Hedwig and the Owlery Pt. 1

I wrote my first fan fiction for NaNoWriMo this year. Unfortunately, I only ended up with 5,500 words. The good news is I plan to post it on my blog in serials over the next month. So, enjoy my Harry Potter fan fic about Hedwig the Owl.

Hedwig and the Owlery

Hedwig was a beautiful snowy owl and she damn well knew it. Her mother had said it since the day she was hatched. “You’ll go far in this world,” she hooed between preening and regurgitating worms.

Clearly, she had her pick of the best suitors in England. Male owls flew in from as far as Australia to vie for her claw in marriage. Fate however had very different plans.

Owl poachers caught her basking in the glow of admiration one tepid spring morning. The male owls fawning over her ample plumage fled at the first sight of danger. They were first and foremost aristocrats and not prepared to die.

“Leave me!” Hedwig yelled in Owlish as two men shoved her into a cage. They did not understand her pleading and proceeded transporting her to the nearest owlery.

The wall into Diagon Alley had initially filled the young owl with hope. “They’ll never get through the bricks. They’re obviously mental.” It soon became clear as the door appeared her optimism was short lived.

“Magic!” she scoffed as they walked past shops buzzing with cauldrons and the latest broomsticks. “Enough to make an owl sick!”

Eyelops Owl Emporium soon came into view. Hedwig saw the other owls imprisoned in their cages and already longed for freedom. The wizards talked of Azkaban as if it was terrible, but they had no idea what true misery was like. Had an owl ever broke free? Or would she rot behind the iron bars until she perished?

It was several months before young witches and wizards came to buy new owls. Hedwig bided her time, played harmonica, and made trades for owl cigarettes. Owl cigarettes were little more than mice wrapped in paper but they were a fattening vice nonetheless.

She noticed the rat-haired scamp the first time she saw him. He had a lightning scar on his forehead but she wasn’t about to be taken in by all the hype. The boy who lived, indeed: by complete accident… No one really knew the details, but she guessed Voldemort got antsy and bumbled his killing curse at the last moment. Wizards had no grace or subtlety.

Hagrid had already chosen her before she got a good look at Harry. “He would have made a good pet for me,” she thought of the half-giant. Harry however was slight and did not look like much in a fight. Hedwig would be forced to do a good deal of the dueling. She was a rich girl, but knew how to fight dirty. Some of her suitors did not like taking no for an answer back at the nest. One particularly insistent owl named Joffrey insisted he was the Prime Minister of all owls in Britain and demanded a kiss by decree.

***

Find the next episode here.