Capítulo 126: Back to Hogwarts
With a flash of light and the sound of a door slamming shut, Oleandra and Ginny stepped out of the gateway that connected Nidavellir back to Earth. Up until now, Oleandra had only known the location of one of Earth's Gateways: The Realm of the Dead, Niflheim's, Gate was linked to the Archway in the Department of Mysteries, which was in a permanently opened state. And now the question was, where exactly had this Gate sent them?
"Well, I'll be," Ginny said incredulously. "Who would have known there'd be one of those Gates here, in the Room of Requirement?"
"You know where we are?" Oleandra asked.
"The Room of Requirement: also known as the Come and Go Room, or the Room of Hidden Things," Ginny explained. "This is great for us; this room is located on Hogwarts's seventh floor!"
Hogwarts was a huge place; Oleandra didn't know every room by heart. In its current state, the Room was in energy-saving mode and item storage mode; it was dimly lit and filled with stacks of random objects up the ceiling. Under Oleandra's surprised eyes, the piles of waste began moving by themselves, clearing a path to the exit.
"And that's why it's called the Room of Requirement," Ginny said. "We probably took it by surprise by arriving from the inside; usually, it'll prepare what you need the moment you touch the doorknob to come in. Right now, you're in urgent need of medical attention, so it's clearing the way out."
Oleandra was in really bad shape, and it wasn't even the end of the school year yet. If the trend of getting worse and worse injuries continued by the time exams rolled in, she'd probably be returning home for summer in a body bag.
As Ginny helped Oleandra make her way to the Hospital Wing, they walked past the Head Boy, Percy Weasley, who did a double take when he saw them. Well, at least they hadn't ended up in the year 5,000.
Ginny and Oleandra had no idea what the date was; for all they knew, they had arrived in the far future. All in all, the two of them had spent a little under two weeks in Nidavellir, while Draco, Daphne, Tracey and Stacey had spent exactly eight days there. On Earth, they'd left on December 19th, Sunday of the last weekend of the term before Christmas vacation started.
"Ginny! And Greengrass!" Percy cried, embracing his sister. "The teachers and the prefects have all been looking for you nonstop; we were beginning to think… Mum and dad were so worried for you, Gin— Damn that Sirius Black, he'll pay for this!"
"You can let go now, Perce—" said Ginny, looking awfully uncomfortable. "Oleandra needs my help to stand; can't you see she's badly injured?"
"It'll be the Kiss for him this time, for sure …" Percy growled. "That man deserves it for all the harm he's done. When I'm minister, I swear…"
Sirius Black again. Ginny and Oleandra looked at one another, puzzled. What on earth was he talking about? And then, they realized Daphne and the others had probably blamed their disappearance on Sirius Black to avoid getting into trouble for disappearing out of the blue!
Percy conjured a stretcher out of nothing and had Oleandra lie down on it, and then he levitated it back to the Hospital Wing, where Madam Pomfrey almost had an aneurysm upon seeing Oleandra's state.
"That monster," she hissed. "How could he do this to a young girl?"
And not long after Oleandra was carried in…
"Might I have a moment to speak with Miss Greengrass while you treat her?" asked Professor Dumbledore, as he walked into the room. "I'd like to get a clear picture of what happened to her, exactly…"
Oleandra had changed out of her combat attire and changed the Lethifold into a black scarf.
"Absolutely not!" said Madam Pomfrey firmly. "Just look at the poor girl; she's been tortured! Her hands and wrists have signs of incisions; someone deliberately and methodically took their time to cut each of the tendons that allow her to move her fingers in both of her hands while making sure she didn't bleed out. She also has multiple lacerations and bruises on her face, and a deep stab wound in her left shoulder!"
"But she's not in immediate danger, is she?" Professor Dumbledore pointed out.
"Well, no," Madam Pomfrey admitted. "But the girl's taken a Wiggenweld potion in order to heal herself enough to escape. It's not made to heal that sort of damage; I'll need to detach and reattach everything properly; it'll take some effort even for me to heal her."
At that moment, Oleandra and Ginny received a telepathic message from Daphne; having heard of their return, Daphne had sent the details of their lies via the Galdr of Faraway Communication. It would certainly be very convincing if both sisters got their stories straight without having even met!
"It's fine, I can still talk," said Oleandra weakly. "What do you want to know?"
"I'd like the whole story, starting from the moment you left Madam Rosemerta's fine establishment with Miss Stacey Pullman," Professor Dumbledore said. "And the reason why night fell over Hogsmeade for about a minute at around noon."
"Well, Stacey's my friend from primary school," Oleandra explained. "I wanted to show her the Shrieking Shack, and then we ran into Draco, and then—."
"Miss Pullman lives in Hogsmeade, couldn't she have visited it at any time she pleased?" asked Dumbledore suddenly. "And Mr. Malfoy, he doesn't care that you have Muggle friends? My, what a surprise…"
"She's still a little scared of magic, understandably," Oleandra retorted. "And Draco obviously doesn't know; Hogsmeade supposed to be an all-Wizard village. Now, where was I? Crabbe and Goyle went off to buy some candy or something, but the instant they left, we were attacked from behind by Sirius Black!"
"You saw his face?" Dumbledore asked.
"Well, no," Oleandra admitted. "But who else could it have been? Anyway, I used a special spell to make it night to reduce visibility so that we could run for it, but he still got us in the end."
Daphne had added a little bit of plausible deniability to her story, just in case the Ministry didn't execute Sirius Black immediately upon capture.
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