Meanwhile, as Oleandra slowly infiltrated Malfoy Manor, a captured Astoria was doing everything in her power to convince Tracey to help her escape, but her pleas were falling upon deaf ears. Poor Tracey was terrified; she was certain that if they were caught trying to flee, the punishment would be far worse than the prison itself.
In Tracey's mind, there was simply no chance they would emerge from that basement alive… it was just a matter of how much they would be made to suffer before the blissful release of death finally arrived.
"Come on, Tracey! You're the only one of us who can use magic without a wand!" Astoria said urgently, thrusting her manacled wrists through the bars of her cage. "Oleandra'll be here any moment, and we've got to be ready to run the instant she arrives!"
"What do you know? You were caught same as me, weren't you? And where was Oleandra through all of it?" Tracey cried, shaking the bars of her cage in sheer frustration. "She only ever thinks of herself! Do you honestly believe she'd go out of her way to save us?"
With her sharp hearing, how could Astoria not have heard Tom the barman calling for the Death Eaters, then failed to hear them sneaking up behind her? Having lost Tracey's trail, she had decided to let herself be captured, and so far, her plan had worked; she had been taken to the very place where Tracey was being held… which, as she might have surmised, was Malfoy Manor, where she had spent the previous summer with Daphne and their mother.
"I got caught while helping Oleandra look for you!" Astoria snarled, baring her pointed canines at her. "Don't you know how much she cares about you?"
"Bringing that creature into the world was the worst mistake I ever made," Madam Greengrass said dully. "How could I have forgotten…? I knew it in my gut the moment I held it for the first time, that baby wasn't human... It was nothing like my sweet Daphne… my precious, precious child…"
Astoria glared at her mother, who sat curled in a corner of her cell, rocking back and forth with vacant eyes. For two long years, Iris Greengrass had drifted in and out of captivity at Malfoy Manor, and the toll it had taken was plain enough. She was still thin and ghostlike from the previous year's coma, her skin pale as parchment, and her once lustrous hair had grown dull and brittle. In both mind and body, she was little more than a shadow of her former self.
"In case you've forgotten, Mother," Astoria said angrily, "Your precious Daphne's the one responsible for our predicament, not Oleandra!"
Iris said nothing.
"I know Oleandra cares about me," Tracey said quietly. "I've always known."
"Then why—"
"And I've always known we were never meant to be," Tracey went on. "From the moment I first met her, I saw that her eyes were fixed on some far‑off place… a place so distant I could never hope to lay eyes on it."
Tracey sniffled.
"Even so, I was happy when Oleandra accepted my feelings, even though I was just a normal Witch!" she cried. "Even though I knew I was just slowing her down, I tried my best to keep up with her!"
Deep down, Tracey knew she would only end up dead if she continued following Oleandra into treacherous places such as the Nine Realms, or dangerous situations like the Battle for the Prophecy Orb. She knew it, and she knew Oleandra knew it too, but to have her efforts denied, to have her love rejected one-sidedly…
"You're talking to the wrong person," Astoria said firmly. "Tell Oleandra yourself how you feel when she saves us. In the meantime, if you wouldn't mind…?"
Astoria rattled her manacles meaningfully.
"…I don't know what to do," Tracey said dully. "I'm not like Oleandra, rune magic doesn't come to me just like that…"
Without their wands, Tracey was the only one amongst them still able to use magic. Naturally, Astoria could summon gusts of wind with her innate abilities, but even those would never slice through enchanted metal… she was far more likely to sever her own wrists in the attempt.
"You've been fighting alongside Oleandra far longer than I have," Astoria said encouragingly. "Just think, there must be something."
Tracey screwed her eyes shut, straining to recall what she had seen Oleandra do... but even she usually relied on Alohomora to unlock things. Light spots turned into stars danced before her eyes, shifting and settling into the shape of the Cygnus constellation… but why that particular rune? Shields would be useless here… and then, she remembered. Protection was not Elhaz's only aspect!
"I call upon the power of the Ancestor and the Rainbow Bridge, the rune that crackles as it burns…Elhaz!"
Tracey's manacles clicked open and fell to the floor with a loud clang.
"Brilliant!" Astoria breathed. "Now do mine!"
Heartened by her success, Tracey repeated her spell, freeing Astoria's hands.
Unlike Oleandra and Malfoy, it seemed like Tracey needed to chant a full incantation to summon a rune's powers, even if it was only to call upon a single one of them… graphemes being letters, the smallest building blocks one could find in runic magic.
"There, that's better," Astoria said, rubbing her wrists. She reached for the bowl of water placed in the corner of her cell. "Now then, to fetch my sword…"
Creak.
"The cuffs! And hide your hands behind your back!" Astoria hissed, pricking up her ears. "Someone's coming down the stairs!"
Right on cue, a few seconds later…
Astoria's hopes lifted at the sight of a familiar face amongst the Death Eaters descending the stairs into the basement, but the moment she noticed the faint greenish hue of her sister's hair in the semi-darkness, her heart sank.
"Daphne!" Astoria snarled at her older sister.
Astoria shivered as Daphne's cold gaze swept over her. There wasn't the slightest trace of sisterly affection in those eyes. It was as though she'd become someone else entirely…
"I shall count to one," Daphne said coldly, drawing her wand. "If you do not show yourself before then, our little sister dies."
Daphne levelled her wand at Astoria. She opened her mouth, as if to say, "one," but without warning, she pointed her wand at the ceiling, shouting, "Descendo!"