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

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•Hogwarts, The Forbidden Forest,•

Sirius, Remus and Draco had been talking throughout their entire journey, wand tips illuminated and Lavinia half suspected that it was to settle their own nerves at being in the Forbidden Forest at night. The Daughter of Hogwarts half hoped that they would stumble across the Acromantula Den or a herd of Centaurs-- it was not likely, with her leading their charge. Walking the familiar woods felt as warm and safe as patrolling the Hufflepuff Tunnels. Lavinia was not sure what fear truly felt like and she was certain that if one day, she did happen to feel it, it might very well be enough of an emotion to disable her for eternity.

"How much longer?" Sirius moaned and she scoffed, continuing on without answering him. She adamantly attempted to ignore the fact that her mothers had ventured there to die, if she dwelled on the fact then she may very well veer to the right and stumble back upon her tomb, just to weep at the earth where once they'd laid. The worst part was, perhaps, that Godric and Helga must have found the long decayed body of Rowena when Godric had brought Helga to rest... The Hufflepuff woman must have lain and died beside it.

Lavinia shoved the thought away into a dark recess of the mind with some conscious effort, it did no good to dwell upon it when there was so much more to consider. Still, her heart was struck oddly numb at the consideration of her mothers. She had been idiotic to have avoided their deaths for so long, they'd been dead for over nine hundred years and yet, it was so agonising to wrap her mind around.

Thankfully, she did not have to consider it for long as they reached the base of a cliff and she ran her fingers along the grey stone, her illuminated wand tip soon finding the carvings etched into it. Humming softly to herself, Lavinia shook the light from her wand and instead held it over her head and drew it down in an arc as one would to draw a sword. Lavinia grinned as, where once her wand had been, there lay a beautiful amethyst sword. Sirius yelped and leapt back a pace.

"Where'd you get that from?" he glared, drawing Remus and Draco's attention-- the two of them had been discussing Umbridge and her new methods of teaching. Remus seemed startled and Draco just raised an eyebrow, watching as she slid the sword into the wall and pulled it, using it as a lever. With a mighty creak, an invisible stone door wound open, revealing a long tunnel beyond, lined with torches.

"Godric's Keep is much less comfortable than the Hufflepuff tunnels," Lavinia began to explain, withdrawing the sword and waving it until it shrunk back down into a wand. She led the way into the cold interior of the mountain and the men followed silently, listening. "It was designed to hold weaponry, armour and enclose animals-- dragons, hippogriffs-- It was designed to be an armoury rather than a camp," she explained, leading them down a stone stairwell, the entire place hadn't changed in the slightest and she wasn't sure why she'd expected it to have. Nobody had touched it since her Gryffindor father had passed.

"Any more secrets you're hiding, Lavi?" Sirius questioned and Lavinia smiled softly to herself. They did not treat her as though she was younger despite the fact that she technically was, maybe it was because she'd lived in a time long before them or because she had so many thought-out plans that kept them guessing. She dispelled the thought, focusing on the task at hand as she pushed open a stiff gate.

"I have a gift for each of you," Sirius clapped cheerfully at the announcement, the last time she'd gifted them anything, it had been a Basilisk, this was less exciting but she hoped they'd appreciate it regardless. They made their way through into a cavern and the men scanned their wide eyes around the room at the rows upon rows of suits of armour, each a metal that they did not recognise, it was a silver that seemed to glow a vague pale purple. The armour was beautiful with deadly, professional cuts and lines so they did not protest on the colour.