Chapter 4
The sight of a fretting Gryffindor, absently worrying her bottom lip as she flitted from foot to foot, was not what most Hufflepuffs expected to see as they emerged from the barrels at the entrance to their common room.
“I’m not that scary, am I?” Anna frowned, as a group of three scooted away.
Thankfully, after another ten minutes of bouncing on her feet, she finally spotted the one Hufflepuff that she had come to see.
“Mari!”
“Anna? What are you doing here?” The girl being hailed over blinked, at first in surprise then in concern as her gaze shifted from the strawberry blonde to the snowy owl riding on her shoulder.
Preternatural blue eyes swivelled around to stare unblinkingly at her, inciting a new wave of disquieted murmuring in the background.
“I was wondering if you could have a look at her?” Anna carefully lifted the snowy off her shoulder. “She’s not moving her wing so well.”
Nix hooted at the familiar face and fluttered obligingly over as if to attest to the contrary. She held perfectly still while her wing was examined, allowing gentle fingers to prod along its entire length, whilst affecting an air of aloof dignity and looking decidedly unimpressed at what the fuss was all about.
But Anna still had her worries. “Right there! See how she’s being a little ginger with it?”
“It does feel like a fracture.” Mari concurred. “Oddly enough, it looks like the break’s already been set and mended. It’s possible that it’s an older injury, and she doesn’t seem to be in pain. Still, she shouldn’t be flying for another week at least.”
“I–I didn’t know.” Anna’s voice was strained. “She was acting fine and didn’t seem hurt. I don’t even know when–or how she–”
Racking her brain was useless. The whole morning had felt like one giant blur. It was hard to recall anything beyond the twisting knot in her stomach on finding the snowy missing, and the rush of panic that had followed, spurring her headlong flight down the corridors, heart hammering against her ribs as if trying to break out of her chest.
What was she thinking, leaving Nix alone like that after everything that had happened, and knowing the owl’s penchant to spook at the slightest thing, bolting like a scalded cat if anyone so much as came too close. Thank goodness Floppy had found her before anything worse had happened. She owed the house-elf an added thanks. By the looks of it, the little creature had been the one who had treated Nix’s injured wing.
“You’re not at fault.” Mari reassured her in a consoling tone. “It’s something that most birds do by nature. To protect themselves, by hiding any weaknesses so they won’t be seen as easy prey. And they’re remarkably good at it too. Back home we used to own a flock of magpies, and you’d never know when one of them was sick till they’d stop eating altogether.”
Anna managed a glum nod. Of course she knew that. The snowy hid her pain just as well as she hid her secrets, and the fear that was constantly bubbling beneath the surface, until it all became too much for her.
But Nix wasn’t a prey animal. Anna had seen her power. No one would be able to lay a finger on her if she didn’t want them to. Whatever had left her scarred and traumatised in the past, had also led this shy and gentle creature to believe that she was a danger to others.
Please, I don’t want to hurt you.
The tormented look in those glistening blue eyes, desperately imploring her to stay away, was something she didn’t think her heart could ever bear to see again.
“For what it’s worth, I’d say you’re doing just fine. And I think our little snow would agree with me on that.” Mari gestured to the owl nestled snug as a bug in Anna’s arms. “Would you believe that this is the same owl that wouldn’t let anyone near her with a ten-foot broom?”
Anna allowed herself a dry chuckle. “If I tried this a month ago, it would’ve left me without eyes.”
The snowy blinked once at her. Anna thought she looked a bit embarrassed to be the subject of their dissertation, a suspicion that was affirmed when the owl gave a low and mildly reproachful hoot.
That drew a laugh from the older girl. “Now that’s the brooding owl I remember. Sometimes it makes you wonder what she’s thinking in that pretty little head of hers.”
“About that.” Anna chewed at her lip, absently fiddling with the silvery metal band around Nix’s foot. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you. About the banding spell.”
“You could sense her emotions?” The Hufflepuff senior arched a brow at her when Anna was done explaining. Not unexpectedly, her voice held an incredulous note.
Anna nodded slowly. “I think so…but only the very vivid or profound ones. Like when she was having this really horrible nightmare.” Or when she thought I was going to abandon her.
“That’s–” Mari looked to be at a loss for words, eventually shaking her head. “I can’t say that I’ve heard of anything like that before. Owls are intelligent creatures, with their own little personalities, certainly capable of feelings such as anxiety and fear, affection and perhaps even love, but it’s hard to imagine that they can experience the same range of emotions that we do.”
“I know that, but Nix is different, she’s–” She broke off mid-sentence, unsure of what she could say that wouldn’t sound like she had lost her marbles. And there was still the matter of Nix’s icy powers…
“There is something uncannily human about her.” Well at least Mari concurred with her on that. “But even so, it wouldn’t be possible for the spell to have that effect.”
“Why not?” Anna interjected. “If what it does is to create a ‘bond’ between us that lets her know when I’m calling and how to find me, couldn’t something have gone amiss to turn that into a sort of empathic link instead?”
“Except the spell only works one way.” Mari gestured to the glint of silver on the snowy’s foot. “And because she’s the one wearing the band, it means that she’s bonded to you. Only she can feel you through the bond.”
Wait, Nix could feel her too? That hadn’t occurred to her before, though she supposed it made sense. But she shook aside that thought for the moment.
“That hardly seems fair to her, I mean, it makes it seem like I own her or something.”
“Anna, you do own her. She’s an owl, they like having someone to belong to, to serve as little messengers and helpmates. And before you get any ideas, no, the banding only works on non-humans.”
Darn, having an internal compass that could lead her straight to Nix would have been awfully handy, especially given the owl’s proclivity for going all demiguise on her.
But at least Nix would always be able to find her. And if she ever got lost, then Anna would just keep searching until she found her.
I’m never going to lose you. I promise.
.
Once again, the break of day came too soon for Anna, whose relationship with mornings had always been something of a love-hate one. A lazy yawn was stifled with the back of her hand, amidst fragmental attempts to shed the remnants of sleep through bleary blinks.
An airy shaft of light slipped in through a gap in the curtains that were drawn around her four-poster bed. A bed that she was going to have to drag herself out of soon, if she didn’t want to cop an earful for being late for Quidditch practice. But for now she was content to just lay there, tangled in the covers, marvelling at the softness of the pillow that she was face-smooshed in.
Merlin, it was like sleeping on a cloud.
A sleepy sigh escaped her lips as she burrowed further into the fluffy pillow, which gave a squeaky ‘eeh!’ and rustled its wings.
Anna jerked upright, nearly toppling onto the floor as a result.
Startled by the sudden movement, the ‘pillow’ had retreated to the foot of the bed. Her pale blue eyes were silently reproving, but she graciously accepted Anna’s apology, stepping up onto the proffered hand and even half-lidding her eyes when Anna reached up to stroke her cheek.
As her fingers trailed lower over soft downy feathers, she felt rather than saw the small body quiver.
Looming over the Great Lake like a lofty spire, it was no wonder that Gryffindor Tower had the worst of the castle’s drafty nights and fog-cloaked mornings, when the wind blew cold before the sun could rise above the clouds.
“There, you can warm up here.” Anna carried her over to a sunlit spot by the window, stroking her feathers consolingly when the owl gave her a woeful look. “I know you miss flying, but we’ve got to wait till your wing’s all better, right?”
Changing quickly into her scarlet and gold Quidditch robes, she had just finished pulling on her boots when the snowy fluttered back onto her shoulder.
“Do you want to come with?” She smiled, unsurprised and secretly even a little pleased, amongst a host of confounded feelings.
Nix was–quite literally–a night owl, who ought to be spending the hours of broad daylight fluffed up in the little nest of pillows that Anna had made for her, resting and recuperating, with her head under her wing.
But lately the stubborn little floofball had been adamant on staying awake, looking a little bedraggled and droopy-eyed, but happy and content to be with Anna, even if just to sit quietly by her side.
At the same time, it was hard not to wonder if there were other, more worrisome reasons why Nix was abdicating sleep.
Such as the fact that she was still having nightmares. That much was obvious from the small cries and little whimpers that still plagued her meagre and unrestful slumber, when the air would turn cold and snowflakes threatened to fall. It was all Anna could do not to pick her up and hold her in her arms, gently cradling her close, just to reassure her that she was still there.
Broom and bat in hand, and owl on her shoulder, she clambered through the portrait hole, deciding for a quick detour to the Owlery at the top of the West Tower, before heading down to the pitch. The corridors were quiet this early on a weekend, enough that she could hear her footsteps echoing off the walls and her thoughts going round in her head.
A chorus of hoots and chirps greeted her as she entered the airy room, including a questioning one from Nix, who was probably wondering what they were doing there.
“Heya, Anna!” Someone called out, in a voice that was as bright as the scintillating rays pouring in through the stone windows.
“Oh, hey Punzy!” Anna mustered up a smile. “I wasn’t expecting to see anyone up here.”
“The weather's brilliant, innit? If you ask me, we could do with a bit more of this sunshine.” Rapunzel grinned, though the reason for her high spirits might have more to do with the racing broom in her hand and her red and gold robes that were billowing wildly in the wind. Anna too felt a flutter of excitement in her chest, her emotions soaring high into the sky and her worries temporarily forgotten, lifted like the morning mist.
“Letter to home?” Rapunzel gestured to the crinkled piece of parchment that the strawberry blonde had fished out of her pocket.
Anna nodded, looking around for a suitable owl. There was a rustle of wings next to her ear as Nix gave an eager chirp and fluttered down from her shoulder, waiting for Anna to hand her the letter so she could clasp it in her beak.
The snowy’s chirps grew more urgent when Anna shook her head at her. She even tried to nab at the letter with her talons, which only earned her an admonishing tap on the beak. With an angry hoot, she took off to the rafters, keeping her tail to Anna the whole time while she secured the letter to a tawny owl’s foot.
“I think you hurt her feelings.” Rapunzel commented.
“Well, she knows she’s not supposed to be flying. Not until her wing’s healed.” Anna held out a hand. “Come here, you little floofball. No, it’s no use making those Bambi eyes, that’s not going to work this time.”
It took a bit of cajoling on her part but Nix did eventually return to her shoulder, though she swivelled her head away and refused to look at her, none too subtly conveying that yes, there most definitely were hurt feelings.
.
“Almost…there…damn this…bloody…blighter.” Huffing and puffing, and swearing under their breaths, the two Beaters wrestled a black iron ball between them, hauling it over to a large trunk. As always, the bludger was putting up a strong resistance, fighting them tooth and nail every step of the way.
“Phew!” Anna collapsed into a winded heap on the ground, when the wrangling act when finally done. “Some things never change.”
If the wrecking ball had eyes, it would probably have glared back at her.
“Merlin, I feel like my arms are about to fall off.” Rapunzel too was doubled over, catching her breath.
From a couple feet away, a fluffy mound of feathers made a tittering sound, muffled with a wing over a beak. At Anna’s mock-affronted look, it puffed itself up, succeeding only in looking like an over-stuffed plush toy in the shape of a majestic snowy owl.
Evidently, Nix was still upset about being denied the chance to deliver Anna’s letter, if her reproachful eyes were any indication.
“If you keep making that face, it’ll get stuck that way.” She couldn’t resist giving the sullen glum a poke on the cheek, and probably deserved the little nip on the finger that she got.
“Good work today, you two!” Mulan called over to them, almost having to holler to be heard. Gone were the sunny skies that they had glimpsed just before practice, driven out by moody winds that looked like they would be raging on for a while yet. “Gonna stay to watch the Seeker tryouts?”
A small golden ball zipped over their heads, silvery wings whirring at a furious rate. It soon disappeared from sight, giving its would-be pursuers the slip once again.
“Maybe not.” Anna shot another glance at her owl. The snowy had turned her tail to her, shuffling around petulantly on her large fuzzy feet, but she hadn’t strayed from the spot where Anna had left her at the start of practice, with a chocolate frog to nibble on, and the promise of more for good behaviour.
She’d better make good on that promise.
“Anyone good though, you reckon?”
The position of Seeker had been a hole on their team for as long as Anna had been on it. If they could just find someone good, then she was sure that they’d have a real shot of sweeping the competition.
Mulan’s eyes were squinted, not quite a grimace, but not quite sparkling with excitement either. Out on the pitch, a girl with violet streaks in her hair took a hard bank left, throwing herself into a flat-out dive towards the ground and pulling up at the very last second, but without the elusive quarry to show for her efforts.
Anna blinked. “She’s fast!” And she wasn’t just referring to the top of the line racing broom that the girl was hurtling around on.
Their captain nodded. “Go Tomago. A transfer from Ilvermorny. Girl’s got speed alright, and some iron guts. But–”
“Buuut?” Rapunzel prompted.
“But our first match is against Slytherin, and there’s a snowball’s chance in hell of anyone beating Arendelle to the snitch.” Mulan cracked a wry smile. “Sometimes I swear that girl’s part owl.”
The funny thing was, it wasn’t an exaggeration at all. Anna was no slouch on a broom herself, but Elsa Arendelle could probably fly circles around her with her eyes closed.
Trying to keep her off the snitch until they could score enough points to win had pretty much summed up her role in all of their past grudge matches against their archrivals. It wasn’t half as exciting as it sounded, as most of the match consisted of her admiring Elsa’s form while she circled the field in rolling half-loops and scouring arcs, moving so effortlessly through the air as though she was one with the wind and sky.
“Well, I’d say we’ve got a fighting chance!” Rapunzel jutted her chin out, with no loss of pep in her voice. “As we say in Gryffindor, it ain’t over till the Fat Lady sings!”
Anna had never heard the Fat Lady sing, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to, quite frankly. But she echoed her teammate’s sentiments nonetheless. “Punzie’s right! They may have the best Seeker, but we’ve got hustle and heart! We’ll give it everything we’ve got. I’ll even set Arendelle’s broom tail on fire if I have to.” That was a joke of course. Setting broom tails on fire was against the rules. And Elsa would probably just put it out with an icy glare.
She heard Rapunzel snort. “Last time you couldn’t even bring yourself to crack a bludger at her head.”
“Only because it could have hit her arm!” Anna protested loudly, cheeks aflame. “Which in case you forgot, was heavily bandaged in a cast.”
Now that she thought of it, the Slytherin Seeker did seem awfully prone to broken bones and fractured limbs, which was odd for someone who wasn’t a hot-headed Gryffindor or a klutz with two left feet. Did she just have really brittle bones or something?
“Didn’t stop her from catching the snitch.” Rapunzel muttered. “Again.”
Anna planted a hand on her hip. “This year it’ll be different. I’ll wager my broom that Go will beat her to it. And if it comes down to it, I won’t hesitate to knock her off with a well-aimed bludger to her face. No matter how pretty it is. Wait, what––oowwowow!”
She looked down at the red mark on her hand, where Nix had taken a sharp nip at it. It hadn’t drawn any blood, but it still hurt like hell. The snowy gave an indignant hoot, drawing herself up to her full height and taking off into a stiff breeze, paying no heed to Anna’s calls for her to get her floofy butt back here at once.
Like a sylph on wings, she continued to soar majestically across the field, hovering for a moment on airy-light wingbeats, before streaking into motion again with a series of veering turns and a sudden swooping dive, talons stretched forward, snatching a glint of gold out of the air.
Rapunzel whistled, one perfectly arched eyebrow shooting straight up. “Thank Merlin we’re not competing against that. I guess she’s trying to tell you that her wing’s all healed.”
Anna crossed her arms over her chest as the snowy winged it back to her, flaunting her golden prize triumphantly. “Well if you’re all better then you’ll be going back to the Owlery tomorrow.”
She didn’t know which one of them looked more upset about that, but Nix made sure to let her know what she thought of it by landing on her shoulder and flapping her wings in her face.