"Oleandra…! Oleandra…!"
Vague, indistinct shadows swam before Oleandra's good eye. She was vaguely aware that she was sitting against something cold and damp, and that someone was shaking her shoulder, but for the life of her, she could not remember how she had come to find herself like this…
"Oleandra!"
A voice again, more insistent this time, tinged with a sort of frantic panic. The ringing in her ears was lessening. She could hear more clearly now.
"Tracey…?" Oleandra mumbled thickly. "Ugh…"
Her tongue felt as though it were made of wood, and the inside of her mouth was uncomfortably dry.
"We don't have much time," came Astoria's voice, slightly more distant than Daphne's. "We need to find somewhere to hide."
"Astoria…?" Oleandra groaned, cracking open her eye. "What's… going on?"
Oleandra's gaze fell on Daphne's limp body nearby, and the memories came rushing back. She had challenged Daphne to a duel, and she had won… and then promptly blacked out. Even so, this meant she had won the Elder Wand's allegiance. She tried pushing herself to her feet, but Tracey held her down.
"You shouldn't move too much yet," she said. "The antidote I gave you hasn't finished working yet…"
Astoria strode over to them.
"The Death Eaters tried to invade the castle, but we somehow managed to repel them," she said tiredly. "Voldemort said his army would return in twenty minutes, though, and I don't think we'll be able to hold them off this time…"
"You-Know-Who said he'd spare everyone if we handed over you, Harry, Daphne, and the Muggle-Born to him," Tracey added grimly. "Half the castle is preparing to defend against the next wave of attacks, the other half is looking for you… the corridor's blocked, but it's only a matter of time before they find the shortcut we used to reach you."
Feeling was beginning to return to the tips of Oleandra's fingers. She flexed them experimentally. The antidote was working. She could feel the heat of Daphne's heart-stopping toxins denaturing in her veins.
"What… what should we do with Daphne?" Astoria asked timidly. "It doesn't look like she'll wake up any time soon, but she's still dangerous…"
Oleandra waved away Tracey as she rose to her feet. With unsteady legs, she walked over to Daphne, crumpled at the foot of the opposing wall she had collapsed against. Figuring out what to do with her possessed sister could wait…
Hands trembling slightly, Oleandra prised Gaunt's ring from Daphne's finger and slipped it onto her own. Then she picked up the Elder Wand, which had rolled into a crack between two flagstones, a warm current shooting up her arm as her fingers brushed against it. This time, it had recognised her as its mistress.
The Elder Wand, won in a fair duel.
The Resurrection Stone upon her finger.
The Invisibility Cloak, tucked into her pocket.
"The Deathly Hallows, united once again," Oleandra murmured. "Only this time, the Elder Wand is truly mine…"
All this time, she had been striving towards achieving this minor goal, the first step towards restoring Avalon, but now that she had actually assembled all three Hallows, she found that she was utterly terrified.
What if the whole Master of Death thing wasn't real? What if the Hallows were simply unconventionally powerful artefacts, completely unrelated to each other? What if the premise of Viviane's plan had been founded upon an impossibility from the very beginning?
"Oleandra?" whispered Tracey. "What's wro—"
Tracey's voice abruptly cut off as Oleandra rotated the ring around her finger three times in quick succession. Startled, Oleandra whirled around to see what had happened to her girlfriend, but just as she was about to give a sigh of relief, seeing that she was fine, she noticed something very odd.
Though it was hard to tell at first in the semi-darkness, it seemed as though the entire world had gone grey. The flames in the relit wall sconces had frozen, and so had Daphne and Tracey. It was almost as if…
…time itself had stopped.
Oleandra looked down at the Dagaz rune she had drawn on her hand in her own blood. In this colourless world, it alone still shone with a fading crimson light.
"Holder of the Authority of the Lake."
A droplet of cold sweat trickled down her spine. How could she have possibly failed to notice the human-shaped shadow standing three feet in front of her?
"Who… what are you?" Oleandra asked uncertainly. "You're not who I wanted to summon."
Viviane, Arthur, Professor Dumbledore, Merlin, Gringott… that's who—
"Viviane cannot be summoned, for she is you," the shadow said, as though reading her thoughts. "Nor can Merlin or Arthur Pendragon, for they are not truly dead, and neither can Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, for he is otherwise indisposed and refuses your call."
Even in death, Dumbledore remained a busy fellow, it seemed. Oleandra wondered what could possibly be more pressing for a dead man than helping her right now.
In any case, it wasn't important right now, so she willed Gringott the Goblin to appear; at least from him, she would be able to learn the manner by which he had reached Avalon to steal the waters of the Thief's Downfall.
"The Goblin does not know the information you seek," the shadow said. "It found the Thief's Downfall in an underground repository below Glastonbury."
"Then bring me someone who can actually help me!" Oleandra cried. "I've sacrificed too much to turn back now!"
The shadow regarded her coldly.
"Immortal Fairy, you ask too much. The Deathly Hallows belong to the human order, yet you would demand of them their ultimate power," it said. "From birth, your kind knows not death, fears not death, cares not for death, so how can you expect to master death?"
Oleandra clenched her fists defiantly.
How dare this wispy-looking, human-shaped void in reality accuse her of not knowing the meaning of death? She had lived as a human all these years, just as afraid of dying as anyone around her!
Though she resented Merlin and Dumbledore for it, she had come to understand the value of human life as a result of their meddling. From Tracey, Daphne, and Astoria, she had learned what it meant to love and feel joy. From Voldemort, what it meant to fear, anger, resentment and hate. From Harry, hope and sadness; from Draco and Ron and the other Weasleys, laughter and joy; from Hermione and Mafalda, envy.
Oleandra was a tapestry of the human connections she had made. Each of them had left an indelible mark on her, the sum of which made her the person she was today. And it was as a human that she had chosen her path, to follow it to the end, no matter where it led.
"You are indeed human," the shadow said. "An exception will be made."
The shadow's outline blurred, and all of a sudden, one had turned into three.
"The way of might, the path of the Elder Wand," the leftmost shadow said domineeringly. "Sacrifice one of your three companions to me, and I shall grant you the power to achieve your ultimate goal."
"The way of nihility, the path of the Resurrection Stone," the middle shadow said emotionlessly. "A life for a life, Oleandra Greengrass's soul for Arthur Pendragon's. The Once and Future King shall revive in your place."
"The way of detachment, the path of the Invisibility Cloak," the rightmost shadow said quietly. "Sacrifice your magic, your Fae nature, and everything you desire shall be yours. You shall never suffer another day in your life."
Oleandra licked her lips.
In the legend of the Three Brothers, the Invisibility Cloak was obviously presented as the best choice, but in her case… she would become a powerless mortal. When she died, that would be it; she would vanish to wherever the souls of dead humans went. However… she did not want to die right now, nor did she want to kill Tracey or one of her sisters, even Daphne…
"I've made my choice," Oleandra said hoarsely.