✔️OBSIDIAN HEART (Draco Malfoy) BOOK 1 |WATTYS 2021 SHORTLIST

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•Hogwarts, The Owlery,•

Lavinia glanced out over the stone capped Hogwarts grounds, listening to the wind as it whistled through the feathers of the owls, fluffing and ruffling them. Harry's expression was a bitter, miserable one and his thoughts were even more turbulent. They screamed through the air at her like a baby mandrake, all clawing for attention. Lavinia wondered how Harry managed to contain all that anger, though she couldn't find a reasonable source for it inside his messy mind.

"Dobby did a sensational job fixing up Hedwig, she will be good as new in no time," Lavinia smiled, attempting to settle Harry's storm of a mind for a moment. Turning, she joined him sitting atop the stone wall. Still, he continued to look as though somebody had kicked a puppy or smashed his favourite plate. The daughter of Hogwarts vaguely wondered when the last time he had smiled was, could those pouty lips even crack a grin anymore? "What's wrong, Harry?" she just jumped right into the deep end, it wasn't a sensational leap to assume that he was miserable, it was written all over him.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he lied terribly and looked away. For a second, she waited, allowing him to change his mind and tell him the truth. When he didn't, she decided that it was perhaps worth prompting him. His mind was reeling with enough thoughts to paint the walls of The Great Hall. Just as she went to open her mouth to ask him again, he scrubbed his hands through his perpetually scruffy hair and opened his mouth to spill some truths. "I'm so angry, Lavinia, so angry and I-- I have no idea why I just have this rage. And nobody believes me. I had to-- I had to see him come back, I had to see Cedric d-die and for what? Everybody thinks I have gone crazy and every time I try and speak to Dumbledore about it, he just ignores me."

"Harry," Lavinia smiled softly, "you do not need people to believe you, as long as you believe yourself. Allow them all to call you whatever names they deem suitable but eventually, the truth will win and you would have had the chance to prepare yourself, you'll have had time to learn to fight, time that they wasted in thinking you were lying.

Voldemort will reveal himself, a man like that won't allow his deeds to go unidentified for long. And the world will open their eyes and see that they are fools, unprepared fools who wasted their chance at preparation. You are not alone, Harry Potter. I, for one, have never seen Voldemort and I believe you without a doubt when you say that he has returned. The entire order too. And, some unlikely people do too," she smiled and he turned a frown to her.

"What do you mean?"

"You have a far wider reach than you imagined, Harry, that is all you need to know for now," she smiled, he would learn that Draco had abandoned all that he knew for their cause, for freedom and safety but that wasn't Lavinia's truth to tell. She believed that the sacrifice Draco had made would be enough for them to forgive him for his young ignorance and bruttish idiocy. "And as for the rage, it is entirely warranted after what you went through. Be angry, Harry Potter. I am enraged, we are orphans and our anger, our grief-- that is our weapon. Weild it wisely,"

"Lavinia, do you think that we can beat him?" Harry's voice was timid but his thoughts screamed, he trusted her-- he respected her because everytime he entrusted her with his feelings, she helped him to feel better for them. She wished that there was somebody to do the same for her.

"I do," she nodded with a small frown, "Voldemort holds power through fear and there will be people, cowards who flock to him from that fear but just like us-- the more he does to harm them, the larger their anger will grow until it is a weapon, a weapon to be used against only one foe. Voldemort's spite will become his downfall, trust in that. We fight for family and we fight for friends, we fight for safety and that is the greater cause,"