Chapter Text
Snowy had always been a rather odd owl. She didn't play well with the other owls at the owl farm, being rather aggressive. There was a reason for this though - Snowy was much smarter than other owls, and she knew it. She also knew that she was destined for greatness far beyond the simpletons she was surrounded with. Whilst the other owls followed the rules and slept, Snowy had far greater ambitions. She would escape this hellhole, and leave her mark on the world - and nothing would get in her way.
Sometimes though, she had to make that clear to her idiot brethren, such as what Snowy had to do to Willow.
"YOU DARE TAKE MY FEED, YOU LITTLE BITCH." Snowy roared, using her talons to hold Willow down. Willow was a brown owl who had developed a reputation as a bit of a glutton. She tried to steal food from other owls. Now, the other owls would just hoot at her and get all huffy but not Snowy - Snowy was going to make that bitch pay.
Willow cried out, and then whimpered as Snowy slapped her in the face with her wing. "Keep your greedy little mouth away from my food." Snowy snarled.
Snowy then moved her head closer to Willow's, and whispered "If you ever touch my food again, or cross me again, then I will know. Don't think I won't." Willow was crying. "If you ever do it again, then I'll ensure you never fly again. Do I make myself clear?"
Willow nodded quickly, clearly scared for her life. Snowy let her go, glaring at her as she quickly flew away.
That would teach the little brat. Snowy had put a lot of effort into establishing her reputation as an owl to be feared, and now she had just reinforced it. This sort of thing happened every once in a while, where a fool let their desires outweigh their sense of self preservation. Snowy had already had to beat up several owls, but once she beat up an owl they never messed with her again.
It also helped that Snowy had a lovely little tool to help her out - a shard of glass that she liked to use as a knife. One owl had lost an eye to her little blade, and had ended up being 'put down' due to it. The best thing about it was that the Keepers didn't even realise she had it, as Snowy kept it hidden in her feathers and they just assumed an owls talon had cut the eye open.
Of course, now Snowy had to think about the Keepers - the infernal jailors keeping her locked up in this place. The Keepers were not owls, far from it. They were a species called 'Human' and looked like long, hairless pink monstrosities. Snowy had concluded they were disgusting, and absolutely pointless. After all, what use was a creature without wings?
Whilst Snowy looked down on them though, she knew to be wary of them. There had been many owls here at the farm over the years, and a lot of those owls were gone now. The Keepers would collect the older of them to harvest, and they would never be seen again. If any owl tried to flee or fight back, then the Keepers would bring forth The Stick, a brown tool that shot light at those owls. The light could freeze a grown owl, with no way to fight it off. To Snowy it was terrifying, but also something that filled her with determination.
She could overcome it, she was better than these simpletons.
However, Snowy knew that it would soon be time when she would too be harvested. Owls would be here for a certain amount of cycles of the moon before they were taken, and Snowy was reaching that point. The next harvest would likely be within the next few cycles, and Snowy would be prepared.
The plan would be simple - Snowy would let the Keeper get close, then cut their throat open with her blade. She'd then take The Stick and use it to defeat the other Keepers, and then escape. There was a lot of risk to it, and Snowy didn't even know how to use The Stick, but it was really her only option. She could NOT afford to fail.
Unfortunately though, Snowy's prediction had been slightly off for the Keepers had chosen to commence a harvest early. They'd also noticed her aggressive behaviour, and so wanted to deal with her first before she could react. Thereby when the Keeper approached Snowy she was cautious, but remained calm. She didn't expect a harvest that day, so when the Keeper suddenly hit her with The Stick she could only bark out in horror before going still with everything fading to black.
That would be the last time Snowy saw the owl farm ever again.
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When Snowy came to, she found herself in a small cage in a very unfamiliar place. There were other cages around her with other owls inside, some familiar and some not. Also in the room was a Keeper.
"LET ME OUT OF THIS CAGE YOU FILTHY FREAK. IF YOU DON'T I'LL ORDER A HIT ON YOUR FAMILY, AND TURN YOUR CHILDREN INTO A SMOOTHIE!" she screeched in rage, trying to bite through the cage with her beak.
Her shouting got the attention of a Keeper, who came over to her. Something that Snowy had long learned was that the Keepers did not understand proper language, instead speaking a language she liked to call 'Freak-tongue'. To the Keepers though, all she was ever saying was 'Hoot'.
"Oh, your awake. You know I was warned about you, apparently your a nasty one. I was told to bring you through first." the Keeper said, smiling down at Snowy. Snowy in turn glared at the mongrel, wanting nothing more than to claw their eyes out.
Whilst Snowy was being carried, she felt around her feathers and found her knife. The fools hadn't checked her for weapons. This meant Snowy still had a chance to escape the harvest as soon as they opened the cage.
Except, they didn't actually open the cage. The cage was put down on a table, and another Keeper came over to her with a book. Snowy knew what books were, she'd seen some of the Keepers use them before, but this one looked different. It glowed.
"Ready when you are, Doc." the first Keeper said.
The second one nodded, before picking up The Stick.
"KEEP THAT THING AWAY FROM ME, FILTH. I AM SNOWY, THE GREATEST OWL TO HAVE EVER LIVED. I AM ABOVE THE LIKES OF YOU, ABOVE ALL YOU MONGRELS. I WILL KILL YOU -ack!" Snowy shouted, before being cut off as The Stick was indeed used on her - except in a different way than usual. She felt information pouring into her mind.
The 'Freak-tongue' was called English, and it was spoken by the British. The Stick's were wands, and were used by wizards and witches. A lot of the information was about wizarding mail, and how she was intended to be a 'Post Owl'. There was more information on tracking locations using magic, sensing where to go using the addresses on the post, and on how to deliver international mail.
If Snowy was a lesser owl, she would likely be fine with her lot in life. She'd happily go along, become a Post Owl for a young wizard or witch and spend her life doing menial labour. Snowy was not a lesser owl however, and instead felt very offended at the very idea that she would be something as lowly as a Post Owl. She had a greater purpose in life!
Snowy also had a massive headache, and the wand was used to stun her before she was fed a liquid that seemed to soothe the headache, but also put her to sleep.
Snowy cursed these miserable humans for making her suffer like this, and she vowed revenge.
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When Snowy awoke once again, she found herself in another new location and a much brighter one at that. She was still unfortunately in the cage, but other than that everything was different. The other cages around the room contained a whole variety of creatures. There were other owls here, but also snakes, rats and cats (among other creatures).
Next to Snowy was a grey owl who looked at her with a rather blank expression. Snowy glared back with all the hatred she could muster, enough to startle the owl and make it look away. Even here Snowy could assert her dominance over the weaklings.
It didn't take very long for Snowy to figure out what this new place was: a shop. Apparently wizards and witches would come here to buy themselves 'pets'. A lot of them were excitable little brats who were both very noisy and very annoying. Snowy made sure to be as nasty as possible to the little crotch goblins to scare them off.
This would be where Snowy would spend the next few months (and adjusting to human time instead of the cycles she was used to was also annoying). Every day people would come in, ooh and ahh at the other animals and be scared away by Snowy's aggression.
One day however that all changed, when a giant man stepped in. This man easily got Snowy's attention, since he was by far the biggest Human she'd ever met - in fact, he was almost twice as tall as the other monkeys. The Giant wore a big brown coat and had a long black beard, and spoke to one of the staff about getting an owl for some kid.
Snowy was impressed with his size, but that didn't change her lack of interest in being given to a brat. Therefore she decided to be as aggressive as possible when The Giant approached her.
"I'LL RIP YOUR BRAT TO PIECES AND STUFF HIS BONES UP YOUR ASS." Snowy screeched at the top of her lungs. The other animals largely looked at her in shock and horror, but Snowy didn't care. Unfortunately, The Giant actually seemed to like her aggression as he was adamant that she was the owl for his brat.
As she was paid for and taken out of the store (but still in the cage unfortunately), Snowy made sure to inform The Giant something very important: "I'll kill you in your sleep, and your entire family too."
It was a shame that The Giant couldn't understand her.
Shortly after she was led to the window of another shop, where she could see two boys inside. One of them looked like a pompous brat with blonde hair and a smirk that Snowy wanted to claw off. The other boy had black hair and green eyes, with an odd scar on his forehead. This other boy also seemed to look much worse than Blondie, and also seemed to be the brat she was being gifted to.
The boy would come out with a bag of clothes, and smiled at her. It was odd though, as Snowy had unfortunately met many brats and they tended to be loud and annoying and saw her as a thing rather than an actual being with her own thoughts, but this boy was different. He was calm, at least reasonably so considering he apparently had just learned about magic; but he also seemed to actually give her more respect than the other monkeys as he actually said hello to her instead of treating her as an object or a toy.
Snowy decided to reward the basic respect with a nod back. She didn't like the brat, but she could at least respect some basic decency - especially to a great being such as herself.
Throughout the day Snowy would learn more of the duo - The Giant was actually called 'Hagrid', and the brat was 'Harry Potter'. The two weren't related, as Hagrid was simply escorting Harry to get his school supplies. Snowy also noted that a lot of people seemed to react to Harry as if he was important, but Harry himself shied away from this attention. Snowy couldn't help but view him as weak, as he should be using the attention to assert his dominance by gutting one of the other wizards.
Soon enough though, Hagrid escorted her and Harry to Harry's home - a rather uninteresting house named 'Number 4 Privet Drive', in Little Whinging, Surrey. Snowy didn't need to hear the location - she instinctively knew it, likely a result on the magic used on her during the imprisonment.
Once at the house Snowy got to meet Harry's family, and could only conclude that they were some of the freakiest mongrels she'd ever met. The father and son both looked like pigs, whilst the mother looked like a stick figure. All three of them looked hideous, in both looks and personality. Vernon Dursley's face turned red in a way that Snowy wanted to pop with her knife, and see the blood flow. Petunia Dursley looked at her (and Harry) in a way that made Snowy want to smash her face into the ground hard enough to shatter her teeth. Their son, Dudley Dursley, looked like the easiest to kill and reminded Snowy of Willow. In short, Snowy hated the Dursley's.
Interestingly though, so did Harry - and they hated Harry in turn. This was interesting to Snowy as up to this point she'd never seen such dislike and hatred between Humans. Snowy had actually thought that all the Humans got along, but it seemed that they were actually more complex than she imagined.
When they got to Harry's room, he set her down in her cage on a desk before moving his purchases to the side of the room. Snowy noted that the room didn't look very nice.
"Sorry about the mess, this room was just given to me. Don't tell anyone, but I used to live in the cupboard under the stairs." Harry said to her.
That caused Snowy to actually blink rapidly, as she'd briefly seen that cupboard - Harry would have less space in that than she had in the cage!
"I guess we should have proper introductions. My name's Harry, Harry Potter. I ... don't have any friends, or real family. The Dursley's barely count, and even if they did they hate me regardless. But I hope we can be friends, or even family. Your my pet, but I think your more intelligent than the other wizards were willing to admit, so I'd like to treat you as family if that's alright." Harry spoke softly, looking rather small as he did so.
Snowy found herself listening, and actually feeling sympathy for Harry as he explained his living situation. Like her, he'd had no real freedom. Like her, he'd been in a prison. Before she could continue Harry actually opened the cage, letting her out.
"I'll only keep you in the cage when necessary, but otherwise I'll leave the door open. I know what it's like to be imprisoned after all, and I'd hate to force a friend into that too."
Then Harry done something Snowy didn't expect - he hugged her. It was a gentle hug, clearly with the fear he'd hurt her, but with also clear affection. In that moment Snowy realised that she was effectively all this boy had, and that he actually cared for her. Maybe the magic from before had compelled her, or maybe she'd been weakened by being surrounded with filthy lesser beings, but Snowy found herself starting to care about him in turn. So she leaned her head against his, deciding that if he wanted her to be family then she would be that. She would still rise to the top, but would be taking Harry with her.
Soon after Harry started looking through the books, wanting to find a good name for her. Snowy had been a name she'd given herself, after hearing that she was a 'Snowy Owl'. It hadn't been a name she cared for, but it had been her name regardless. In the end, Harry settled on the name 'Hedwig', which Snowy decided was as good of a name as any (and was also a name she hadn't heard anyone else be called).
Thus, Snowy became Hedwig.
Whilst Hedwig would take a while to get used to her new name, she could appreciate how it would sound when she's established herself as the greatest being in the world: she would be known as Hedwig the Almighty, or Hedwig the All-Powerful, or even Hedwig the God-Slayer. For that last one Hedwig would need to find a god, but that shouldn't be too hard - there was a whole world of magic out there, after all. There was certainly a god she could kill.
As Harry slept that night Hedwig looked out the window. Everything had changed in only a few months, and more changes were soon to come as they would make their way to a school called 'Hogwarts'. Hedwig didn't know what difficulties lied ahead, but she knew that her rise to the top had only just begun.