Fool Me Three or More Times, Shame on You!

Brittany was a beautiful place; narrow roads, ancient houses covered in vines, dense cover of trees, lots of ferns. All in all, it reminded Oleandra a lot of home. If not for all the French people, she could easily have imagined that she had never left Britain at all, due to the constant rain showers.

She had been driving for more than five hours straight now, but she had finally reached her destination; a charming little village that had been established next to a lake. She peered out of the window, but there wasn't much to see or hear; it was getting rather late, and the rain was coming down rather hard.

Neither the darkness nor the rain was problematic for her, for Oleandra could see quite well in the dark, and she wasn't afraid of getting wet. She would very easily be able to explore the forest at her leisure under the cover of darkness, and the pitter-patter of the rain would cover the sound of her footfalls.

Suddenly, a blinding flash of light filled her vision, followed a split second later by the ear-splitting sound of thunder; lightning had struck nearby. Oleandra frowned; it seemed the weather was determined to stop her from exploring any further. Rain was fine, but Oleandra had once very nearly been electrocuted by her own lightning, and she wasn't eager to repeat the experience. She could still smell the odour of ozone coming off of the Dragon she had felled back then; it seemed like an eternity ago already.

Staying outside during a thunderstorm was an unnecessary risk; either she waited the storm out, or she found an inn to pass the night. But given that she had just spent five hours sitting, the previous hour rocked about inside a car's trunk, and the previous month lying in a wooden coffin, Oleandra was rather looking forward to a comfortable bed and a shower.

"Lumos," Oleandra murmured, wandlessly lighting the tip of her finger, casting a blood-red glow on the map she had just fished from the glovebox.

There was an inn at the edge of town; which wasn't surprising, as the small town was a popular tourist attraction due to its connection to Arthurian lore. The legends of the Knights of the Round Table had endured, despite the Wizarding World's best attempts at discrediting them.

Indeed, due to King Arthur's close association with Merlin and many other magical figures, Wizards had worked very hard to make the King of Knights seem like a mere storybook character, instead of a real person who had actually ruled over the Kingdom of Logres: which was the majority of the British Isles, and a large part of what is now modern-day France.

"Nox," Oleandra murmured, extinguishing the light, before putting the map away.

It did not appear as if the storm had any intention of moving away; the delay between the flashes of light emitted by the lightning and the rumbling of thunder never exceeded more than a second. She might be stuck here for a while, so the least she could do was make herself comfortable.

For some reason, she was having some trouble seeing through this rain. Oleandra squinted her eyes, peering through the darkness at the various shop signs along the main road as she searched for the inn. But luckily for her, a flash of lightning struck a lightning conductor on a nearby house, briefly illuminating the world and revealing a nearby sign reading: Auberge de Brocéliande.

Having found her inn, she parked her car in the lot next to the building, before sprinting to the inn through the battering sheets of rain to take refuge from the elements. Oleandra could have made herself impervious to water at any time, but it would have looked strange to a Muggle if she had come out of a raging thunderstorm completely dry.

After shaking off the water dripping down from her in the vestibule, Oleandra stepped into the lobby. There was a young woman talking on the telephone at the receptionist's desk; various brochures were displayed next to the entrance on a shelf; and there was a grandfather clock in a corner of a room, opposite an unlit fireplace. One hour to midnight.

The woman was jabbering away quickly in a foreign language; Oleandra couldn't quite understand what she was saying. That was strange, were her Translating Earrings faulty? Frowning, Oleandra rubbed them with a dry corner of her robes.

Ah, now they were working again; the woman was talking about a meeting.

As Oleandra patiently waited for the woman to finish her call, she noticed something strange while watching her through her Mystic Eyes. The woman was clearly a Muggle, not even a Squib, but her necklace… it was magic, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

"Sorry about that, important call," the woman said, before turning towards her. "Taking shelter from the rain, dear? Where are your parents?"

Well, that was certainly strange. Oleandra was fairly certain she changed her appearance to that of a young office lady, but not one that young.

"Those are some cool clothes you're wearing," the woman continued, peering down at her from the desk. "Is that what's popular with teens, these days? I swear, I can't keep up with these trends any more…"

It wasn't that Oleandra's Glamour spell was being seen through, it was completely gone, as if it had been washed away by the rain. For some reason, her disguise had simply stopped working; in other words, the receptionist was seeing her for what she truly was; a lone fifteen-year-old girl wearing strange snakeskin robes.

"I'd like to rent a room, please," said Oleandra firmly, pushing down her panic and ignoring the receptionist's question.

"You can speak Breton?" the woman asked in surprise.

That was the problem with Oleandra's Translating Earrings; she would always hear other people speaking in English, her native tongue, but she couldn't control what language other people heard when she spoke; they would always hear their native language. And those who could speak old Celtic languages were very rare indeed, in modern days…

"A room, then?" she continued. "Just for you? I'll need to see some identification, though."

Well, that was problematic. Oleandra had put a Glamour on the driver's licence she had found inside the wallet she had stolen in London so that its picture matched her disguise. But since her disguise was malfunctioning, it was completely useless!

Well, time to turn on the waterworks.

"What's the matter, dear?" said the woman with concern, upon seeing Oleandra's lips trembling. "Did you run away from home? Do you need a place to stay for the night?"

Oleandra nodded meekly.

"Hang on, I'll call the police for you…" the receptionist continued, reaching for the phone.

Whoa, stop! That wasn't necessary!

Oleandra had already accumulated enough deception by making her assume she was a runaway, so she would be able to take something extremely minor from her through her Fairy magic.

The woman's eyes went dim as the last few seconds of her memory were taken from her. Oleandra took the opportunity to wave the driver's licence she had found in the stolen wallet in front of the woman's eyes, taking care to hide the picture with her thumb.

"There's the ID you wanted," Oleandra said, stowing away the laminated card. "I'm ready to pay."

The receptionist blinked, her brain filling in the gaps in her memories by interpolating based on available information. The girl was putting her identification away and she hadn't seen anything wrong with it, so it was fine, right?

"Right…" she said slowly. "Of course you are, dear, that'll be 370 francs."

She was asking for more than what Oleandra had found in the stolen wallet, even if it had been filled with francs rather than British pounds. However, she had just fooled the woman a second time, so Fairy magic was once again available to be used!

"Keys?" said Oleandra, offering her upturned palm to the woman, pretending as if she had already paid.

The woman blinked again as doubts and memories disappeared from her head, before dropping a key into Oleandra's hand.

It was a bit difficult to fool people without the ability to lie, but the more was taken from someone, the easier it got to take even more!

Room GET!