The Language of Birds

He knew it was late when he finally made it home, and hoped that everyone was asleep, but the sound of small feet running towards the Floo made him sigh. He looked up from untying his boots and fixed her with a look.

"Rosie, what are you doing awake?" He saw his daughter hesitate for a moment but then she just barreled towards him, throwing her arms around his neck so that it caught him slightly off-balance. He laughed softly as he put an arm under her and held her. "What am I gonna do with you, pixie-bum?"

"Am not a pixie-bum."

Her small voice gave the response to the question as always, but there was something in her voice that led him to believe something was amiss. "Where's your mum?"

"With Hugo."

"Ah." He nodded, shifted her over to his side and untied his remaining boot with one hand, kicking the boot off finally with the toes from his stockinged foot. A quick look at the clock above the mantel and he knew that the difficulty of getting Hugo to sleep had continued. The healers said it would be fine, that he would just work his way through it, but it still worried them. He felt little fingers playing with his beard, and gave out a small, amused sigh. "And you can't sleep?"

"No, Daddy. I need a story."

"Right, then." He stood up, shifted Rosie over to his hip and made a small detour through the kitchen on the way to her room. As he had hoped there was a plate sitting out on the table, covered with a preservation spell, though he did note the sandwich wasn't as thick as he hoped, which only reminded him that with Hermione spending time with Hugo he needed to go to the shops. Those thoughts quickly receded and he made his way up the small flight of steps and opened the door to Rosie's room.

As soon as he sat her down on the bed Rosie hurriedly crawled under the duvet, pushed her pillows behind her and pulled her stuffed panda bear close.

Shaking his head slightly he sat down on the chair next to her bed. "You need to lay down, Rosie, this is a sleepy story, not..."

"Not an Unca George story." She gave a disappointed face and slid further under the covers, finally pulling her panda from under the covers so its head rested on the pillows as well.

"Good girl. So tonight do you want magic or no magic?" He hoped it was a magic story, since when it came to the Muggle stories that Hermione told her he mostly didn't remember them except for the one with the pigs blowing down houses. As she kept trying to decide, still delaying sleep, he also hoped it wasn't Babbity Rabbity again.

"Both, Daddy. I want a story with both."

"Alright, both it is. But you have to promise to go to sleep after, right?"

"Promise."

"Ok." He smoothed some of her hair with his hand, moving it away from her face and leaned back. After a few seconds he looked around her room and saw a colouring book. It wasn't much to start with, but he had an idea. "Once upon a time, a long time ago before anyone you know was born, even the oldest person alive right now..."

"Even Minerva?" She saw her daddy look at her sternly. "Sorry."

It had been all he could to not burst out laughing. "Rosie, this is a listening story. Yes, even Minerva. A long time ago there lived a boy and a girl..."

In the country were two houses that were close to each other. Since there weren't very many people around when the boy and the girl got old enough they would play together. But for some reason the girl couldn't talk. She could understand people, and used her hands to talk, but she couldn't say words like other people. To the boy it didn't matter, because that was just the way she was, kind of like how your mum has curly hair and I have red hair, just the way it was. But that didn't matter to the boy, because he was her friend.

As they got older it came time to go to school and they had to go to different schools; she went to a school where things would be easier for her to learn and eventually he went to Hogwarts, because he was a wizard.

They didn't like being at school without the other, and would write letters. He told her all about his school, what he could without telling her about magic, and she told him all about her school.

"Not fair."

Ron paused for a second upon hearing the soft remark from his daughter. He leaned over and tucked her in a bit tighter, murmuring 'it'll be fine, just listen.'

When he came home from Hogwarts for Christmas that first year he was really happy to see her but when he did she seemed sad to him. Over the years he'd seen how she could somehow be close to birds and other animals, how they wouldn't run away from her like they did him, but how she could get really close. Now it looked like the birds were even closer to her and she'd feed them scraps out of her pockets and whistle to them an' they'd whistle back.

"Like Hagrid."

He leaned down again. "Rose..." She said nothing but scrunched up her face in apology and clutched her panda tighter. He leaned back.

The boy knew from Hogwarts that how the animals were around her was different than most, so he asked his mum and dad about her. They told him that even though her parents didn't have magic that the girl had some magic but not enough to go to Hogwarts. Remember, this was a long time ago and things are different now. It made the boy sad, because his friend should be able to go to Hogwarts, she should be able to see magic like he did.

When he went back to Hogwarts the boy began to study, he read a lot of books in the library looking for an answer on how to fix his friend, but there wasn't a book that could answer that question. Not all questions are answered in books. When he went home that summer from Hogwarts he spent as much time with the girl as possible and realised that he didn't want to change her, he liked her just the way she was, and if he changed her she wouldn't be the girl that was his friend anymore. Instead he remembered what his professor had told him and made a decision, he was going to try to learn some very hard magic.

So he studied and learned and worked hard. He studied and worked on it for six years until right before the holidays he did it. When he came home he was so excited to see her and barely ate any supper that night so he could see her.

She was out in the fields, birds all around her. She kept feeding them and whistling to them as he came up to her. She was happy to see him and they talked as they always did, her with her hands and him with words and hands together, until he made her promise that what happened next would be a secret that she could never tell.

He thought really hard about it and did it like he'd practised over and over until he did it, he turned into a bird. It wasn't a bird with all sorts of colours or a really big bird or anything, just a little brown sparrow, but he hopped up on her finger.

She whistled but he didn't hear the whistle, he heard her say 'you are such a pretty little bird.'

When he was a bird, and she whistled to him, he could hear her just like you can hear me talk. Before they were very good friends but now they were the best of friends and were friends the rest of their lives.

He looked down to see Rosie yawn widely. "Best friends. Like Panda."

"Yep, just like Panda." He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. "Now go to sleep. Love you."

"Love you, Daddy."

He tucked her in a bit tighter, pulled his long frame out of the small chair and started to make his way into the kitchen when he saw her out of the corner of his eye. Nodding his head towards his destination he didn't say anything until he was sure their voices wouldn't be heard.

"Hugo?"

"He's fine. I think it's passed now." She pointed to the chair. "I'll get you some milk."

After popping the statis spell on the plate Ron slowly took a bite. He'd ignored it long enough and now it was catching up to him, the fatigue. As the milk appeared next to him he felt his wife's arms around his shoulders.

"That was a very sweet story. Where'd that come from?"

"Dunno." He chewed and swallowed. "Improvised." He felt her head nestle against his. "How much did you hear?"

"Enough. Best friends forever, huh? You didn't marry them off and have them live happily ever after?"

"Don't want her to think that's the only thing that happpens, you know. Married, end of story. More to it than that."

"Smart man. Please shower before coming to bed, you smell atrocious." Before he could answer she kissed him again and then left the kitchen, whistling softly.

He sat there for a moment, took a contented sigh, and began eating.

A/N: So this is the first in what will be several shorts, one shots, etc. This particular story, well at least Ron's goodnight story, has been floating around in a notebook for years. Hopefully this series will clean out the notebook and free up time to finish the big, multi-chapter pieces.

As always, thanks for reading and review if you wish.