"Who are you?" growled Filch, raising his lantern. "I don't remember seeing you—"
What looked like liquid shadows began to pour from the Dusk-Elf's body, pooling at her feet in an ever-growing puddle. Within the pulsating mire of hunger, serrated blades of darkness stirred as the pool crept wider, their sharp edges seemingly gnawing away at the lamplight glinting off the polished stone floor.
"W-wait, what are you doing, girl?" stammered Filch, his bluster vanishing the instant his lantern illuminated the terrifying sight before him. "You'll be expelled if you attack a teach…"
"My name is Icthiara, of the Most Noble House Irae," said the Dusk-Elf in an oddly calm voice, shoving Malfoy aside as she advanced on Oleandra. "You murdered my father, Izamír— Lord Spymaster of the Nine Realms. You will escape my judgment no longer. Prepare to die."
A handful of knives slid down her sleeve and into her palms.
"Banana Hanger," Oleandra muttered under her breath.
As she spoke the trigger phrase, black ink bloomed across her skin— Graphemes, Galdr, Lokk and runic arrays spiderwebbed in elegant patterns along her limbs. Over the years, she had turned her entire body into a living tapestry of magic, each rune tattooed in invisible ink. Unlike her wand, her pouch, or even the Book of the Stars, this was something that could never be lost or stolen from her… unless she was skinned alive.
"Expelliarmus!" exclaimed Harry, drawing his wand in a flash.
"No magic in the corridors!" Filch instinctively growled at him.
A bolt of red light shot from the tip of his wand, but faster than humanly possible, Icthiara dodged and surged forwards, flinging her kitchen knives at them with deadly precision.
"Elhaz!"
Oleandra stepped in front of Harry, barely managing to twist her fingers into the correct position. Without enough time to take up a full-body stance, she couldn't channel the rune's full power, but it was just enough to keep her from getting skewered. The knives bounced off her skin and clattered harmlessly to the floor in a chorus of metallic clangs.
"Wunjo, Gebu, Raidhu," Oleandra chanted. "In the name of the Standard, the Gift and the Way of Transformations, turn the stone beneath me into, er… water."
Used under its aspect of the Way of Transformations rather than Riding, the Raidhu rune could be used to cast a Transfiguration spell. And since Oleandra was very familiar with the composition of water, it was the first thing that came to her mind in that moment!
Stone turned to water, and the floor gave way under their feet, sending them all plummeting to the floor below… except for the Dusk-Elf, whose Lethifold cloak allowed her to levitate.
"Spongify!" cried Harry, pointing his wand downwards.
Oleandra had acted on instinct, knowing that she was easily capable of falling from a certain height without injury, thanks to her inhuman grace. Harry and Filch, on the other hand, were purely human— so falling head-first onto the unforgiving stone floor from such a height wouldn't have been a pleasant experience for them.
"Good thinking!" gasped Oleandra as she landed. "Oof!"
Harry's quick-thinking saved him a trip to the Hospital Wing. His Charm changed the stone's properties, making the floor much softer and yielding and comfortable to land on.
"Gungnir, to me!" shouted Oleandra as she bounced to her feet, extending her arm outwards.
The potency of magic is directly proportional to the distance between a caster and their target. Due to the bond that she had accidentally forged with the Dusk-Elf by taking her heart, simply being near her was sapping her magic. And in a melee battle between a Witch unable to cast spells and a supernatural assassin, it was obvious that she wouldn't last long without a weapon…
"Expelled, the lot of yeh," groaned Filch. "Ugh…"
Seriously, could the man read the room? They were kind of in the middle of a life-or-death fight!
"Watch out!" Harry yelled.
The Dusk-Elf dropped through the hole in the ceiling, dark cloak fluttering and billowing around her. More kitchen knives appeared in her hands, and Elf and Lethifold descended on Oleandra like a falcon hunting its prey. They spun, seemingly morphing into one and turning into a tornado of whirling blades and teeth.
Bang. Bang! BANG!
A series of dull thuds echoed in quick succession, each louder than the last. The spear was hidden under her bed in the Slytherin common room, deep in the dungeons— and it was taking the most direct route back to her: straight through the castle floors. Normally, it would reach her in an instant at this range, but even Gungnir would need a moment to punch through Hogwarts' magically reinforced stone, one floor at a time.
Hopefully, it wouldn't hit anybody important on the way up!
"Die for me!" screamed the Dusk-Elf, and the Lethifold shrieked.
Harry pointed his wand at the Dusk-Elf, no doubt casting a Nonverbal spell— but whatever he tried, the magic either fizzled out upon contact with the Lethifold or failed to initiate at all.
BANG!!
A golden spear burst out from the stone floor at Oleandra's feet, and she seized it in mid-flight, swinging it upwards just as the Dusk-Elf was about to slash her to ribbons. A resounding clang shook the air as the Elf's knives shattered, and she was repelled, sent flying upwards through the air.
"That spear! The Murder Spear!" hissed the Dusk-Elf, fear flashing across her pale face as she stabilised herself, landing upside-down on the ceiling. "You're not just a Godling candidate—you're the Vessel!"
"What are you talking about!?" shouted Oleandra, brandishing Gungnir. "If you've got something to say, then say it properly!"
Fear faded away from the Elf's eyes, replaced by cold determination.
"As much as I'd enjoy watching you lose everything you've ever held dear, this has grown beyond my personal vendetta," she said softly, a flicker of pity in her eyes. "For the sake of the Dusk-Elves and the Nine Realms… you die tonight."
"Come and have a go, if you think you're hard enough," said Oleandra coolly, twirling her spear. "Stronger adversaries than you have tried and failed."
The time for words had passed.
"Stupefy!"
"Hagal!"
Red and blue lightning burst from Harry's wand and Oleandra's spear, intertwining as they surged upwards towards the ceiling. The Dusk-Elf swept her mutated Lethifold around herself like a cloak, weathering the crackling purple lightning as she fell upon them. Oleandra lunged with her spear, but the Elf twisted in mid-air, pivoting around the thrust and simultaneously kicking Harry's chest and Oleandra's spear, sending them both tumbling and clattering down the corridor.
Faster than the eye could follow, the Dusk-Elf slashed at Oleandra's head, who somehow managed to twist away just in time. But an instant later, white-hot pain bloomed across her forehead— she hadn't completely dodged the knife. Her own blood trickled down into her eyes, blinding her, and…
"Oof!"
Oleandra doubled over as the Dusk-Elf landed a kick in her stomach, causing her to vomit out her supper. A second blow followed, and she was sent crashing into a wall, knocking the wind out of her.
"Sectumsempra!" bellowed Harry from the floor, waving his wand erratically.
The Dusk-Elf paused for a fraction of a second as Harry's spell struck the Lethifold wrapped around her body, causing it some discomfort as his magic attempted to tear through its leathery hide. She turned, intending to silence the insolent spellcaster with a throwing knife to the throat.
"I'm… the one you want," Oleandra mumbled.
She tried standing, but her body wasn't listening. She had hit her head against the wall, and her limbs felt like they were made out of wood…
"As you wish," the Dusk-Elf's echoed through Oleandra's ringing ears.
The Dusk-Elf stalked over to a half-conscious Oleandra seizing her by the neck and lifting her to eye level. She wanted to personally watch the life drain from her father's murderer's eyes as she plunged her blades into her body, again and again and again, until her cold corpse was drained of blood…
"Goodbye, Oleandra Greengrass," said the Dusk-Elf, as she plunged a kitchen knife into Oleandra's stomach and twisted. "With this, your blood debt is repaid…"
The Dusk-Elf's voice trailed off.
Her knife had shattered against something dark, oozing beneath her enemy's evening gown— something soft and moist and undulating and pulsating. She instantly recognised it for what it was: a Lethifold, but not exactly quite like the one she wore.
But how could this possibly be? She had torn Oleandra's previous Lethifold to shreds, and she could have sworn there hadn't been one on her just seconds ago! Where on Svartalfheim had it come from!? What was it doing here, inside the castle!?
"Your blood!" the Elf snarled, noticing the dark liquid flowing down Oleandra's face. "Don't tell me a wild Lethifold just happened to imprint on you just now? That's not possi—"
"Gungnir, to me," whispered Oleandra, holding up her left hand next to the Dusk-Elf's ear.
There was a flash of golden light, and in an instant, the spear was back in Oleandra's hand, thrumming with power and covered in blood and grey matter. In a fraction of a second, Gungnir had blasted off from the floor where it had fallen and hurtled across the corridor, scrambling the Dusk-Elf's brains as it pierced clean through her skull on its way back to Oleandra.
A brief look of confusion flickered across the Elf's face before her eyes rolled back, her grip on Oleandra's neck loosening. She collapsed lifelessly, and Oleandra crumpled to the floor.
"Oleandra! Oleandra!"
Harry's voice echoed distantly in Oleandra's ears as she slipped towards unconsciousness, and then the world finally went silent.