Jace walked into the owlery, looking for an owl to send a letter to his parents. He wondered what her reaction would be if she saw a large black eagle owl at her kitchen window. She'd probably have a heart attack. He couldn't help but laugh at the thought.

He heard the door slam open, and jumped, looking through the flock of frightened owls to see who came in. It was a fellow Hufflepuff. Jake, he thought his name was. "Hi, I'm Jace."

Jake walked into the owlry and accidentally slammed the door a little too hard. Whoops, he
thought as owls swirled up, frightened. Through the feathers whirling around, he saw a boy.

"Hi, I'm Jace," the boy-Jace-said in a friendly way.

His first thought was, Dang, someone's seen me look stupid and his second thought was, He's a guy! I finally made a guy friend...I think....

It took him a little while to realize that he still hadn't replied and was just standing there like an idiot, so he picked his way through bird droppings and shook the boy's hand. "I'm Jake."

Jace watched as Jake made his way over to him, carefully avoiding the droppings. He shook his hand and grinned. "You know, our names are so close. There's only a one letter difference," he said. Then, just for the heck of it, he started saying, "Jace! Jake! Jace! Jake! Jace! Jake! Jake! Jake! Wait, that's not right."

He scowled slightly at his mess up before shrugging. He looked around for an owl to send his letter with, but all of them had flown all the way to the top and were now glaring at Jake. He leaned over and whisper yelled, "Dude. I think the birds hate you."

Jake shrugged. "Yeah...they've hated me ever since my first trip up here when I accidentally knocked over all of their food into the crap pile." He grinned slightly.

Jace busted up laughing. "Y-you did..what!?" he got out. "Man, that sucks. Why do you keep coming back, then?"

He examined the closest owl. It was small, barely the size of his fist. He sighed, and made his way over to it. It eagerly stuck out its leg, and he tied the letter to it. "Because of you, i have to worry about this guys safety," he said, gesturing to the small owl as it flew out the window.

"Because I don't have a owl," Jake said, laughing. "Poor owl."