The gargoyle guarding the moving spiral staircase to the Headmaster's office had a habit of changing places for no apparent reason. Oleandra's personal theory was that a former Headmaster harbouring a deep dislike for children had enchanted it to make finding his office just difficult enough to deter students who wanted to petition him— while still technically keeping his office accessible.
In her experience, Oleandra had seen the gargoyle turn up on the second, third, fifth, and seventh floors, though she had always reached it from the third whenever Dumbledore summoned her. Fortunately, she didn't have to stray far from Moaning Myrtle's bathroom on this occasion, as she caught sight of the Gargoyle Corridor just as she was about to head upstairs to the third.
The Reflection Doppelganger walked up to the golden gargoyle at the end of the corridor, Oleandra following invisibly in her shadow, matching her footsteps with hers.
"Sleekeazy's Hair Potion!" the Reflection Doppelganger brightly told the gargoyle.
Oleandra sighed.
Professor Snape hadn't actually told her the password; though he had summoned her for eight o'clock sharp, he clearly meant to waste her time by making her wait. As much as she wanted to blast the gargoyle to smithereens, she suspected it was enchanted to withstand at least ten times the maximum damage output she could muster.
After what felt like an eternity, the gargoyle finally came to life and stood aside, allowing the invisible Oleandra and her very visible clone to pass through. They stepped onto the smooth, stone spiral staircase that carried them up to the Headmaster's Office… which had clearly undergone renovations. The bookcases remained, but the silvery instruments that once whirled, spun, and whistled were gone, as was Fawkes's perch.
"Come in."
Professor Snape was sitting at his desk, but out of the hundreds of portraits on the walls, Oleandra couldn't help but notice the large portrait of Dumbledore hanging behind him, staring down at her clone with mournful eyes.
"Do you know why I've summoned you to my office?" asked Professor Snape quietly.
"No," said the clone, "but I've a feeling you're about to tell me."
A fleeting expression of anger crossed Professor Snape's gaunt features.
"A woman who looked exactly like you appeared in the middle of the Great Hall with Ronald Weasley— who was supposed to be bedbound with Spattergroit— while you were having lunch at the Slytherin table. Just a few days earlier, Professor Slughorn reported that his private potions cupboard had been raided, and among the missing ingredients was boomslang skin," he said, swallowing his anger. "Now, Miss Greengrass— you tell me what you think happened."
The clone's expression went blank— and then she burst out laughing.
"How could neither of us have thought of that?" she cackled. "Of course everyone'd think it was Polyjuice! What other explanation could there possibly be?"
Professor Snape was now looking positively murderous.
Unbeknownst to Oleandra or to the rest of the British wizarding world, Professor Snape was a double agent on Dumbledore's side, even though his faction had all but collapsed. Oleandra vanishing from right under his nose, only to return with Harry's friend— who was, without question, vital to Dumbledore's grand design— was nothing short of catastrophic. In summoning her to his office, he had meant to extract whatever information he could about her intentions, yet it now seemed to him as though she had lost her mind entirely.
Hidden in a corner of the office beneath Harry's Invisibility Cloak, Oleandra stifled a groan. At this rate, she was bound to end up in detention, and whether she sent her Reflection Doppelganger to take the punishment in her place or went herself, she'd still be left with the memory of being bored out of her mind at the end of the day.
"Wait, Severus," Dumbledore's portrait spoke up, just as Professor Snape was about to launch into a tirade. "I believe Miss Greengrass can be trusted."
"Dumbledore!?" Professor Snape said sharply. "Don't forget, you're playing with my life here!"
The clone raised an eyebrow. Was this treason against the Dark Lord?
"According to the accounts Severus put together for me, you were rather interested in my wand, were you not?" said Dumbledore's portrait. "I seldom take it out in front of others, so I'll admit I was quite surprised to see such visceral terror in your eyes when I drew it that day for an Alchemical demonstration…"
Although Dumbledore was exceptionally skilled in every discipline of magic and rarely had cause to use his wand, practising Alchemy without one was too much to ask, even for him.
"How could I forget the appearance of the wand that killed my mentor?" said the clone softly. "I certainly couldn't allow anyone else to get their hands on it… not even you."
It was Dumbledore's turn to raise an eyebrow.
He had seized the Elder Wand only at the end of his legendary duel with his old friend Grindelwald in 1945, long before Oleandra's birth. Still, she didn't seem to be lying, so perhaps a portrait or a ghost had taught her magic, he mused— though that hardly explained her visceral reaction to seeing the wand for the first time.
Even so, Oleandra's message from the past couldn't possibly have been faked. Her vanishing from her proper time had been an accident, so she couldn't possibly have plotted his assassination with her sister and Draco Malfoy, because of her prolonged absence. It was Dumbledore's view that she was innocent, and that Harry had made a terrible mistake by labelling her his enemy… but even so, she was still dangerous.
"Do you still have it?" Dumbledore's portrait said quietly. "My wand?"
The clone nodded.
"But it doesn't recognise you as its rightful owner, does it?" the portrait said, observing the clone's face closely. "Good, that's good…"
Dumbledore's voice trailed off. The coldness radiating from the girl's eyes worried him.
"Is that all you wanted to know, Professor Snape, Professor Dumbledore?" the clone said dully. "If this is about my cousin, you don't have to worry about a thing; bringing him to school was an accident. I'm on my own side, so I won't go snitching to You-Know-Who."