Disclaimer: If I owned these characters, I wouldn't be writing a disclaimer.
Chapter One
Threats
'Mr. Potter, Go to the astronomy tower at dawn tomorrow. Bring no one. If you do not show up, your owl may have a fresh companion.'
Harry reread the note that he'd found on his windowsill that evening, a week or so after Hedwig's murder. It was short, curt, and sounded to him like a practical joke. Someone's idea of funny, most likely Malfoy and his cronies. Everyone in the school seemed to have found out about his owl, and Malfoy wouldn't shut up about the whole ordeal, naturally. He seemed to find something incredibly funny about it, and kept on mimicking a strangled bird in potions.
Harry sighed and flung the note in the fire. Stupid Malfoy. As if he'd actually go to the tower, there would probably be a bunch of Slytherins with hexes at the ready waiting for him. What did they take him for?
He flopped onto his favorite armchair and watched the embers smolder, casting dancing shadows over the floor. They shed a golden light over everything, and made his skin turn a deep rosy shade. Like I'm bleeding, Harry couldn't help but think. Bleeding like Hedwig did...
He told himself to snap out of it. She was just an owl, it wasn't like Ron or Hermione had been murdered. Yet. He shook his head again, deciding he just needed some rest. Why would these thoughts not stop plaguing him? He yawned widely and listened to his bones crackle as he stretched. I'll just get a new owl in Hogsmeade next trip, he decided. But it was no use. Nothing would ever be able to replace Hedwig.
'No.'
'Then how about this one, I've never seen a black owl like him before'-
'No.'
Hermione and Ron finally gave up, telling Harry they would be in the Three Broomsticks if he needed them. He hadn't even looked at the owls they had pointed out, but automatically turned down every one. And it had been his idea in the first place; he was being so unbearably rude. They had no choice but to leave him to his own devices.
After spending half the day skulking around the pet store, Harry left with nothing but a stench as foul as his mood about him. When he stormed into the Three Broomsticks, Hermione and Ron were nowhere to be seen. Instead of searching around for the two like he normally would have, his feet led him to the Shrieking Shack. He leaned on the fence for a while, staring at the strange looking building but seeing nothing, swimming in shapeless thoughts. And then something occurred to him.
Hermione and Ron said that they'd be in the Three Broomsticks. They'd told him they would be. And yet, they were nowhere to be seen.
The note said to go to the astronomy tower. He hadn't gone.
Harry's breath caught halfway up his windpipe as he turned and fled, sprinting until he felt like every pore on his skin was bleeding. If they were dead, it was all his fault. He couldn't believe he'd taken that chance; he should have just gone to the bloody astronomy tower, even if the Slytherins had hexed him into a pulp. At least he would have known it was all a hoaxd, at least he would have known his friends were safe.
He had no idea where they would be, but he had a fairly good hunch. Without pausing to let the stitches covering his sides ease, he ignored the protests of those whose feet he trampled and shoved his way into Honeydukes. No one noticed the wiry seventeen-year-old break into the cellar and disappear under the floorboards.
Harry blindly stumbled all the way to the astronomy tower. It wasn't dark, but black splotches danced in front of his eyes and threatened to veil them completely. He did his best to ignore them, but when he reached the top of the stairs he couldn't.
Harry Potter dropped into a dead faint, barely feeling the lukewarm crimson bath he was being drowned in.