...And the Law Lost

The Dark Mark was still floating ominously in the sky behind Oleandra's back as she sprinted as fast as she could away from it, and the Obliviator Squad's temporary barracks. Once she was satisfied that nobody was following her, Oleandra removed her disguise. Good luck finding a little Muggle girl that didn't exist, you idiots! They were going to have a headache over this at the Ministry, that went without a doubt.

Now that she had reobtained her belongings, her next objective would be to find her family, which she probably wasn't going to find in the bog she had just stepped into; and now her shoes were wet. Oleandra sighed. For some reason, Daphne wasn't answering her calls through the Faraway Communication runic spell she had devised; perhaps she was too far away? 

She decided that she had probably run far enough; she could always return to the campsite and check her tent. Magical law enforcement had probably managed to get the situation under control by now, because the Dark Mark had just disappeared. The Ministry had probably devised a Counter-Curse for it, because surely the mark didn't only last for five minutes; it'd be a pretty pathetic mark if it did.

Before returning to the campsite, Oleandra stored her pouch and her wand in a tree hollow, marking it with Berkana (ᛒ), the tree rune. It had been about a quarter of an hour since she'd escaped the Obliviator Squad.

Upon her return to the campsite, she found it to be a flurry of activity. The people who had been unable to Disapparate away were gradually returning from their hiding places to their tents, presumably to catch a few winks of sleep before leaving at sunrise. It was also full of Aurors.

"I've located the Greengrass girl!" one of them shouted out upon seeing Oleandra walk into the camp. "Stay right where you are! Throw your wand on the ground and put your arms in the air! You are an important suspect and witness concerning the assault of Lucius Malfoy, Narcissa Malfoy, Fred Weasley, and George Weasley!"

Oleandra was quite startled upon hearing this. Of all the crimes she had committed tonight (escaping from custody, littering, arson, attacking an Obliviator, attacking a Healer), the last thing she'd expected to be arrested for was… this.

"Hold on, hold on!" Arthur Weasley shouted as he ran towards them. "Oleandra is a friend of the family — she wouldn't have been the one to do it; she saved my boy Percy— you can't treat such a young girl as a criminal!"

"I have no idea what any of you are talking about," said Oleandra truthfully. "What exactly is going on?"

"My boys, Fred and George," Arthur explained, "they were found unconscious, piled up on top of Lucius Malfoy and Narcissa Malfoy, who were also unconscious, in the woods."

"It's strange, really," said the Auror, who was scratching his head, "I personally would have expected the Malfoys to be a part of the Death Eater rally, but apparently not. Some of the Death Eaters must have had a grudge against them, and your boys must have been in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"What did they say?" Oleandra asked.

"The Malfoys? Not much," said the Auror dismissively. "They know better than to speak to Magical Law Enforcement; only said that their last memory was that they were minding their own business in their tent. They have no idea who could have attacked them, and it's still not clear how they got from there to the middle of the woods without anyone noticing. Probably short distance Apparition, in my opinion."

"Obviously, the Malfoys wouldn't submit to the Obliviators for a memory check, but my sons did," Arthur Weasley added. "The last thing my sons remember was being with you in their cell under the stadium. The Obliviators tried to bring back their lost memories, but no luck. Stranger still, every single Wizard and Witch in the cell had their memories irrevocably erased. Whoever did this was an expert in memory magic, or had one as their accomplice."

"It's downright odd, that's what it is," said the Auror. "Nothing was stolen from the Malfoys, apart from their memories, presumably, but they won't let us examine them. Nobody was killed either, which is even stranger, since usually, killing is a much more permanent solution to silence someone. And for some reason, your cell's bars were Transfigured into baked sturgeon."

"Which means you're our only witness," Arthur said. "Oleandra, you're the only person left who has any idea of what happened."

"Since you're not in your cell and your memories seem intact," said one of the Aurors, "how about we start with how you escaped? Mr. Crouch told us you were still behind them when he last saw you. We'll also need you to submit your wand for examination."

"I don't have it," said Oleandra curtly, inwardly glad she had hidden it away. "Stadium security took it away along with my pouch. I should like to have them back, by the way."

"See, John?" said Arthur. "It couldn't have been her; nobody could have done such precise memory work on my sons without a wand."

"Your sons had their wands with them when they were found," said the Auror named John with a frown on his face. "I don't see why she wouldn't have had hers when they broke out. Speaking of which, would you mind?"

"Look," Oleandra said, mixing truth and fiction. "When Crouch and Percy came down to see us in our cell, we heard them whispering about Death Eaters invading the campsite. We didn't want to stay around, so we broke out, I'll freely admit it. I had some chalk with me, so I drew a couple of runes to Transfigure the bars to my cell into fish. We didn't find my wand (you might want to ask about that with Crouch or Percy, by the way), and when Fred and George saw Ginny wandering around the forest, we split up. I then ran around the campsite to the moor, and then I came back when the Dark Mark disappeared. Anything else you want to hear about?"

Arthur Weasley and the Auror named John looked at each other; what did this all mean?