"Ah, wait for me!" Oleandra cried out as Sirius passed through the door. "I— urk."
Oleandra was suddenly overcome by a disconcerting wave of weariness, a sort of heaviness unlike any other she had ever felt. The sensation quickly spread through her body to her limbs, but before anything else could happen, she snatched up the bedpan from earlier and focused her magic— willing it to draw from her what she had taken from Sirius, and transfer it into the object.
Great Fairies could easily strip mortals of their lifespan, so Oleandra reasoned she could just as well do the opposite. And indeed, her experiment had succeeded— she had siphoned off roughly twenty years' worth of wear and tear from Sirius's body and added it to her own, before quickly transferring the damage into the bedpan— the same one she had just tried to summon the Sword of the Lake from.
It was a win-win scenario— this way, Sirius got a body that matched his mental age, and Oleandra got twenty years' worth of an adult's magical circuit growth for herself (which admittedly didn't add up to that much). And as a bonus, she also got the weaponise an old bedpan. Naturally, the years she had stored in the object could still be transferred out and bestowed onto something else—very useful, in case she ever felt like prematurely ageing someone she didn't like…
Now this, Oleandra thought to herself with satisfaction, was how Fairies did things! Viviane would be proud.
"You coming or what?" asked Sirius lightly, popping his head through the doorway.
"Scourgify!" said Oleandra, tapping the bedpan with her mother's wand. "And… Reducio!"
The bedpan shrank to about two thirds of its original size, and a few soapy bubbles reluctantly popped into existence on its surface. Oleandra frowned— she'd meant to shrink it down to the size of a bottle cap and give it a deeper scrubbing. It looked like her mother's wand wasn't a good fit for her; it resisted the flowing of her magic at every turn.
The sooner she got her own wand back, the better…
"What on earth is that for?" asked Sirius, bemused, as he watched her Vanish the soapy water. "Is the bedpan supposed to be a shield to go with your golden spear?"
"What spear?" Oleandra replied sweetly, as she dug out a gnarled branch from under the mattress. "You mean this old walking stick?"
…
To Oleandra's relief, Sirius appeared at the Bell Tower entrance a dozen minutes after saying he'd head back to his room to change, just as he'd promised; and soon enough, they were walking out of the castle and across the grounds.
Sirius had tried to get into the Gryffindor common room, but much to his confusion, the Fat Lady's portrait had refused to let him in— so he was still stuck in his pyjamas. The guardian vaguely recognised his face, since his older self had torn up her portrait three years earlier, but without the correct password, there was no way she was letting in such a suspicious-looking student…
"What day is it?" Sirius asked, teeth chattering as he hugged his pyjamas tighter against the cold. "I could've sworn…"
Oleandra's heart leapt up into her throat— had Sirius noticed he was a man out of time?
"It's, er… November the, er…"
Having slept for an entire week and then some, Oleandra wasn't exactly sure which day it was any more. The Hallowe'en decorations were gone, so… it was probably early November…? Fortunately, she didn't have to come up with an answer— Sirius's attention had already been caught by the Quidditch practice going on in the distance.
"Who in Merlin's name let Robins play Keeper?" he complained loudly. "He should just stick to Beating, worst Keeper I've ever seen…"
Oleandra's eyesight was much sharper than his, so she could already see Ron's red hair from this distance, near the hoops.
Ever since Ronald had stolen Astoria's spot as Keeper, he had shown a less than stellar performance, apparently. This practice session appeared to be dedicated to sharpening his skills— Katie Bell, Demelza Robins and Harry Potter, the Chasers; Jimmy Peakes and Ritchie Coote, the Beaters; and Astoria Greengrass, the Seeker— took turns tossing Quaffles at Ron's hoops, but he kept missing them all without fail.
"Oi, no Slytherins allowed!" shouted Harry, swooping down as soon as he glimpsed Oleandra's silver and green scarf below. "Oh, it's you— sorry, it's hard to tell from high up…"
Harry was a bit on edge, as the first match of the season— Gryffindor vs. Slytherin— was coming up this weekend. The last thing he wanted was for it to become known in advance that Ron Weasley was the worst Keeper the world had ever seen!
"Wait, you're not James," said Sirius, frowning. "Who the hell are you?"
From a distance, Harry might bear a passing resemblance to his father—but up close, the differences were unmistakable. For one, his startlingly green eyes were hard to miss.
"Harry, might I have a word with you in private?" Oleandra hissed, cutting him off before he could ask the same of Sirius. "Now."
"Keep going on without me!" Harry shouted to his teammates. "I'll be back in a mo'!"
Harry could tell this was serious— no pun intended— so he landed beside Oleandra, and she quickly pulled him out of Sirius's earshot.
"That's Sirius Black," whispered Oleandra, going straight to the point. "He's lost his memories of the past twenty years, and his body has reverted to when he was sixteen."
"Wha—" spluttered Harry. "How did this happen!?"
The memory loss was not Oleandra's fault, but Sirius's newfound youth was her doing. But honestly, even though his magic was a bit less powerful now, she'd done him an immense favour.
Even the Philosopher's Stone was not capable of turning back the body's clock. The Elixir of Immortality couldn't even freeze someone's age, only prevent death— meaning that even immortals would get progressively more decrepit as time passed, which was no way to live.
"You might want to ask someone more knowledgeable than me," said Oleandra, shrugging. "Anyway, he's your godfather, so he's your problem now. Just… try to break it to him gently that it's 1996, okay? For his mental health's sake, the poor chap."
"Wait, you can't just leave him with me like this!" protested Harry. "You're the expert on rune magic, right? Can't you turn him back!?"
Oleandra cheerily waved him goodbye as she left the pitch. She had to prepare for tonight— there was no way she was ready to make her final farewells to her loved ones just yet…