˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ unexpected - h.p.

Chapter 4 - Crash landing

The common room fire crackled, sending embers into the warm air. The snake-shaped lamps that sat on the common room tables and hung from the ceiling gave us just enough light to see our essays we were writing.

Blaise was reading out a passage on venomous antidotes for us and we were all copying it down quickly, changing a word here and there so it wouldn't sound too plagiarised.

"That's why bottles of bee venom and some small snake fangs from selective breeds are a good thing to keep in storage, ready if they are ever needed," Blaise recited, running his finger along the open page of the textbook. "Antidotes come in many forms as we've just- oh blah blah, hmm, no, there's nothing much more about venomous ones now."

"Good," Draco grunted, rolling his wrist around. "My hand is aching."

By midnight we had finished our essays to a standard which Millicent deemed 'good enough.' The common room had completely emptied out and I drew my wand, casting a quick spell and putting out the fire. The green flames died down and we all sloped off to our dormitories, mumbling goodnight to each other through yawns.

★

It was an overcast, windless day and I was cutting through the courtyard to get to Astronomy because I was running late when a cry of urgent squawks sounded out above me. Taken by surprise, I looked up and squinted at the sky. A pure white snowy owl was headed straight for me, a letter clutched in its claws. Like instinct from the many mail times in the Great Hall, I held my hands out ready for the letter, despite the fact this owl wasn't mine. The white owl crashed into the stone ground, spreading its wings out. I lurched forwards in an attempt to catch the crash landing bird, but missed completely.

"Shit," I cursed under my breath, crouching beside the collapsed owl.

"Miss Attore?"

I looked up so quickly my neck cricked. Professor McGonagall was walking towards me, holding her long dress up so it didn't drag. I realised how bad this situation looked from an outsider's point of view and stood up hastily.

"Is that-" McGonagall breathed, her eyes widening. "Hedwig?"

"I was walking to Astronomy and it just crashed straight into the ground," I burbled, hoping she wouldn't get the wrong idea.

McGonagall was already suspicious of us Slytherins, especially us on the Quidditch team. She carefully took the letter from the bird's claws and then helped it onto her arm.

"Poor thing, she's been injured. I'll have to take her to Wilhelmina," McGonagall said hurriedly, stroking the owl as it blinked slowly, its head turning around.

"Who?" I asked, flustered.

"Professor Grubbly-Plank. Now I think you'd better go to your next period. There'll be no use showing up to Astronomy this late," McGonagall told me, her tone changing back to her usual teacher voice. "Did you read the letter?"

I stared at her, slightly hurt she'd assumed I'd be that nosy. I hated to admit I had considered it, but I was more worried for the owl.

"No, Professor," I answered, adjusting my bag on my shoulder.

"Oh yes, sorry, I can see it's still sealed," McGonagall declared, peering at it closely.

I watched as she walked past me and out one of the exits. Confused by what had just happened, I checked my timetable. Muggle Studies. I headed straight there, my head was suddenly filled with a lot to think about. I was regretting not opening the letter, what if it had been something important. I hoped McGonagall would still deliver it to whoever it was addressed to.

★

"Hed-wig?" Pansy repeated, furrowing her brow at me. "Odd name."

"Isn't that Potter's owl?" Draco asked, grabbing his frog back.

We all stared at him, confused by his knowledge.
"It is?"

"Think so," Draco shrugged before clearing his throat and waving his wand again. "Was it white?"

I nodded and Draco just shrugged again.

We were practising the simplest Vanishing Charm in Charms. It was a good class to have a chat in, as it was always impossible to be overheard. Today there was the added noise of the ribbiting frogs over the usual chatter, meaning no one could hear us talking about my weird encounter this morning.

"So-" I broke off and looked around the class.

Much to my dismay, Harry wasn't sitting with Hermione and Ron in their usual seat by Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas. My heart sunk.

"Oh no," I mumbled.

"What's up?" Blaise asked, jabbing his frog with his wand so it hopped back up onto his pile of books.

"Potter isn't here," I sighed, forgetting I was supposed to be watching my own frog.

It hopped across the table and onto the floor, ribbiting before disappearing from view. Blaise stood up and looked for it, giving me a 'can't see it' kind of look. I didn't mind, Professor Flitwick would find it after class and it wasn't like any of us were exactly close to getting the spell right.

"D'you think McGonagall called him in then?" Draco asked me, squashing his frog so hard it's eyes were bulging alarmingly large.

"Draco you're-" Millicent began, but Draco noticed and snorted with laughter before dropping his frog back down onto the desk.

"Well if it's his owl then yeah, she would've called him in," Blaise said casually.

"If that letter was to Potter you should've read it, Lola," Pansy informed me, pulling a disgusted face as her frog jumped onto her lap.

"I didn't have time to," I replied sheepishly, which was true.

McGonagall hadn't even given me a chance to try to help Hedwig back up.

"Don't stress it, owls crash all the time," Draco said, smiling at me sympathetically.

"Yeah but not on wind free days," I imputed. "I mean why would she have crashed? Something must've got her wing."

"Don't tell me you're worried about Potter's bird," Draco jeered, his eyebrows going up in amusement.

"No, no, just the fact McGonagall might think I tried to get at it," I told them, shaking my head slowly.

My friends exchanged a look. Unfortunately there were more reasons why I would've tried to inrecept Harry's letter than why I wouldn't have. It would be a good opportunity to give me a detention or deduct Slytherin house points - there was a lot of Gryffindor versus Slytherin tension right now as our first game this year was coming up. I just hoped McGonagall would believe the very true story that Hedwig came out of nowhere when I was running late to Astronomy.