Gale froze.
Inside that tiny owl skull, a giant question mark blinked on. Was his master… utterly shameless?
Still, under Theodore's earnest pep talk, Gale steeled himself, flapped into the night, pinched his voice up an octave, and cried exactly as coached:
"Lonely rich lady seeks strong owl husbands—any handsome hooters out there?"
"Private estate, luxury villa, excellent pay, three meals a day—unlimited jerky—"
Theodore blinked. "Huh. Talent confirmed. That falsetto's… committed."
As Gale skimmed the dark, eyes snapped open in the trees.
"Jerky?"
"Rich lady?"
"On my way!"
A few male owls hesitated, feathers ruffling. "Why does this rich lady sound… suspiciously like a male?" Then they remembered they were in Britain and decided they were extremely open-minded. Wings thundered.
Theodore, already crouched on the manor roof, saw Gale arrowing back—panic-stricken—with a cloud of owls in hot pursuit. A dozen? Two? All green-eyed and enthused.
"Master!" Gale yelped, wobbling. "I brought them, but they're very excited. No one's listening. What do we do—"
Theodore smiled and let the bronze-gold wash flow along his skin. A breath of that ancient white-ape pressure leaked out.
Even a hint had made Hagrid's hackles rise earlier. Here, it hit like winter. Feathers puffed. Talons clenched. The owls stilled, every head bowed.
"Easy," Theodore said, gentle. "I'm here to make a deal."
He explained: he wanted to stand on them and fly.
Blank stares. Then, as the terms rolled in—and Beast Affinity eased their distrust—those eyes went wide.
"Unlimited jerky…?"
"Private owl cottages…?"
"Well—letting you step on my back isn't impossible…"
"Gale in the middle, we wheel around him? I volunteer!"
Gale's feathers exploded. Perverts. All of you. Oh right—Master is also a pervert. I forgot.
Grumbling, he shuffled into position as the core. The others slotted around him until, improbably, they formed a broad, living platform.
Theodore squinted. "Missing something… right—the look."
"What's the point of an outrageous flight method without style? Pivot—like this…"
Under his calls, the flock shifted, wings angling, bodies aligning until a gigantic owl-shaped sword lay across the roof.
Theodore's eyes shone. Swordflight. Something in his bones hummed. Maybe not a forged blade—but if it flies like a sword and looks like a sword…
"Beast-Taming, Wizard Edition," he murmured, and stepped up.
The owlblade dipped, then steadied under his weight. With so many bodies, even his Copper Skin & Iron Bones–honed density wasn't a problem.
The first seconds were bouncy, each micro-surge threatening to jolt him—but then another gear clicked in. His feet rooted. His hips flowed with the pitch and yaw as if he'd practised for years. Seven-Apertures Heart mapped the rhythm; Martial Proficiency found the balance; Windriding curled the gusts docile at his back.
"Height's modest," he told himself, checking the drop. "Even if we tumble, I'll walk it off."
"Alright then—fly."
Wings beat. At first a messy chorus—then one rhythm, one breath.
The owlblade launched.
The world fell away; hedges shrank, streets blurred, and the wind began to sing. For a heartbeat he could only stare, breath stolen clean; then laughter burst out of him, bright and helpless.
Talent combos and a tiny donation of dignity—and he was airborne.
No broom. No thestral. No carpet. Few in the wizarding world flew unaided—Voldemort, and Snape after a certain dark tutoring—but Theodore was doing it now, on a living blade of owls and nerve.
Riding the owlblade, riding the wind.
Air keened past, but it softened near him, shouldering him up instead of slapping him down. Under Windriding the currents tucked themselves neatly beneath the flock, lightening every stroke.
"Faster!"
The owlblade climbed, then arrowed higher, then faster still, right through the smeared glow of London into the colder hush above the clouds.
Only after half an hour did the first delirium ebb. He breathed, steady. Freedom tasted like frost and starlight.
This is only the beginning, he thought, hungry. Owls are a party trick. Firebolt, Voldemort's drift, dragon-back—cute. Real flight is cloud and qi, wind and will. One day— his fingers tightened on the staff —one day I'll ride the empty air itself.
He glanced down.
"Where are we…?"
Below, a cluster of warm lights knotted into a familiar spine. Diagon Alley. Of course. Gale, as the core, had drifted toward the place he knew best. The Alley's masking barely noticed an owl, and so barely noticed him.
"No Leaky Cauldron. No brick tapping. Just… in."
A grin crooked his mouth. So that's a bug, then. The barrier blocked brooms and carpets, but nobody wrote rules for owl-swords. Why would they?
Which meant: if he didn't cast, the Ministry couldn't pin anything to him. The owlblade—a living formation of owls and balance, no charm sustained it—kept him strictly outside wand-trace law.
His gaze slid to Gringotts, all marble glare and goblin pride. The pane's grudge markers pulsed—'Xiao Sheng & Cao Bao' (System aliases for the goblins he'd crossed at the bank)—their ledgers sharpened to knifepoints.
He narrowed his eyes.
I offered friendship. You offered lip service and a bill.
"Lesson time," Theodore murmured. "Grudges don't sleep. Justice falls from above."
The owlblade banked, silent as a held breath, toward the white steps and the bank that called itself the second-safest place in Britain.
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