Owls

Chapter One

A large red eagle owl swooped down to sit on a windowsill in the room of a sixteen year old boy. The owner of the room stared at the owl, obviously not used to this kind of intrusion. He was tall and slim, wore silver-rimmed glasses that looked rather new and his dark hair that looked as if it had never been brushed fell untidily over his forehead. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, as if not quite believing his eyes. When he put the new pair of glasses back on, the owl was still there. He cocked his head to one side, face filled with an expression of puzzlement. Cautiously, he edged towards the scarlet owl.

Tied around its leg was a letter which the boy hesitantly tore open. A yellowish parchment promptly fell out. It had ten words written on it in an elegant handwriting that the raven haired boy didn't recognize:

I'm in love with you. Just thought you should know.

He nearly dropped the letter.

The youth peered anxiously at the letter again but found no name. Getting rid of his initial shock, curiosity was aroused. He tried to think who the anonymous sender could be, but no names came up. The boy shook his head dismally and dismissed the message as a prank from one of his friends as he laid the piece of paper on the table.

Looking around the room for the owl with the intent of giving it a treat, the sixteen year old found that it was gone. He turned back to the letter, but it too had vanished.

This left the messy haired boy utterly perplexed. Why hadn't the letter stayed? What about the owl? Where did it go? Most importantly, who was the anonymous sender? Was the letter really a prank?

Still utterly confused, he glanced at the clock and was surprised to see it was already way past midnight. He climbed into his bed but knew that sleep wouldn't come.

*~*~*

Somewhere on the other side of London stood a house, tall and imposing. It was more of a manor, judging by the size of it. The grounds spread on and on. This huge mansion had not one bit of friendliness. It was surrounded by a strange mist of darkness which gave it a mysterious yet foreboding feeling. People generally stayed away from this house, but they knew about the family that lived inside. It was a family of three. They were probably the richest family in the vicinity, but no one ever dared to go close to them. The three members of this family radiated a dark threat despite their exterior beauty, just like their house.

Inside this house, the only child of this family was sitting at a desk waiting.

Then, out of nowhere, a yellowish parchment appeared on the desk. He glanced briefly at the parchment and the only sign of his recognition of its presence was a ghost of a smile that flashed on the pale blonde boy's features for a second. There was a loud tapping noise at the window and the boy at the desk lifted his head to find his owl on the windowsill. He got up to open the window and the owl flew straight to her perch in the room. It landed accurately and remained very still. The boy reached inside his robes and took out a long piece of polished wood. Waving his left hand, he muttered, "Finite Incantatem." The previously scarlet eagle owl was gone; in its place was a white one instead.

"Good girl, Opa," the boy whispered softly, caressing its soft snowy feathers. "I suppose he read it, the parchment showed up just before you arrived. You did a good job." He took a small packet of Owl treats in his hand and offered a generous portion to his pet. "Here you go, you deserve this."

*~*~*

Days later found the messy haired boy sitting quietly at his desk working on his holiday assignment. His face was screwed up in concentration and he almost didn't hear the tapping on his window. Looking up, he was pleasantly surprised. Just as it had been days before, the red eagle owl was outside his window, waiting patiently to be let in.

He got up from where he was seated and strode to the window to open the window. The owl flew in and the boy noticed that rolled and tied with a silver cloth to its leg again was another note. The owl held its leg out and the boy untied the letter from the owl. It was written on a fresh piece of parchment and it was visibly longer than the previous by a great deal. His green eyes were trained on the letter that said:

Harry,

I know you read my first letter because I got it back. I charmed it so it would return to me once you were finished reading and in case you're wondering, I didn't charm this one. I only charmed the first one so that I would know if you received it.

I spent the next few days after sending you the first letter wondering whether it was wise to continue writing to you. It's probably not, but my heart overruled my head for the second time in a week. Unsurprisingly though, since it always does whenever things I'm doing concerns you. I decided to let you decide, it'll be so much easier for me that way since I won't have to choose.

I really don't know what to write, because this is the dumbest thing I've ever done, but I'll try to make sense of this. You're most likely confused and you want answers, but I have none to offer. I can't answer your questions when I don't even know what I'm doing myself. Honestly, I don't quite understand why I did this. Maybe it was the heat of the moment. I was thinking of you and I had this sudden urge to let you know that someone out there in this world who cares for you. Which is pretty ironic, since the last thing anyone would know me for is that I care for the Boy Who Lived.

I won't tell you who I am and trust me, you don't want to know. Let's just say that I'm the last person you'll expect. So, we get back to the decision. I'll leave it to you to have the final say. If you want, I can keep sending you little letters with my owl Opa, but you must not respond to any of them because it'll be disastrous for me if someone got hold of any letter that you sent to me. If not, it'll also be easier for me because I'll be able to spend the rest of my holidays without worry and occasionally wondering what possessed me to do this in the first place. Anyway, if you want me to, just write "I want you to" at the bottom of the letter and I also want your word not to send any owl after me, if you promise not to respond just scribble "I promise" at the bottom of the parchment. If the idea of exchanging letters with an anonymous person doesn't fit you, don't bother to do anything, because then I shall be able to get this ridiculous phase that I'm in over with and live the rest of my life in peace and without regret.

Blue Eyes

The green eyed boy took a moment to process the letter. The anonymous sender who gave her pseudonym as Blue eyes seemed very unsure. He asked himself. Did he want to continue receiving letters from the sender? Yes, he decided. Definitely yes, if only because he wanted to find out whom the sender was.

He grabbed a quill off his desk and set the paper down, hastily writing down in his untidy scrawl "I want you to" and "I promise" at the bottom of the parchment. As soon as he was done, the words vanished and in its place were two words, "Thank You". True to Blue Eyes' words, the parchment did not disappear like they did before.

*~*~*

The blonde boy watched as Opa flew into his room. She flew straight to her perch and hid her head under her wings, apparently trying to get some sleep. The silver eyed blonde, walked to the bird and with a light wave of his wand, transformed the bird back to her original color. He stroked her and filled up her food and water before sauntering out of his room into the dining room to have his meal with his family.

*~*~*

It became a routine and remained like that for weeks. The blonde would send a short letter to the green eyed boy everyday and through the long summer, the green eyed boy gradually came to know a lot about the mysterious sender. The green eyed boy came to realize through the way the mysterious sender wrote that his anonymous friend was a boy who studied in the same school as he did: Hogwarts. According to the letters, Blue eyes didn't get along well with his family members. He had a father who demanded the best and a mother who always complied with her husband's wishes. Sometimes the letters came stained with tears and the green eyed boy assumed his friend had cried while writing the letters. There was once or twice where his friend revealed how much he hated the life he lived and the people he called friends and it was during then that the green eyed boy found it extremely hard to restrain himself from responding to the letters. He wanted badly to share his experiences with his newfound friend, but he managed to keep to his word just barely because he didn't want to get his friend into trouble. Strangely enough, Blue eyes never mentioned what he had meant exactly in his first letter, but the glasses clan boy found that he didn't want to know, he was rather content to have found a new friend.

The letter that came on the second last day of the summer break was short like many previous letters had been, but the green eyed boy could tell from the way the boy had hastily written his words in a slightly less elegant handwriting than he usually used that Blue eyes was excited about returning to school. It read:

Harry,

I can hardly wait to see you again. I'm still not going to tell you who I am because I want to see how long it takes you to figure out, but like I promised in one of my earlier letters I shall tell you one more thing about myself. Back at school, I am very different from whom you know me as now. I'm your exact opposite, which is another one of the many reasons why I you most likely will not expect me to be who I am. However, I hope that when you finally know you who I am, you will not forget these letters I've written to you for the past few months. This year will be a time for many of the sixth years to choose our sides in the war. I will not want to be confronted with that decision soon but because of my family's background I will be one of them. I hope you will help me in making the right decision.

Blue Eyes

The messy haired boy closed his eyes for a while. He didn't have the vaguest idea who this friend of his was, and yet, he felt that he had known him all his life. He sighed, suddenly feeling the burden of helping this friend weigh down on him.