Early the next morning, Kyle was forced to crawl out of bed.
Since he hadn't drawn the curtains last night, sunlight streamed through the dormitory's circular window, shining like a spotlight directly onto his face.
Who could sleep through that?
He reluctantly got dressed and stretched as he made his way to the window.
Because Hogwarts Castle wasn't built on level ground, even though this section was technically in the basement, it still received plenty of sunlight. Through the dormitory's circular window, grass and dandelions swayed gently outside.
Kyle glanced at his two roommates sleeping soundly, then wordlessly opened the window as wide as it would go.
With O.W.L.s only five years away, how could they sleep at their age? Besides, it was already 7:30 — which rounded up was basically 8:50 — and there were only a few minutes left until their 9:00 classes.
This was their first class at Hogwarts, after all. They needed to make a good impression on the professors — being late would be terrible. And that misty morning breeze would make the perfect alarm clock.
"I'm so thoughtful." Kyle nodded with satisfaction.
He was truly doing this for his roommates' sake, not at all because he wanted company while being up early — a Hufflepuff would never do such a thing.
After quickly washing up, Kyle left the dormitory through the common room passage.
As everyone knows, Hogwarts' staircases have quite the personality. They seem to have minds of their own, always managing to change direction or extend to higher floors just when young wizards are in the biggest hurry, silently enjoying the desperate wails of these unfortunate souls.
He had prepared himself to take several detours, but whether due to having plenty of time or because it wasn't yet the staircases' working hours, he made it from the common room all the way to the Great Hall without the stairs changing once.
Kyle felt somewhat disappointed — truthfully, he had rather wanted to try it out.
Though it wasn't even 8 o'clock yet, the Great Hall already had quite a few people. The Ravenclaw table was almost full, while other houses had a few older students scattered about.
Only Hufflepuff... had just Kyle.
When he sat down, a steaming breakfast immediately appeared on the plate before him: a glass of milk, two sausages, and a piece of bread.
Not extravagant, but quite nice — and he could always get more if needed.
Kyle was eating his breakfast leisurely when two familiar figures walked into the Great Hall one after another.
"Hi Kyle, why are you up so early?"
Michael and Ryan hurried over.
"I didn't want to be either. I was planning to go back to sleep, but the dormitory window was open and the wind made it too cold to sleep." Kyle said expressionlessly while cutting a piece of sausage, "What about you two, why are you up so early?"
"Same here." Michael said with a grimace, "I actually thought you were the one who opened the window?"
"It was already open when I left." Kyle said, emphasizing the last words deliberately.
"Oh, I guess the wind must have blown it open." Michael said between bites of bread, "But it's good this way — I didn't fall asleep until after midnight, and if the window hadn't been open, I definitely wouldn't have woken up before nine. If we were late to our very first class... I don't even want to think about it. We'd definitely be expelled."
Beside him, Ryan nodded vigorously in agreement.
Though he used to wake up around eight at home, that was only because his mother physically dragged him out of bed. If left to wake up naturally, he probably wouldn't have made it to first period either.
Kyle said with a smile, "Well then, you should really thank the kind person who opened that window."
"Yeah."
The two drowsy boys were so focused on breakfast, neither noticed anything odd about his last statement.
Michael even agreed, "It really helped a lot."
By then, Kyle had finished his last sip of milk and stood up, "Keep eating, I'm going to look around elsewhere."
"Okay." The two replied in unison.
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Leaving his roommates to their breakfast, Kyle headed straight for the castle doors.
It was just past 8 o'clock, with plenty of time before class, so he decided to address the pet situation. After all, the dormitory already had a cat and a toad — he couldn't appear unsociable, could he?
Walking out the castle entrance, Kyle raised his arm with practiced ease. Immediately, seven or eight owls swooped in from all directions, landing neatly on the stone steps before him.
"This isn't about delivering mail." He said, looking at them, "I'll be staying at Hogwarts for a long time, and I hope to employ one of you as my personal messenger. As for compensation... full room and board, one pack of owl treats daily, three packs of Mortla mouse jerky weekly, and one bottle of owl tonic monthly... that's the basic package, but we can negotiate extras if needed. These conditions will remain valid even after I graduate, until you can no longer lift your wings. So, whoever's interested, fly up to my shoulder."
This had nothing to do with Kyle's inherited talent.
As the wizarding world's dedicated messengers, owls possess a natural affinity for magic, and with training, they can understand wizards' speech. Hogwarts owls were particularly adept at this.
Though Kyle's proposal might have been complex for them, with his accompanying gestures, they understood most of his meaning.
In an instant, the owls scrambled for his shoulder. The slower ones began attacking those ahead of them.
Feathers flew everywhere in the ensuing chaos.
Kyle scratched his head with a wry smile, knowing it was too late to intervene — this situation was beyond what mere words could resolve.
Fortunately, the chaos didn't last long.
A brown fish owl, using its superior size, easily overcame the other competitors and settled proudly on Kyle's shoulder as the victor.
He recognized this owl. Three years ago, his father had found it at the Ministry's mail receiving station, barely alive and covered in wounds, still clutching an undelivered letter in its claws.
Chris had discovered it just in time, treating its injuries and nursing it back to health over half a month.
Yet it still bore a long facial scar — one caused by dark magic so potent that neither Chris nor Newt could remove it, and even feathers couldn't conceal it.
Compared to other owls, this made it look rather... distinctive.
But Kyle didn't care about appearances. He scratched the brown fish owl's neck feathers and smiled, "Hello, Stella."
The owl tilted its head and gently nibbled his finger with its beak.
Stella was the nickname Kyle had given it back then. Since he didn't know its name at first, he'd chosen it simply to make feeding time easier.
To everyone's surprise, the owl had grown attached to the name. When Hagrid got word and came to retrieve it, he spent half an hour calling "Sieben, Sieben" in the nearby woods, but the owl wouldn't respond. Only when Kyle softly called "Stella" did it leisurely fly out.
Hagrid was dumbfounded and took a while to recover. It felt like watching the daughter he'd raised being stolen away by some youngster.
He was utterly dejected.
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