Hello! Behold, the fourth story for season six!
Team: Puddlemere United
Position: Chaser One
Position Prompt: Write from a pet's perspective about mistreatment or abandonment (of pets of people).
Optional Prompts: (plot point) receiving a pet as a gift, (location) Eeyelops Owl Emporium
Word Count: 1235
Beta'ed by: JBrocks917, Marvelgeek42, and desertredwolf. Thank you so much!
She woke to the burning sensation of sunlight searing into her eyes. She looked up to see a man, a very, very large man, carrying her cage by the handle. He swung it slightly and whistled, looking down at her when he realized she was awake.
"Yer going to make a great pet fer Harry," he said, "and a great friend, too. Yer going to like him, I'm sure of it."
She hooted softly to acknowledge him, then tucked her head back into her wing.
As if she would like this human out of all the hundreds of other ones.
x-X-x
"Th-thank you," the boy said, stammering out his thanks and turning to face the large man.
"Don' mention it," said the man gruffly. "My gift."
From the spending the rest of the day shopping with the duo, she gathered that the large man's name was Hagrid and the little boy's name was Harry. When Hagrid left Harry at the Muggle train station, she was alone with him for what was the first time in what she was sure to be a million others. She stayed fairly silent during the ride to her new home, uncertain about this whole ordeal. When was the last time she had been in the outside world? Or even outside the Emporium, for that matter?
She looked out from under her wing for a moment, and immediately regretted it. Twenty pairs of eyes stared at her through the metal bars of her cage. She quickly hid her face again. How long would she have to live with this?
However bad the train was, her new home, Harry's home, turned out to be much worse.
When they arrived, she was treated to the sight of a beefy man with a thick neck and a skinny woman whose neck looked unnaturally long, much longer than that of any other human she had seen before. "A-a-an owl?" the woman gasped, dramatically collapsing onto one of the couches that adorned the room.
The creature in question had to restrain herself from rolling her eyes.
Harry quickly dashed up the stairs to avoid further scolding, but loud shout reverberated through the house after them. "BOY!"
They entered a room filled with broken toys and trinkets and unopened books. Harry sat down on his bed, set the cage next to him, and sighed. "Sorry about that," he said, looking down at her. "Those are my aunt and uncle. I've lived with them ever since my parents died, and I'm afraid they aren't nice at all. But you get used to it eventually."
Harry rummaged through his many packages for a moment and found the owl treats, poking a few through the bars of her cage. "Eat up," he said. "We only have to survive for a month, then it's off to Hogwarts!" His face was so hopeful that she could feel her own spirits lifted, and hooted her shared sentiments.
Harry ended up naming her Hedwig, which he found from one of his history textbooks.
Hedwig. She liked it.
Hedwig hadn't understood why Harry had hated the Dursleys so much, but that was before she had actually met them.
They were terrible.
She wasn't allowed out of her cage, and was only permitted to hunt once a week. She wasn't even able to hoot without riling up Harry's horrible relatives.
The first time they starved Harry, that was when she knew.
Harry was caught reading his new textbooks and his uncle declared that he had no meals for a week. Hedwig could hardly believe her ears, and she took pride in having better hearing than most. A week? She couldn't imagine not being able to eat for that long. So the next time Harry gave her a batch of owl treats, she pushed one back at him. He smiled. "Thanks, Hedwig," he said, taking it.
Harry looked at it for a moment before taking an experimental nibble, and he immediately spit the piece back out again. Hedwig hooted what could only be described as a laugh, the first time she had done so since that day back in Diagon Alley. Harry laughed with her.
"Sorry," he said, dropping the rest of the treat back into her cage. "Guess it's not really my thing."
She knew then, that this would be her companion for life, and she would protect him no matter what the cost.
This was it. The end.
And she knew it.
They were going to leave Privet Drive forever, and though it was a horrible sort of home, it was, in a way, still home.
Harry's friends and honorary family members crowded into the tiny kitchen, their plan set into motion as she watched six other people slowly transform into Harry, her master, her friend, her family. They were supplied with glasses, clothes, and even stuffed snowy owls, all identical to Harry's. But of course, she could tell who the real one was. She could tell from a mile away. Her Harry was one of the most nervous, glancing around at the others. But she knew that he wasn't worried for himself, rather his friends who he could never let die for him. Her Harry held himself almost uncertainly, like he was approaching a small, wounded animal and he wasn't sure what on earth to do. Her Harry never wasted a word, and could speak like the most determined person in the world, a quality that Hedwig found annoying at times but also rather brave, like he didn't care what the world thought of him as long as he kept speaking what was right and what was true.
She knew, from that fateful moment that one summer right at the very beginning, that she would die for this human. She would protect him, she would save him, no matter what the cost.
Harry carried Hedwig's cage close to him, tucking her in with him in the tiny sidecar attached to Hagrid's motorbike. The strange man named Moody—the one with the odd eyeball—gave the countdown, and off they were.
But as soon as they reached the air, dark, hooded figures were upon them, spells were flying, lights were flashing, and it was all Hedwig could do to keep an eye on Harry as she tumbled about in the little area, because all that mattered now was that he was safe. Broomsticks and thestrals flew about everywhere she looked, but she kept her large amber eyes focused on Harry, the human she had never thought she could love but had now become her family.
Suddenly, she felt the familiar rush of wind as the sidecar was tipped over and her cage was thrown into the air—she turned and saw a jet of green light, soaring like a deadly comet towards Harry, shooting through the bars of her cage, and instinctively she dove to block its path—there was screaming—there was light—and then there was one single moment of clarity in which she saw Harry's face, a mask of agony, his arms reaching out to her. "Hedwig!" he screamed, but it was too late—he faded from her vision—she was falling…
… and all she saw was light.
