Stepping into the Fairy Ring was quite unlike the uncomfortable lurch of Portkey travel or the queasy tug of Side-Along Apparition, which always left Oleandra feeling as though she'd been hooked and dragged through a too-tight sausage casing on a fishing line. In fact, it hardly felt as though she had moved at all. One moment, she was stepping over a mushroom; the next, she was standing in the middle of what appeared to be… a football stadium?
"Welcome to Birmingham, headquarters of the New Order of the Round Table," said Mai, throwing her arms wide. "Like what I've done with the place? I was thinking of calling it Sanctuary."
Oleandra glanced around.
The Blues was written in white against blue in the stands. She didn't recognise the name— outside of the two Manchesters, Liverpool, Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspurs, Chelsea, Aston Villa and Everton, she didn't know much about Muggle sports. But more importantly, the stadium was filled with hundreds of tents, and ten times as many people milling about them.
"Muggles?" asked Oleandra curiously. "They certainly do dress like them."
"They just looked so pitiful," said Mai, clicking her tongue. "I just couldn't resist snapping some of them up."
Millions of Londoners had been displaced when the Muggle-Repelling Charms went up, creating a humanitarian crisis of hitherto unprecedented scale in Britain's history. It seemed as though Mai had taken her pick from amongst those aimlessly wandering the countryside, taking in anyone who caught her eye and saving them from starvation and dehydration.
"I suppose there's no point in remaining hidden any longer," said Oleandra softly. "The Statute of Secrecy's gone entirely out of the window… d'you reckon that would count towards the Avalon prophecy's line about restoring magic to the land?"
Once the cat was out of the bag, there was no putting it back in. Oleandra supposed it was inevitable with the rise of telecommunications and surveillance technology, but to think this was how Muggles would be reintroduced to magic… genocide.
"Who knows?" Mai replied, shrugging.
Oleandra looked around a little more. The Muggles seemed exhausted and miserable, but the light in their eyes hadn't completely gone out. Through the Helm of Terror brand on her brow, she could feel their fear of Mai and her. And if they could still feel fear… then that meant they hadn't given up on life just yet.
"Most are still in a state of shock, so things here are still stable," explained Mai, noticing Oleandra glancing around. "But people tend to get restless if they've got idle hands. If we're to mount a proper army, we're going to need those Muggle-born. As good as I am, I can't spend all my time duplicating the little food I can scrounge from the surroundings just to keep them from starving."
"Army? You're going to arm them?" said Oleandra, startled. "Isn't that a bit dangerous?"
"Would you rather I let them starve?" said Mai coldly. "I'm not going to look after dead weight. Are you?"
Recent events had shown that, even though Muggles outnumbered Wizards ten thousand to one and possessed technology capable of destruction beyond anything magic could achieve, the mundane could never triumph over magic. It was true that the Muggles hadn't expected an attack, but even if they had, what could they possibly have done to defend themselves against people who could turn their minds against them without their ever knowing it?
In truth, Project Heliopaths' Muggle leadership decapitation strategy had never actually been necessary. Little by little, Wizards could very easily have expanded the range of their Muggle-Repelling Charms until the displaced droves of Muggles were forced to leap from the White Cliffs of Dover to their icy, watery deaths into the Channel below.
"Suppose we win the war," said Oleandra patiently. "What then? We'll have angry Muggles on our hands, armed with magical weapons and armour and who will have painstakingly learned how to take us down. Once You-Know-Who is gone, who do you think they'll take out their anger on?"
"How else do you suppose we'll win?" countered Mai. "Do you seriously believe that so-called Chosen One will wade through wave after wave of Dwarven infantry, legions of Heliopaths and elite Death Eaters and take You-Know-Who's head?"
To be honest, Oleandra wasn't counting too much on Harry and his merry gang of misfits. But if there was one thing she had learned after all these years, it was that prophecies had a tendency to come true, one way or another. She couldn't help but remember the prophecy she herself had spoken, two years ago…
"THE DARK LADY WILL RISE... WHEN THE VEIL BETWEEN WORLDS GROWS THIN AND THE STARS ALIGN… SHE IS ALREADY AMONGST US… ABOMINATION AGAINST NATURE, BEARING A WAND OF YEW… MADE MONSTER BY HER PEERS, THE CHOSEN ONE SHALL IN TURN CHOOSE HER AS HIS FINAL FOE. ALLIES SHALL TURN AGAINST EACH OTHER… SIBLINGS SHALL FIGHT TO THE DEATH… THE DEAD SHALL TREAD THE LAND ONCE MORE. FOR AS LONG AS THE DARK LADY YET LIVES, THE DARK LORD SHALL ENDURE. ONLY THE CHOSEN ONE MAY CHOOSE… PARADISE ON EARTH AWAITS... ONLY THE CHOSEN ONE MAY CHOOSE…"
The Veil Between Worlds obviously referred to Draco Malfoy opening the Gate to Nidavellir in the Room of Requirement to invade Hogwarts with his army of Dwarfs and Death Eaters. The stars had aligned when the Aesir Gods had descended and attempted to take over Oleandra's, Daphne's, Tracey's and Draco's souls.
As for the abomination against nature…
Oleandra could now see how Ginevra Weasley could be the one. She carried a yew wand, and she was the True Heir of Slytherin. If Harry were to discover that fact, he would surely name her as his final foe, and Ginny would then have to fight her siblings to the death.
But for now, Harry had already pointed the finger at her.
He had chosen Oleandra over her sister Daphne— abominations of soul and body, respectively, and both bearing yew wands. And because Oleandra needed to win the Elder Wand's approval, she would eventually have to murder her own twin sister, so it all fit together.
As for the part about allies turning against each other, that had already happened, right?
There was just one thing that bothered Oleandra: the contradiction inherent in the prophecy's wording. "Final" implied that the Dark Lord would perish before the Dark Lady, yet Oleandra simply couldn't fathom how this could possibly come to pass if the Dark Lord was to endure as long as the Lady lived…
Just how airtight was You-Know-Who's immortality?
"Come, let's discuss strategy," said Mai, gesturing to a nearby tent. "We're leaving for London in half an hour."