"You won't be wanting that bird," the shop keeper following him said, but Harry hardly listened to him. It was as if the man's voice was coming to him from a great distance, like a fading echo spoke from miles away. "A right menace, she is. Many customers tried buying her only to be bitten. I would've gotten rid of her a long time ago, but she never moves from that cage even when I open it to let her free."
"Really, how interesting," Harry mused absently as he and the owl stared at each other. There was something about this owl, a thrum of familiarity that hummed within his soul. It was strange, he had never laid eyes on this owl until now, and yet he felt as if he should know her. Almost like she was simply a piece of him that he had been missing.
Raising his left hand, Harry ignored the shop keepers warnings as he stuck fingers in between the cage. The owl eyed his index finger with a look of keen intelligence. After a moment she lightly nipped his finger, then waddled a bit closer to the cage so that Harry could brush his fingers against her feathers.
"Well I'll be," the shop keeper said in surprise. "Every other person whose done what you have got their fingers practically bitten off."
"I'm sure they have," Harry replied in a soft voice. He could feel it, he didn't know why, he didn't know how, but he knew that this owl belonged with him. They were partners, in a sense, even if he was not quite sure just what that partnership entailed. "How much for her?"
The man eyed the bird and the boy strangely, before shrugging. "Fifty Galleons. That includes both the cage and owl treats."
"We won't need either of those," Harry said, his voice still soft. Neither he nor the Owl had looked away from each other since the moment they had made eye contact. He didn't why, but Harry felt that if they broke contact something bad would happen. He didn't know what, it was just a gut feeling. But it was one he decided to go with since he always trusted his instincts.
The shop keeper looked a bit unnerved, probably thinking about how weird the strange owl and even stranger kid were, but he didn't argue the point. "Very well, then it will twenty-five galleons for the owl."
Harry absently opened his money pouch and pulled out exactly twenty-five galleons, then handed it to the shop keeper. All of this was done while still keeping eye contact with the owl. As soon as the man had his money, Harry opened to cage that kept him and his new partner separated.
Immediately the owl flew out of the cage, startling the shop keeper who led out a loud shout of surprise. She flew around the room for two laps, and then landed on Harry's outstretched arm. The Owl nipped him on the ear once in a gesture that Harry got the feeling was distinctly affectionate, and Harry decided it was time to leave and get something to eat.
He left the shop, only vaguely paying attention to the shop keeper who complained about the weird bird and the even weirder kid who bought her.
XoX
Lunch time found Harry sitting in a small batch of tables near a cafe, eating a beef sandwich as he read A History of Magic. If he were perfectly honest, he was rather surprised Diagon Alley actually had what amounted to an open air cafe, especially when he considered how behind the times the magical world seemed to be. Judging from everything he had seen and done, Harry had determined that the wizarding world was still stuck somewhere in the early or late fifteen hundreds, long before the open air cafe was invented.
Still, he supposed some things had to change, what with all of the muggleborn students that come out of Hogwarts. And even though Diagon Alley had an open air cafe, it still looked like something that was pulled directly from the fifteenth Century.
"You know," Harry said conversationally to the owl currently standing on the table eating a small plate of bacon he had gotten for her. "We still need to come up with a name for you."
The Owl looked up from her eating, her head tilting this way and that. She gave a barking hoot that Harry somehow translated into assent, before going back to her crispy pieces of pig.
"How about Alison?" asked Harry. His new owl companion only took enough time from her eating to give him a look that, if he had to define with a word, believed 'unsatisfied' would be the most apt fit. She hooted in a manner that told him a similar story to her expression, and then went back to eating. Harry decided to cross off that name as a no in his mental list.
"What about Katherine?"
"Hoot!"
"Angelica?"
"Hoot!"
"Ok, ok, how about Tabitha?"
When 'Tabitha' decided to show her displeasure at the name by biting his hand hard enough to draw blood and a pained hiss from him, Harry said, "ok, so not Tabitha."
Of course, that meant he still hadn't come up with a decent name for the owl. There were many more names out there that he knew of, but he suspected his Owl did not want a typical name. He didn't know how he knew, just that he knew she would want a name that was not only rare, but also unique.
Frowning, Harry looked down at the book, A History of Magic. It was a very fascinating book, a well-spring of knowledge on events long since past. A part of him knew that he should probably be reading something a bit more prevalent to his current situation and lack of knowledge on recent events, but he had reasoned with himself that he would be studying almost nonstop for the next few weeks before he went to school. It generally only took him a day or two to read most books, even the larger textbooks only took at most three days. That would be more than enough ample time to gain all of the important knowledge he would need before beginning his first year at Hogwarts.
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