A Lever + A Fulcrum = Love Pet Solo Finished

15 January, 2024

She met him two and a half years ago. It was not love at first sight… for his part, anyway… but there was, as Simon likes to say when describing their own happy match, a good degree of inexplicable magnetism between the two. But where Simon and AngelFyre were a raging wildfire waiting to ignite with one electrified lightning strike, it had been a much slower, but steady burn with Arc.

Maybe because she had missed home so much, it was no surprise to AngelFyre that Arc had immediately caught her eye. Day in and day out, much of her bliss growing up came from nurturing, and being nurtured by, the winged and the four footed animals on her family’s animal sanctuary. But the biggest hole in her heart was that left by Hillary, her goofy, gigantic, Irish Wolfhound. The two were inseparable, so much so that a ramp with two hairpin curves had to be built up to her treehouse just to accommodate Hillary having access to the treehouse as well. Until it had been built, she would “serenade” AngelFyre and her two best Muggle friends, Ainsley and Kendric, with mournful howls for hours on end from the base of the tree until they climbed down. But that was all before life at Hogwarts. The pain of being separated from her gentle giant was always present, even 2 ½ years later, but AngelFyre had learned to live with it. She had no other choice. At first though… oh at first the pain of it felt like it might kill her.

Missing home as she did, she found herself up in the Owlery sending off many letters, especially that first term. That is when she met Arc. He is the only owl that she had ever used to carry her letters and that is because the first time she ever tethered a letter to his leg, she could not help but notice his intense and steady eye contact. He was not hers. He was not anyone's. He was a school owl, but she wondered if being around so many people daily had taken some of the “wildness” out of him. Her father was a falconer and had taught her a good deal about raptors through the years, not to mention the fact that a great many owls had come and gone through the vet clinic doors at the sanctuary, so she knew enough to know that direct eye contact was unusual from an owl. They usually thought it to be aggressive or threatening behavior. None of the other school owls exhibited that behavior at all, at least not with her, but Arc was not bashful about that one particular thing from the start, and it intrigued AngelFyre.

So, the slow burn began. She had befriended some school elves who were her direct line to the meat treat tidbits she brought to her winged friend each morning. He was not trained to come to the glove, initially, but she showed up consistently and worked with him. The first morning she entered and stepped off to the left side of the door and held her gloved left arm up with her wrist and arm flat, he stayed put. She did not truly expect that he would come to the glove, but she was testing the baseline for what he knew and what he would do. He sat there and slow blinked at her, but did not move. When she put the meat treat in the well between her index finger and thumb, he definitely perked up, but did not come over to her. No owl did.

This went on for about three weeks before he finally decided to come to the glove and got his meat treat. She said nothing to him and certainly did not reach up to touch him. She simply allowed him the perch that was her arm just long enough for him to get his treat and fly back to his high perch. He was there and gone again in almost no time flat. The next morning, when she lifted her arm, not only did Arc fly over, but other owls did as well. Dominance had to be attained, and while no one was seriously hurt, feathers did fly and some blood was shed, but in the end, Arc had established that she was there for him and him alone, or maybe that she was his and his alone. Who knew? But AngelFyre was giddy about the progress.

As time passed, she was able to begin to speak to him soothingly and he started spending more time on her arm, clicking and sometimes rubbing his head on hers. By December of her first year, she was able to move the index finger of her ungloved right hand up to his breastbone to gently pet him as he perched on her left arm. Trust had been established and a friendship had begun to bloom.

So, this has been her routine with Arc for years now. He has been a part of her life and she has been a steady part of his. He often spends time with her on the Grounds, when he is not busy with his deliveries, preening himself and vocalizing with her. She never knew his name, or what the school called him, for the first couple of weeks after meeting him. But she came upon what she decided to call him because he made her laugh one day on the Grounds. He had delivered an owl to a student and instead of heading back to the Owlery, AngelFyre watched him as his young, playful self made an appearance.

A water bottle had been left on the ground, for quite some time based upon the amount of dirt and debris clinging to its exterior, but a branch had been sticking out of the ground at angle not far from it. The bottle captured his attention, and he flew over to the branch, AngelFyre assumed, to scope it out a bit from a slightly better vantage point. As soon as he landed, however, his weight caused his end of the branch to go down as the other end shot up and out of the shallow, rocky soil, sending the water bottle flying fast and high into the air. Arc vocalized a screech and also took flight, killing that bottle deader than dead before it even had a chance to hit the ground.

From that moment on, she knew his name. Archimedes. It could be nothing else. “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world,” she quoted.

And so it went with them. Her first Christmas break, before leaving for home, she went up to the Owlery and tethered a letter to his leg. She told him it was to go to her parents, and off he flew. Her idea was that she would be there eventually as well, and maybe he could spend a little time at her home hunting and resting and enjoying a bit of a break himself. And he did. She went out like she always did each morning at school and gave him his meat treats, but there was never a letter given to him to deliver back to school, until the morning of the day she herself was to head back. Maybe this was cheating the school out of one of their owls, but AngelFyre figured if he desperately needed to get back to Hogwarts, he would have gone. He chose to stay. This same routine they repeated every break since she had been at Hogwarts.

But upon returning to Hogwarts at the start of her third year, AngelFyre had been struggling with a tremendous loss and wanted no more. It took some time for her to work out in her heart and mind if her plan was the right course of action for him, but she felt confident it was. She wanted it finalized. She wanted him to be hers officially. She had made all the necessary inquiries and had been told there was no impediment to adopting a school owl, so she submitted her application with a great deal of enthusiastic anticipation and steeled herself for the wait.

“For you, Arc, I shall move the world.”

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What animal do you wish to purchase? Eagle Owl
What do you want to name it? Archimedes
Is this a boy or a girl? Boy
What is your pet's date of birth? Exact date unknown, but I suspect he is about 4-5 years of age at this time (Jan. 2024). I will say his birthday is January 15, 2020.