The day Hannah's Hogwarts letter arrived was a grand affair. Emma wept. Thomas beamed. Renauld sulked.
Their mother showed up for the first time in years. Cool. Distant. Immaculately dressed in plum robes that shimmered oddly. She guided them through Diagon Alley like a woman half-present, eyes always scanning the periphery. Her voice was warm, but her presence was... brittle. Like a porcelain mask.
Renald and Hannah, were thus taken to Diagon Alley, sharp 10 in the morning. While Emma was trying out wands. Renauld walked around a bit, under his mother's supervision of course. Sadly they did not stop at Gringotts. Upon being asked, her response was a simple "I already have the money required" and that was it.
Soon afterwards Hannah returned. Their mother started needling them about their lives, whether they had made any notable friends. Any interesting hobbies and other tidbits. He tuned her out.
After looking at her wand-case for a while, he could not contain his curiosity. "So…what's your wand, show me?"
Hannah grinned widely, "Ebony, dragon heartstring, 13 inches. Pretty neat right?"
He shrugged, while Hannah deflated. "Don't be rude Rennie"
"Anything else you could glean sister, about your wand that is, like dragon heartstring from which dragon?"
"Umm, I think he mentioned ironbelly something, the specimen lived a really long life though, like half a millenia. It's parents were a very renowned Horntail and another Ironbelly mother."
"You mean Ukrainian Ironbelly, right ?"
"Alright Merlin, jeez, still a git, you little gremlin!"
Now, I could smirk in a contended manner. Still the recollection was really detailed. I was surprised and a tad impressed, by how much Ollivander knows and remembers about his stuff. He could remember every minor detail about his wands. Which dragon was it, what age was it killed, what kinf of unicorn and whether or not they parted with their hair willingly or not and how that affected the wand to which phoenix graced him with their feather. Still that was one wand to watch out for, my sister was blessed with a good combination.
While her son was busy in his own world, Olenna had merely looked at him—long, unreadable—and said nothing. He looked back her, raising an eyebrow.
She smiled, shrugged and bought him chocolate frogs, tho, A whole case.
"Your teeth will rot you know, baby gremlin?"
"I prefer Lindt," he muttered, eyeing the moving cards with mild disappointment. "Truffles. Dark chocolate. Wizarding sweets are too... whimsical."
But he didn't say no. And he did eat every single one, though. Couldn't help it, he had always had sweet food and a weakness for good food, the ones high in glutamic acid.
Afterwards, the mother-children trio walked over to Eeylops Owl Emporium. The heavy, dusty scent of hay and feathers hit them the moment they stepped into Eeylops Owl Emporium.
It was cooler inside than the August sun outside suggested, dimly lit save for narrow shafts of golden light filtering in through a high window. Cages lined the walls from floor to ceiling, some stacked so precariously it seemed a wingbeat might bring the whole lot tumbling down. The rustle of wings was constant—a soft symphony of shifting talons, rustling feathers, and the occasional, echoing hoot.
Renauld stood close to the door, blinking up at a snowy owl perched at the very top row, her amber eyes sharp and unblinking. For a moment, he felt something twitch in the air—like a string being plucked in his chest. He frowned.
"Don't wander, Ren," Olenna murmured as she swept past, her voice low but firm. "These creatures don't tolerate disrespect. Or idle children."
"I'm not idle," he muttered. "I'm absorbing ambience."
Hannah snorted behind him. "That's what people say when they're doing absolutely nothing."
"Don't get cheeky just because you're off to Hogwarts," he said, crossing his arms. "And I'm not jealous. Not even a little."
"Didn't say you were," she replied with the insufferable calm of someone who knew she had the upper hand. Her eyes were already scanning the lower cages, where the more common owls blinked sleepily from their perches—tawny, speckled, one that looked like a half-deflated pillow.
Olenna walked with the silent, precise grace of someone raised in a world where stillness was power. She was dressed in a long midnight-blue coat that shimmered faintly, even in this dusty little shop. Her dark auburn hair was pinned into a crown braid, and her green eyes flicked from owl to owl like she was sizing up potential informants, not school supplies.
She was unreadable as always—neither warm nor cold. Present, but with one foot always in another place. Renauld could barely remember the last time they'd seen her for more than a few days in a row. When she was gone, Thomas called it "classified work," and Emma muttered "Unspeakable business," like it was some sort of curse. Even Hannah only shrugged when he asked. Olenna Swayne had the air of a mother made more from myths than memories.
Still, she had come for this. That had to mean something.
"Here we go," Hannah said, stepping closer to a larger cage midway up. Inside sat a barn owl, elegant and tawny, its heart-shaped face cocked curiously to one side. "She looks intelligent."
"She looks judgy," Renauld quipped.
"Perfect, then," Hannah replied. "We'll get along."
The owl gave a soft chirrup and flapped once, rustling her wings in approval—or, perhaps, disdain. An attendant—thin, wispy-haired, and dusty as if he'd been birthed from an attic—shuffled over to open the cage with shaking hands.
"She's young but well-trained," the man rasped. "Fast flyer. Knows the London network. She's a fine choice for a first year."
As the man handed over the travel cage and some parchment for records, Renauld drifted further down the aisle. He wasn't sure what drew him, but there was a tug in his chest again. And then—
He saw her.
A snowy owl, stark white with a single dark freckle above her left eye, perched in perfect stillness at the far end of the shop. Their eyes met, and the world tilted slightly.
She wasn't just pretty—she was familiar.
Not just in species, either. Hedwig. She looked almost exactly like Hedwig. The Hedwig. Canon Hedwig.
"Bloody hell," Renauld whispered.
The owl blinked once, then twice, and fluffed her feathers regally.
This was wrong. She shouldn't be here. Not for him.
"Oi," he called. "Hannah. Come look at this."
She walked over, lifting her eyebrows. "You've gone all pale."
"She looks like Hedwig."
"She's an owl."
"No, you don't understand," he muttered. "This... this is a problem."
Hannah gave him a long look. "Why is it a problem that an owl looks like another owl?"
Renauld leaned in. "It's a derailment. A divergence. She should be with Harry. Not me. I'm not the chosen one. I'm not even going to Hogwarts yet!"
"You're being ridiculous."
"I'm being careful."
'Oh! For the love of God curse my mouth, I keep slipping up with nothing to occupy my mind, why doesn't the universe GET me? I need something interesting to occupy me, so that I stop lashing out verbally or physically, although it could have been worse on an afterthought. I have been blessed with a nice family, who can stand me.'
The snowy owl let out a soft hoot and turned her head slightly—like she was listening, or laughing.
"She's listening to me," Renauld whispered. "This is so weird."
At that moment, Olenna stepped beside them silently. She looked at the snowy owl, then at Renauld. Her eyes narrowed, just slightly. Then, with a tone both amused and distant, she said, "She likes you."
Renauld hesitated. "Can we… get her?"
"You'll need an owl eventually. I see no reason to wait."
That was it. No questions. No warnings. Just the quiet force of acceptance.
The attendant, startled by Olenna's decisiveness, trundled off to prepare the snowy owl's travel cage. Hannah was still staring at him like he'd grown another head.
And Renauld stood there, his heart hammering in a way he didn't fully understand.
Something had changed.
Later that night, far away, across different points on the chessboard of fate, two old wizards paused.
In a candlelit tower in Scotland, Albus Dumbledore, seated in his high-backed chair with Fawkes sleeping beside him, sipped a cup of lemon tea and looked toward the window.
Something was different in the air. Magic had shifted—not violently, but undeniably.
He couldn't name it, but he felt it. Like a ripple just under the surface of calm water.
"What have you done now?" he whispered, not unkindly.
He was used to being the one with the answers. But this—this was something even he hadn't foreseen. And that, truth be told, was the part that thrilled him.
In another place, deeper and darker, Lord Voldemort—still a shade of his future self, still clinging to the edges of mortality—felt a cold breath against his soul.
A change.
An irritant. Not a threat. Not yet. But something other.
He drew back, puzzled, and then dismissed it—for now.