Hedwig Harry!
Fire-whiskey, a dare, three Unspeakable witches, a disagreement over the pronunciation of a set of runes, fire-whiskey, a wand, and a Sanskrit tongue-twister (and when you're drunk enough, everything is a tongue-twister). Harry ends up as Hedwig at end of Harry's First Year at Hogwarts.
Like all fanfiction, I post this work at Fanfiction Net with the kind forbearance of the owners of the Harry Potter franchise, J.K. Rowling, and her publishers. I claim nothing of note, as removing all references to her Harry Potter universe would render my story nonsensical. Not to mention unreadable.
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Note: a meter is only ten percent larger than a yard, so you can just swap the two when a character says anything is "xx yards" in size. A kilometre is about two-thirds the length of a mile. Similarly, a quart and a litre are different only by 5.5 millilitres. Four quarts (litres) make a gallon.
General notes about owls before we start:
The average owl, has thirty-five-to-a-hundred times better vision at night than a person, making them excellent night hunters.
Snowy Owls see into ultraviolet, but not red. Snowy Owls also glow under blacklights, with newer feathers glowing brighter than older ones. An owl can hear a beetle running through grass 100 feet away or a mouse squeaking at a distance of half a mile. The Snowy Owl call of the male is a loud, harsh, grating bark, and in tundra areas can be heard for seven miles. During the breeding season males have a loud, booming "hoo, hoo" given as a territorial advertisement or mating call. Females rarely hoot. Its alarm call is a guttural "krufff-guh-guh-guk". When excited it may emit a loud "hooo-uh, hooo-uh, hooo-uh, wuh-wuh-wuh". Other sounds are dog-like barks, rattling cackles, shrieks, hissing, and bill-snapping. The alarm call is a barking, almost quacking krek-krek; the female also has a softer mewling pyee-pyee or prek-prek. The song is a deep repeated gahw. They may also clap their beak in response to threats or annoyances. While called clapping, it is believed this sound may actually be a clicking of the tongue, not the beak. www. youtube watch?v=Sqs5KKHZHSc&sns=em). Astonishingly, they can feel the vibrations of moving prey through their feet when roosting on rocks and branches.
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01. Uh, Oops?
It was the worst of times, which always followed the best of times.
Harry had a hangover. And a doozy of one, at that. He must have been completely legless last night. Which was happening more and more frequently, now that he thought about it.
It was blaringly bright, even with his eyelids closed. He turned his head away from the sunlight . . . and heard the crackling of leaves. Great. He was outside. His friends — he used the word sarcastically — had decided to prank him.
Again.
It hurt too much to think about that at the moment.
His tongue felt like it was coated in fur.
Again.
He went to push himself up, and rolled over onto his back instead.
He swore off getting so pissed.
Again.
His head hurt, his neck hurt, his arms hurt, his feet hurt, Sweet bloody Merlin, even his toes and fingers hurt!
And everything felt so . . . wrong!
He creaked open one eye and looked around. Yep. He was in a forest clearing, mostly green except for under the trees where he could see leaves. Plus, this particular spot was in just the right position to give him the full benefit of the afternoon sun right in his face.
Bastards. And bitches.
He rolled over, and again tried to get his arm under him. Then froze, staring. He flexed his arm. The feathered thing he was looking at, flexed.
The next few minutes passed in a blur, but at the end of his panic attack he had verified that he really was a light-blue bird of some kind. He didn't know what kind, just that he had light-blue wings, chest, torso, and tail. Some feathers were a brighter blue than others in a distinctive pattern of some sort. There was a slight darkening at the tips of wing feathers, but everything else appeared light-blue. He had never seen a bird with such a colour scheme, not even in pictures of tropical birds.
And he was dirty, at the moment, as the bits and pieces of leaves were all over him. He shook and ruffled his wings, brushing at his sides and looked around.
What the bloody hell had happened?
Then he froze, again.
Ah! Of course!
Those five bloody barmy berks had transfigured him into a bird! Wankers. His so-called friends had to be watching from a distance, there was no way they would simply transfigure him and not watch his hilarious reaction. He carefully scanned everything he could see in all directions. Nothing. Hmm. His sight sure was good, though. He was positive he could see a rat or mouse of some kind peeping out of a hole in the roots of a tree across and some distance from the clearing he was in. It was at the centre of a series of wandering lines on the tree-root that made it easy to spot.
Whatever bird he was, he was a raptor of some sort.
Brill. Just brill. They had dumped him. If they weren't watching, then they were probably all at their homes, now, giggling at how they had done him dirty.
So. He could either wait it out, which, knowing those four could take hours. Or he could head for home. He glared at one of his wings. Which meant he had to learn to fly, because he certainly wasn't going to walk!
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"Do you think it is injured, Bane?" red-haired and bearded Ronan, a Centaur, dolefully said. Below the waist, he had a horse's gleaming chestnut body with a long and reddish tail, above it was the same as a man. He had his bow and quiver slung over his shoulder, watching what they had first thought was a wounded bird.
The bird in question somehow managed to flip itself upside down and fly a few feet before ploughing into the ground, beak first.
"No. Its movements, while erratic, do not seem to display any physical impairment," said his wild-looking companion, who had black hair and beard. He, too, had a horses' body and tail, although it was black.
The two Centaurs winced as it flew into a tree trunk and slid to the ground, stunned.
"Mayhaps, it is drunk?"
It flew up and tried to grab a branch. It was too high, its claws closing on empty air. It flew over the target branch, slammed into another branch, and toppled to the ground in an ineffectual frantic flurry of beating wings and odd noises that sounded oddly like someone cursing vociferously.
Bane shook his head and gave him a wry look. "You know it is too early in the season for birds to find fermented berries of any kind."
This time it managed to grab the branch, but with only one foot — and it was going too fast. That made it spin around and down, and it ended up flinging itself into the ground in another ineffectual frantic flurry of beating wings and what was now clearly the owl equivalent of cursing.
"True, true," came the slow response. "Mayhaps, a wizard left a tankard of ale unattended in the village?"
Two scouts watched in amazed silence as a beautiful, mature, white Snowy Owl fluttered erratically around the clearing, acting more like an oversized, drunken, butterfly than an efficient, deadly, flying predator.
Any mice or voles watching, if they were brave enough to poke their noses out of their burrow with a predator so close, were probably rolling in their burrows in hysterical laughter.
"I think it more likely that the mysterious blast of magic we felt might have confused it."
The bird had apparently given up on flying to a branch and had walked over to a small tree. It was slowly sidling up the trunk, using its beak to hold position while awkwardly shuffling its feet, then seizing a new hold higher up. They stared as the bird hung upside-down on the lowest branch of the tree.
"Yes. It does appear that it has forgotten how to fly," said Ronan, shaking his head sadly.
The bird managed to bend over — up? — and crawl onto the top of the branch. It looked like a normal owl for a few moments, albeit a dirty one with rather a lot of the forest floor debris embedded among its feathers. It was more brown than white, now.
"There is still that taint of a powerful magic here," said Bane, "but it is fading." He looked warily around the clearing beside them. They were a few steps into the treeline, hidden in the shaded darkness. They were not moving a muscle, depending on their stillness to remain unnoticed.
The bird spread its wings and launched itself, awkwardly, off the branch, and glided a short distance. Then it did a triple somersault as its feet hit the ground. It laid on its back, wings spread for a moment, then rolled over and stood up again. It gave its head an almost Centaur-like shaking and looked around the open space around it. It huffed and started walking to a closer tree than the one it had left.
They watched for almost an hour as the bird re-taught itself how to fly, crashing into trees, misjudging its landings on ground, and missing the tree-limb it was aiming for. When it did catch the right tree branch, it usually ended up hanging upside-down. Sometimes it managed to grab a small branch and end up swinging around it several times before stopping, hanging upside down and looking quite dizzy. It became quite proficient at climbing up tree-trunks, with the help of its beak.
Finally, the owl managed to take off and land from a tree branch, and then the same from the ground, without ending in a crash of one kind or another. Or hanging upside-down.
The two onlookers were relieved that the bird seemed to be recovering nicely, but were also vaguely disappointed that their entertainment was coming to an end. The forest didn't present very many comedy acts for their amusement.
The bird continued practicing until it successfully completed three repetitions of landing and taking off without crashes or hanging upside-down like a bat. Finally, apparently satisfied with its results, the bird gave a last look around the clearing, then flew up into the sky as the two Centaurs watched, still bemused.
Bane sighed, and looked around. "A most unusual occurrence." He glanced in the direction the bird had taken. "It is not our problem."
"True," said Ronan.
"Whatever the magic was, it is gone now," Bane said, and turned to head deeper into the forest.
"True." The chestnut stallion followed him.
"I do wonder what this portends . . . the stars did not foretell anything such as this." He sighed. "Mercury will soon enter Cancer, though."
"Communication will be important, then. Mayhaps, a convocation is advised?" Ronan suggested glumly.
"Saturn entered retrograde seven days ago, a time for balancing the past, with the present, and future," agreed Bane.
"The New Moon was in Gemini, starting a time for changes and spontaneity," responded Ronan, gloomily.
"The centred waxing crescent Moon enters Leo as we speak."
Ronan nodded gloomily. "And Mars was bright last night."
They walked in silence for a moment.
Bane smiled. "The foals will enjoy the story of The White Owl Who Forgot How to Fly. I especially liked the way it ended up hanging from the branches like a bat."
Ronan chuckled. "That would be a good running line. Although, I have never seen such an accomplished avian expert at aerial and ground somersaults, either."
"It seemed to have a rather impressive cursing vocabulary, too."
"If only we knew owlish," Ronan said regretfully.
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Harry was tired. It had taken forever to get take-offs and landings right. Still, he now understood enough about winged-flight not to crash into things on accident . . . mostly. Plus, he could land without sliding, tumbling, or tripping all over the place. So, now to find out where he was. He thanked Merlin, as Hermione used to say, that no one had seen his embarrassing performance. Otherwise, he'd never live it down. He was sure it would be the stuff of legends — and laughter,
Unless his friends were scrying him. Then he could expect to see a pensieve of the scene, with a running critical commentary. Bastards — and bitches.
But, he grudgingly admitted, his transfiguration to a bird was a work of art.
He was starting to remember more about last night. He had met Hermione and two of her co-workers, Daphne and Priscilla, after work at some dive in Falmouth, considerably southwest of London. Ron and Neville had been late arrivals, as usual. He had already downed two shots of Firewhiskey.
He was rather surprised not to have heard any traffic nearby. Southern England was crowded enough that you could almost always hear the noise of a lorry or car, even if it was a mile or two away, when you were in the country. Which meant all he needed to do was figure out how far from Falmouth his friends had taken him.
It was almost three-o'clock, now, he could see, looking at the shadows. He cocked his head slightly. He just knew it was that time! How strange was that? Handy, though. If he was right.
But what was remarkable, now that he thought about it, was that he intuitively knew exactly where north was. Plus, he had the oddest feeling that he was somewhere in the Cairngorm section of the Grampian Mountain Range. The ocean was thirty miles away in an arc from the southeast to south-southeast, and it also was sixty miles away in a wide arc from north-northwest to north, with Falmouth far, far to the south. How could he possibly know that? And Hogwarts was right . . . there!?
He couldn't help staring in stunned silence at the massive structure now less than a thousand yards away, and rapidly getting closer as he glided. It looked . . . beautiful. And nothing like it should look after the battle had demolished huge sections of it and then been rebuilt. The small touches that reconstruction crews had added as they rebuilt it were gone. Dumbledore's tomb, too, was completely missing. As was the monument to the war's fallen.
Which was why he crashed into a tree and fell from branch to branch before managing to grab a passing branch. He clung tightly with one clawed foot to the branch, the last before the ground over — under? — his head. Stunned, now, for an entirely different reason, he hung upside down. He had discovered earlier, surprisingly, that it took little effort to lock his toes around the branch. He thought it likely he could fall asleep in this position and wake in the morning without having let go.
Once he'd recovered enough, he began the tedious chore of sidling sideways to the tree-trunk. He was in a tree just inside the treeline that bordered the Hogwarts lawn. He could hear a snicker from the lawn beyond the edge of the forest.
Two boys were looking at him and laughing. He guessed them to be Third- or Fourth-year students. They were vaguely familiar to his eyes, but they were very pale and had brownish-blonde hair with a slight blue tint. They wore black robes.
At least there was one advantage to being a bird, he didn't need glasses! He could clearly make out every detail of anything he looked at, even the individual stones that made up the walls of the ancient castle. He stared at the two blondes. Where had he seen those two, before?
They reminded him of the Weasleys, but they had no children of an age to attend Hogwarts, nor was their hair that famous Weasley red — it was a medium brown with a slight greenish-yellow-blue tinge, like a bad dye job. But, then again, he'd noticed everything in the forest, so far, had a slight greenish-yellow tinge, and even the tree-leaves had a slight yellow in them, so maybe that was an owl thing? Probably so, now that he noticed their faces weren't their normal pink but had a slightly greenish-blue tint to them, instead.
Unfortunately, the way they were half-hidden by the trees, he couldn't see the crest on their robes to identify their House. He put off consideration of that until later.
Then he blushed at the thought they had seen his fall through the tree. How embarrassing.
Noticing that he was watching them, they quit trying to hide their snickers, and just laughed.
His hearing was much better than he expected from a bird, and he almost fell off the branch, to their entertainment, when he heard them refer to each other as Fred and George. That coincidence was just too much, considering that he could now easily see how similar they looked to both each other and the twins he remembered. But the twins weren't, anymore. Fred was gone. And George had an ear missing. But why wasn't their hair red?*
"Pity we can't tell Harry how funny his owl is."
"Nope. He wouldn't believe us."
"Do you think she's hurt?"
"Nah, not from the way she's glaring at us."
They both laughed.
Harry? His owl? She? He had a sinking feeling in his stomach. Which was really weird since that way was now up. What on earth were they talking about?
Before he could decide what to do next, he looked over at the entrance to the castle. This time, he almost did let go of the branch he clung to.
Three kids had just come out of those doors, with a crowd of others. Two of those kids he knew quite well. He easily recognized them, even if their hair-colours were off from what he expected — Hermione, Ron, and . . . himself. Merlin, he looked so tiny!
Was he in an alternate world where the famous Weasley red-heads were brunettes with bad hair-dyes? But Hermione's bushy brown hair looked the same, although with a slight greenish-yellow-blue tinge. Plus, her complexion also had a greenish-blue tint.
He stared at the three as they made their way across the lawn to their favourite place by the lake.
He didn't even think about it. He released the branch, flipped over, and flew to intercept the three. He circled the three, and heard them all exclaim, "Hedwig" as he came close. Okay, so that was pretty positive identification, wasn't it? Especially when the other two referred to the third as Ron. Which he had to be. He looked exactly like his best mate!
They were young. Oh, soo young.
Just from their faces he could see that they had to be in First- or Second-year. Third-year they had started to lose their baby fat and fill out into young men and a woman. Hermione especially. He had to find out when this was. He landed on Harry's shoulder.
"Hi, girl," Harry said, stroking the bird's breast feathers. Harry, well, apparently, now, Hedwig just stared at him. This close, his face was just a blur. "What have you been into?" Harry continued worriedly, "You're covered in dirt!"
Harry spread his wings and gave a good, hard, shake, and forest debris rained down across Harry's robes. "Hedwig!" Harry-the-boy said irritably as Ron and Hermione laughed.
Hermione then started talking about what they had just been doing, apparently returning to a topic she had already covered based on how Ron rolled his eyes when she wasn't looking.
Ron interrupted and said that reviewing the exams they had just finished made him feel ill. Hermione harrumphed and crossed her arms as Harry-the-boy continued stroking Harry. By the time they had wandered down to the lake and flopped under a tree, Harry had a good idea of what was going on as he flew up to a low-hanging branch.
Merlin! He could almost remember that conversation word-for-word!
Somehow, last night, the five of them had managed to send him back in time to June 4th 1992, First Year exams! He watched the Weasley twins and Lee Jordan playing with the giant squid's tentacles in the warm shallows, while he tried to figure out how he took over Hedwig's body. Was Hedwig gone, now?
Apparently, if he couldn't remember how to fly!
On the other hand, knowing what he did about what was about to happen, he could head off many of the mistakes they had made before and after Voldemort had returned. He could save thousands of lives!
He barely listened as the three discussed Harry-the-boy's scar. Harry knew it meant Quirrell was gleefully setting in motion his plan to acquire the Sorcerer's Stone. He watched as an owl flew to the castle, not doubt carrying the fake message from the Ministry.
Several minutes later, Harry-the-boy jumped up in a panic, and the three rushed off towards Hagrid's hut. They weren't in there that long when the trio came out of Hagrid's hut and rushed towards the castle. So intent were they on reaching the front doors as quickly as they could, they didn't notice the Headmaster exit the side-door beside the vegetable gardens as they were getting close to their destination. The Headmaster headed over to Hagrid's hut.
Harry could only shake his head as he watched Hagrid retrieve a thestral from their clearing. **
No sooner was the wizard on his way to London and out of sight, then Professor's Snape and McGonagall chased the children outside.
The old wizard truly was barmy, Harry decided. Whatever possessed him to take a thestral instead of the floo? Or even just apparating? Unless he was faking going away, and knew Quirrell was after the stone, Harry uncomfortably thought. That brought up far too many questions for Harry's peace of mind.
He slowly winged his way up to the owlery. He would have to wait. Quirrell wouldn't make his move before dinner, otherwise people would wonder where he had gone, and would hunt him up. Which, combined with Snape's suspicions, would lead to him being caught before he got to the Stone.
In the meantime, Harry would have to meditate and try to remember exactly what had happened last night.
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The owlery was disgusting. Why no one complained about how dirty it was, was simply amazing. One look around and he understood why Hedwig had always preferred meeting Harry when he had something to send rather than waiting around in this open toilet. There was no way he was going to remain here. He shuddered and left. Moments later, he shot through the open front doors of the castle and headed for the seventh floor.
He coasted back and forth down the corridor thinking about how much he needed a safe room to roost in. On the third circuit, an owl-window appeared and he went inside in a flash.
He landed on the perch that suddenly appeared. A small bell appeared on the wall, just above an owl-window to a darkened room. If he could have smiled with a beak, he would have.
Then he settled in to wait.
What had they been doing last night? Besides drinking far more than they should have . . ..
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Priscilla was talking about an odd Sanskrit spell the Ministry had uncovered. There was some dispute as to exactly what it meant. Or even if it was a spell. Was it a poem? It had the proper metre for a poem. Most spells didn't rhyme.
Rituals, however?
"No," Hermione said, setting aside her empty tankard. "I think it's a spell to slow down time for the casting wizard, so he can do more in a day." Then she recited the line that proved her point, with translation word-by-word to English.
Ron, Neville, and the witches were drinking beer. Harry preferred the burn of Firewhiskey.
"I disagree," said Daphne, refilling her tankard from the pitcher in the middle of the table, emptying it. "I do not think that word means what you think it means." She waved the empty pitcher at the waitress for a refill for them all. "There's an accent mark before it that changes it completely. It's to speed up time so you can skip waiting for something to happen." And then she recited the same line, also translating it. "Sure would have been useful during Binn's classes," she murmured. She took another drink and put her half-empty glass back down. "That's four hundred and fifty wasted hours of my life I'll never get back," she said.
Harry, Ron, and Neville just drank and watched. Plants were more up Neville's alley. And Ron, like Harry, was just decompressing after a stressful day chasing a rather nasty wannabe Dark Lord. Ginny was absent — she and Harry were at another rocky spot in their relationship. Weddings were extremely stressful. Especially when you sometimes wondered if it was all worth it. Maybe being a bachelor would be better.
The three witches went back and forth several times, each explaining why the other had to be wrong.
Finally, Priscilla shook her head. "No, I think it's a tongue-twister poem. Notice how similar in sound all the words in the lines are." And she slowly recited the spell, messing up and repeating a word here and there. Then she giggled, "Everything is a tongue-twister when you've had enough to drink!" she declared, laughing with the rest as she refilled her tankard.
The other two witches disagreed, saying that the Unspeakables still weren't sure of the pronunciation of some the words — cultural drift, don't you know? — and that she was forcing the words to match her rhyming scheme and pronunciations.
That led to a contest by the six to see how fast they could say the poem.
Harry started tapping his wrist on the table as he said the poem, using the beat to match the cadence and help him get the words right. The others quickly started imitating him. They all were getting quite drunk by this point —the others were on their fifth pitcher of beer. Harry was near the bottom of his Fire Whiskey.
Which meant they were constantly messing up the poem. Now it was more a case of remembering the words to the poem, rather than pronouncing them correctly. It quickly devolved into a sing-song chant. They were slapping their hands on the table after each word. Each time someone slurred a word, they dropped out of the contest. Finally, Ron had slurred one word, then Harry had slurred another, and they had started over. They all had hiccupped, slurred, or stumbled over words several times, creating more restarts. They all were laughing at the others' mistakes.
Partway through another recitation, Harry realized his wand had partially slipped out of his wrist holster and he grabbed it by the tip. He rapped the table with his knuckles, wand-tip in his hand, and continued the contest not wanting another restart — this time he was soo close to the end. The rest had dropped out, leaving Harry and Ron. Ron was keeping pace with Harry until he fumbled the next-to-last word, but Harry didn't. They both threw their hands into the air. Ron laughed at messing up again and Harry cheered at finally completing the spell-poem. The others applauded and cheered, too.
That was when Harry remembered looking up to see why it was getting so bright in the pub. His wand was glowing. Then there was a huge, bright flash of light.
And then he woke up in a forest.
Damn.
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Well. Looked like they were all wrong about that "poem and or spell." Especially when you include the part where they weren't sure of the pronunciations or meanings of the words they were saying. Like Professor Flitwick had said, way back at Halloween in First Year, ". . . saying the magic words properly is very important, too — never forget Wizard Baruffio, who said 's' instead of 'f' and found himself on the floor with a buffalo on his chest."*** Being drunk and slurring the words probably hadn't helped either.
He was in the past — and he was probably stuck here. A time-turner only sent you back a set amount of time and you had to live the difference to return to the future you left. Any other rituals that sent you further back invariably returned a corpse.
But he hadn't sent his body back in time, had he? So, he probably was stuck here.
As a bird.
He sighed mournfully.
But then he brightened. On the other hand — wing? — maybe he could make a difference this time! He could save countless lives and not turn into someone who drank every night to avoid thinking about his life, and those who didn't have a life, anymore.
He started thinking of just what he could do as an owl.
He didn't realize he was hungry until his stomach growled. After a moment of sitting on the perch, blinking, a water dish and plate appeared beside his perch, one with water, of course, and the other with a bag of owl treats. He tore the bag open with his beak and wolfed down the treats almost as fast as he could get them. They were stale, but palatable. When the bag fell to the floor, he could see a date on the bag from over a decade ago. Blinking, he came to the conclusion that they must have been in an abandoned trunk in the Lost Things room.
The Room of Requirement! Of course! He might as well take care of one of the Horcruxes right now. He flew out of the small room into the corridor, again.
Leaving the diadem on the Headmaster's desk would certainly kick-start things!
He coasted back and forth down the corridor thinking about how much he needed the Room of Lost and Abandoned Things. On the third circuit, an owl-window appeared and he went inside in a flash. Once inside, it took him only one lap around the room to find Rowena Ravenclaw's Lost Diadem. Seizing it in his claws, he left the Room, and again flew back and forth in the corridor. This time he needed a room that would hold Tom Riddle's soul anchors safe.
Once again, an owl-window appeared. This time it was a smaller room with five boxes on the floor, their hinged covers open at slightly more than ninety-degree angles. He dropped the diadem in one and flipped the cover closed.
Then he had the odd feeling that Harry had something for him to deliver. He had a sneaking suspicion as to what that was. He left the Room and flew down to the Great Hall. He arrived in time for Hermione to say, in an undertone so the boy, "Harry, send a letter to intercept the Headmaster and get him back here sooner. Who knows," she said urgently, just loud enough for him to hear, "maybe he'll get back before we have to do anything!"
Harry-the-boy reluctantly nodded, and scribbled a quick note that he just knew someone was trying to get to the Sorcerer's Stone tonight. He had learned late that afternoon that a stranger had talked with Hagrid, and that Hagrid had accidentally told him how to get past Fluffy. Which meant two of the seven traps were already solved! With the Headmaster gone, the culprit was free to take his time with the others.
"Take this to the Headmaster," Harry-the-boy said firmly, "as quick as you can!"
Harry nodded and eagerly took it. He launched himself into the air and was halfway to Hogsmeade when he realized what he was doing. Unfortunately, now that he had a delivery to make, he couldn't ignore it! He could feel the magic that made him want to deliver the message above all else. He knew the Headmaster wasn't even halfway to London, and at his best speed Harry couldn't catch up to the Headmaster before he reached London and started back. In fact, the quickest way to get the letter to the Headmaster was simply to wait here for him to arrive.
With that reasoning, the compulsion to chase after the Headmaster dissipated.
He turned around and flew back to the castle. It wasn't difficult to find the owl-window to the Headmaster's office, and drop the letter on his desk.
Then he returned to his special roost-room to wait for Quirrell to make an appearance. He settled down and decided to take a nap. The Room of Requirement would wake him when the sneaky wizard made an appearance in the room with the Mirror of Erised.
He did wonder if he could get the Room to provide him with a ring or bracelet or something that would make him invisible, or at least camouflaged in some way.
-===(o|o)===-
There was a very soft chime right beside his ear. Harry stumbled and fell off his perch, but caught himself with a quick twist and he glided to the floor. After a moment to reorient himself, and remember what had happened and why he was an owl, he flew up to the owl-window and peeked into the next room. Just as Neville had done with the room in Seventh year to access various locations in the castle and out, he was looking into the room with the mirror of Erised. The room behind him suddenly was as dark as the inside of a closed box at midnight in a windowless dungeon.
He had an excellent view of the torch-lite room, nearly at the ceiling, and could see everything clearly.
He watched silently as Quirrell stalked through the black flames. The flames went out a moment later. There was no one in the other room for them to block, Harry realized.
After a single probing look around the room, the wizard continued into the room and approached the mirror. Quirrell mumbled and studied the object, walked around it, tapped it with his wand, and, in general, did everything he could to get the Stone out of the Mirror, to no avail.
While he watched the wizard, he concentrated as hard as he could on a way to not be noticed. The last thing he wanted was for Quirrell or Voldemort to see him and take action to prevent him in securing the Stone.
A bracelet appeared on the ledge in front of Harry. When he picked it up with his foot, he noticed he couldn't see his leg anymore. He wondered if it was auto-sizing, so he stepped into it and lifted his foot until the bracelet slid up to the top of his leg, where feathers started to grow. The ring shrunk down to a perfect fit, and he disappeared.
Well, that problem was solved!
Finally, the black flames fluttered and Harry-the-boy came through them.
Quirrell had turned to watch, carefully pointing his wand at the boy before the boy even realized he was in the room.
What followed was exactly what Harry remembered happening.
It was hard watching and waiting. The mere sight of Quirrell holding his wand on Harry made Harry want to attack the man and sink his talons deep in the wizard's head, but Harry forced himself to remain still. It wasn't yet his time to act.
As he had expected, the two fell to the floor in agony, the mouse-sized Stone rolling free of the conflict as they fought over possession of it. They were both screaming.
This was Harry's chance! He dove through the owl-window and swooped down. It didn't help that he couldn't see his claws and zero-in on the target. Unfortunately, as had happened in the forest and could be expected from not being able to see his own claws, he missed. He was just a shade too low, and too fast, and bounced off the floor.
He hit the Stone, chest first, and knocked it skittering as he tumbled across the floor.
"WHAT!" he heard the horrid voice of Voldemort say. He glanced at the two and saw that they were still wrestling, but Voldemort's chalk white face with glaring red eyes stared at him from the back of Quirrell's head, astounded and no longer yelling, "KILL HIM!"
Just in front of Harry was the stone. Harry scrambled forward frantically. He had to get the Stone before anyone else noticed.
"THE STONE!" Voldemort bellowed as Quirrell screamed incoherently. Harry-the-boy had his eyes closed in pain, holding on for all he was worth.
Harry seized the Stone in his beak, bashing his face into the floor, and flapped his wings desperately. He burst into the air and banked frantically as he headed for the owl-window high up on the wall. The Mirror, he realized, was in his way. But before he could correct his path, he crashed into it.
Voldemort was staring at the wobbling mirror.
He dropped the Stone as he hit the floor a second time. The mirror was teetering, on the verge of falling over. He lunged forward, grabbed the Stone a second time, then threw his head back and let the Stone drop further into his beak, getting a better grip it. He leapt back into the air, accidentally hitting the Mirror with his wing after his first flap, causing it to rock more violently. That hurt, but it did, however, shift him in the right direction. He shoved off the mirror with his feet and headed towards the owl-window.
"GET THE STONE!" screamed Voldemort, still staring at the mirror as Harry shot through the owl-window. The sound of the mirror falling and shattering echoed below and behind him. The other two were screaming too loud, totally involved in their own struggle and pain, to hear anything that the soon-to-be-a-wraith creature said.
Harry, steeply-angled from the floor, barely cleared the outside bottom and inside top edges of the window in the thick wall. Unfortunately, he didn't clear the ceiling, and crashed into it — and fell to the floor, stunned.
It was only as he wobbled to his feet that he realized the Stone was gone. He couldn't see it anywhere on the floor. He knew he had had it just as he entered the room, and he hadn't dropped it. He didn't think it been summoned from him.
He flew back up to the owl-window and looked into the other room, searching for the Stone. It wasn't in sight.
He saw the Headmaster kneeling over Harry, who was slumped on the floor. Quirrell was little more than a badly charred outline of a man and there were no signs at all of Voldemort.
Nor was there any evidence any of them had the Stone
Harry back-winged from the window and watched as it disappeared.
He settled back onto his perch, his heart still thudding at what he had done.
What had happened? He mulled it over. He had hit the ceiling head first. He had been holding the Stone firmly in his beak . . ..
His eyes widened.
No. He couldn't have.
He bent over to look at his stomach.
He wiggled from side to side.
There was a weight in his stomach that hadn't been there before. And he didn't feel hungry in the slightest. He felt as if he had a rather nice meal, actually.
He started to pant in panic.
If there had been a table handy, he would have been pounding his head on it.
He had swallowed the Stone.
And getting it back out was going to be very unpleasant.
Well, anyway, at least for the moment it was safe.
No one would ever guess where it was.
-===(o|o)===-
Author's Note: * Owls, and most other birds, are red-blind, known as protanopia. As a result, anything red appears as shades of yellow and green. So, a nice chestnut-red horse, for example, looks blacker with greenish-yellow tinges, and the greens on tree leaves shade slightly into yellow. A red-headed person, as-in a natural deep red, looks a faded-black, with copious greenish-yellow highlights that give the impression of a dark blonde. (google colblindor)
** It's ~880 kilometers (550 miles) from London to the Cairngorms, where Hogwarts is most likely located. At 160 kph (100 mph) it would take about five hours to make the trip. Once the Headmaster arrived and discovered his appointment didn't exist, he would return, for a roundtrip time of ten hours (meaning he would arrive around midnight), well after the trio had left the Common Room and everyone else had gone to bed. Which would be just in time to "save" Harry. He later told a small lie to Harry that he had realized he was needed at Hogwarts when he arrived in London. He implied he had quickly returned when in reality he had assumed someone had made a mistake with the date, and flown back instead of taking the floo or apparating instantly (which would have had him returning well before curfew). It was a lovely day, and evening, after all.
Or else Dumbledore was a scheming bastard. He set up Harry and his friends to "test" Harry, and waited in the shadows at Hogwarts until he could come in at the last minute and "save" the boy, earning his gratitude.
One or the other.
*** Hey! Wait a minute! There's no "f" in wingardium leviosa! And what kind of moron can't pronounce his own name correctly?