There was a sudden movement above the trees in the Madison back yard that made all three heads at the kitchen table turn and watch as an eagle owl came swooping down toward them. Mr and Mrs Madison both looked rather frightened - it wasn’t what one expected to see at eight o’ clock in the morning in down a rather ordinary avenue in Newark, England. A blackbird, perhaps, maybe even a sparrow, but an owl…?

Catherine Madison, however, only daughter of the two Madison-seniors, was far from apprehensive about the arrival of this very special bird. A smile tore across her countenance as she watched it glide closer before she leapt from her seat at the table, dropping her spoon into her cornflakes, and dashed to the window.

With a flutter, the gracious creature perched on the sill just outside and waited for the girl to let it in.

“What on Earth?” Mr William Madison finally gasped, whilst his wife, Sophie wafted a hand at her face, still too taken aback to make a response.

“It’s Andros, dad!” Catherine said, knocking back the latch on the window before swinging it open. Andros made a hoot of disapproval as he was forced to back up a little in wake of the window, but he soon came back round and gave Cat a nibble of affection on the tip of her fingers.

Cat giggled, offering her arm out to the eagle owl, who hopped on whilst she brought him inside.

“Catherine, is that wise?” her mother stuttered.

Cat was tickling Andros under the chin now, “Mum, he’s tame. He belongs to Jo, my best friend.”

Joanne Stipple was Catherine’s best friend, but not in the ‘normal’ world - she was Cat’s best friend at Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. They’d met in their first year there, when they’d both been sorted into the Ravenclaw House, and had been fast friends ever since. Soon, they’d be meeting up again on the Hogwarts Express in London to return for their third year, and Cat couldn’t wait to go. This made her parents a little concerned - most children dreaded the start of the next school year, but not their girl, it would seem. Mr and Mrs Madison were both Muggles, so had no magical background whatsoever, and it was even further beyond them as to what exactly a young witch was taught at school. They didn’t pretend to be overly pleased about it all, because they weren’t, but if it was the best for their daughter, then they were willing to make sacrifices.

“Andros?” Mr Madison blinked, “What kind of a name is that?”

“He’s named after Andros the Invincible,” Cat lectured, enjoying her area of expertise - it was fun to preach to parents once in a while; so often, they, apparently, ‘knew best‘.

Cat placed Andros on the back of her chair; “He was a great wizard, many, many years ago.”

“I can gather from the fact he was ‘invincible’,” Mr Madison added dryly.

Cat gave him The Look, before she returned her attention to the eagle owl and found both a letter and a copy of the “Daily Prophet” tied neatly to his leg.

“Wow, Andros, you’ve flown all the way from Scotland with this?” she said, “Clever boy!”

The owl flustered under the attention, but forced his head under Cat’s hand for a bit more attention, anyway. And Cat gave it to him before she let him finish off her cornflakes as well. As he was gobbling that down (Mrs Madison watching in shock), Cat began to read her letter.

Cat smiled, though the thought of Voldemort flickered for a moment in the back of her mind with a shadow of unease. She cast it aside for now - that was the last thing her parents needed to worry about - and began on the Prophet. On the front page was a giant, sparkling image of the Dark Mark over the camp site at the World Cup, just like Jo had said. It sent a shudder down Cat’s spine. She had never seen it before, but it oozed of evil and iniquity.

“So, your friend lives in bonny Scotland, does she?” Mr Madison asked as he edged a little away from the scoffing eagle owl.

“Yeah,” Cat nodded, looking up from the paper.

“Whereabouts?”

“Well, Jo calls it ‘a little left to the middle of nowhere’.”

Mr Madison laughed, “No, seriously.”

“That’s what she said, dad - I don’t know where it is. They can’t exactly risk keeping a hippogriff and griffin stables out in the open, can they?”

Mr Madison didn’t delve further into that matter, not even bothering as ask what hippogriffs were, though he‘d heard of griffins; “Hmm, well… yes,” he grumbled before he decided to pick up his very normal copy of the “Daily Express” and hide behind it, whilst Cat’s mum busied herself with washing some of the pots.

Cat shrugged and read on about the Dark Mark and the World Cup. Half the reports were too biased to be of much use (some things are the same in both worlds, she thought), and she threw it aside as soon as she reached the rather frightening horoscopes page, clearing away her plates from the table. Andros had eaten her bowl clean of cereal, and done her the favour of drinking her cup of tea, as well.

“I’m just gonna write Jo a letter back,” she announced to the room at large and, offering her arm to the owl, said, “Come on, Andros.” Andros fluttered onto her arm with a merry hoot.

Her parents both nodded their ascent as she disappeared out the door. She scooped up her “Daily Prophet” along the way. She could line Havelock’s cage with it; he might like the moving pictures (Havelock was Catherine’s pet rat, who was completely black, and named after the Patrician from Pratchett’s Discworld books, many of which Cat had leant Jo for the summer). She made her way up stairs and sat down by the desk in her room, setting Andros on the window sill; picking up a biro and a piece of lined paper (‘this is sooo like a Muggle’ she thought), she began to write Jo a letter:

She stopped, wondering if Joanne even knew about the politics outside of the Wizarding world. She shrugged, guessing Jo could ask her about it when they met up again if she didn’t, and continued:

She read the letter through and, satisfied with it, placed it in an envelope and tied it to Andros’s leg; “Thanks for coming, Andros. Have a safe journey back.”

She had to push him out the window because he was staring fixedly at Havelock in his cage (if he could have licked his lips, he would have, but he didn’t have any). Once he realised he was falling toward the Madison’s lawn, however, he flapped his wings, and soared off into the sky, heading back to the Highlands in the north.