HEATHER BLACK AGREED TO DO THE THING THAT NOBODY ELSE COULD TO DO.
Use her animagus form, and protect Harry Potter for fifteen years.
As an owl.
As Hedwig.
***
Travis McKinnon wanted nothing more than to do something useful.
So he used his animagus...
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"YOU'RE MAD!" Ron Weasley exclaimed, banging his goblet on the Gryffindor table a bit too loud by accident.
"Ronald!" Hermione Granger snapped, while Harry Potter just smiled.
They were at the end of their first year, now. The year had flown past faster than they had anticipated it would.
As it was breakfast time, the tables were quite full, and cheerful laughter filled the hall.
"Not so much," Harry said, "I said, Snape was—,"
At that moment, the owls flew into the hall, and the fluttering of wings covered over Harry's words, and he fell silent once he realised that Hermione and Ron were no longer listening.
Hedwig fluttered over to him and landed on Harry's shoulder with a happy chirp when he fed her a little owl treat. She took it in her beak happily, and allowed Harry to untie a letter from the owl's leg before she fluttered off to Neville.
For some reason that Harry didn't understand, Hedwig always liked to greet Neville, and especially his toad, Trevor—who always managed to escape and find his way to Hedwig; so often that Ron's older brothers Fred and George always joked that if an owl could date a toad, Hedwig and Trevor would already be married.
"Hello, Hedwig!" Neville said cheerfully as Hedwig landed on his shoulder, petting the owl's soft feathers. The snowy owl nuzzled her head into his hand and let out a few satisfied chirps before hopping off the boy's shoulder and landing on the table.
She skidded a little, but landed right in front of Trevor, and the toad jumped a little before he looked up and realised that it was just Hedwig.
"Hoot,"
Trevor croaked happily and bounced a bit to express his joy, and met the owl's eyes.
It seemed strange to any students watching, but Trevor and Hedwig didn't feel like they were just a toad and an owl in that moment.
They felt like Travis and Heather.
***
BY THE TIME SECOND YEAR came around, Harry was more than ready to return to Hogwarts.
After he and Ron got trapped outside of Platform 9 ¾, made a rather long trip to Hogwarts on Arthur Weasley's flying car instead, and almost got killed by the Whomping Willow, Harry was looking forward to finally returning to his dorm for an ordinary nights' sleep.
As always, Hedwig was already nowhere to be found, but as Harry entered his dorm with Ron, who was rambling on and on about something about his younger sister, Ginny, who had come to Hogwarts this year, he saw Hedwig perched on Neville's bed, hooting happily as Neville fed her owl treats.
