Hector lay on the big bed at home, staring up at the ceiling. Ron and Hermione had been writing to him constantly over the past few days, settling into a rhythm of about one letter a day—though Ron was well on his way to reaching one every hour. The owls arrived so frequently that the guests at the Hog's Head actually thought Aberforth had opened a branch of the owl post on the third floor. For days, people kept knocking on Hector's door to ask if he could help them mail some letters.
Hector found the whole thing a massive headache. He didn't mind the young witch's letters quite as much, but every time he opened his window, more often than not he was greeted by the sight of that ancient bird belonging to Ron's family. It looked utterly exhausted, and Hector worried that at the rate Ron was using it, the poor old thing would drop dead from overwork mid-flight sooner rather than later. And this was the Weasley family's only owl. According to Ron, it had also taken over Percy's duties; Percy used owls with astonishing frequency, and he and Penelope exchanged letters almost daily. Mrs. Weasley had talked about buying Percy an owl of his own as a reward for making prefect, but until then, the entire Weasley family's correspondence rested squarely on the shoulders of this decrepit creature.
Appalled by such blatant exploitation of labor, Hector made a point of giving Errol—that was the old owl's name—double payment along with a huge handful of nuts, before tying his own letter to…
Chapter 71