Thankfully, Oleandra didn't have to search long before finding her personal belongings in the lockbox at the foot of her hospital bed. A brief look inside her pouch confirmed that anything remotely dangerous had vanished; all that remained were her schoolbooks— including The Book of the Stars and Dumbledore's diary— a collection of sticks from various types of wood, and a handful of marked acorns.
So, to add to the list of artefacts she'd lost— besides the Elder Wand and the Resurrection Stone, which Daphne had confiscated herself— there were her yew-wood wand, a bundle of fireworks she doubted would still work after her plunge into the Thames, her Basilisk-skin robes, her potions, her Nimbuses 2000 and 2001, and her Hand of Glory.
"This is quite the pinch I've found myself in," Oleandra muttered to herself, gnawing nervously at her thumbnail. "I've lost most of my arsenal…"
Oleandra snapped her fingers, replacing the flowing white hospital robes she'd been dressed in with her school robes, by means of the Quick-Change Charm. While she was at it, she checked whether she still possessed the last of the three Hallows; thankfully, the Invisibility Cloak had been tucked safely away in her pocket dimension at the time of her apprehension, so it hadn't been taken from her.
Even with the Book of the Stars floating before her, its pages fluttering in anticipation of battle, Oleandra still felt uneasy. You-Know-Who wasn't the kind of enemy she could face empty-handed; unlike the Death Eaters, he was capable of chain-casting the Killing Curse as easily as he breathed. No matter how many Elhaz runes or Ægishjálmur Lokks she layered on top of each other, Avada Kedavra would pierce through them all like a hot knife through butter…
And speaking of piercing…
"Gungnir!" Oleandra called, thrusting out her hand.
A crack of thunder outside answered her, and she sighed in relief— Wanderer's Sure‑Striking Spear was coming. She could hardly have asked for a more dependable weapon, save perhaps Aerondight, the Sword of the Lake… but Oleandra could feel that Astoria was wielding it, and she would not deprive her sister of her blade in the midst of a battle.
"I'm so sorry, Tonks…" Oleandra murmured, her gaze lingering on the woman she had laid upon the bed. "You didn't deserve an end like this…"
That was putting it mildly, Oleandra ruefully thought to herself, almost immediately.
Without hesitation, she had stolen the powers Tonks had been born with, never once stopping to consider how tearing away something so integral to her very identity might wound her, and then she'd left her to her fate and never looked back. In the end, Tonks had died just like that, without the slightest fanfare, without any of her close ones present to witness her last moments…
Oleandra shook her head. There would be time for regrets later.
…
"There it is again," said Thorfinn Rowle, pausing on the stairs to the fifth floor. A flash of light flared through the dark stairwell, followed two seconds later by the deep crack of a thunderclap. "Thunder, in the middle of a snowstorm."
"What are you, a Weather Wizard?" Antonin Dolohov replied mockingly. "What do you care, Thorfinn?"
The Death Eater scowled at his comrade.
"I'm just saying," Rowle said, annoyed. "I've never seen anything like that before."
Ever since Dolohov and Rowle had let Potter and his pals slip right through their fingers a few months earlier, the pair had lost their master's favour.
Tonight was meant to be the Dark Lord's moment of crowning glory, the hour when he would at last destroy the prophesied Chosen One, and yet they'd been reduced to patrolling the upper floors, ensuring no Healers or patients remained behind to witness the triumph they themselves had been denied.
"Patrolling's a job for the Heliopaths!" Dolohov grumbled, as light briefly flooded the stairwell once again. He continued ascending the stairs. "We should be there— watching the Dark Lord finish off Potter once and for all!"
The deep rumble of thunder rolled again, nearer this time.
"Yeah, that doesn't sound very fair to me."
"Exactly!" Dolohov said animatedly. He abruptly stopped in his tracks. "Wait, who said that!?"
Dolohov turned on his heel to see Rowle's outline in the darkness twitching at the foot of the stairs, a gleaming spear buried in his thigh, forcing him down on one knee even as his body convulsed with spasms…
"Thursaz!"
Feeling as though he'd been struck in the back by an invisible fist the size of a small lorry, Dolohov tumbled down the stairs, crashing into Rowle and sending them both sprawling, before ending his fall headfirst against the wall at the landing with a sickening crack.
Groaning in pain, Dolohov dragged himself upright, only to lose his balance and land heavily on his backside. Dizzily, he watched as a lithe girl dropped from the ceiling onto the steps, stooping to retrieve the wand he'd lost. Her eyes, he noticed as his consciousness faded, gleamed gold in the dark, almost like a cat's…
"Legilimens," Oleandra said coldly, pointing Dolohov's wand at Thorfinn.
Thorfinn scarcely had enough of his wits left about him to resist her spell, and before long, a stream of images unfolded before her mind's eye. She saw him flying in formation with the other Death Eaters amidst the swirling snow, You‑Know‑Who leading the charge… she saw them landing in the street outside St Mungo's, where the Healers waited anxiously, then entering the hospital… and looking deeper still…
"Tonks was telling the truth," Oleandra murmured to herself. "You-Know-Who already knows Harry is in the hospital…!"
The Death Eaters had publicised Ron's admission to St Mungo's, dressing up his hospitalisation as anti‑Muggle‑Born propaganda… and though Harry must have known it was a trap, he had blundered straight into it all the same, dragging Hermione and Sirius to their doom along with him in his folly…
Oleandra threw the Invisibility Cloak over her shoulders as she descended the stairs four steps at a time. Second floor; she burst out of the stairwell and accelerated her pace, the wards turning into a blur as she ran through the corridor…
…and then her blood seemed to freeze in her veins as she saw Harry kneeling at You‑Know‑Who's feet, his wand lying broken on the cold stone floor. Sirius was on the floor too, bleeding out, while Hermione screamed and struggled in Bellatrix's arms…
Oleandra swept off the Invisibility Cloak.
All eyes turned to her as Gungnir crackled with golden lightning.
Eyes widened in shock; hands plunged into robes, fumbling for wands; Voldemort was already turning towards her, wand raised, but it was too late. The Sure‑Striking Spear had already left Oleandra's hand, hurtling through the air and punching clean through Voldemort's Shield Charm, pinning him to the Death Eater at his back.
Voldemort was shouting something now, a thin line of blood tracing the corner of his mouth.
"Avada Kedavra!" Oleandra roared.
"NO!" screamed Bellatrix.
Bellatrix hurled Hermione to the floor and sprang before Voldemort, arms outstretched, but the Death Curse shot straight through her fingers, the green light striking her master full‑on and cutting short his deranged rant.
For a breathless instant, time seemed to stop as everyone stared in stunned silence. Voldemort's body began to crumble to dust, his livid, serpent‑like face twisting in fury… the last to fade before his dark robes collapsed inwards and crumpled to the floor…
BOOM!
With an inhuman screech, a dreadful wraith with a human face burst from the heap of clothes, and before anyone could draw breath, the snakelike column of roiling black brimstone tore through the ceiling and vanished before everyone's shocked eyes.