"Where do you think you're going?" said Daphne, turning around to poke Oleandra in the sternum.
"First of all, ow," said Oleandra, wincing slightly. "Secondly, Hogsmeade? With you and Tracey?"
Time had passed, and it was now mid-January. Now, to the untrained eye, it might have seemed like Oleandra had been taking it easy over the past few weeks; lazing in bed on weekends, learning prank spells, and not training for the second task in general. Now, there was a Hogsmeade outing today, and Oleandra didn't intend on missing it!
"No, you're not," said Daphne with a frown. "This is the opposite of the first task. Tracey and I have talked, and we think that beating a Dragon might have left you overconfident. Do you even have a plan? You only have one month left to figure out how to survive underwater for at least an hour."
"That's right," Tracey piped up. "We're just a little concerned about you. We know you're really strong and all, but this is a different kind of challenge; you should at least scout out the Black Lake a little. You know, just in case."
Oleandra and Tracey were practically joined at the hip; sharing all their classes, there was scarcely a moment when they weren't apart. Tracey definitely knew that Oleandra hadn't been training. Except, how could she have possibly guessed that Oleandra was now more at home in water than on solid ground?
It wasn't as though Oleandra could naturally breathe underwater; her body was still fully human. However, she had begun to awaken to an Authority, which was nothing to scoff at. Even conceptual magics were but pale imitations of Authorities, which granted absolute power over a certain domain; albeit a very narrow one: it wasn't as if she encountered lakes wherever she went.
In Oleandra's case, her identity as Lady of the Lake granted her Authority over large bodies of water. She didn't have gills, so she couldn't breathe like a fish, and she couldn't hold her breath for an hour, but she could certainly twist the definition of the word water to make it so that it became as breathable as air!
The only problem was, she couldn't explain this to anyone, not even her sister. The shadows of her past incarnations were adamant that these powers remain unexplained to those around her, as she'd have no way to explain why a human possessed an Authority over an aspect of nature.
As for Oleandra, she didn't like keeping secrets from those close to her, but she didn't relish explaining to her family that she was actually a Fairy. She was neither Changeling nor Body Snatcher, as the magic that governed her incarnations had created a twin of Daphne in her mother's womb for her soul to inhabit. But to explain that was to invite misunderstanding, and Oleandra didn't want her relationship with her family to change. She still fully considered herself a human and a Greengrass, after all.
"Come now, Sis," Oleandra said coaxingly. "You know that I've mastered the lake rune. Remember how I jumped into the Black Lake after you? You ended up safe and sound, didn't you?"
Technically, Viviane had seized control of her body temporarily when Oleandra had blacked out, but nothing she had just said had been a lie!
"Well, I daresay that's true…," said Daphne.
This seemed to convince her; after all, Daphne had grown a massive amount of hair to slow her fall from the headmaster's office, and such a mass couldn't have been easy to drag out of the water.
"How about a quick dip into the Black Lake, then?" Oleandra proposed. "I'll show you how good of a swimmer I am."
Daphne seemed to hesitate. On one hand, she wanted to make sure that her sister trained properly, but on the other, Honeydukes was closing soon. They had taken their sweet time before choosing to leave the castle! And she also wanted her brief stint as an employee at Weasley's and Weasley's to be worth the trouble; what good were Galleons if you couldn't spend them?
"A quick dip, then," Daphne finally said. "No more than an hour."
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This time around, Oleandra elected to go diving on the side of the lake to the north of the castle, as opposed to the last time she was forced to take the plunge. This part of the lake housed the newly repaired boathouse (Oleandra had destroyed it last year during her fight with Professor Moody) and it was there that first years landed at the beginning of the year after crossing the lake.
Off into the distance, the Durmstrang ship was moored in the centre of the lake, halfway between Hogwarts and Hogsmeade. It certainly looked like they didn't want any visitors; otherwise, they would have dropped anchor closer to the lakeside.
"Safer to leave them alone," Viviane cautioned. "You've got enough problems as it is, without attracting the anger of Dark Wizards-in-training."
Oleandra nodded, before stepping lightly onto the lake's surface as if it were solid ground, the water rippling gently under her feet.
"How are you doing that?" Daphne asked enviously. "I didn't even see you sign the lake rune."
"I'm just that good," Oleandra said with a smirk. "I'll see you on the other side, okay?"
"Remember, you need to be able to stay one hour under the water!" Tracey reminded her. "We'd better not see your head pop out of the water; we'll be watching!"
Oleandra rolled her eyes, before slowly allowing her body to slip under the waves; the last the two other girls would be seeing of her would be her hand waving goodbye!
It wasn't exactly the sunniest of the days today, but at least the visibility was much better than the last time she had visited. Shafts of soft light penetrated the waters in places, so it wasn't too dark. The water had a greenish tint to it; everywhere she looked, algae floated to the rhythm of the currents.
Oleandra set foot at the bottom of the lake and began walking towards Hogsmeade. She could propel herself through the water as easily as she could fly in the air, but for her first proper visit down here, she wanted to catch the sights.
"It sure is peaceful down here," Oleandra said after walking aimlessly for a while. "Almost boring, even."
Obviously, if Oleandra could breathe normally underwater, so could she speak without creating a storm of bubbles.