Disclaimer: I do not own any franchise published by Scholastic nor Yen Press.

"Speaking."

'Thoughts.'

Letters.

Chapter 3: Owl Post

As time went on, the penpal trio would communicate back and forth frequently over the years.

Even after the penpal program ended, Jasmine still sent letters to her Japanese friends, going as far as to beg her school's teacher for any leftover materials to keep in touch. The local librarian caught on to her activities and took pity on the lonely black-haired child, so she helped out Jasmine by buying her letter supplies out of her own pocket and showed her the way to the post office to mail the letters. And the timing couldn't be any better as what little Jasmine could scrounge up barely lasted another half year.

While she can still keep in touch with Ranpo-senpai and Kunikida-kun, her replies came less frequently as all three would have liked. After all, the Dursley kept her busy by dropping as many chores they thought they could get away with forcing a child to do. Trying to keep her relatives from finding out about her newfound secret was a challenge by itself. Jasmine lost count on how many times she came so close to getting caught whenever Dudley and his friends ambushed her on her way to the post office. Then there was that one instance where Petunia saw her niece hiding a couple of envelopes within the folds of her oversized clothing while she was cooking breakfast (luckily the horse-faced woman wrote it off as Dudley's finished homework as her too-worn knapsack had torn the other day and Vernon couldn't be bothered to get a new one for Jasmine).

Frankly, it's been a miracle that no one in the entire household has realized what she's been up to under their noses!

(◎▼◎)

Even though they've never written to one another before, there was something of an unspoken agreement between one Kunikida Doppo and Edogawa Ranpo. For the most part, the two boys were only friends with Jasmine (or JK-chan, a nickname that Ranpo-senpai bestowed upon their mutual friend after he learned about her middle name, Katherine). While they did knew of each other through JK-chan's frequent mentions of "Kunikida-kun" and "Ranpo-senpai", neither boy had felt the need to communicate to one another.

One day shortly after Kunikida-kun's eleventh birthday, JK-chan suddenly stopped replying. For the two weeks, the boys thought JK-chan was unable to reply because she was punished for doing something out of the ordinary as usual. Then another week had passed. And then another week. The weeks then turned into a whole month. Something was very, very wrong. JK-chan had never taken this long to write back. It wasn't until nearly a couple days before Christmas that they finally had an explanation on what was happening on their penpal's end.

(◎▼◎)

Iwakuni is a city in the Yamaguchi Prefecture of Japan, and the hometown of Kunikida Doppo. Since the beginning of November, the dirty blond's stress had been increasing more and more with each passing day without a single piece of paper that would confirm his foreign penpal's well-being. It got to the point where his concern rubbed off on his family. Even his teachers and classmates began taking notice of his unusual behavior as of late but had mistakenly thought it was the end of the year excitement for the holidays.

Just two weeks ago, he had begged his parents if there was anything they could do to help JK-chan but became disappointed when they explained, "No, we can't. Your friend is in another country. No one can do anything for her." They managed to temporarily placate his fears saying she might have had a bad year.

"Girl problems." His mother explained at the dinner table one evening. "Come to think of it, JK-chan is the same age as Doppo-chan, so the timing should be just about right."

"Girl problems? But what do you mean by that, Okaa-san? How does how old JK-chan is have anything to do with-"

"Uuuhhh! It's getting late! We should all turn in for the night! After all, don't you still have to practice your English, son?" His father suddenly interrupted Kunikida's question.

"But, Otou-san, I'm already at the top of my whole year in that subject area!" Kunikida pointed out.

"But are you at the top of your whole school? How about the whole district? Or even the whole city? There's always room for improvement. Now go to your room and study…now, please." The man said frantically, leaving his child confused over his father's odd behavior as he left the table.

Kunikida would later find out about "puberty" a few years after, and the same awkwardness would remind him of that day. He would then congratulate his father for narrowly avoiding scarring his younger self with the "The Talk" once he got over the embarrassment.

(◎▼◎)

In the afternoon of the twentieth of December, an eleven year old Japanese boy entered his room in a restless mood. He had just checked his mailbox for any sign of JK-chan's unique handwriting only to come up empty. He had been doing this almost religiously since the middle of October, and his patience was running thin.

Slamming his school bag onto his bed, he tore it open to retrieve his favorite pen and notebook and proceeded to write furiously about his agitation.

Before he knew it, he had already filled out a page and a half. Suddenly Kunikida's writing was interrupted by a rhythmic tapping noise coming from outside his bedroom window. Putting down his pen and closing his notebook, the boy moved towards the window and opened it to look outside only to find a beautiful white owl sitting on a tree branch right near his room.

The owl had what appeared to be two letters tied to its legs. Gracefully it stretched out its left leg towards Kunikida. For a while, the young boy stared owlishly (pun intended) at the large avian until it gave him a reproachful bark. It then shook its offered limb impatiently with a meaningful glare aimed at him, signaling that it wanted him to take its delivery. Snapping out of his shock, he immediately scrambled towards the pale bird and nearly fell out of his room in his attempt to quickly receive his mail from the elegant owl. The bird of prey then let out a satisfied noise as Kunikida carefully untied the letter from its leg. Once the envelope was in his hands, it then took off and flew away from his house before Kunikida got the chance to do anything else.

The child with dirty-blond hair stared at the flying owl in confusion until its form finally disappeared into the sky. He then turned his attention to the letter in his hands and flipped it over to the front and saw the familiar writing style of JK-chan's signature. Without hesitation, he ripped apart the envelope, grabbed its contents, opened it up, and proceeded to read the lengthy five page overdue letter.

Dear Kunikida-kun,

I'm so sorry for taking so long to reply. September was a busy month for me because I just got accepted into this exclusive boarding school my parents had attended when they were my age. The problem was that it was a bit old fashioned. You could probably tell by now because of the parchment. All the students use it.

('I thought the paper seemed a little weird.' Kunikida thought, momentarily pausing to examine the paper more closely. 'I wonder if she can get me a whole notebook of these. Parchment is pretty expensive after all. Not to mention she owes me for giving me grey hairs before I'm even a teenager!')

The school is also in a remote location so we don't even have electricity running, and the nearest post office is a whole train ride away. Instead, we use owls as messenger birds to deliver our mail. However, I needed to get permission to use Hedwig to deliver my mail to you.

Before you ask, Hedwig is my pet owl. She's a birthday present from one of the school staff who knew my parents. Speaking of, turns out my relatives have been lying to me about them all this time. They weren't "worthless, good-for-nothing drunks and whores who got themselves killed." Instead they were good people. My dad was a rich lord and my mum was an intelligent and capable woman. They were pretty famous in the community my school belonged to. They've even left me an inheritance which completely covered my education and still have left over, so I don't have to worry about poverty after not getting a job straight out of graduation.

Before I get off topic, I need to tell you why I need permission to use Hedwig sooner. Over here, it's against the rules to send the post owls to another country without it. Considering you and Ranpo-senpai are in Japan, I'd be breaking the rules if I had sent Hedwig he first chance I got. I needed to talk to my professors for help getting Hedwig cleared in the proper channels. As you can see it took a while. So those are the reasons why I never got the chance to reply back to your last letter up until the winter holidays.

I hope I didn't worry you too much. By the way, from now on you can expect Hedwig to visit more often. Though to be honest, I don't know how long it would take her to get to you. I did tell her not to exhaust herself, but I can't help but worry about her health. My professors had assured me that Hedwig can handle the long flight, but I just wanted to be sure.

If it's not too much trouble, could you do me a favor and insist that she stays and rest for a while if she seems a bit peaky? Her favorite food is bacon, by the way, in case you're wondering what to feed her. Otherwise, she can hunt on her own.

JK-chan's letter continued on after that. She then described her new school, her professors, and her schoolmates. She also told him that she was sorted into one of the four houses that separated the students based on personality. JK-chan went into a house named, "Gryffindor", which represented courage, chivalry, and determination with the mascot being a lion. She also had dedicated an entire page on her chemistry professor, Professor Severus Snape.

Snape-sensei was initially antagonistic towards her in the first few classes. During those times, the young girl took note that he treated her much more harshly compared to other students, even though it was clear that he favored his house, the Slytherins, more than her house. At the same time, he would off-handedly mention how she was "just like her arrogant father," which led to her concluding that the man personally knows her father but in a negative light and most likely familiar with her mother at the least (Kunikida wondered if Ranpo-senpai would be proud of his kohai for her developing deductive skill).

Wanting more information about her late parents, she took the opportunity to confront Snape-sensei during a detention with him. At first, he was resistant in telling her anything. The conversation then escalated into a shouting match between student and teacher when his penpal stubbornly refused to drop the matter. The argument went into an ugly turn until she had accused the irritable professor of hating her mother as well in a fit of frustration. The answer she got was shocking.

Her chemistry professor violently denied her accusations with a resounding, "NEVER! I LOVED HER MORE THAN ANYTHING!" Both parties went silent and stared at each other for several minutes in shock. JK-chan then took the opportunity to leave without the Snape-sensei dismissing her and didn't look back, leaving a frozen man behind in the empty classroom.

The next class was awkward between them as both professor and student pretty much ignored the presence of the other. Needless to say, JK-chan had dreaded going to detention that evening, but once again, Snape-sensei didn't fail to surprise her. The moment she entered his classroom he dumped a small stack papers dumped in front of her and then walked out of the room, leaving his student behind without an explanation.

After snapping out of her confusion, JK-chan proceeded to examine the papers only to see that they were photos. To be exact, photos of her mother back when she was still a student at the school….along with a younger and smiling Snape-sensei, who used to be close friends with her.

While the harsh criticism towards his penpal still continued in from that point on, there was an understanding of subtle respect between them. They may not like each other, but they can tolerate the other at an extent.

(◎▼◎)

Kunikida whistled merrily as he sauntered into the dining room and sat down at the table with his father as his mother brought out his favorite food for dinner. Noticing his uplifting mood, the couple wondered what had happened in his room that made their son so carefree after weeks of brooding over his foreign female friend.

"Doppo-chan, what's gotten into you? You seem so… so exuberant." His mother said as they began to eat.

Kunikida perked up and began telling his parents all about what's been happening with his friend. "I just received a letter from JK-chan! She's at a boarding school now! They don't have a post office nearby so they use owls instead! Like messenger birds! She told me she's fine and that there's this one instance…"

As the boy talked throughout their dinner about all the details his penpal just wrote him, both mother and father couldn't help but feel relieved that their son's friend in England was doing just fine. As a police officer, Kunikida's father has dealt with cases involving various degrees of child abuse. From what his son had told him and what the girl's letters imply, he knew that JK-chan wasn't in an ideal family situation. In fact, her maternal relatives were neglectful at best, emotionally abusive at worst. When the little girl suddenly ceased contact with his only child, he began thinking the worst had befallen her the longer the hiatus went on. Thankfully, his gut was wrong and it hadn't come to that outcome.

The evening ended with Kunikida asking his parents if it's alright to temporarily house a messenger owl in their house whenever JK-chan's Hedwig came to drop off his mail. At first, they weren't too sure having a large bird of prey in their home even if it's for a day or two, but one look at their son's hopeful eyes, and they caved. Perhaps it would be cruel to force a tired owl to travel elsewhere without rest after traveling so far to deliver their son's letter.

(◎▼◎)

When Hedwig came to the Kunikida household one early January, she was pleasantly surprised by the well-crafted perch installed right near the young boy's bedroom window. As she settled down onto her new resting place like a queen on her throne, the snowy owl thought that her Mistress had thoughtful friends.

She then heard the window opened near her and was greeted with the familiar delicious scent coming from a plate on top of the boy's writing desk. It was undoubtedly the most delectable human foodstuff to ever exist! BACON!

In an instant, she was already on the desk devouring the tasty morsels. The letter already opened and being read by its recipient. The boy with dirty blond hair was gently running his fingers in her soft feathers as he read his latest message from his longtime penpal. Despite the fact, Hedwig had barely even met him, the child was expertly stroking the areas that turned the proud avian into a puddle of feathery goo.

First a perch, then bacon, and finally an amazing petting session. Hedwig's Mistress's had excellent choice of foreign friends indeed!

AN: Third chapter done! I am on a roll! Next is what's been happening with Ranpo! But that one will take a lot of work to do so please don't lynch me if it doesn't come out as soon as you want. It's just me trying to cover all my bases since as much as I love him and all, with Ranpo's personality and backstory, he's much trickier for me to write. I have been on the hunt for information from both canons and incorporating them into this fic, which is easier said than done.

As you can see, I took some liberty constructing the childhood years of our Chibi!Lone Poet and Chibi!Super Deducer. For Kunikida, I took inspiration from his namesake since there wasn't much about his background other than that he was a math teacher prior to the Armed Detective Agency.

Did you know that snowy owls can fly about 30 mi/hr (or 48 km/hr) but can go as fast as 50 mi/hr (or 80 km/hr)? And since the distance is 5845 mi (or 9407 km) from England to Japan, I used these findings to do my math. Dividing the distance with the highest speed would get me around 117 hrs. So let's estimate and say 120 hrs and convert it into days. You'd get 5 days. Assuming Hedwig can fly at the highest speed, she'll probably take 10 days getting from one end of the planet to the other end (and I am including breaks for our favorite girl).

Jasmine's relationship with Snape: The only thing that I changed is that he treats her marginally better than Canon!Harry. I have a headcanon that if Harry were to be born a girl, even with taking more after her father, he would have ease up on his abuse towards a little. But just a little. It's mostly because it would have been hard for him to look at a Fem!Harry and not notice she's basically like a Chibi!James in drag, unlike Canon!Harry, who is a dead ringer for James but with Lily's green eyes. The main reason for this headcanon: I just thought it would be hilarious over the thought of Snape's arch-nemesis crossdressing is the key to Harry getting Snape off his back for a while.

Before I forget…Shoutout to all the people who've favorite and followed this story! Only a day had passed and so many people have already read this fic and loved it. I am overwhelmed with joy as a writer! I would also like to especially thank death goddess Lena, xenocanaan, and Angelcat8 for taking the comment virginity as well as Wake Me When I Care for the helpful review.

But anyways, thanks for reading this story and please leave behind some constructive criticism. ＼（ＴvＴ）／

Edited (5/30/17)