"Where are we?" Astoria gasped, as they reappeared in a clearing in the middle of a forest. "Did we get away?"
Oleandra staggered unsteadily away, the excruciating pain in her eye ebbing to a heavy throb. Blood poured freely from the gash along the left side of her face, and the world around her began to dim into a crimson haze…
"That's not important right now!" Tracey cried. Setting Iris gently against the trunk of a nearby tree, she turned to Oleandra. "Hurry and give me your wand, you're bleeding!"
"How'd you reckon… Disapparating… without a wand?" Oleandra muttered thickly. "Should've… told… I… Ugh… Head's spinning..."
Astoria caught Oleandra as she stumbled, easing her to the ground and resting her head on Tracey's waiting lap before prising her hand away from the wound. She breathed in sharply at the sight of Oleandra's ruined eye, but forced down her shock and searched her quickly, finding the wand and tossing it to Tracey.
"Episkey!" Tracey said, waving her wand over Oleandra's bloody face.
"Do it again," Astoria said anxiously. "It's not working."
Tracey kept repeating the incantation, growing more desperate each time her magic failed, but the blood refused to stop. Dolohov's wand was actively resisting her magic; it obeyed Oleandra because she had won it from the man himself, but it was reluctant to serve Tracey.
Oleandra's complexion was growing paler by the second.
It was becoming horribly clear that they were dealing with a cursed wound. Dark spells harboured malicious intent, and wounds born of such magic would stubbornly resist healing, nearly always leaving a scar as a reminder. Without knowing which curse Snape had cast, they could do nothing but guess at a counter‑curse… if one existed at all.
"W…water," Oleandra croaked.
"Water, right, hang on…" Tracey said. "Aguamenti!"
Water trickled from the tip of the wand, wetting Oleandra's lips, but she gave a slight shake of the head. That was not what she wanted.
"Water…" she mumbled. "From… cup… wound…"
Recalling how Oleandra had just summoned a wall of water from the golden cup at her hip, Astoria unhooked it from the leather loop threaded through one of its handles, then tipped it gently, letting water spill over her sister's ruined eye, washing away the blood.
"She's not getting better," Astoria said anxiously.
The Thief's Downfall removed all enchantments… and the sequelae left by dark magic were technically enchantments, albeit negative ones.
"Episkey!" Tracey repeated.
This time, her magic had an effect. The bleeding gradually stemmed under her ministrations, but there was no restoring a lost eye. Dimly aware that the danger had passed, Oleandra let her consciousness slip away, her head falling back into Tracey's lap.
Astoria sighed in relief. She glanced around. Where exactly had Oleandra taken them?
…
Meanwhile, in the Muggle‑Born Sanctuary in Birmingham, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were settling into the tree‑house home they'd been assigned. After months spent camping in the wild, never stopping in one place for long, it felt good to put down roots… no pun intended.
"I'm back, and I've got news!" Sirius called, climbing the rope ladder and poking his head over the ledge with a broad grin at the Gryffindor trio. "Go on, guess who the Founder just came back with!"
"Why should I?" Ron replied drily. "I've got a feeling you're about to tell us anyway."
The morning after Oleandra rescued them, and shortly after she'd departed from the Sanctuary, the Healers released Sirius from their care. While the Gryffindor trio busied themselves unpacking, having decided to make the Sanctuary their new base of operations, Sirius set off to explore the miniature society the Muggles and Muggle‑Born had fashioned inside the old football stadium, and had only just returned from his wanderings.
"It's Ollivander!" Sirius said excitedly. "Dulac went to London where they were holding him and rescued him, all by herself!"
Little by little, Mai Dulac's reputation was growing. Not just amongst the Muggle-Born community, but throughout the British Wizarding World, even though she had attended Hogwarts for only a single year… her first.
"Excellent!" said Ron, rising to his feet. "I was beginning to feel like a Muggle, having to share one wand amongst the three of us…"
Hermione glowered at him.
"No offence to Muggles," Ron added hastily. "I'm sure they manage perfectly well without magic."
"We should hurry," Sirius suggested. "There's a long line of people wanting to meet him."
Most Muggle-Born who'd been arrested had had their wands confiscated, so many of the Sanctuary's inhabitants had been living as Muggles over the past few months… and they were quite eager to get their powers back and return to their lives as proper Wizards.
"I suppose we should," Harry said, putting down the broomstick he'd been lovingly polishing. "Come on, let's have a look… I've been meaning to ask a wandmaker about the golden flames my wand produced against Voldemort, anyway."
By some miracle, the only wand that had survived their encounter with Voldemort at St Mungo's was his own, his holly‑wood, Phoenix‑tail-feather-core wand.
Harry, Hermione, and Ron followed Sirius as he led them towards the settlement's heart, but along the way they unexpectedly ran into Oleandra's group. It turned out that Oleandra had Apparated them right next to the first Fairy Ring Mai had showed her, and so they had been quickly noticed by the Ring guardian and allowed in.
"What in the world happened to her?" Hermione gasped, clapping a hand to her mouth.
Oleandra was the strongest Witch she knew. Who could possibly have done such a thing to her?
"That cup!"
Harry's eyes widened in shock as he saw the small, twin-handled golden cup hanging at Oleandra's hip. He recognised it immediately, having seen it in Dumbledore's Pensieve: it was Hufflepuff's cup, one of Voldemort's Horcruxes!
"You mean Hufflepuff's cup? We've been looking for the bloody thing for months!" Ron said incredulously. "Are you telling me Oleandra just popped out in the morning for a spell and came back in the evening with it? Not even one day, it took her!? You're taking the piss—"
Almost in a daze, Harry reached out for the Horcrux, but Astoria stepped into his path, frowning. "What do you think you're doing?" she asked suspiciously.