dolorous_ett | Happy birthday, Dolabellae! (Reply)

As traditional, a tiny Crabbe story for

dolabellae on her birthday. Extemporised in a hurry when I realised it was that time of year already - and also grossly over-sentimental. Still, it's this or nothing.

Ever since he came downstairs for breakfast, Vincent had been staring at the big, domed package under the Christmas tree, just visible through the kitchen door.

It is not an owl, he told himself firmly as he forked bacon and mushrooms into his mouth. It can’t be an owl, because it just never is. You thought it was an owl last year, when it was just a silly old hatbox for Messalina. And the year before that when it was a carriage clock for Mother. And the year before that it was Petronilla’s new school cauldron, and that year you cried in front of everybody. Stop it before you embarrass yourself.

He still wanted it to be an owl, though. He couldn’t help himself.

Snow was falling against the window, softer than feathers. Every slap and rustle as it hit the bay window in the parlour sounded like a creature scrabbling softly against confining wire and paper; and the clatter as his mother cleared the table reminded him of claws and beaks.

Still, he had learned his lesson, and so he turned his back on the big, domed parcel (which just for a second he thought might have given a lurch as if something alive was inside) and carried his dirty dishes to the sink.

When the moment finally came when his big sister Petronilla hefted the parcel in front of him with a cheerful “Merry Christmas, younker!” his heart was beating so fast that the excitement felt closer to fear. He fumbled badly as he was trying to tear off the wrapping paper, trying manfully to ignore the faint giggles coming from Blanche and Messalina, and felt tears smart in his eyes. It isn’t an owl, he told himself sternly. It can’t be an owl. It never is.

But at the moment when the last layer of paper came off and he got his first sight of Brown Beauty, the plucky tawny who was to win prize for Best Trained Owl at every agricultural show in Norfolk, Vincent knew that he was the luckiest little boy in the world.

Even in after years, with both parents dead in the Second Voldemort War, the old house a ruin, Blanche in Azkaban and Petronilla doing her best to send Messalina to join her, Vincent still remembered Brown Beauty in her cage, and knew that – for that moment, at least – he had indeed been the luckiest little boy in the world.