NOVEL NEXT Chapter 413: Decoy
Daphne was suddenly jolted awake by the sound of feet stomping down the hall just outside her bedroom door. She sat up in her bed, staring blearily into the half-darkness of her room at the line of light shining through the gap beneath the door.
Her gaze then fell on Ginny's bed— empty.
Daphne swung her feet out of her bed and onto the cold wooden floor. Yawning, she shuffled sleepily to the door and opened it a sliver to peek outside. And so, the mystery of the missing roommate was instantly resolved— Ginny was lying on her belly at the top of the stairs, hiding behind the topmost stuffed House-Elf head that 'decorated' the staircase. She was quite obviously spying on the people in the Entrance Hall below.
Ginny soon noticed Daphne, and she beckoned for her to join her, putting her index to her lips; signalling for her to just keep quiet and watch.
"What's going on?" Daphne whispered tiredly.
"The Order of the Phoenix is sortieing," Ginny whispered back to her. "Something huge's happened— I'm still trying to figure out what, though."
The Order's heavy hitters were all getting ready for battle in 12 Grimmauld Place's Entrance Hall— Dumbledore, Mad-Eye, Kingsley… Tonks, Lupin and Sirius were also getting their affairs in order, with Sirius looking especially grave, yet somehow… gleeful?
"What do you reckon's happening?" Ginny asked Daphne, glancing to the side to look at her.
In the end, Ginny's question would go unanswered, because Daphne was busy having a vision.
When Daphne had painted the magical glyphs and sigils on Astoria's body to grant her the use of basic runic spells, she had also drawn on her a special spell formula based on Naudhiz, the rune of distress, to alert her if Astoria ever encountered mortal peril.
Mental images flashed before Daphne's eyes in quick succession— her little sister had nearly died half a dozen times before the alarm signal had finally reached her— as if Astoria had been trapped in a place where runic magic didn't work, before escaping to a place where it did work, resulting in the distress signal overlapping multiple times…
"Found you," Daphne hissed under her breath, as she locked onto Astoria's coordinates before the signal disappeared again. "Oleandra, you promised to keep our little sister safe, so where the Hel are you…?"
"Daphne?" Ginny asked quizzically.
Daphne jumped to her feet, ran to her room and slammed the door shut. Curious to find out what information she might have gleaned, Ginny followed Daphne back into their room, but upon opening the door, she found it to be deserted— Daphne had used her runic magic to teleport away…
Ginny's eyes narrowed dangerously.
She mechanically took out an ugly ring from her pyjama top's pocket and twiddled with it— putting her thoughts in order— before pocketing the ring and making her way downstairs, to corner Tonks while she was tying her shoelaces.
"Wotcher, Tonks!" said Ginny pleasantly. "Where are you all going, this late at night?"
Tonks let out a yelp of surprise and turned on the spot, almost tripping over her own feet. Once Tonks had regained her balance, Ginny looked her dead in the eye, attempting to invade the young Auror's mind.
"Wotcher, Ginny," said Tonks nervously. "I didn't see you there— we were just, er… fetching some milk? Yeah, that's it, milk…"
Department of Mysteries. Death Eaters. Voldemort possibly present. Harry in danger. Children in danger. Scared.
"Oi! What are you doing…" said Tonks sternly.
Ginny's heart sank. Had she overestimated her Legilimency abilities, trying to read an official Auror's mind? Had she been caught having her hand in the till?
"…out of bed this late, young lady?" Tonks concluded.
Ginny let out a sigh of relief. She'd been inside Tonks's head, so how could she have possibly mistaken this feeling of exposure—
"Off to bed with you, Miss Weasley," came Dumbledore's grave voice from behind her.
"Yes, Professor," said Ginny numbly, sweat pearling down her neck, as she felt the old man putting a hand on her shoulder— she hated being touched.
She quickly ran back up the stairs to her room, not even daring to meet the old man's eyes on the way up— those damned eyes of his, which seemed to be able to see through everything…
Ginny counted to ten, before turning on the spot and Disapparating just like Daphne had done a few minutes earlier.
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"Made you look!" Oleandra shouted. "Can't you try harder? You're making this too easy for me!"
While the Order of the Phoenix were gearing themselves up to jump to Harry and company's rescue, Oleandra was running circles around Voldemort's elites.
Trickery was quite literally carrying Oleandra through what should have been by all rights an impossible battle to win. While her Fairy magic was difficult to initiate, Oleandra had had plenty of time to think of a plan and execute it— and once she had got the ball rolling, her momentum would just keep building up.
It had been a little more than a millennium since a Greater Fairy had last walked the Earth; humanity had forgotten about Oleandra's kind a long time ago. But even if the Greater Fairies had never been banished from this world, Wizardkind was incredibly conceited— few humans would have ever taken a Fairy's magic seriously— and fewer still would have lived to regret it.
From the Death Eaters' perspective, Oleandra's magic was incredibly bizarre, to say the least— it did not rely on incantations or wand movements, nor did it emit dodgeable rays of light. It also had strange effects, like temporarily robbing them of their sight or their strength.
Such effects weren't unusual by any means when it came to spells, but the Death Eaters just couldn't figure out how her magic took effect. They had all been briefed about Oleandra's formidable runic magic, but for some reason, the magic that she was employing didn't resemble what they'd been told about…
"Come and have a go, if you think you're hard enough," Oleandra taunted the hapless Death Eaters. "Stupefy! Stupefy! Stupefy!"
Many of the Death Eaters' numbers had already been knocked out by Oleandra's Stunners, and she had robbed a few more of their sense of sight. It was becoming increasingly clear to the Death Eaters that Oleandra was simply buying time for Harry and his companions to escape— which meant that they would have to suffer the Dark Lord's displeasure when they inevitably failed their mission…
"We're wasting time!" Lucius Malfoy shouted. "Bella, forget about the girl— we need to double back and find another way around— the Dark Lord must have the prophecy, no matter what!"