Prompt: Halloween

Any time period/pairing/era

Word count: 500-5000

Note: The following story is a submission to the facebook group Platform 9 3/4. All stories on this profile are works submitted by multiple authors through means of the group. Contestants will remain anonymous until voting is completed. Only the author and moderators of the challenge are aware of identities.

Disclaimer: the author of this story did not create these characters and will in no way claim ownership therein. All things Harry Potter related belong to JK Rolling.


Story Title : Birds of a Feather

Rating: K

Genre: fantasy?

Fanfic name : -Undisclosed at this time-

Pairing if any: not really

Ocs if any: None

Summary : how do you deal with someone else's past?


Birds of a Feather


She'd been dreading today.

The sun had barely began its accent and a gray mist lay over the houses and yet she had already been up for hours. Nothing surprising with that however, she thought to herself. For as long as she could remember she enjoyed the nighttime, preferred it even. The silence. The peacefulness. There was something special about being alone with one's own thoughts in the darkness. To be completely aware while all others slept. But having time to think has its blessings and its curses she reminded herself and last night had been no different.

She'd been dreading today.

All holidays were hard for her but today, Halloween was especially difficult. Wizards loved this special day from the feasts, to the traditions, the stories, the magic itself. And for him, for Harry, for her Harry this was certainly true. For Harry always treasured Halloween. After all it was during the feast in his first year that he had battled a troll and solidified his lifelong friendships with Ron and Hermione. She couldn't blame him really. Such an event would surely create a bond to the day.

But she hadn't been there with him to share in that adventure. Another had been in her place. Or maybe not. Maybe she wasn't there with Harry that night. The events and years and stories all seemed to run together in a big mishmash of information she'd been told over the past few years since being with Harry. She smiled to herself and thought someone should really take the time to write all of the stories down sometime. Someone should write down all the adventures that Harry and his friends had lived in those first seven years. Lots of people would enjoy reading it, she thought. But not her. She wouldn't read it because she would most assuredly be in there.

Can you hate someone you've never even met? It's one of the questions she'd grappled with since she first came into Harry's life. Everyone has a past, she told herself, and when Harry would look at her and talk to her she felt as if she was the only one, if only for a while. In those moments she would convince herself that there hadn't been another before her. Hadn't been someone else whom Harry had looked at in the same way. Whom he had confided in. But the fantasy was fleeting at best. It never lasted more than a few moments. Because in those green eyes she saw his pain. The longing. The hurt and missing that no matter what she did she could never fix. Never replace Being the one after the one would always have that burden and she struggled with it daily.

She shook her head and looked around the room. The fire glow seemed to diminish its light as the sun rose higher and higher creeping through the windows. Grimmauld Place had really turned out to be a nice place to live. Kreacher the house elf had really done a great job making the place beautiful again. Now there was someone, maybe the only someone, whom she didn't see as a person she had to impress or attempt to live up to the memory of her. Kreacher was an equal opportunity offender. Here though, on Halloween morning, he had indeed outdone himself. Carved pumpkins of all kinds floated quietly around the room, their candle lit faces smiling with missing teeth. Magic streamers hung from the ceiling with little enchanted witches and goblins and monsters of all types climbed and jumped from one to the other. Even the inhabitants in the many moving enchanted pictures seemed to be putting on costumes and preparing for the big day ahead.

The pictures. These are the hardest to deal with she thought. For as she moved around from one room to the other looking at them now, there she was in many of them. With Harry at school. Alongside Harry after winning the Quidditch cup. With Ron at the burrow. Bill and Fleur's wedding. She was there with Harry for all of them. How happy they look together. There was no denying that. And of course they should stay up too. It would be beyond selfish to expect them to come down just because she was no longer there. For the family, it was a reminder of happier times. Plus there were the children to consider. It was important for all three of them too. They needed the reminders. Needed to be reminded of the true devotion and true courage she showed. It was important to never forget her as pure evil took her too soon. Before her time. Maybe even more than Harry, the children had tried to make things easier with the transition from her to me she thought as she stared up at their bedroom doors, knowing soon they'd be waking to rush down to the morning festivities. They were, of course, nervous and reluctant but warmed up almost instantly, craving the affection and devotion that she could give them. It was their trust and patience that helped her to relax around the family. As much as she craved Harry's affection the children had always been there for her and, in time she decided, so would he. Not completely of course she realized, heading back to the kitchen. You never completely get over your first. It was a hard lesson to learn. One that had been told to so many before her but until it's happening to you, you can't explain it. Nor would you wish it on anyone else.

She quietly ate a few pieces of the bacon that would be a part of the morning breakfast and hopped up on to the kitchen window. She had to go get the kids presents that they had been looking forward to for months. She rustled her wings and looked back over her shoulder at her old cage, beautiful snowy white feathers still inside on the floor of it. It sat, as always, right next to her own cage, a constant reminder that there had been another owl before her. Maybe she never would completely replace her. Probably not. But that doesn't mean she couldn't find a way to etch her own place into Harry's heart. To write new chapters in his life. New adventures to share with him. To use her as a guide, not as an advisory. She looked once more at her cage. "I'll take good care of them," she thought and with that she was out the window and riding the wind.


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