章 86: The Wager
"Aww," said Daphne, sitting down next to her sister. "I missed the Sorting Ceremony."
She looked around, trying to find her little sister.
"Say," asked Daphne. "Where's Astoria? I can't see where she's sitting."
Wordlessly, Oleandra pointed at the Gryffindor's table. Daphne followed with her eyes the invisible line Oleandra had drawn with her finger, finding Astoria at the end of it. Somehow sensing she was being stared at, Astoria stopped talking to the person next to her to wave at her sisters.
"Mother's going to kill you," said Daphne.
"You mean she's going to kill us," corrected Oleandra.
Daphne was about to say something, but Professor Dumbledore signalled for the room to be silent. For an ancient man, he certainly was very imposing. As Slytherins, the Greengrass twins possessed a healthy lack of respect for any form of authority, but somehow Dumbledore managed to get them to stop bickering long enough to hear him out. The greatest Wizard of his era inspired respect in both allies and enemies.
The headmaster began his speech by welcoming everyone to another year at Hogwarts. Then, on a more serious note, he told his audience that Azkaban's Dementors would be guarding the school until further notice. Thus, under no circumstance should students attempt to leave school without permission, as Dementors were unlikely to spare whoever they caught.
Dumbledore then introduced two new teachers. The first was Professor Lupin, who Oleandra already knew was going to be teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts. Oleandra clapped politely for the teacher dressed like a homeless man. To her surprise, the next new professor was someone she already knew; it was the groundskeeper, Hagrid! The Gryffindor table erupted in applause, and Oleandra could see the man mountain blush from where she sat.
So that's who had made her buy the Monster Book of Monsters! How very like Hagrid. Oleandra remembered very well how the man had raised a gigantic three-headed dog and a dragon hatchling in her first year. Who knew what other dangerous things he had raised during his many years at Hogwarts?
Incidentally, Oleandra had learned a very important lesson when she had unsealed the course book from its bindings; which was to not open the book, as it had bit her fingers as soon as it went free. After that, she had inscribed the partnership rune Ehwo on it, and it hadn't attacked her since. Oleandra still winced at the thought of the amount of paper cuts this book had given her.
And finally, Dumbledore said the most important thing that evening:
"Let the feast begin!"
After having come into close proximity to the Dementors' chilling presence, everyone was eager to get something warm in their bellies. Oleandra dug into the food item closest to her, a turkey leg, and gulped down some raspberry juice. It seemed that no matter how much magic was used to prepare it, turkey would still inevitably end up unpleasantly dry. To Daphne's disappointment, there was no key-lime pie for dessert, only pumpkin pie, which concluded the feast.
With full stomachs, the content students set off for their respective common rooms to sleep the night away.
"That's right, I forgot to ask," said Oleandra, once they had settled into their dorms. "Which courses did you end up removing? That's what Professor McGonagall wanted with you, right?"
A look of distaste appeared on Daphne's face.
"No, I'm still taking all the courses," she answered. "It's just that… Ah well, you'll figure it out soon enough."
She ignored Oleandra's face full of question marks and plopped into her bed.
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The next day, as the Slytherins were coming up from the dungeons to the Great Hall for breakfast, Draco decided it was the perfect moment to start a rendition of Dementor makes Potter faint, starring Draco as Harry. To be fair, it was a very funny impression, but Oleandra had also briefly lost consciousness when a Dementor had attacked her, which made the act a lot less amusing to her. It was a good thing nobody knew apart from her friends.
"Give it a rest, Draco," Tracey Davis told him. "Dementors are no laughing matter. You felt it too, right?"
"Give it a rest, Draco," Pansy repeated in an insulting tone. "Who are you defending, anyway? Go back to your mistresses, servant girl."
"I am not anyone's servant girl!" Tracey said hotly.
"Come on, Tracey," said Oleandra. "She's not worth the effort."
"What's the matter?" sneered Pansy. "Dementors make you faint, too?"
Oleandra seized up slightly. Was that woman clairvoyant, or something?
"Oh?" Pansy said, laughing. "Did I guess right? Which one of you was it?"
"Pansy, that's enough," said Draco, frowning. He hadn't intended for his antics to bounce back on his friends.
"None of us fainted," said Oleandra, turning back to face Pansy. "And to prove it, I'll make the first Dementor I see make a cartwheel. That should be enough to convince you, right?"
"Why are you taking this so seriously, Greengrass?" said Pansy, laughing contemptuously. "But if you want to insist on making a fool of yourself, by all means."
And upon saying these words, she took Draco by the arm and they went on ahead.
"Masterfully done, Sister," said Daphne lazily as they reached the Great Hall. "She led you by the nose the entire time, and now you've made an impossible promise. You're not a clown, you're the entire circus!"
"Oh, but it's not impossible," snickered Oleandra. "I've made a deal with the Dementors. They'll do anything I ask, because I have something they need."
As they sat down for breakfast, an older student passed them their class schedules. Oleandra peered over her sister's schedule, curious to see how she was supposed to fit twelve classes inside one week.
"Daphne, how is this even remotely possible?" she said. "Look, you've got subjects overlapping. Just this morning, you have Divination, Muggle Studies and Arithmancy, all in the same hour."
"So?" asked Daphne pointedly.
"So, there's not enough of you to go around!" argued Oleandra. "How are you going to be in three classes at once? What are you going to do, split yourself into three?"
Now that Oleandra thought about it, Ehwo, the rune of loyalty, trust, and partnership, was also called the Twins. Maybe Daphne had found a way to duplicate herself?
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