Immortal, She
Harry didn’t know what she was up to now.
He was unnerved.
She was obsessed.
She’s been stalking Professor Quirrell.
Her movements were quiet, creepy… unnatural. Behavior exhibiting a predator.
He still didn’t know that Snape was not the real perpetrator.
Hedwig was extremely curious on how Voldemort is attached to the back of someone’s head and no one noticed.
You see, Hedwig is trained to identify and find magical signatures.
She doesn’t understand how Dumbledore didn’t know. Shouldn’t he have done some type overview to make sure his new professor wasn’t harboring anything dangerous?
What if Quirrell had knives stuffed under his turban and planned a stabbing spree?
Hedwigs obsession was beginning to draw the attention of the students. They couldn’t help but notice her lurking around.
Quirrell was beginning to become paranoid. Why was Harry Potters owl stalking him? There’s no way an owl could know his secret.
One day, she decided to come into class with Harry.
She landed in the back.
Quirrell soon noticed her presence and became increasingly nervous.
He knew he couldn’t let her stay in class. He told Harry to take her out and that owls weren’t allowed in classes.
Harry didn’t even bother to look at him, still finishing homework that was due next period.
Quirrell had to escort her himself.
As he approached the owl, she stared at him with her usual crazy eyes, daring him.
She didn’t want to leave.
He came closer and reached out his pathetic, sad shaky hand.
She came here to get information and he was interrupting her.
She began to pound her talons into his face.
Quirrell screamed in agony and was unable to defend himself, having stupidly left his wand on his desk.
The class watched in horror.
Harry was still doing homework.
Class ended early, for Quirrell had more blood than skin on his face.
In the end, no punishment or report was given. Quirrell was too embarrassed to admit that he got beat up by an owl.
The next time she tried to enter the class with Harry, the door was shut in her face, almost ripping out a feather.
This would not do.
Quirrell began his little lesson.
Hedwig perches on the window ledge, looking in.
The sun reflecting on the window illuminated Hedwig’s face in a deep, eerie chiaroscuro. Light and shadow, and she was cast in all of the shadows.
She stood there like an apparition, a harbinger of death.
Quirrell shuddered at the sight, feeling his blood run cold.
“F-fifty points t-to whoever pulls down the blinds.”
He didn’t even have to fake this stutter.
No one got up.
—
Later on, Hedwig can be found flying above Harry and his posse, who are angrily speed walking away from Hagrid’s hut.
She was just doing her usual rounds when she noticed them.
Not really that curious but mostly bored, she followed after them.
“It was Snape. We have to do something.”
Not again Harry. She was getting tired of this.
Hedwig suddenly burst out of the sky, landing directly in their path. The group stopped, staring at the owl with a confused expression. Ron and Hermione took a step back. Harry took a step foreword.
“Hedwig, listen carefully. Snape is about to steal the Philosopher’s stone!”
Hedwig lets out an extremely unimpressed hoot.
“Yes! It was Snape! I’m telling you I know this.”
Hedwig blinks slowly.
“I am not crazy!”
Hermione and Ron stare at Harry as he has a full conversation with an owl.
“Fine! I’ll tell a stupid professor before I do anything!”
Harry angrily walks off and his posse follows him.
Hedwig flies after him as he goes up to Professor Mcgonagall.
She doesn’t know how the hell she is supposed to tell Harry that it’s not Snape.
Up at her desk, they watch the Professor in disbelief as she dismisses Harry’s concerns with no explanation.
Well of course if you tell a preteen not to do something, but then don’t tell them why, they are going to do it.
Hedwig thought about the problem at hand and the potential options available to her. While she couldn’t communicate in words, she could communicate through actions.
What could she do to deter them from going after that stone?
Hedwig could, of course, send Harry and his posse to the hospital wing, but she knows Harry is relentless and would keep trying to sneak back out to go after the stone himself.
Just then, Snape comes up behind them.
Perfect.
Giving no one a warning, she swoops down on Snape in an aggressive manner. She hooted angrily at him and did circles around his head.
He swatted at her.
She tears up his favorite robe.
Harry thinks that Hedwig is doing this in his defense.
“Oh my god Hedwig! Please not
now…”
Harry’s plea comes out quietly and tinged with horror.
Hedwig cements the coffin shut when she lands on his head and turns around, shitting a wet gooey one directly down his nose.
They are all quiet when it slides down and hits his mouth.
But wait.
She lets out another.
Snape’s anger finally boils over and he lets out a guttural yell of rage.
He looks like he just drank a Malort with a new flavor added: dung bomb. His expression twists to an even uglier height.
The feral animal in the making turns around, facing Harry.
“You.”
Said in an absolute baritone voice.
His eyes twitched like a malfunctioning circuit board, the rapid blinking and convulsing resembling an old computer possessed by a demonic spirit.
“Detention.”
He whispers it out like a tweaker in a shady alleyway.
Harry felt like Hedwig just walked him up to the gallows, tied the knot herself, and pushed him.
—
While Harry’s in detention, she steals his invisibility cloak.
She drags it off to her favorite spot in the woods, ensuring that Harry will never find it.
She is trying her best.
Snape lets Harry out at ten o’clock.
She could only imagine.
Hedwig stalks Harry as he trudges back to his common room. She’s waiting for him on his bed.
He looks dead inside.
She hoots mockingly at him.
“…You.”
He seems like he can’t even muster words.
A loud sigh comes from him.
“I don’t know what you were trying to do there. But… it’s not going to stop me.”
Hedwig immediately becomes annoyed.
She watched as he continues to make it clear that going after the stone is something that he “has” to do.
Realizing that her only option is to put him in the hospital wing, she lifts her wings and raises her talons-
-He holds his hand out.
She flies at him—and alights.
—
Hedwig clearly couldn’t let him go alone. Knowing him, he would accidentally get a severe paper cut on the throat.
And somehow live, but still.
She observes the mega chess pieces surrounding her.
“Check.”
Ron goes flying.
The game is soon over and Hermione and Harry run to check on Ron.
The room is dark and smoke hung in the air like a sinister fog. Destruction everywhere.
It looked like the aftermath of a battle ground.
Harry gets up and starts walking away, determined to be the one to meet Snape.
He glances at her and she looks at him. He doesn’t have to say anything. She follows.
Together, they go down the eerie staircase. She can’t help but think of how stupid this all is.
Hedwig is trailing behind him as he approaches the man in front of the mirror.
“You? No, it can’t be…”
Harry looks at Hedwig. How?
It’s revealed what really happened.
Quirrell forces Harry to the mirror.
Voldemort’s bodyless head is revealed. Harry has the same expression that she is feeling right now.
Hedwig can see the pissyness forming in Quirrell’s eyes as the man realized she was present also.
“Oh, look who it is.”
Quirrell lights the exits on fire, leaving her on the outside.
“Ugly nutter bird.”
Did he just call her ugly?
Voldemort tries to manipulate Harry into giving him the stone.
Right when Voldemort orders Quirrell to kill Harry, Hedwig moves.
She flew through the flames, her feathers lit up and singed, solely focused on vengeance.
An angel from hell. Her wings were widespread, a glowing orange fire outlining her entire body as she aimed.
Her eyes appeared as an off-brand Avada Kedavra, filled with a promise of a death of its own, a burning anger equal to the heat of the flames around her.
Trying to kill Harry is one thing, but calling her ugly?
Despicable.
Her legs were on fire as her talons dug into the flesh of her enemy.
Quirrell fell backward in shock, Voldemorts face single handedly cracking the mirror.
While Quirrell is fumbling and Hedwig is stop-drop-and rolling, Voldemort takes mild possession over Quirrell and sends him flying towards Harry.
Quirrell starts choking Harry and in a last ditch attempt, Harry throws the stone that’s barely within his grasp at Hedwig.
Hedwig, doing the only logical thing, swallows it whole.
Quirrell and Harry momentarily pause to stare at her.
“Kill her and rip it out!”
Voldemort does not sound very happy about this turn of events.
Harry, hearing a threat to someone he cares about, instinctively reaches out to Quirrell and doesn’t let go, trying to stop him.
Quirrell turns to ashes almost instantly.
Voldemort disappears in a screaming rage.
Harry and Hedwig look at the former body of Quirrell, completely demolished by Harry.
They look at Harry’s hands.
They look back at each other.
Harry laughs and Hedwig hoots a laugh as they both pass out for separate reasons.