Chapter Twenty: The First Fatality
Harry smirked as he folded the letter and placed it in an envelope.
"Hedwig!" He called his beloved pet and mail courier.
But instead of the flapping of feathered wings and Hedwig's joyous greeting hoot, Harry was met with a resounding silence.
"Where is that bloody bird?" He queried the empty room where he and Dudley had passed many a lustful night.
"HEDWIG!" He shouted impatiently. This letter wasn't going to fly itself to Malfoy Manor, damn it!
Come to think of it, Harry hadn't seen the owl for quite awhile. The weeks at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place had gone by so quickly that they were now nothing more than a shambolic blur of magical drills, secretive meetings of The Secret Order of Harry's Army and meals with Sirius and the few members of the now defunct Order of the Phoenix that Harry allowed into his godfather's house occasionally to act as "advisors" (that's what they thought they were anyway, they were nothing more than outside sources of information to Harry).
The weeks had been filled with shagging too, of course. So. Much. Shagging.
The smirk crept back onto Harry's face as he allowed himself to savor those particular memories for a moment.
He was surprised that Dudley could even walk...
Anyway, Hedwig was probably just off hiding in the attic with the Hippogriff Formerly Known as Buckbeak - even fantastic beasts needed companionship, after all. Harry couldn't be arsed to go all the way up to the attic though, so he filled his lungs to full capacity and boomed, "DOBBY!"
With a loud CRACK! the House Elf appeared before Harry, beaming up at the wizard before sweeping himself into a grand bow. "Master Harry Potter Sir called for Dobby and Dobby came right away, Sir!"
Harry gave Dobby a small, tense smile. "Yes, very good, Dobby. Now, er, have you seen Hedwig around here anywhere? I have a very important letter for her to deliver. She's probably just sleeping in the attic with Buckbeak - ugh, I mean Witherwings - Merlin's beard what a bloody stupid name. Whoever came up with it was a right pretentious git." He scoffed, shaking his head and rolling his eyes dismissively.
Dobby's own enormously bulbous eyes bulged until they nearly popped out of their sockets. "No, Master Harry Potter Sir, Hedwig isn't at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. "
"Oh, Merlin's shrunken left testicle, don't tell me she's out hunting at a time like this!" Harry was livid. Of course the bloody bird would betray him like this! He could just about wring her bleeding neck.
No.
Harry sighed.
He had promised Dudley he wouldn't let his anger get the better of him.
He began pacing around the room in frustration. It was so hard trying to keep his temper in check that Harry wondered why he was even bothering to attempt this astronomical feat, but then he remembered the pain...the blackouts...the dreams...
They worried Dudley and as nice as it was to have his cousin show concern for his well being, unlike Dudley, Harry didn't exactly get off on being excessively smothered - I mean, mothered.
So he would have to at least try.
He began pacing faster to try and burn off his rage.
"N-no, Master Harry Potter Sir, Hedwig isn't hunting, Master Harry Potter Sir, she...she was never here, Sir." The elf looked almost frightened.
"What?" Harry laughed in disbelief. "Of course she is! We've been here for weeks, I think I'd know if I hadn't seen her this entire bloody time, Dobby." He snapped.
"Dobby's right." Came Dudley's voice.
Harry turned to see his cousin standing in the doorway, looking mildly concerned. "It's true," Dudley continued. "I haven't seen her since Privet Drive - she didn't come with us, Harry."
Harry stopped dead in his tracks. "Well, she must still be at bloody Privet Drive then!" He grinned triumphantly and clapped his hands. "Dobby, go fetch her, tell her I have some very important, top secret work for her to do."
Dobby bowed again, bending his torso so low that his nose touched his filthy, gnarled toes, before vanishing with another loud, magical CRACK!
Suddenly there was the sound of feet stampeding up the stairs and then Dudley was very nearly trampled to death by Ron, Hermione, Fred and George. The only one not making an astonishing ruckus was Luna, who just kind of drifted dreamily after them like one of the ancient ghosts that haunted the hallowed halls of Hogwarts.
Ron shoved Dudley out of the way of the door and flung himself across the room at Harry's feet, Hermione following after him, hissing and scratching like a cat. Harry could only watch, bemused, as George wrangled a furious Hermione off of Ron and Fred tried in vain to pry Ron's fingers from their iron grip around Harry's ankles.
Luna held out a hand that was almost as ethereal as her voice and helped Dudley up from off the floor. "Quibbler?" She offered, a copy of her father's trashy magazine seeming to materialize out of nowhere. "Sure," Dudley sighed, "Looks like whatever the hell THIS is could take awhile." Luna handed him the tabloid, which had Harry's face on the cover with the headline screaming "Harry Potter: Sexpot Savior or Secret Time Traveling Son of Salazar Slytherin?!" in bold, italicized comic sans.
"NOOOO!" Ron wailed as Fred finally dragged him away from Harry kicking and screaming.
"I hate you, Ronald Weasley!" Hermione shrieked in a shrill voice, George still somehow managing to keep her arms pinned firmly behind her back so she couldn't lash out at his younger brother, though that didn't stop her from struggling against his hold.
CRACK!
"Dobby! Finally!" Harry cried. "Did you find Hedwig?" He spun around to face the House Elf, who was now naked.
"Blimey..." Ron squeaked admiringly through Fred's chokehold as he gazed upon the genitalia of the magical creature.
Dobby's gigantic orb-like eyes grew moist as he looked up mournfully at his master. Then, with shaking hands he revealed a bundle he had hidden behind his back.
Harry was confused. "That isn't Hedwig, that's the filthy rag you always wear." He made a disgusted face, he could smell the foul stench of it from across the room. "Where's Hedwig?" He demanded.
Dobby walked slowly, painfully, toward Harry, then he knelt down at his master's feet and the moisture in his eyes became a full on torrential torrent of tears as he unwrapped the bundle he held cradled in his arms, revealing the mangled, partially burned body of -
No.
No.
NO!
Harry crashed to his knees on the floor, threw his head back and once again he screamed into the cruel, uncaring void we call a universe.
"HEDWIIIIIIG!"
He lowered his head so no one could see the tears in his eyes, giving himself no other choice but to look at the corpse of his once snowy white owl, whose beautiful feathers were now burned and encrusted with dried blood. Her skull was somehow the wrong shape and appeared to be the bloodiest of all, as if she had been hit in the head before sustaining the rest of her grievous injuries.
Suddenly memories of his last day at Number Four Privet Drive played through his mind like a horrific blooper reel:
Harry scaring Hedwig with his shouting, causing her to try and fly out of the cupboard in fear.
Hedwig hitting the locked door instead and falling to the floor.
Dudley bursting into Harry's cupboard, brutally squashing Hedwig between the door and the wall.
The charred, smoking feathers that appeared after bloody Mad Eye Moody's Howler exploded.
Harry screwed up his face in a mask of twisted agony and his blood ran ice cold in his veins as Cedric Diggory's words came back to him:
"Harry...this is...all...your fault."
"NOOOOO!" Harry howled so ferociously that Allen Ginsberg temporarily arose from the grave just to snap his fingers in beatnik applause. "T'was my rage wot killed you, Hedwiiiiiiiiig!"
Then he buried his face in his hands and wept and wailed like a banshee, no longer caring who saw him.