Chapter 29: Cheerleading practice!
"Not like that, do it more like this! No, no, no, you're still doing it wrong! Arms to the side, keep your legs straight!"
Lit by the light of the bright morning sun, two girls floundered about under the supervision of a third; the pair seemed to be practising some sort of cheerleading routine on the freshly mown lawn, kicking up blades of grass with their movements. The air was filled with the scent of cut grass, sunlight glinted off the morning dew, and birds sang their songs from the treetops. Another beautiful summer day was starting.
Suddenly, the chirps of the birds and insects were joined by a peal of laughter. Evidently, a third party had found their artless dance quite hilarious.
The two girls were Tracey Davis and Daphne Greengrass, and the person responsible for their misery was of course Oleandra, Daphne's identical twin sister! As for the last person holding their sides in her lawn chair, it was the twins' little sister, Astoria.
Astoria had hardly ever seen her big sisters doing any sort of physical exercise, as befitted high-class ladies. So, what exactly had changed? During the twins' first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Oleandra's rune magic had helped them both through trials and tribulations. For Daphne, the older twin by exactly a minute, being inferior to her baby sister was unacceptable, so she had never quite given up on learning the magic of the stars.
One day, while Oleandra was practising her stadhas and casting her rune magic, Daphne, who was watching on the side, tried imitating her poses. To their surprise, Oleandra's cast of Thursaz doubled in potency, snapping her target dummy in half. At that moment, Daphne had seized her chance and memorized the feeling of the power flowing through her. From that moment on, she could also use the giant's strength rune, but for now, she could only do so by closing her eyes and focusing all of her mental faculties in order to picture the rune in her mind.
Oleandra didn't mind sharing the secrets of her magic with her close friends and family, for one very important reason. She believed that even if she had the magical capacity of ten of her put together, she wouldn't be able to use spells at the level of realm travel magic again. But this changed everything! If her followers had access to her magic, then the burden from using complex magic would be lessened by orders of magnitudes!
The current magical world was heavily centred around the magic of wizards. The magical wards employed by humans and goblins were designed with their magic in mind. The magic of house-elves and fantastic beasts could easily bypass the vast majority of wards, barriers and magical safeguards. This also proved true for star magic. Even Hogwarts, perhaps the most warded place in all of Britain, could not stop Oleandra's tree teleportation magic!
As long as she had enough followers, no one would be able to stop her! She could escape from any encirclement, go unhindered anywhere she liked, take anything she wanted! She could explore and plunder other worlds at her leisure. Even if her followers died, she would never be stranded off-world, since every one of the nine realms had archways that acted as permanent travel points between worlds.
But for now, she had to teach her sister and her friend, which was easier said than done. Tracey had expressed her desire to learn her magic, but she proved to be easily distracted. And right on cue, a small frumpy house-elf appeared from nowhere with a 'pop!', holding a platter of drinks.
"Young mistresses, your refreshments are ready," said Spoopey, the Greengrass family's house-elf.
"Oh good, I was getting thirsty!" said Tracey, reaching for a tall glass of chilled lemonade. "All of this moving around is quite tiresome."
"So, I was thinking," said Daphne. "When the time comes around, why don't we use your tree-porting magic to skip the Hogwarts Express and go straight to Hogwarts? It'll save us a lot of time."
"Tree-porting?" asked Oleandra. "Is that what we're calling my tree-to-tree Apparition magic now?"
"I daresay I come up with better names than you, dear sister," said Daphne lazily. "Quite catchy, isn't it?"
"We should do it!" said Tracey excitedly. "You want to create a clique, don't you? If we appear in the Great Hall during the Sorting Ceremony, we'll be sure to have the entire school talking about us!"
Oleandra wasn't convinced. If she drew too much attention to herself, then maybe the teachers would come up with countermeasures against her. Then again, after a lifetime of being ignored, she had quite liked being the centre of attention at the end of last school year.
"I have to agree with Tracey," said Daphne. "We won't go far without more backers, and I don't want to spend another year hanging around Pansy again."
"We'll vote on it," said Tracey brightly. "Let's see, it looks like it's two for, and one undecided. We win!"
Tracey and Daphne high-fived.
"Oh fine, have it your way," snapped Oleandra. "I left an engraving of Eihwaz at my seat in the Great Hall, so it is actually feasible."
"We have another month before the beginning of class," she continued. "So, you have until then to master the stances for Berkana, Raidhu, Eihwaz and Dagaz!"
As they practised, a thought suddenly occurred to Daphne.
"Sister, why don't we simply create a club at school?" she asked.
Oleandra thought it was a good idea. They had to start somewhere, after all.
"What should we name our club," asked Tracey.
"The world domination club!" suggested Oleandra. "Or the ancient runes club!"
"Are you stupid?" asked Daphne. "No one would join such a club. How about the astronomy club?"
"I believe those last two already exist," said Tracey. "We should name it the "Oleandra fan club!"
"I like that name," said Oleandra.
"You must be joking," said Daphne, rolling her eyes. "We're calling it the Starshower club, and that's final!"
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