The Lockhart family home was a charming little cottage near Dover, commanding a splendid view of the White Cliffs along the coast. As Oleandra walked up the little path to the house behind Ron and Hermione, she glanced towards the sea. Despite it being an otherwise bright, sunny day, a wall of unnatural mist hung over the Channel, concealing France on the far side from view.
"Told you I could do it," Ron was saying to Hermione smugly.
Much to his own surprise, Ron had actually managed to bring Oleandra and Hermione along via Side-Along Apparition on his very first try, despite not even knowing what his destination looked like. Having the woman that he loved watching him had done wonders for his Three D's of Disapparition.
Especially the D in his trousers.
"I knew you had it in you," Hermione cooed as she brushed against him, in a rather un-Hermione-like manner. "My Wonwon…"
"Oh, stop…"
With the third wheel, Harry, out of the way, the stupid couple had let go of the reins and begun openly flirting with each other, almost forgetting that Oleandra was walking behind them… and that for all they knew, they were about to walk into an ambush.
And speak of the devil, there was the welcoming committee…
"Stop," Oleandra said, as the cottage door swung open to reveal a middle-aged woman and Ron and Hermione reached for their wands. "She's a Muggle."
"Are you my brother's friends?" she called out cautiously.
"Er, we were told to come here?" Ron said uncertainly. "Are you… the collaborator?"
The Muggle woman glanced around furtively before giving a terse nod and beckoning them inside. By this point, Ron's ego had swollen to roughly the size of the house they were about to enter. With Harry out of the way and two beautiful girls at his side, he felt— if only for once in his life— as though he were the main character.
And this covert, spy-like business… it was all very thrilling.
"This is a Wizard's home," Oleandra remarked lightly as she stepped inside, taking in the assorted newspaper cuttings of Gilderoy Lockhart's exploits framed on the walls, along with the bubbling cauldron on the wood-burning stove in the kitchen.
"Witch, actually, that's Mother's stuff," the middle-aged Muggle woman corrected her. "My sister and I moved in when London fell. Even though we're both Squibs, she's always handled everything magic better than I ever could."
The Lockhart woman showed them into the living room, where another woman that looked remarkably similar to her, only slightly older, was lazing on a divan, reading a book. Unlike her sister, Oleandra perceived a faint magical aura about her, though it was all muddled and stagnant.
"Huh," Oleandra said.
Even though both sisters were technically Squibs by virtue of blood and magical law, one was magical, while the other was not, which was why Oleandra had initially taken the one who had greeted them at the door to be a pure Muggle.
Apparently, the younger daughter had inherited no magical ability from her Witch mother, while the elder daughter had inherited magical blood but, unfortunately, suffered from the birth defect that left her unable to use it… making them, respectively, a false Squib and a true Squib…?
Whatever the case, it stirred no more than a passing interest in Oleandra. Either way, they couldn't use magic; it was just that one could see Dementors and ignore Muggle-Repelling Charms, and the other could not.
"Your brother?" Hermione asked quizzically, tearing her gaze away from The Daily Prophet clippings adorning the walls to look at the two sisters in turn.
"He was always Mother's favourite," the elder sister said bitterly. "Gilderoy Lockhart— explorer, adventurer, hero, bestselling auteur… Wizard. When she heard he had passed away, the shock was enough to make the old crone's heart give out on the spot."
Oleandra sniffed at the air. There was no potion brewing in the cauldron on the stove, as she had first assumed. Judging by the pungent smell, it was… fish soup?
"But he's dead," Ron said, rather tactlessly. "He was eaten by a Basilisk— what, five years ago, was it?"
"If only; he hasn't stopped being insufferable ever since he came back from the dead," the younger sister sighed. A door creaked open behind them, and she added, "That'll be him, I reckon."
Oleandra, Hermione, and Ron whirled around, while the younger sister went to sit beside her sibling on the divan. Ron glanced about in confusion, unsure whether he ought to focus on the Lockhart sisters behind him or on the person who, by the sound of it, was hanging his cloak on a clothes rack in the vestibule.
"I'm baaack! Are they here yet?" a voice came from the entryway. "I had to step out for a mo'… Ghastly business with some Giants rampaging in Newark-on-Trent… I rescued a few Muggles, but I was covered in Giant slobber, disgusting stuff…"
Hermione clapped her hands to her mouth in shock as Gilderoy Lockhart strode into the living room. His wardrobe seemed only to have grown more elaborate and gaudily golden over the years, though it was difficult to tell quite how fine his attire was beneath the gobs of slime coating his body from head to toe, matting his golden curls flat.
"Ah," Gilderoy blurted out.
He fumbled with his clothes and clumsily drew an ivory mask from his coat pocket. He tried to place it upon his face, but it merely slid off the slime coating him and fell to the floor. He stared at them with a sheepish, awkward half-smile.
"We've already told them who you are," the elder sister said lazily. "You are going to clean up that mess you made in the hall later, I hope?"
"Professor Lockhart! You really are still alive!" Hermione squealed excitedly. "Please, allow me— Tergeo!"
Hermione pointed her wand at him, causing him to flinch, and all the grime and slime slipped away from his body, siphoned into the tip of her wand as if it were a vacuum cleaner.
"To think that all this time the world believed you dead!" she babbled on, her voice brimming with fervour. "And all the while, you were actually working undercover on Dumbledore's orders to discover You-Know-Who's secrets! Thank goodness you're still alive!"
"…yes!" Gilderoy blurted out.
Ron's expression turned ugly.
"Oh, good," he muttered. "Thank goodness he's alive."