The shopping trip consumed the entire morning.
By the time Edward finally dragged all the supplies back home and hurriedly unloaded everything into the house, it was already one in the afternoon. His Dungeons & Dragons club session started in less than an hour, and the man looked moments away from collapsing into panic.
In the end, he simply used magic to throw together lunch for Ethan at record speed before rushing back out the door.
Just like that, Number Five Privet Drive was left completely silent.
After finishing lunch, Ethan rubbed his hands together excitedly and marched straight upstairs toward his bedroom. The expression on his face resembled a mad scientist preparing for dangerous experiments humanity definitely shouldn't allow.
Sitting on the desk was the owl with the absurdly high soul strength.
"Animagus? Blood curse? Possession? Or something even stranger?" Ethan muttered while dragging his chair over until he sat face-to-face with the bird.
"That'd be 'something even stranger.'"
A dry male voice suddenly emerged from the owl's beak.
Ethan froze completely.
"Oh my God…" he whispered. "You can talk?"
His eyes widened in genuine shock.
Animagi couldn't speak while transformed into animals, and cursed humans trapped inside animal forms lost the ability to use proper human speech because their vocal structures physically couldn't reproduce the sounds correctly.
The only possible exception Ethan could think of was parrots.
"Kid," the owl said while tilting its head calmly, "can Dementors talk?"
Ethan's expression immediately stiffened.
"You've got a human father," the owl continued casually. "Does that mean your mum's a Dementor?"
The bird showed absolutely no intention of stopping there.
"This is honestly the weirdest thing I've seen in all my years alive. Hoo hoo hoo. Even by owl standards, you're unbelievably strange."
Ethan's emotions rapidly evolved from confusion, to disbelief, and finally into complete numbness.
"Why'd you stop talking?" the owl asked. "Never seen a bird before?"
Its head rotated ninety degrees one way and then ninety degrees back the other. On a normal owl, the movement might've looked cute.
On this owl, it looked deeply unsettling.
"Wait…" The bird narrowed its giant eyes suspiciously. "Don't tell me you didn't know you were a Dementor."
Ethan's face slowly darkened.
"Oh no," the owl said suddenly. "Did I accidentally break your brain?"
It shuffled backward slightly inside the cage.
"Does your dad know how to cancel Owl Purchase Contracts? Listen, birds can't use wands, but if your father knows how to deal with Dementors, contract cancellation should be manageable."
Ethan remained completely silent while the owl continued rambling nervously.
"In exchange for my freedom, I can steal Galleons for you," it offered proudly. "I'm extremely experienced in theft."
The owl puffed out its chest.
"Every wizard thinks owls are harmless little delivery birds. Nobody ever wonders what we can carry out of houses instead of into them. How about thirty Galleons? Thirty Galleons for lifelong freedom sounds fair."
"Wait," Ethan said at last. "I need a minute."
He stood up stiffly, walked out of the room, and quietly shut the bedroom door behind him.
Then he leaned silently against the hallway wall.
Could he still return the owl?
This wasn't merely an unusual pet anymore. This was some kind of catastrophic magical hazard disguised as poultry.
What sort of owl casually swore every other sentence and made criminal business proposals five minutes after being purchased?
Even Ethan found the soul attached to this creature unpleasant to consume.
Still…
The part about stealing Galleons sounded incredibly tempting.
Unfortunately, the owl already knew his identity as a Dementor hybrid.
What if it exposed him?
After all, Ethan had walked around Diagon Alley for hours earlier without anyone screaming things like:
"Dementor! Run!"
Or:
"Quick! Cast Expecto Patronum before it eats your soul!"
Though admittedly, most ordinary wizards probably couldn't cast a Patronus anyway.
Judging from Dumbledore's attitude, the old Headmaster had likely chosen to acknowledge Ethan's existence quietly while suppressing information about him. The Ministry of Magic probably knew absolutely nothing.
Otherwise, there was no chance Ethan would still be freely wandering through Muggle neighbourhoods.
For now, secrecy was critical.
At least until his soul strength surpassed most wizards, Ethan absolutely could not allow his identity to spread carelessly.
And this owl—
This foul-mouthed talking owl—
Was an obvious security risk.
But…
A talking owl was also unbelievably cool.
After several seconds of intense internal conflict, Ethan finally decided to spare the bird temporarily.
Click.
He reopened the bedroom door and sat back down opposite the cage.
"Hoo," the owl greeted cautiously.
"I've reached a conclusion," Ethan announced seriously. "First, let me clarify something. My mother is not a Dementor, and my father is not Severus Snape."
"Who's Severus Snape?" the owl asked immediately.
"That information is inappropriate for little owls."
Ethan refused to elaborate.
"Anyway," he continued, "my parents are normal people because I was adopted."
He deliberately paused before emphasizing the next name.
"And Dumbledore personally placed me with this family. You know who Dumbledore is, right?"
"Of course I do," the owl replied instantly. "Last time I delivered mail to Hogwarts, I saw him standing in a tower staring at a photograph of some young man. Want to know who it was? Three Galleons."
"Grindelwald," Ethan answered flatly. "Next question."
The owl looked offended.
"You asked me first!"
"And you're avoiding the topic."
"You are an unbelievably unreasonable little—"
Ethan slowly licked his lips.
The owl instantly stopped talking.
"…Continue," it said dryly.
"Dumbledore personally approved my existence," Ethan repeated calmly. "Understand?"
"Hm."
The owl scratched its feathers thoughtfully.
"The way you're asking sounds less like a conversation and more like you're about to pluck my feathers out individually while demanding, 'Do you agree? Do you agree?'"
"Do you agree?" Ethan asked seriously. "I'm very democratic. If you disagree, I'll eat your soul."
"You never even gave me anything to agree to!" the owl shrieked furiously. "And just for the record, owls don't actually get voting rights!"
The cage rattled violently as it flapped its wings in outrage.
"You wizards invented Owl Purchase Contracts in the first place! Honestly, once I finish eating every field mouse in Britain, I'm moving on to wizards next. All of you are slave-owning lunatics exploiting innocent birds."
Ethan narrowed his eyes slightly.
"So you really are forced to obey your owner?"
"Do you honestly think owls willingly surrender freedom for owl treats?" the bird snapped. "Those disgusting little snacks aren't even larger than my cerebellum."
Ethan's eyes brightened faintly.
"Interesting," he murmured. "I should test that."
"Yeah, because obviously your greatest fear is a violent owl uprising," the bird mocked. "I'm clearly hiding a wand under my feathers somewhere. The moment a wizard buys me, I leap out screaming Avada Kedavra."
The owl paused dramatically before exploding again.
"I'm an owl! An owl! I don't even have hands to hold a wand!"
....
Join my P@treon FOR FREE and get 5 advanced chapters.
Paid members can get upto 60+ chapters ahead of the public release.
Link : [email protected]/thebookaddict