A pensive look settled over Viktor Krum's face. He hadn't come to cause a scene, only to celebrate an old friend's wedding— and this Cousin Barny had given him a satisfactory answer to his quarrel with the man in all yellow. He was here to have a good time, not to get into drunken fights with strangers. And speaking of which…
"You there, pretty girl," said Krum, winking at Oleandra as he turned on the charm. "I noticed you looking this vay for some time now— care to dance vith a Quidditch World Cup finalist?"
Following Krum's gaze, Luna and a disguised Harry turned to Oleandra, who had borrowed the face of a stunningly beautiful Muggle girl from the next village over on their way to the Burrow. Had she truly meant to go unnoticed, she might have chosen someone far plainer as the model for her Glamour spell— but as a Fairy subspecies, vanity remained one of her more perilous flaws.
She simply couldn't help loving beautiful things!
To make matters worse, Oleandra was wearing the same dress robes she'd worn to the Yule Ball three years earlier, now let out slightly to suit her seventeen-year-old figure, and altered by a touch of Transfiguration, so as to not be too obvious: green and silver had become gold and lilac.
"Me?" asked Oleandra, pointing at herself in surprise.
Krum was handsome in his own rough way, though the bridge of his nose was a bit crooked from the number of Bludger hits he had taken to the face.
"Who else?" drawled Krum, rising from his seat. "Come, I von't take no for an answer."
Sensing Loony's eyes on her, Oleandra decided to accept. Harry felt a flicker of disappointment as he watched 'Dahlia' rise from her seat, take Krum's hand, and follow him onto the dance floor. There was something oddly familiar about her… though he couldn't think who she reminded him of in that moment.
"Ah, you're back, Viktor!" came a rather familiar voice from the crowd of dancers. "Well, well— and who's this delightful creature on your arm?"
Oleandra's lower lip twitched in disgust as Cedric Diggory emerged from the crowd, holding the hand of Sophie Fawcett— a Ravenclaw prefect who'd been a year ahead of Oleandra. He was still as handsome as ever, despite the fact that Harry had broken his nose two years earlier with a well-aimed kick to the face after Oleandra had knocked him down.
She couldn't fathom how Cedric Diggory had managed an invitation to Bill and Fleur's wedding after siding with Umbridge's Inquisition. Then again, his father, Amos, and Arthur Weasley were old friends and neighbours— so that was probably why.
"I vos just about to ask," said Krum.
Krum was unaware of what had transpired during Oleandra's fifth year. In fact, he barely even remembered Cedric— a minor figure in his otherwise colourful life as a Quidditch superstar. To him, Diggory was merely a background character he had shared a few classes with three years earlier.
"It's Dahlia," offered Oleandra. "That's the name they put down on the guest list, anyway."
It was funny how things had turned out.
All four Triwizard Tournament rivals had reunited at last, after all these years— though none but Oleandra would ever know. Viktor Krum of Durmstrang, Fleur Delacour of Beauxbatons, and in disguise, Oleandra Greengrass and Harry Potter of Hogwarts.
"Come on, Cedric," said the Fawcett girl plaintively as she tugged at his sleeve. "I want to dance!"
"Okay, okay!" laughed Cedric. "If you want to dance so badly, then let's dance!"
After having graduated, he seemed to have dropped his façade of modesty. He certainly seemed more boisterous than before, at any rate.
The music slowed, shifting from a lively jig to a gentle waltz. Out of the corner of her eye, Oleandra saw Loony Lovegood rise from her chair and make her way to the dance floor, walking like an Egyptian. Once beside Ginny, she began to undulate her arms like jellyfish tentacles— which Oleandra guessed was an imitation of the tentacled brains from the Department of Mysteries… which was in rather poor taste, considering what had happened to Ron.
Krum placed his right hand on Oleandra's waist while she put her left hand on his shoulder, and with his left hand on top of her right, they started spinning and gyrating to the rhythm of the ¾ time of the music, making small talk about Krum's Quidditch exploits.
"You seem distracted," offered Krum— unlike Cedric, he was uncomfortable with having to talk about himself so much, despite his fame. "Vot's his name?"
With her Dusk-Elf-like grace, Oleandra had no trouble avoiding having her feet stepped on by a rather flat-footed Krum, but she kept an emotional distance from him despite their physical proximity. Her thoughts were elsewhere— she couldn't stop thinking about Tracey, even though her priority was supposed to be finding the Cloak of Invisibility and the Resurrection Stone.
Oleandra glanced over Krum's shoulder before answering. Harry had moved to her old table and was deep in conversation with the old man who'd sat opposite her… and now they were speaking to her Auntie Muriel, who had stalked over to join them.
"Her name, actually," Oleandra corrected him, smiling weakly. "I broke things off."
Wizarding society had always been a touch more progressive than its Muggle counterpart when it came to this sort of thing, so Krum barely even lifted an eyebrow to the revelation that 'Dahlia' had once dated another girl.
"I know vot that is like," sighed Krum, glancing over at Ron and Hermione, who were happily grinding against each other on the dance floor a few feet away. "Your eyes… vere they always this golden?" he added. "Pretty."
Oleandra had opened her Mystic Eyes.
There it was again— Ginny's ring was like an unending maelstrom of magic spinning around the void-like black stone mounted upon the golden band on her finger. It was tinged with dark magic, too. It seemed quite unlike what an impoverished Weasley would wear.
Could it be…?
"I'm thirsty," said Oleandra suddenly.
"Something stiff, perhaps?" asked Krum. "Firewhisky? Absinthe? Vodka? I saw some cherry cordial at the bar, I think."
"Pumpkin juice will do," said Oleandra distractedly. "Or anything with lime or pomegranate in it, really."
Lupin had drawn Arthur Weasley aside near the edge of the dance floor and was whispering something in his ear. Oleandra had no idea what they were discussing— but whatever it was, it didn't exactly inspire confidence.
As Krum went to fetch their drinks, Oleandra walked past Ginny and Luna, brushing close enough to seize a strand of Fairy magic as she passed. She tugged at the lingering misunderstanding over Dumbledore's murder, using it as fuel to steal the ring from Ginny's finger— but when she glanced down at her own hand, she saw, to her shock, that her ring finger was still bare.
It was the first time Fairy magic had ever failed her.
Oleandra turned for a second pass, thinking she might have caught the wrong strand or the wrong person by mistake— when, out of nowhere, Tonks stepped out from the crowd and blocked her way.
"Wotcher, Miss Dahlia," Tonks asked grimly. "Looking for someone? Oh, my bad— perhaps I should say… Wotcher, Miss Greengrass?"