บท 76: An Unfamiliar Ceiling
Oleandra's eyelids flickered. Moments later, her eyes were wide open. She sat up with difficulty in her bed, wondering where she was. She wasn't in her dorm room at Hogwarts, and she certainly wasn't in her bedroom at Greengrass manor.
She tried to remember the last thing she had been up to. She, Daphne, Ron and Harry had defeated the Basilisk. They had talked with Professor Dumbledore, and then… nothing.
Oleandra looked down at herself. She was wearing a hospital gown, which meant… St Mungo's? Looking to her side, she could see a whole pile of get-well cards. Well, that settled it. She had been hospitalized.
"Oh hey, you're finally awake," said a familiar voice to her left. "It's been ten years, you know."
"That lie would be slightly more believable," said Oleandra, "if you didn't look exactly the same as the last time I saw you, Sister."
Daphne was sitting at her side, reading a book.
"I've got the constitution of a Wood Nymph," she said. "If I'm anything like the common yew, I'll live to be three thousand, they said. Which also means I'm ageing thirty times slower than you, you pitiful mortal."
Oleandra briefly panicked, feeling her skin and studying her fingers. They felt and looked like they always had.
"Wait, you're messing with me," she pouted. "You've got terrible bedside manners."
"Well, yes," Daphne admitted. "But I wasn't lying about my three-thousand-year lifespan and my slowed ageing. But they also said that for a young tree, I was perfectly healthy, so I'd take all of that with a grain of salt. I am pretty unique, you know."
Oleandra simply rolled her eyes.
"By the way, we've been given a whole pile of homework," Daphne said. "Better get started now, if you want to enjoy summer vacations. You've already missed the last three weeks of school and the first few days of July."
Daphne paused, before saying in a small voice, "I thought you'd never wake up, stupid."
"Well, I'm wide awake now," said Oleandra, with a small smile.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
A few hours later, Oleandra finally learned why they were being kept here. The aftereffects of channelling power beyond her means had been severe. She herself had suffered massive internal bleeding and tissue damage, as well as some nerve damage. Thankfully, those were all problems that could be healed with magic, as those injuries weren't caused by dark magic. There was a silver lining, though, her magic circuits were now completely normal for a girl her age, which meant she should have no more problems casting ordinary magic when it came to channelling enough power.
As for Daphne, her enhanced constitution had mitigated most of the damage she had taken when Oleandra had shared her burden with her, but there was still some damage. At first, the Healers had wanted to reverse what Daphne had done to herself by imbibing a strange potion, but when they heard that Ovid's Tincture was one of its components, they immediately gave up, and instead decided to simply monitor her condition. Daphne didn't want them to turn her back, either.
After the nurses and Healers were gone, and her family members had visited, Daphne filled her in on what she had missed. There had been a grand funeral for Gilderoy Lockhart. Witches from all over the world had come to Hogwarts to mourn him and his patented smile. The last exam had been cancelled, and Gryffindor had won the House Cup, since all of the participants in the battle in the Chamber of Secrets had been awarded one hundred points.
"Dumbledore also gave a hundred points to Granger," Daphne complained. "It's not fair, she didn't even do anything except identify Slytherin's creature, and how it moved about the school. I mean, we were pretty close with our Gorgon and Cockatrice guesses."
"I see," said Oleandra. "Well, it did lead to Harry guessing the location of the entrance."
"I suppose so," sniffed Daphne.
Silence fell over the pair, punctuated only by the sound of quills scratching on parchment, as the two girls continued on with their summer homework.
"Witch Burning in the Fourteenth Century Was Completely Pointless — discuss."
Oleandra frowned. This essay had to be how many feet long? This was overkill! When had Muggles ever been relevant in Wizarding society? Well, that was the conclusion the essay was trying to lead the students towards, she supposed. She started writing.
Nearly four hundred years after the foundation of Hogwarts and two hundred years before the signing of the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy, Wizards in Europe had never been stronger—
Hang on, that wasn't right. Oleandra rephrased her essay, vanishing the ink from her last few words.
—Wizards in Europe had never been more united. With the standardization of magical learning, magical communities popped up all over the continent, and the average level of Wizards was raised nationwide. With no restrictions in place, Muggles were exposed to magic more than they ever had been before. As skirmishes happened more and more, Muggles became terrified of Wizards and started hunting them down. Fortunately, most Wizards and Witches that had graduated from Hogwarts had mastered the Flame-Freezing Charm, which saved them from the pyres of their would-be butchers. The following is a list of events that—
"Coming through!" yelled a voice from the hall just outside the twins' room.
Oleandra winced; a loud trumpeting sound resounded through her eardrums. Were they bringing an elephant in, or what?
She slipped out of her bed and peeked out the doorway, just in time to see a familiar face on the cot that had just passed her room.
"Stacey Pullman?" Oleandra breathed. "What in the world is she doing here? And why does she have an elephant's trunk for a nose?"
"Did you see what was making that infernal racket?" Daphne called out from her bed.
"I just saw the strangest thing," said Oleandra in wonder. "Stacey Pullman, here. And she has an elephant's trunk attached to her face."
"Pullman?" said Daphne thoughtfully. "I don't recognize that name. A Muggle-Born? Who's she?"
"She's a Muggle, someone I knew from primary school," said Oleandra. "That's such a coincidence, I used to be so jealous of her nose, and now…"
"What's wrong with your nose?" asked Daphne, sounding slightly miffed. As identical twins, their noses were obviously the same.
"Nothing!" Oleandra answered quickly. "But still, how strange…"
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