Hidden Wings - Part I

Things are getting serious

The exams drew closer as the weeks passed.
With Voldemort unsettling the Wizarding World, nature perishing and homework being shoved down their throats, Mioha felt soon as if her head would burst. On some days, she just wanted to fly out into a secluded area of the Forbidden Forest and scream until her lungs gave out. This feeling of helplessness unsettled her, but even though she desperately wanted to try to fix everything at the same time, she couldn't deal with so many things at once. Titan or not, she was still only one person.

Harry continued his private lessons with Gandalf and told Mioha and the others everything he learned. Apparently, Voldemort had a thing for turning valuable objects into horcruxes. For instance, the ring that had injured Gandalf's hand had been one, which explained why there had been such a strong curse on the ring in the first place. To protect it.

By end of March, most articles in the Daily Prophet revolved about two topics now: Voldemort, and the dying animals and plants. Mioha had kind of slipped into the background, but she did not mind. As long as she could continue to sneak into St. Mungo's every week, she did not care where the Ministry thought she was hiding.

But at least there were a few things that did brighten up the students' day.

Three little feathery things, to be precise.

Everyone at Hogwarts knew that Mioha was the Slytherin with two blackbirds as friends, who sometimes stopped by the Great Hall to snatch a piece of toast. On rare occasions, an osprey would accompany them. But now, those two blackbirds were constantly followed by three more tiny birds, two of them being the exact replica of their father and one looking like Esma.

The first time the babies arrived in the Great Hall with their parents was during breakfast, two weeks after they had hatched.

Mioha looked up from her fruit salad when five feather balls landed in front of her breakfast bowl. Or actually, Esma and Swift elegantly landed on the polished wood of the table. Gwaihir, Nova and Byron crash-landed into Mioha's cup, spilling water everywhere.

Astoria, Ethel, Levinia and Erica looked up from the clanking noise Mioha's cup made as it rolled onto the floor.

"What are those?", mumbled Erica tiredly, bags under her eyes from studying the previous night. "More of your friends, Jess?"

"Oh Merlin!", exclaimed Astoria and her eyes widened in excitement as she put two and two together. "Are those- are they-"

"Esma has BABIES!", Ethel interrupted and grinned broadly. "They are so cute!"

The Slytherins sitting beside them looked at them curiously and found three baby blackbirds traipsing over Mioha's breakfast, trying to find their balance by spreading their wings.

"Hi, Mioha!", cheeped Byron excitedly and toppled over when he tried landing on the rim of the bowl. He landed beak-first in a slice of watermelon.

Mioha chuckled and carefully lifted him up by his tail feathers, then set him down on the palm of her hand. Nova and Gwaihir followed their brother and quickly hopped onto her hand as well, until all three were cramped together, staring around curiously. Their eyes blinked in wonder at the shining silverware, the flashing golden plates and the large quantities of food the students had on their plates, which was more food than a single blackbird could eat in a week.

"Gwaihir", said Esma sternly when her son looked longingly at Ethel's toast.

Gwaihir stuck his head between his shoulders and blinked innocently back at his mother, who then turned towards Mioha's bowl and helped herself to a grape.

Swift fluttered up to Mioha's head and ruffled his feathers, trying to appear larger than he actually was in case potential enemies were around.

"What are their names?", whispered Levinia in wonder. She slowly raised her hand and tried petting Nova. The female bird responded to this attempt with a nervous squawk, and Levinia quickly retracted her hand to avoid scaring the blackbird away.