Actions

  • Entire Work

Work Header

Rating:
Archive Warning:
Category:
Fandoms:
Characters:
Additional Tags:
Language:
English
Stats:
Published:
2025-11-18
Updated:
2026-06-17
Words:
149,853
Chapters:
126/?
Comments:
2,939
Kudos:
2,585
Bookmarks:
754
Hits:
140,391

The Owl, the Witch, and a Man Named Anthony

Summary:

Holly Potter learnt at Gringotts that her father wasn’t James Potter, but some guy named Anthony Stark.

Tony Stark was very confused when a paternity claim was delivered directly to his bedroom by a snowy owl.

They begin a correspondence of letters, not knowing what bizarre revelations will come of it, all mediated by our favourite Arctic avian and told in real time as the letters are delivered.

Formerly “Flight of the Post Owl.” Covers Hogwarts first year. Holly was born in 2000. The letters start in Chapter 10.

Notes:

Disclaimer: Hedwig belongs to JK Rowling.

This is one of the more experimental stories that I’ve written. In fact, this will be an AO3 exclusive, simply because FFN doesn’t allow the flexibility of formats that it needs. The details will come when the time is right, but two things you should know up-front.

First, this story will mostly be in an epistolary format, composed of letters, diary entries, newspaper articles, and the like, with only occasion prose interludes.

Second, this story will be updated IN REAL TIME. Each entry will be posted on the same date it happens in the story. That means both the spacing and the chapter length will vary—the length probably by a lot—but it should at least keep me updating at a steady pace.

Also, in this story, Hedwig is the correct coloration for a *female* snowy owl: white with thin black stripes all over. And I’ve taken some liberties with how Post Owls work generally. That was mainly to make writing the schedule easier, but I think it also adds to the realism.

Chapter 1: 18 November: Birding Diary

Chapter Text

Excerpt from the birding diary of Skarði Kjølbro of Tórshavn (translated from Faroese):

 

18 November

 

Sunup: a flock of puffins flew over. Probably the usual suspects, but I’m surprised they came this far into town.

A pair of storm petrels. Might be a breeding pair.

Pretty sure I saw a needletail fly over too, but it wasn’t a clear sighting.

 

Morning: I just saw a snowy owl land across the street! Definitely a snowy. Female. I saw it very clearly. It’s already rare for them to come this far south, but that wasn’t the strangest thing. I could swear it had a mail tube strapped to its back. Like they used to put on pigeons during WWII. But I’ve never heard of anyone using owls to send messages. At least, that’s sure what it looked like. I suppose it could have been a radio tracker, but it looked too big for that. The bird was wearing a harness and everything.

I tried to get a photo, but by the time I got my camera set up, it had flown away. I’ll ask around town, but I doubt anybody else saw anything. Everyone keeps telling me they can’t even see the bird half the time when I point one out.

Not sure how well an owl could navigate to deliver a letter, but snowies are long-distance migrators, so I guess it might be possible. Maybe I can check somewhere if someone is doing a science experiment on it.