While not the most powerful, Perthro was perhaps the most mysterious of the twenty-four runes Oleandra had mastered over the past six years. Shaped like a cauldron tipped on its side, it was also known as the rune of the dice cup.
In some games of chance, one would rattle dice in a wooden cup before lifting it to reveal the numbers beneath— and in that fleeting moment of uncertainty, of hidden possibility, lay the very essence of its power. But once the game was over and the jig was up, uncertainty would give way to certainty, and the rune's magic would falter.
"Polyjuice ran out, eh?" said Tonks awkwardly.
"How'd you know?" asked Oleandra quietly.
The moment Tonks spoke Oleandra's true name aloud, her Glamour unravelled. Red hair darkened to black, freckles vanished, and her refined features shifted back to their true forms. Too caught up in dancing the day away, the revellers around them didn't immediately notice that the most dangerous woman alive stood in their midst.
"I lived with you and your sisters for two months," Tonks said tersely. "Did you really think I wouldn't notice you swanning about like you owned the place?"
Hands hidden in her pockets, Oleandra extended three fingers.
"So... come to finish the job, have you?" Tonks added. "Well, too bad— Harry's not here."
Oleandra's mind churned.
Tonks hadn't struck her from behind, and neither had she attacked yet— which meant she wasn't confident she could take her down in a single spell. Most likely, the last thing she wanted was to make the Dark Lady feel cornered. In her mind, that would almost certainly end in a massacre, as Oleandra fought her way out of the wedding venue.
In Oleandra's view, Tonks was buying time— stalling for the Order of the Phoenix to work out how to evacuate the guests without her noticing, while also trying to probe her for the real reason she'd crashed the wedding.
"You mean Cousin Barny, sitting over there?" Oleandra said with a wide grin. "What makes you think I haven't already made my move?"
Tonks instinctively turned to follow Oleandra's gaze—but she realised her mistake a moment too late. Oleandra lunged with inhuman speed, slamming her palm into Tonks's jaw and raking her nails across her face, drawing blood. Her fingers curled around a bundle of Fairy magic threads born of various misunderstandings and false impressions as she closed her clawed fist— and pulled.
Tonks screamed.
The music cut off abruptly as the band dropped their instruments, and the dancers froze mid-step, staring in horror. Before them stood two women— one, the familiar and reassuring figure of Auror Nymphadora Tonks… the other, a hairless, mouthless, noseless, eyeless creature, eerily featureless, with a head like a smooth, pale egg.
Using the dual misunderstanding born of Tonks's knowledge of Dumbledore's assassination and her belief that she had already done something to Harry Potter, Oleandra had stolen Tonks's innate Metamorphmagus ability to shapeshift… but had accidentally gone too far and stolen her entire face along with it.
Clawing at her face, the real Tonks stumbled blindly into the crowd of dancers, who scattered and ran away from the abomination in fear. Realising that she couldn't breathe, Oleandra strode towards her with long strides, grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her around, before puncturing her windpipe with her wand, opening an air passage.
"What's going on, Tonks?" shouted Lupin, running towards her. "Where's Oleandra—"
His eyes widened in realisation: the woman he'd taken for his wife was wearing Oleandra's robes, while the egg-headed oddity was dressed in Tonks's. He raised his wand, but Oleandra parried the silent spell, accidentally sending Auntie Muriel shrieking into the air, dangling by the ankle upside-down.
"Ingwaz," whispered Oleandra, making a diamond shape with her fingers.
Lupin felt himself irresistibly pulled to the floor— and face-planted, unable to get back up.
Chaos erupted as the wedding guests finally realised an enemy was among them. In their panic, a few tried to Disapparate on the spot— only to Apparate a few metres away, having Splinched. That reminded Oleandra: flying was all well and good, but she needed to learn how to Disapparate properly, and soon.
By now, the elite members of the Order of the Phoenix and a handful of the sharper Hogwarts-aged students among the crowd had already switched to combat mode, sending a volley of spells her way. Oleandra pirouetted lightly, deftly avoiding the brightly coloured beams.
As a master of runes, her greatest strength lay in fighting on familiar ground (or at least having prepared the battlefield beforehand) so the advantage rested firmly with her opponents. She needed to wrap this up as quickly as possible—
"Impedimenta!"
Oleandra's feet caught on something unseen, causing her to trip and topple a table as she fell, showering her in a cascade of alcoholic drinks. Using the table as cover, she glanced behind her, searching for something she could use to her advantage… and found it.
"Cambio Exuvia!" she shouted.
Oleandra's beautiful dress robes unfurled in twisting rings of fabric, spiralling anticlockwise. The bands then reversed, rotating clockwise before tightening into place in the form of her Basilisk-skin combat robes, within which hid Suit the Lethifold.
"It's the Dark Lady!" screeched Auntie Muriel! "Someone let me down!"
Tendrils of darkness slithered from Oleandra's sleeves, oozing across her body to form a tight-fitting combat suit of living shadow, impervious to most spells. Thus armoured, Oleandra burst from behind the toppled table, rolling to dodge a volley of Curses before springing to her feet and plunging her hand into a punch bowl. Her fingers closed around the hilt of the Sword of the Lake, which she drew triumphantly from the boozy, fruit-laden drink— gleaming in the sunlight, like it had been waiting for her all along.
"How could you!" Hermione's shrill voice rang out. "How could you two sisters kill Dumbledore, after everything he's done for you!? He trusted you! We trusted you! He even left you something in his will!"
Oleandra's eyes flickered between the Wizards and Witches encircling her.
Arthur, Molly, Bill, Charlie and Fleur Weasley, Harry, Ron and Hermione, Luna, Krum, Cedric and Amos Diggory, Madame Maxime… and Ginny Weasley.
"Nothing I say will ever convince you, so let's skip straight to the part where we fight to the death, shall we?" said Oleandra coolly, flicking the juice from her blade before levelling it in challenge. "Now, come and have a go if you think you're hard enough."
But right when Oleandra thought the tension couldn't get any higher, a silvery, translucent lynx bounded across the wedding venue from nowhere and opened its jaws to speak.
"The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming."