For seemingly no apparent reason, Oleandra was suddenly overcome with the urge to see her sister soaring through the air, so midway through her impassioned plea, she blurted out, "Stairs, up!"
The staircase linking the ground floor to the first suddenly tilted ninety degrees to connect the first floor to the second, catapulting Daphne straight into the sky, much to her surprise. Oleandra, who had landed higher up to confront her, was affected to a lesser extent; she toppled backwards just as a beam of green light flashed past, striking the step between her legs and scorching it black.
"Lucky me," Oleandra muttered to herself as she leapt to her feet.
She whirled around to face Ginny, now wandless and glancing over her shoulder, at her brother standing just behind her, his wand levelled at her, his face stricken with grief beyond words. His hand was trembling; he clearly knew what he ought to do, but he couldn't bring himself to do it…
"Ginny," he said, his voice quavering. "You… behind you!"
"Idho!" Oleandra shouted, raising her wand.
Oleandra's yew‑wood wand grew unbearably cold beneath her fingers, trembling as it answered her invocation of the yew rune, the ancient magic of the Ogham resonating with Viviane's Fairy Wing, the wand's core. Ginny raised Gryffindor's sword in defence, but no visible spell burst from her opponent's wand.
Instead, a wave of unearthly chill swept over her, and she stiffened.
She recognised the word Oleandra had spoken; it belonged to an older, altogether different kind of magic than the runes she usually employed. It was the same ancient power Ginny herself had once invoked to forge a new silver hand to replace the one she had lost— the ancient magic of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the Ogham craft of Nuadha Airgetlám… Nuadha of the Silver Hand!
Ginny's prosthetic hand turned coal‑black, and the chill that had gripped her bones vanished as her sacrificial offering crumbled to ash in her place. Gryffindor's sword clattered to the ground as her right hand vanished. She still felt as though she had half a foot in the grave, but at least she was alive.
"What the Hel do you think you're doing, Ron?" Oleandra gasped, her face ashen. "Your sister's the Heir of Slytherin! She said so herself! I'm not the enemy, here!"
The effort of summoning even a fraction of the world of the dead had completely exhausted her. Blood trickled freely from her nostrils, showing no signs of stopping. She couldn't stop shivering; she couldn't even feel her fingers or her toes any more.
"I don't know…!" Ron stammered, his wand wavering between Ginny and Oleandra. "I don't know what to think any more!"
…
Meanwhile, above them, Loki and Daphne were locked in mortal combat, though of a most unconventional kind. Daphne wielded all of Voldemort's experience and once‑in‑a‑generation skill, yet for all her efforts she could not land a single blow on her opponent, who had leapt into a portrait and vanished from the physical world.
The occupants of the Grand Staircase's portraits had long since abandoned their frames, fleeing from painting to painting in search of safety. In their place, innumerable copies of Draco's infuriatingly handsome face now smirked down at Daphne, taunting her as she blasted them one after another.
"Pestis Incendium!"
Daphne swept her wand in wide circles above her head, summoning a raging inferno. From the flames rose Fire Serpents, Phoenixes, Hellhounds, Qilins, and Dragons, all twisting together until they fused into a single colossal Fire Salamander. At her command, it skittered across the walls, the portraits erupting into flame as it passed, leaving a blazing trail in its wake. Where any ordinary Dark Wizard would have already lost control, Daphne held the maelstrom of flames in perfect check, birthing order from chaos!
"You'll run out of portraits sooner or later, Draco Malfoy," Daphne said coolly, twirling her wand like a conductor's baton. "There's nowhere left to run."
Daphne cast a glance below. The fighting between the Gryffindors, the first Horcrux and Oleandra Greengrass had ceased, though none of them seemed to have died just yet. Her lip curled in disgust. Voldemort's younger self was intolerably weak, unbefitting of the title Dark Lord…
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a flicker of movement below. Students were spilling out of the Reception Hall into the Grand Staircase Tower, but they could go no further— the stairs refused to lower themselves to let anyone through. They could only gape and point at the spectacle above as the Fire Salamander blazed its way across the tower's walls…
Daphne had no doubt that Professor Snape would soon be forcing his way through the crowd, ready to take to the air and put an end to their duel before the castle went up in flames. He was a valuable pawn, and before he got himself hurt in the crossfire, she needed to end this once and for all.
"You can keep hiding, for all I care," she called out to her opponent. "The flames will flush you out sooner or later."
Daphne leapt into the void below, her wand trained on Oleandra. Draco Malfoy was nothing but a distraction; the only one who needed to die was the vessel's sister. Her power to summon that invincible, relentless phantasmal dragon was too great a threat— and according to legend, the Elder Wand could only be mastered by shedding her lifeblood.
"Turning your back on your opponent?" Loki called, even as the last of his portraits went up in flames. "Unwise."
Without warning, every shadow in the tower stretched, faded, and vanished as a brilliant golden light burst from above, extinguishing all fires and Banishing the Fire Salamander. Oleandra, Ron, Ginny, Neville, Seamus, and the other onlookers below shielded their eyes as it grew ever harsher; even Daphne turned in midair, squinting through the torrent of gold cascading from overhead.
"Oleandra Greengrass, you really must keep a closer eye on your possessions… you took my Invisibility Cloak, so I took your most precious treasure, it's only fair…" Loki's magically amplified voice rang out, carrying a note of admiration. "Not even my wand, Lævateinn, Thor's hammer Mjölnir, or Father's lance Gungnir can compare with this weapon you've forged…"
"No… it can't be…" Oleandra muttered dizzily. "Viviane, you couldn't have…"
There Loki stood, on the seventh floor, wreathed in golden light…
"…the Sword of Promised Victory, Excalibur."
Oleandra's eyes widened. She had no idea why or how it might help— but now was the time!