as long as Oleandra was sitting or standing on something, she could ride it; whether it was a car, a horse, a Dragon, or even Voldemort himself… may he rest in pieces.
And with his Horcruxes, he most certainly did.
A radiant smile traced Oleandra's lips as she sped down into the void below with nothing but the soles of her boots between her feet and the rails. This speed was exhilarating; the cold underground air brushing her face, her long hair streaming behind her… it had been so long since she'd last played Quidditch that she hadn't even stopped to realise she'd missed this sensation. Suit the Lethifold was a rather slow flier compared to Cloak the Lethifold, his mother.
"Ugh…"
The elderly Goblin stirred under her arm, no doubt roused by the rush of wind and the unsettling sense of weightlessness from the steep descent.
"There she is!"
A blinding beam of light briefly washed over Oleandra, and she glanced over her shoulder. Four goblins had crammed themselves into a cart and gone trundling down the rails after her in hot pursuit, one of them constantly adjusting its lamp to keep her in the spotlight.
"Straif!"
One of the Goblins bent low over the side of the cart, living lightning writhing in his palm. He released it onto the rails, and in a heartbeat, the current came alive, lancing and surging towards Oleandra, chasing her along the gleaming metal tracks she was sliding on.
"You're kidding, right?" Oleandra said mirthfully. "You would use my own magic against me!?"
Straif was the blackthorn tree rune, the rune closest to Faekind; a rune of misfortune and disasters… for humans, that is.
"Tinne!" Oleandra shouted.
Tinne was the holly tree rune, renowned as the Anti‑Fairy tree par excellence, its conductive needles allowing it to weather lightning strikes unscathed. It was also associated with the element of iron, whose touch poisons Faekind, though less cruelly than silver.
(Small wonder, then, that Harry's wand had chosen him; from its making, both core and wood had been bound to one fated to drive back the dark…)
Oleandra reached out and opened her palm, and the crimson lightning leapt into her open hand.
"What the!?" the Goblin spluttered. "How…"
"I believe you've dropped this, my good Goblin!" Oleandra called, cocking her arm. "Allow me to return this to you… Straif!"
And with those parting words, she hurled the lightning back towards the Goblins, forcing the cart's driver to pull on the emergency brakes to avoid it. Not expecting the sudden deceleration, the lightning-throwing Goblin went flying and crashed into a stalactite jutting out from the ceiling with a sickening crunch. Laughing wildly, Oleandra accelerated beyond the cart lamp's light and vanished once more into the darkness.
Oleandra's objective was the Lestrange vault.
Like the Malfoys and Rosiers, the Lestrange family had come to Britain with the Norman Conquest, aiding the French army in driving out the Viking Danes and their Rune Wizards— who had themselves conquered the island after the Angles and Saxons, and before them the Romans. If their stories were to be believed, the Lestranges could trace their bloodline back to Antiquity. Oleandra was inclined to believe it; her own lineage also sprang from the experiments of Roman Wizards who infused Muggles with magical creature blood for research purposes.
All that to say, the Lestranges' vault was located in the depths of the bank's underground, alongside those of the Greengrasses, the Blacks, the Malfoys, the Ollivanders, and the Longbottoms— the ancient few who yet remained amongst the richest of pure‑blood lineage…
"The Thief's Downfall!" shrieked the elderly Goblin, his eyes snapping open.
Without warning, the cavern's ceiling opened above them. Instinctively, Oleandra reached out and yelled, "Laukaz!" as a torrent of water crashed down over their heads, yet even though the rune was unresponsive, the water parted just as it was about to wet her scalp.
That had been a close call. If the water had touched her, it would have dispelled the riding rune's effects… which would have promptly made her lose control and crash into a wall. Oleandra flipped her palm, and the torrent twisted into a spiralling whirlpool, coiling about her like a tamed ferret.
"What is this!?" Oleandra hissed, holding the Goblin at eye level. "Where did you get this water!?"
"It's the Thief's Downfall!" the Goblin choked out. "We use it to strip away thieves' enchantments when they attempt to sneak in or out of the underground!"
Oleandra's eyes blazed.
"I asked you, where did you get that water!?" she screamed.
Her Authority as Lady of the Lake granted her dominion over all fresh water, though— as the title implied— her power was strongest with lake water. Without the lake rune, she would never have been able to restrain such a massive, fast‑moving torrent. That could mean only one thing: this water was far more extraordinary than even the Goblins realised…
"Gringott, the bank's founder, was notorious for his tall tales. You know he even had a ten-foot-tall statue of himself cast in solid gold, yes? He was obsessed with his legacy! Not even a tenth of his so‑called exploits has any basis in truth," the old goblin squeaked, wincing under Oleandra's golden glare. "It's just a fairytale the founder fed to his staff to impress them! We repeat the story of the bank's founding to new hires to instil them with a sense of tradition and belonging! Gringott probably just paid some human Alchemist or Potioneer to brew up the Thief's Downfall— but that hardly makes for as grand a tale, does it!? Avalon doesn't exist, don't you see?"
At this point, Oleandra had completely forgotten about the Lestrange vault's treasure. According to her History of Magic lessons, Gringott founded Gringotts Bank some time in the fifteenth century… a thousand years after Viviane's death, and some ten thousand years before Wanderer sent Avalon halfway to Niflheim.
So how, then, could he possibly have obtained water from Avalon!?
"What tale!?" she roared, and she tightened her grip around his neck, shaking him violently. "Tell me!"
Just before returning to the future last year, Oleandra had dropped her rune‑carving dagger on the island of Avalon, hoping to use it later as a beacon for Tree‑Porting. Unfortunately, that plan had failed completely— she couldn't detect the dagger at all; it had fallen beyond her sensing range, which was to be expected.
The Realm Travel Spell and the Eight Archways could bridge only the Nine Realms known to the Aesir and Vanir tribes. Avalon, stranded in the void between worlds, lay beyond the paths they had trodden… infuriatingly close to Niflheim's mists, yet still far enough that flying straight up from that realm on a broomstick would take more than a million years to reach the Isle of Apples.
Thus, Avalon was unreachable by any conventional means… yet somehow, a repulsive Goblin of all things had managed to find the lost isle where all she had tried had failed…
"I'll… tell… you…" the elderly Goblin, whose face was beginning to turn purple, gasped. "Just as soon… as… I can breathe!"