Disclaimer: nothing you recognize here is mine!

Word Count: 1,507

Challenges:

Quidditch League – Round 8 [Kenmare Kestrals - Chaser 1] Victoire Weasley. Prompts: stubborn, owl, "Where did that come from?"

Quidditch Pitch – She couldn't stop laughing.

Drabble Club – "Is it really that hard to believe?"

Greek Mythology Mega Prompt Challenge – Helen: write about female friends

She couldn't stop laughing even if she wanted too. The whole situation was just so absurd and weird, and Victoire couldn't help but laugh at her friend's misfortune.

"It was not funny!" exclaimed Nadine, Victoire's fellow Ravenclaw, "Stop laughing!"

"It was funny," Victoire said, still laughing, "Stop being stubborn and admit it!"

Nadine rolled her eyes. It was kind of funny, but there was no way she would tell the blonde that.

It had been five minutes after the whole ordeal. Nadine and Victoire had been sitting on a couch near the fireplace of the Ravenclaw Common Room; it had all been calm and relaxing until an owl swooped in an attacked Nadine, leaving her astonished and having Victoire laugh at her for five complete minutes.

"Anyways," Victoire started, but suddenly glared at something behind her friend, "Where did that come from?" she said as she pointed at an envelope lying in the middle of a nearby table.

Nadine shrugged. "Maybe the owl brought it,"

Victoire stifled a giggle and nodded. "Probably. Let's investigate!"

The blonde took the envelope and opened it hastily, her anxiousness showing in the way she moved. When it was opened, both girls' eyes widened at what was inside. A letter was folded inside the envelope, as was a roll of parchment too. Nadine took the parchment and Victoire took the letter, reading it out loud so that Nadine could hear it too.

"This is a map!" exclaimed Nadine in mild surprise, "There's something hidden in the castle!"

"Wait a second, let me read this," Victoire said, focused on the mystery letter, "Okay, so here what it says,"

Victoire read out loud what she saw. "Dear people reading this, there's something important I should tell you. During the eve of the war, I hid something of great value somewhere in the castle of Hogwarts, something I want to retrieve, as it is very important to my family. It's there because I thought I was to die, but I survived and I think it's time to bring back my family heirloom. Please, I bed you to find it and owl it back to me. Send this back with the heirloom with Naomi, my owl, and I will be forever grateful. A.V.B."

Nadine let out a shriek, "This sounds so cool! Like a Sherlock novel, oh Merlin,"

"Yes!" Victoire exclaimed, "I can be Sherlock and you can be Watson,"

"You've read them?" Nadine queried in surprise, a frown upon her face, "I thought you didn't like to read,"

Victoire rolled her eyes. "Is it really that hard to believe? I'm a Ravenclaw,"

"That's true," Nadine said and then smiled, "Let's go on an adventure!" She then took Victoire's hand, the letter and the map, and took off running.

They were at the Entrance Hall when Victoire took the map to see it. The parchment was rough in her hands as she opened it quickly, and then sighed at what she saw.

"Nadine, we're going in the wrong direction," she said with a groan, "we're supposed to be going to the fifth floor at the South Tower,"

"Are you sure?" the girl asked confused, "I thought it said the Entrance Hall, but well, let's get going!"

"Okay, the 'x' marks the place," Victoire explained as she showed Nadine the map, pointing at the x mark on one part, "and it shows the heirloom is somewhere near a turn to the right, in the fifth floor, so we've got to go there and search,"

It was slightly boring to walk around the castle, but it was a quest, and not some journey. They needed to find that heirloom, whatever it was. Victoire's blue eyes twinkled at the idea of actually finding the heirloom, as it seemed like something only a detective or a pirate could do. Victoire felt like if she was a detective, she was bloody Sherlock for all she knew.

After a while of searching around the fifth floor, Victoire found a hall that looked slightly off. It was gloomy and dark, the walls filled with black bricks and only two paintings were hanged on it. The one on the right looked like a fair lady from the medieval times, her dress made for royalty and a crown lied on her head, and on the other one, which was at the right, featured a table were sleeping people sat, clearly drunk and in a bar.

Victoire looked at Nadine, whose eyes betrayed her inexplicable fear, and the blonde knew there was nothing she could do but ask the paintings. She cleared her throat loudly, and the lady opened her eyes in mild annoyance while two of six drunks woke up from their deep sleep.

"Hello," greeted Victoire, keeping her calm.

The lady looked at her and narrowed her eyes. "What are you two doing here?" she inquired, raising an eyebrow.

Victoire stammered, but managed to answer. "We are on a quest to retrieve a lost heirloom,"

"Ah," the lady said, now smiling at them, "that sounds fantastic. I once heard someone pass this halls, not so much time for me but for you it should be, and the person stopped about there–" she said pointing at one point of the hall, " and then, I heard no more. Maybe you should investigate,"

Nadine nodded and Victoire let out a breath she had been holding. "Thanks for the information, lady,"

"My name was once Tatiana, but yes, I was a lady. Good luck on your quest"· she said, waving her hand at them.

Victoire smiled at the painting and tugged Nadine's arm. "Let's go," she whispered as she ran to the spot the lady had told them. Both Victoire and Nadine started groping the walls, trying to find some secret passage with no avail.

"Ah!" exclaimed Victoire in frustration, "Why isn't there some secret passage or something?"

"Maybe we're looking at it wrong. Maybe it not pushing the bricks, but taking one out! Tori, search for any brick that seems off and take it out," said Nadine in realisation.

And so they searched for just that for a while, until Nadine took a brick and it fell on the floor, shattering in the process.

"Aha!" she exclaimed in success.

Victoire smiled at her. "Well, do me the honour," she gestured at Nadine to look inside.

Nadine crutched until she was at eye-level with the newfound hole, and gasped. She took her hand in and out came the prettiest necklace she had ever seen. It had encrusted emeralds and it was decorated with pecks of gold. Even if there was almost no light, the necklace glittered and sparkled, magic emanating from the piece of jewellery.

"Wow," gasped Victoire in awe, "now I get what the person said with heirloom. That's clearly from a pureblood family. Judging by the emeralds, it's probably a prominent Slytherin family. Black, Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Greengrass, Parkinson – erm – I don't know which others,"

Nadine rolled her eyes. "Stop rambling. The letter was signed with the initials A.V.B, so it's most probably from the Blacks. Isn't Teddy a Black? Anyways, it's also a necklace, and the person was carrying it during the battle, so it was probably a girl," she asked, her answer being a nod.

"Right, we could give it to him or send it with Naomi the owl," said Victoire.

"Or maybe," said Nadine in a very greedy tone, "we could sell it,"

"Shut up, Nadine, stop with the Slytherin tendencies," said Victoire, "let's go send it back to the mysterious person,"

They had gone back, and while the Common Room was now busy, no one had approached the tawny owl, which made the two girls sigh in relief.

Victoire had quickly gone to her dorm and put the necklace in a leather bag she had for whatever reason, and went right back down to where Nadine was with Naomi.

"Let's write back, to tell the person we found it," said Nadine while petting Naomi.

The blonde nodded. "Yeah, but we send the necklace with the letter. Let' see," she said as she grabbed a spare bit of parchment she found in the table they were sitting. Nadine passed her inkbottle and quill so that Victoire could write.

"Okay," said Victoire, "I'll just start,"

'Dear mysterious person,' wrote Victoire 'we wanted to answer a letter that was sent to us for mysterious reasons we don't know about. After a lot of searching, we found the heirloom you seemed to talk about. If it is a pretty necklace, and you're searching for one, we found in with help of the map you also sent. Thanks for giving us something fun to do! With love, Victoire and Nadine.'

"Shouldn't we put our last names, see if we get some money for it?" asked Nadine.

Victoire rolled her eyes. "Not really, Nadine, we should just keep it like that,"

And tying the letter and bag to the owl's paw, Victoire sent it off to its owner, smiling as their quest was fulminated.

fin.

Notes: Okay, so writing this proved to be very, very difficult, and it was not beta'd, so it's most probably horribly horrible. Also, you may ask, why the bloody hell A.V.B. had a necklace in the midst of the war? Well, she may had been caught in the moment while she had the heirloom and went to Hogwarts, necklace in hand. And who exactly is A.V.B.? That's up to you, but it's an actual canon character that wrote her pre-marital name in the letter, or it might be another person, maybe it's even a man! Who knows? (:

Also, Nadine is an my O.C., but I don't think there's any Nadine in the series, so it's all good.