13th December, 1888 — The Hogwarts Owlery
This was a feat. This was going to be the biggest damn feat of the year.
Aubrey had tried tactics like these, from time to time. He’d tried harder in the early days, back when he’d had hope. He’d tried in Master Urquart’s first year, but he hadn’t been much good at navigating the castle, in those days. (Given the hedgehog hurdle, obviously.)
Henry Davis
The outside of the parchment read in a scratchy hand. (By Aubrey’s hedgehog hand. He had discovered that quills were rather unwieldy when one was mere inches tall.) He had deposited the little (stolen) Gryffindor lion pin into the parchment, and rolled it up safely in the bottom of it with all his might.
Henry wasn’t a Gryffindor herself, but the moment he had seen it he had known, had remembered the gift she had gotten him for Christmas eleven years ago. She would remember too, she had to. This Christmas surprise would make up for a decade of absence, he was sure. She would figure it out. She would know.
Aubrey was going to explain his situation in full, too, of course, starting with It’s Aubrey. Help me. I’m a hedgehog -
But he had always known this was a risk. The goddamn owlery was in the furthest recesses from the Slytherin bloody dungeon, and he was exhausted from the journey alone, never mind having to wrangle the parchment and the pin and the bottle of ink with his hedgehog paws, in front of a whole host of hooting owls with their wings and beaks and eerie yellow stares that said we’re going to fucking EAT YOU.
Aubrey recognised his chances of getting chewed up and regurgitated into owl pellets were high, and getting higher the longer he spent here in plain sight of the horde. He tried not to think of it, just of Henrietta finally getting the news he was alive and saving him from this existence, just in time to be out of here and home again for Christmas. He was nearly finished scratching out his message on the owlery floor -
Only for a set of loud footsteps coming in the owlery door to give him a heart attack, or near enough, enough that Aubrey upset the whole bottle of ink he’d been dipping his paws in over his carefully-crafted, spindly handwritten message, covering it all in a thick black goop. SHIT FUCK SHITTING FUCK -
NOW WHAT WAS HE GOING TO DO?
Aubrey scuttled out of sight with ink-muddied paws, deciding to hide until they left. Maybe they would see his present, and the name scrawled on the outside, and send it to his sister. Maybe that would be enough.
On the other hand, maybe he’d get eaten by owls for bloody breakfast.
Aubrey had tried tactics like these, from time to time. He’d tried harder in the early days, back when he’d had hope. He’d tried in Master Urquart’s first year, but he hadn’t been much good at navigating the castle, in those days. (Given the hedgehog hurdle, obviously.)
Henry Davis
The outside of the parchment read in a scratchy hand. (By Aubrey’s hedgehog hand. He had discovered that quills were rather unwieldy when one was mere inches tall.) He had deposited the little (stolen) Gryffindor lion pin into the parchment, and rolled it up safely in the bottom of it with all his might.
Henry wasn’t a Gryffindor herself, but the moment he had seen it he had known, had remembered the gift she had gotten him for Christmas eleven years ago. She would remember too, she had to. This Christmas surprise would make up for a decade of absence, he was sure. She would figure it out. She would know.
Aubrey was going to explain his situation in full, too, of course, starting with It’s Aubrey. Help me. I’m a hedgehog -
But he had always known this was a risk. The goddamn owlery was in the furthest recesses from the Slytherin bloody dungeon, and he was exhausted from the journey alone, never mind having to wrangle the parchment and the pin and the bottle of ink with his hedgehog paws, in front of a whole host of hooting owls with their wings and beaks and eerie yellow stares that said we’re going to fucking EAT YOU.
Aubrey recognised his chances of getting chewed up and regurgitated into owl pellets were high, and getting higher the longer he spent here in plain sight of the horde. He tried not to think of it, just of Henrietta finally getting the news he was alive and saving him from this existence, just in time to be out of here and home again for Christmas. He was nearly finished scratching out his message on the owlery floor -
Only for a set of loud footsteps coming in the owlery door to give him a heart attack, or near enough, enough that Aubrey upset the whole bottle of ink he’d been dipping his paws in over his carefully-crafted, spindly handwritten message, covering it all in a thick black goop. SHIT FUCK SHITTING FUCK -
NOW WHAT WAS HE GOING TO DO?
Aubrey scuttled out of sight with ink-muddied paws, deciding to hide until they left. Maybe they would see his present, and the name scrawled on the outside, and send it to his sister. Maybe that would be enough.
On the other hand, maybe he’d get eaten by owls for bloody breakfast.
Formerly known as Davis, Elijah Urquart's pet hedgehog.