"Wake up!" said Tracey cheerfully as she shook Oleandra's shoulder. "You're going to miss breakfast!"
Oleandra woke up with a start. The last thing she remembered was sitting down at her desk in her dormitory after returning from her patrol, and taking up her quill— she gathered that she must have fallen asleep while writing a letter to her mother about her survival.
"I'll be right there," Oleandra muttered blearily, wiping the saliva trickling out from the corner of her mouth with her sleeve.
Oleandra cast her eyes down to the parchment in front of her to take a look at what she had written— the ink had run, staining the parchment paper… and a good portion of her cheek. Annoyingly, the heartfelt part of her message was all smudged up, due to her falling asleep on her letter and drooling all over it in her sleep.
However, the part hinting at the fact that Oleandra would very much like to be paid back for the out-of-pocket expenses she had incurred by buying her own school supplies had miraculously remained intact. …And by out-of-pocket, Oleandra meant the money that she had borrowed from the little French community of rebels before leaving for the UK; it wasn't even her own money.
Oleandra remembered having had difficulty finding the right words for her letter. Every time she had tried to put quill to paper, she hadn't been able to avoid picturing how her mother had nearly killed her at birth. The Obliviator Squad had removed those unpleasant memories from her mother Iris's brain, but judging by the way she had raised her daughter, it seemed like she had instinctively retained this revulsion towards her.
In any case, Iris was still her mother, so Oleandra definitely needed to rewrite the letter— if only for her father's sake. But she couldn't send it like this. Preferably, she'd have all her wits about her when she wrote the second version.
"Here, let me get that for you," said Tracey, pointing her wand at the ink stain on Oleandra's face. "Tergeo."
Nothing happened.
"It's a dried ink stain," said Oleandra patiently, pulling out her wand. "It's Scourgify for things like this, see? Scourgify."
Nothing happened again; unless you counted the sound of Mafalda scoffing derisively. Daphne rapidly performed the spell for her, leaving Oleandra red-faced from embarrassment.
The Scouring Charm was a slightly more uncomfortable alternative to the Wiping Spell, but the soapy bubbles conjured by the spell did make quick work of the ink. And now that Oleandra was presentable, she, Daphne and Tracey joined the stream of Slytherins heading for the Great Hall, ready to start the day in earnest.
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The second day of school was promising to be a busy one. First, they had Double Charms with Professor Flitwick— like Professor Snape the previous day, he began the lesson by reminding the students of the importance of O.W.L.S.; failing them would block off career paths, so they had to be taken extremely seriously, and so on and so forth.
Of course, one could retake the examination for the failed subjects the following year if one wanted a future in that discipline, but that was one entire year wasted, wasn't it?
To many a student's relief, Professor Flitwick decided against starting the year too abruptly. Instead of teaching them new spells, he made them review spells from previous years. Since students weren't supposed to be using magic outside of school (in theory), most of them were quite rusty when school started again after two months of summer vacations.
In the second hour of class, he made them do Summoning Charms on balls, claiming that this particular spell often came up in O.W.L.s. Oleandra wasn't particularly skilled at this one, so when the ball she Summoned zoomed straight towards her hand without making things difficult for her, none were more surprised than her; she instinctively jerked her arm out of the way to avoid getting hit.
Oleandra looked at her new wand in wonder; did having a compatible wand really make that much of a difference? Spells with Viviane's wand required way less effort than her old cherry and Unicorn hair did! Had she been playing life on hard mode this entire time?
However, Oleandra soon discovered a problem with her new wand; whenever she attempted to use certain Charms, her wand would fail to produce any magic. She scratched her head in confusion; there didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it— or at least, no discernable pattern that she could identify. She'd been able to perform those Charms with her old wand, so why didn't they work with a wand she was perfectly compatible with?
There was a Hogsmeade weekend in the first week of October, so Oleandra decided she would pay a visit to the Ollivanders' branch in Hogsmeade then. Maybe a professional would be able to troubleshoot her wand's problems— it was quite old, after all— perhaps it only needed to be tuned. In the meantime, Oleandra continued practising.
"Excellent Summoning Charm, Miss Greengrass!" Professor Flitwick exclaimed as he passed behind her. "Five points for Slytherin!"
"Excuse me, Professor?" said Oleandra. "I have a question."
"Ask away!" Professor Flitwick said, beaming.
"I was wondering if you knew anything about wandlore," Oleandra explained. "I've got this new wand, but I've been having some trouble with a few spells; the Scouring and Levitation Charms, for instance."
She pointed her wand at her ball, and after a few wand flourishes, she called out, "Wingardium Leviosa!"
Professor Flitwick frowned; that had been a textbook Levitation Charm, but the ball had stubbornly remained gravity-bound. Oleandra then enumerated the other Charms that her wand had refused to produce.
"Are you quite certain the problem lies with your wand?" Professor Flitwick said hesitatingly after a moment's thought. "It's not unheard of for a Witch to have trouble using their magic after experiencing a… traumatic event."
Oleandra stared at him in disbelief. Was he really implying that…?
"There's nothing wrong with me!" she said angrily. "Look, I can do a Hover Charm perfectly well— Levioso!"
The ball floated into the air and stayed there.
"I bet could do the Levitation Charm with a borrowed wand," Oleandra continued. "Here, Sis, lend me your wand."
"No."
"It's okay, I believe you!" said Professor Flitwick quickly. "But if there is indeed a problem with your wand, it would be more prudent to ask a wandmaker."
Well that was helpful advice; Oleandra had already intended on doing that.