Rustling feathers and trusting friends

As soon as Harry had fixated the letter on my leg, I spread my wings, gliding into the darkening sky. It was only a few minutes after sunset, from up here I could still see the soft orange glimmer on the western horizon. Oh, how I loved this time of the day!

The unbearable heat was gone, the loud noises slowly started to calm down, the contrasts sharpened with every second and the bright shining sky finally became soft and welcoming, greeting me with a light evening breeze. For a long time I just enjoyed the feeling of the cool air gliding through my smooth feathers without a sound while watching the world beneath me.

I knew why Harry had sent me just now. Although I could still see every little detail, no matter how far away, I knew that human eyes couldn't catch me in the dark anymore, despite my shining white feathers. I was curious, what the human-sometimes-dog's new residence looked like, I'd never been there before. Well, It wouldn't take me long to get there, so in a few minutes I'd know anyways.

Hogsmead was already quite a bit behind me when I spotted the cave from above. It was well hidden, almost impossible for humans to get there and even harder to discover from afar. Silently, I lowered myself down, shooing softly to not surprise anyone with my arrival. The human-sometimes-dog looked out of the cave and held up his left arm for me to land on it, which I did carefully, trying not to hurt him with my strong claws. He smiled and greeted me with human words before he pulled open the leather band on my leg.

I decided to give him some privacy with the letter and hopped down to the ground, wings half-spread. And then I froze in shock.

There was a huge bird in front of me, the head alone bigger than my whole body, gleaming eyes and a big, sharp beak. A loud shriek escaped my throat belatedly and I hopped back, staring at the thing. The human-sometimes-dog seemed to notice my discomfort and barked a good-natured laugh, petting the huge bird on the shoulder.

That was when I noticed that it wasn't a bird at all! The silverish-grey feathers turned into short fur on the back of the huge animal. It was standing on long muscular legs with dangerous hoofs like a horse, but the head was definitely one of a bird, not to mention the wide wings. A hippogriff!

I clicked my beak in irritation and cautiously tripled a few steps forward. Suddenly the huge animal bowed its head, face mere inches from mine. It was really uncomfortable to be this close to a probably not trustworthy giant eagle-horse. Besides, as good as I see things far away, as blurry is my close-up vision. I had to wiggle my head from side to side to be able to observe the maybe-monster.

It seemed that I hadn't done anything the beast didn't like. It lifted its head up again, blinking once, and rustled its wings in what I hoped was a friendly gesture.

I relaxed a little bit and, after a while, dared to step closer. The hippogriff didn't do anything to stop me, so I continued my investigations by stalking through the cave cautiously and examining it from every possible angle. Suddenly I noticed that the human-sometimes-dog was watching me. I looked him in the eyes and tilted my head questioningly.

"Hedwig", he called out calmly. I knew that word, my name. I don't understand human language word by word, but I still understood what he meant when he kept on talking. That I should fly a bit with the hippogriff, while he wrote his answer to Harry. That I should keep the other bird-animal some company and don't let it fly near any humans who might see it.

What? I should watch after a Hippogriff ten times my height? Was he serious? Well, Sirius, but that was just his name! On the other hand, it didn't really seem to be an aggressive animal. Actually, it seemed really friendly and gentle. It was just – the size was pretty intimidating. But that also meant that I was faster in changing directions and had good chances to hide in places too small for the Hippogriff to get to me, just in case it decided to be hostile after all. Well, couldn't hurt to try.

I turned my head back to the Horse-Eagle and rustled my feathers in a friendly gesture. I just hoped that Hippogriffs understand this offer of friendship. In response, it did the same, which was hopefully a good sign, and bowed its head slightly. This time it wasn't as scary to me as it had been before, it actually looked quite graceful. Satisfied that we were now – according to bird-rules – officially friends, I turned around and spread my wings, gliding into the darkness. Promptly followed by a really, really noisy Hippogriff.

Although I was pretty sure now that it wasn't my enemy, I could practically feel the adrenaline in my blood at the thought of a huge monster behind me. It was an incredible kick of energy, and I shot up and down, turning in every direction and doing acrobatic exercised that every other owl would have laughed at me for. And I loved it, and so did the Hippogriff. We played high in the air and chased each other, and within seconds I forgot that I had been scared of this giant just minutes prior. This moment counts definitely as one of the funniest things I ever did.

After what seemed like hours we returned to the cave. My new friend was literally bouncing with happiness. Obviously the hippogriff couldn't spread its wings like this often as long as they had to hide here. As I turned my attention to the human-sometimes-dog, he had a wide grin on his face and a letter in his hand. I stretched my leg in his direction to let him put it there and shooed fondly as he scratched my head. I turned around to look at the Hippogriff and said my goodbyes before I got up into the nightsky and out of the cave.

My new friend's soft call was the last thing I heard before I disappeared into the darkness.