"You know, that doesn't belong to you, Greengrass~," came a man's playful voice from behind Oleandra. "Naughty, naughty."
Startled, Oleandra jolted and whirled around on the spot. Without the usual haunted look in his eyes, it took her a moment to identify the man sitting up in his bed in the Hospital Wing, but within seconds, his name was on the tip of her tongue.
"Sirius, I almost didn't recognise you!" said Oleandra in surprise. "You're looking well."
"And you're picking pockets," said Sirius, flashing her a charming smile. "To think the heiress of the noble Greengrass family would stoop so low as to rifle through an unconscious woman's pockets…"
Even with everything going on, Oleandra was still expected to attend the next day's lessons— but without her wand, which remained stranded in the past along with the rest of her magical belongings, there wasn't much she could actually do in class.
"I lost my wand, so I was borrowing my mother's," explained Oleandra. "It's not as if she needs it to sleep, really."
Seeing as Iris Greengrass would remain in a coma for the foreseeable future, what was the harm in borrowing something she couldn't use?
"By the way, are you still going out with that coward Maxwell?" asked Sirius with a wink. "I don't normally date Slytherins, but for a girl like you, I'd gladly make an exception to my rules~"
Oleandra paused, her hands stilling over a folded pile of her mother's clothes. She'd sensed something strange in Sirius's tone earlier, but now he was acting unmistakeably out of character. Sirius Black was not the kind of man who made passes at teenage girls.
"What's my name, Sirius?" Oleandra asked tentatively, resuming her search.
Oleandra's fingers finally closed around a thin, cylindrical piece of wood. The wand had been tucked into her mother's spare clothes after all— Astoria must have slipped it in there so their mother wouldn't have to search too long for it when she finally woke up.
"What, checking if I've actually bothered to remember your name?" said Sirius with a grin. "Come now, we've shared the same Potions class for six years— of course I know your name, it's Iris."
That… wasn't quite right.
Earlier, Sirius had mentioned Oleandra's father, Maxwell Prewett— and now, he seemed to believe she was her mother, Iris Greengrass, to whom she bore a striking resemblance. This could only mean one of two things— either he needed a new pair of glasses, or his little jaunt through Niflheim had caused him to mentally revert to his Hogwarts days…
"Whoa!" shouted Oleandra in alarm, as Sirius threw off his bedcovers and swung his legs over the edge of his bed. "Are you sure you shouldn't be staying in bed?"
"Why should I?" retorted Sirius, hopping to his feet. "I feel perfectly fine— ouch."
That was certainly a new sensation— he didn't remember his knees ever popping like that, or his hips ever going crack.
"Do you remember what happened to you, Sirius?" asked Oleandra pointedly. "Actually, why don't you tell me the last thing you remember?"
Sirius's expression turned pensive, and he thought about it long and hard— which was scarcely a good sign.
"My body sort of aches everywhere, so I think I might have had an accident playing Quidditch," he said slowly, chewing his lip. "I think I remember James visiting a few times, but it's rather vague… I woke up an hour ago when that golden thing crashed through the window, but before that, it's kind of hazy…"
Sirius appeared to be suffering from amnesia— perhaps the aeons of trauma of wandering through the poisonous mists of Niflheim without protection had caused him to lose his most recent memories. As for why his body ached… it was simply because he wasn't a teenager any more!
"Hang on, I'd recognise that style out of a thousand— no one else flies like that!" shouted Sirius, suddenly dashing off and pressing his nose to the window. "James, that cheeky bastard, he's practising without me!"
Oleandra glanced out the western windows, which offered a spectacular view of the Quidditch pitch. Judging by the crimson streaks whizzing through the air, it looked like it was Gryffindor's turn to have the pitch for practice.
"Just stay in bed for now," Oleandra ordered him. "I'll go fetch Madam Pomfrey, she'll probably know what to do..."
"No, you won't," Sirius said breathlessly, dashing back to his bed to grab his wand. "If you tell on me, I'll tell that greasy teacher that you've been hiding that golden spear under your mattress— come to think of it, he looks an awful lot like Snivellus, don't you think?"
A few minutes before Professor Snape's arrival, Oleandra had managed to make Madam Pomfrey forget about Gungnir by stealing her memories with a bit of Fairy magic. She had then hidden the spear underneath her bed— just for the time being.
But unfortunately, it seemed like Sirius had seen it all happen from his bed…
"You can't go out there," insisted Oleandra.
Following the scramble battle over the prophecy orb, Dumbledore had managed to convince the Ministry to officially declare Sirius's innocence. However, due to the far more pressing news of Voldemort's return, that declaration had ended up taking the form of an extremely minor footnote in The Daily Prophet— so, most students probably still thought he was a Death Eater.
Given the chaos Sirius had caused during Oleandra's third year, the odds were high that if a demented Sirius came tearing through the halls in his pyjamas, he'd spark a full-blown panic…
"Why don't you make me?" said Sirius, flashing her a boyish grin. "No? Didn't think so… well, see you later."
Sirius turned on his heel and strode towards the exit… and that's when Oleandra noticed that he was tethered to her by an especially thick thread of magic. He literally thought she was someone else, even though they had met face to face— that added up to some serious misdirection power for Oleandra's Fairy magic!
Oleandra tentatively touched the thread of Fairy magic.
At first, she considered stealing his amnesia— but then she realised she'd be stuck with it herself, and then, there would be no guarantee she'd be able to remember to get rid of it afterwards! She then thought of stealing the very idea of going outside to see James, but then she had a better idea. With a magical connection this strong, nothing was off the table, not even his soul. Wouldn't it be a waste to use this opportunity on something as temporary as a single thought?
Oleandra's eyes glinted.
Though she and Viviane were mostly aligned with the side of goodness, the capricious Fae Folk's true nature leaned towards chaos. Their powers were the stuff of men's nightmares, feared since the dawn of humanity, and beyond the understanding of ordinary Wizards.
For a Great Fairy, what might constitute a harmless prank could easily destroy everything a human had painstakingly built over the course of his life… and with this in mind, Oleandra reached out to the invisible thread of magic and pulled— and as Sirius continued walking away from her, his figure seemed to shrink ever so slightly…