An Owl in the Hand

[Sarah Allen]

Sarah stomped off the Knight Bus without acknowledging the driver, the conductor, or the passenger she barged past in her haste to get away from the bloody thing. She’d felt sick to death since the swerving menace had set off and she considered it a miracle she had held onto her breakfast!

Frowning she entered the red brick building in front of her, already wary of the unfamiliar place and people and wondering, not for the first time, why she had ever left the Apothecary.

“G’morning,” she said to the – thankfully! – female receptionist. “I’m here to look at the owls.”

@Saturday Rohlwing
@Atalanta Pendergast

  

[Saturday Rohlwing]

Saturday questioned, every day, the wisdom of working where she did. She hardly despised wizards as much as Mrs. Ingrahm did but she still clung to suspicion, and she was clearly not the only one if the complaints she dealt with were any indication. But the magical folk were here to stay, whether any of them liked it or not, and Sattie supposed there was a certain satisfaction in helping people like her adjust to it all.

Except for when she was being interrupted, and she tried not to glare as she stared up at the new arrival. "The owls?"

  

[Sarah Allen]

Sarah raised a sharp eyebrow at the question and heaved the heavy leather bag she had been carrying since Hogsmeade higher up her shoulder. As a rule she generally didn’t mind muggles – she could admit that with her fairly limited grasp of magic that she was practically one of them herself only she had a fancy wand and the pretence of a house to her name – but sometimes they did seem to be a bit on the slow side.

How hard was it to grasp really? There were owls and they needed sorting!

“Owls. You know? Those little hooting things?”

  

[Saturday Rohlwing]

Merlin she hated wizards. Not because they were wizards but because sometimes the arrogance when they spoke to their kind was astounding and Saturday arched an eyebrow at the other woman. She was not in the mood for sarcasm, not with her brother miserable and blind, and if looks could kill she would quite happily have seen the visitor stone dead on the floor.

She guessed magic might come in handy for things like that.

Instead, she pushed the signing in book towards the other woman with exaggerated slowness. "Sign in here," she drawled, pushing a quill in her direction.

  

[Sarah Allen]

Finally. Sarah took the quill and scratched her name with deliberately sharp movements, leaving a scrawl that she doubted anyone would be able to read. It scarcely mattered – it wasn’t as though she was going to be coming here regularly was it?

Although it would be just her kind of piss-poor luck to find herself with a permanent duty to the owls of Irvingly.

“They in the back then?” She glanced around the obviously owl-less room. “Somebody said the post owls were looking peaky yesterday?”

And of course she had drawn the short straw and was the bloody woodland vet!

  

[Saturday Rohlwing]

The post owls. Saturday could still hardly believe they used owls for their bloody post but she supposed they were rather sweet. And she didn't want them to die or anything of some bizarre magical disease, even if she would have to get up and show... Miss Alley? (her writing really was illegible and Sattie scowled as she snatched the visitor's book from her guest) to the back.

"I suppose you'd better follow me," she sighed, getting to her feet with more reluctance than she actually felt, not that she wanted to see her magically heal the owls or anything.

  

[Sarah Allen]

This woman sounded, if possible, even more apathetic to the fate of the owls than she was and Sarah could hardly begrudge her that. Although she did have to wonder what the muggles used if not owls… was there a system of people that passed them along in a chain until they reached their destination?

Deciding that, on reflection, it wasn’t worth asking, Sarah followed her into the back and immediately felt her heart sink. They weren’t just peaky, they were bloody ill, looking back at her morosely with big, unblinking eyes.

“Bloody hell, what have they done to you?”

  

[Saturday Rohlwing]

"Well don't look at me," Saturday frowned, feeling more than a pang of sympathy for the poor creatures in front of them. She knew next to nothing about owls save for what she had learned since taking this job but she had known they weren't well; well owls fluttered around a lot and made a lot of bloody noise but these ones had been suspiciously quiet. "We don't have owls delivering our post."

The wizards she worked with did though and it had taken them bloody long enough to get help.

"Will they be alright?" she asked after a moment.

  

[Sarah Allen]

Having a way with animals had never exactly been amongst Sarah’s strengths but even she felt sorry for the poor little mites, useless and ratty as they were and hooting forlornly up at her as though they knew her ambivalence was cracking. Damn their eyes.

“I don’t know,” she admitted, taking a step closer and reaching out to pick one of them up none too gently, earning herself an indignant hoot. “Sorry,” she muttered to the owl, turning him with greater care until she could get a better look. “Does he look… dizzy to you? Like he can’t stand properly?”