บท 412: The Mistress of Misdirection

"Accio Hermione's robes!" Oleandra shouted without thinking. "Accio Luna's robes!"

Hermione's and Luna's comatose bodies zipped towards Oleandra. She wouldn't let the two unconscious girls fall into the Death Eaters' grasp if she could help it, so she had used the first spell that had popped into her mind to get them out of harm's way. The last thing she needed was for them to be used as hostages!

"Oof!" Oleandra grunted, as Hermione and Luna slammed into her a bit faster than she would have liked. "This way, Harry!" she then cried, beckoning for him to follow her back through the doorway to the Room of Blood, while Astoria relieved her of the burden of having to carry Hermione.

"Impedimenta!" Tracey shouted, pointing her wand at the rapidly approaching female Death Eater.

Seeing the Death Eaters streaming through the many doors that he hadn't managed to seal up yet, Harry quickly scooped up the delirious Ron and dragged him along, running and ducking past the rain of hostile spells flying in his direction.

"She just keeps coming!" Tracey cried in horror. "Nothing works on her!"

Now that she was closer, Oleandra could recognize her from her wanted poster; the woman was Bellatrix Lestrange, one of Voldemort's more competent lieutenants!

"Stupefy!" the madwoman screeched.

A bolt of red light slammed into Tracey's chest, sending her reeling back through the doorway, her arms pinwheeling as she tried to regain her balance. Oleandra's protective charm had done its work to protect her, but it would now need the light of the stars to recharge its magic…

"Stupefy!" Oleandra shouted back at Bellatrix, whipping her wand at her as she retreated through the doorway.

Bellatrix was forced to stop and parry Oleandra's Stunner, giving Harry just enough breathing room to safely make it into the Room of Blood with Ron under his arm.

"Colloportus!" Harry gasped out, sealing the door behind him.

Harry's Locking Spell set in just in time. The instant his magic took hold, something heavy slammed into the door from the other side, causing it to tremble and shudder— but both the door and the Locking Spell held firm.

They were safe— for now.

"What are you looking at me for?" Oleandra hollered, as the others looked at her for directions. "Run to the exit, I'll hold them off! If you can't find the exit fast enough, get to the Space Room— the one Theo marked with a circle!"

The Room of Blood only had two doors; one that led to the Room of Brains (which was full of Death Eaters), and the one that led to the Room of Doors.

Unfortunately, without having known about the Room of Door's rotating gimmick in advance, no one in Oleandra's party had thought of marking the exit, but luckily, Theo had had the wherewithal to mark the rooms that they had already visited…

"At least let me take Looney off your hands," said Tracey worriedly.

"I'll fight with you," wheezed Harry, who was hunched over to catch his breath.

Oleandra shook her head.

"We have three fighters out of commission, but only four people who can still stand," said Oleandra solemnly. "You got your friends into this mess, so you're the one who was to take responsibility. Forget about me— it was my decision to come after you, so just go!"

Harry hesitated briefly, before nodding. He wrapped one of Ron's arms around his neck and set off towards the other side of the room, shuffling away as fast as he could with his groggy friend. Tracey and Astoria also hesitated to leave Oleandra alone, but in the end, they were forced to relent, and they hurried after Harry, carrying Luna and Hermione on their backs respectively.

"Flagrate," said Oleandra, slashing at the air with her wand, as she began drawing intricate runes in midair in fiery lines.

Functionally, without the magic of the stars to power them, these runes were completely useless— but the Death Eaters didn't need to know that! In fact, Oleandra was counting on them knowing about her runic magic…

The banging noises originating from the other room kept growing louder and louder, so Oleandra accelerated her pace, drawing so roughly that even if the runes had had a power source, they wouldn't have even worked! Eventually, the door exploded inwards, and a small army rushed into the Room of Blood— and came face to face with more than a dozen floating runes made out of incandescent flames.

"Stop, Goyle, you fool!" exclaimed Lucius Malfoy, pulling the heavyset man backwards by the sleeve. "Don't you see the runes floating about? The girl is a Runesmith— she's turned the entire room against us!"

"Aww, what's the matter, Lucius?" said Bellatrix sneeringly. "Scared of the little girl? We've all heard of the punishment you suffered at the hands of the Dark Lord after YOU let the Greengrass girl slip through your fingers…"

"You didn't see what she did to Crabbe," said Lucius through gritted teeth. "She's not human!"

Oleandra couldn't have hoped for a better spokesman than Lucius Malfoy. She'd scared the pants off him after he'd mistakenly taken the Dusk Elf's handiwork for her own and pelted him with enchanted furniture!

"Whatever," said Goyle thickly. "Jus' need ta' walk between the runes, yeh?"

And that's exactly what Oleandra was counting on.

As soon as Goyle walked past the first floating rune in his path, her Fairy Magic became active— for Greater Fairies fought using trickery and misdirection! By tricking Goyle into doing something unnecessary, Oleandra could now steal something from him!

And Oleandra chose to steal the friction under Goyle's shoes— the instant that the man took another step towards her, he was forced to perform a spectacular feat of acrobatics against his will; his feet slipping right out from under him and shooting straight up into air, causing him to flip over and bang his head on the hard floor and instantly lose consciousness.

"I never said that I had made all of my runes visible," Oleandra giggled. "You might want to look where you put your feet!"

Technically, Oleandra hadn't lied in either of these two statements.

She hadn't spoken to the Death Eaters before now, so her first statement couldn't have possibly been a lie… but her words were so misleading that the Death Eaters now believed that she had made some of her runic traps invisible!

As for her second statement, it was simply a piece of advice, so it couldn't have been a lie either. After all, it was generally a good idea to look where you were going— but in context, it sounded an awful lot like she was saying that she had placed invisible booby traps in between the visible ones!

Oleandra grinned, as she watched the Death Eaters inspecting the floor fearfully, casting Revealing Spells in vain. She had fooled them again— this was almost too easy!