A/N: Hello :) Thank you for clicking this story. Hopefully you'll enjoy it!
Disclaimer: I don't own the world of Harry Potter :(
Harry Potter was not a morning person. He was currently sitting in the Great Hall with his friends, eating breakfast, but he would've given anything if he'd just been allowed to have five more minutes of sleep. Only five more minutes. Alright, maybe ten. Or twenty…
The post had just arrived and Hermione was scoffing loudly at the Daily Prophet. Harry suspected that it contained yet another not-too-flattering article about him or Dumbledore. Ron, on the other hand, looked like he had just fallen asleep at the breakfast table. Apparently, Harry wasn't the only one who was still tired. But since the table was made of wood, Harry didn't feel like following his best friend's example. So he took another bite of his toast.
"Harry, could you pass me some toast, please?"
"Sure, Hermione," he muttered, not looking up from his plate.
"What?" Hermione asked, bewildered, as she looked from Harry's face to his outstretched hand. "I didn't say anything!"
"Yes, you did," Harry said, looking up from his own toast now. "You asked me to pass you some toast, and, well, here it is!"
"No I didn't," Hermione said, sounding pretty weirded out. "I was reading the Prophet, I didn't say a thing!"
Harry just shrugged and turned back to his breakfast. Within seconds, Hermione was muttering angrily at one of the articles again. Harry concluded that her muttering (which he did count as talking), combined with his own sleepiness, must've been the cause for his confusion.
"Harry! I've got a letter for you!"
"Hermione, the post came ages ago! Couldn't you have said that earlier?" Harry asked, slightly peeved at Hermione's sudden forgetfulness. "Besides, couldn't they just bring me that letter?"
"Letter?" Hermione asked, sounding pretty annoyed herself now. "What letter?"
"The letter you have for me! You just said it yourself!"
"No, I didn't," she replied, sending Harry a strange look. "You're not hearing things again, right?"
Harry snorted. "Hermione, I killed the Basilisk almost three years ago. I'm fairly sure that it's not talking anymore."
Hermione looked around at the other people, but nobody appeared to have spoken. Ron was still asleep, somehow.
"Didn't you hear me? I said I have a letter for you!"
"That was not me," Hermione said, obviously having heard the voice too. "But who – " She was silent for a moment, looking around again.
"Over here!"
Both Harry and Hermione found the source of the voice at the exact same time and they gaped. There, on the table, was Hedwig, Harry's owl, staring back at them as if they were the two biggest nitwits she'd ever seen in her entire life.
"Hedwig?" Harry asked after a moment, completely caught off guard.
"That's me," the owl said. "Could you just take your letter now? It makes sitting on this table so much easier!"
The situation was so surreal that Harry could only stare. One glance at Hermione told him that she was thinking the exact same thing. "Uh," he said finally, "sure."
Hermione, by now, was staring from Hedwig to Harry. "Is this some kind of joke?" she spluttered.
"I have no idea," Harry replied. If it was, nobody informed him either. Maybe this was just some weird dream. But then again, the only dreams he had nowadays were about corridors and doors. Not about a speaking owl and Ron falling asleep at the breakfast table, not even waking up when aforementioned owl sat on him.
"Aren't you going to read that letter?" Hedwig asked from her position on Ron's head, and Harry and Hermione exchanged looks. The Great Hall was so crowded that nobody even seemed to notice that Hedwig was actually talking to them.
Shrugging, Harry unfolded the letter and read, Hermione reading along over his shoulder.
Harry,
A very good morning to you! We take it that your owl didn't manage to keep her mouth – beak, if you will – shut until now, but in case you hadn't noticed: she can speak. Now, we're sure Hermione will tell you that owls always speak, but now, she speaks English. You must be wondering why and how, and aren't you lucky – we're about to explain that to you.
How? Because of a fantastic new product we came up with for our shop! We haven't decided on a name yet, but you can probably guess what is does. This product allows animals to speak a certain human language (depending on what they've 'grown up with') for a certain time. So now you have a speaking owl, as you already knew.
Why? Because we felt like it. And we needed an owl to test our product on. We would've used Pig, but he was nowhere in sight.
F.&G. W.
Hermione looked at the letter with an incredulous look on her face. "They – they invented something that makes owls speak? How did they do that?"
"I think it's pretty wicked," Harry said, grinning a little, looking back at Hedwig.
"It wasn't so wicked when they poured that potion down my throat, you know," she told them, and Hermione started fretting again.
"Animal testing! That is horrible!"
"Tell me about it," Hedwig said, and Harry could've sworn she even sighed. Of course, Ron chose that moment to wake up from his slumber.
"Whazgunon?" he asked sleepily, looking from Harry to Hermione and back. He sat up and Hedwig hopped back onto the table.
"Watch what you're doing, will you!" she told Ron disapprovingly.
"Sure, Hedwig," he answered, yawning. He froze mid-yawn. "Blimey! Hedwig? Harry – your owl can talk!"
"You're kidding, Ron," Hermione said drily. "We'd reached that conclusion already. Here." She snatched the letter from Harry's hands and handed it over to Ron, who read it with great interest. When he was done, he burst out laughing.
"This is genius!" he called out, grinning from ear to ear. "Pure genius!" His eyes scanned the Great Hall, probably looking for his brothers. When he didn't find them, he turned back to Hedwig. "What more can you do?"
Harry was sure that, had she been able to act like a human being as well, Hedwig would've rolled her eyes. "I think that nothing has changed except for the fact that she talks now," he told Ron, and Hermione nodded in agreement. "What's more important: what are we going to do with a talking owl?"
"Oh!" Ron said excitedly, sitting up. "Aren't owls supposed to be very wise birds? We could ask her questions about homework Hermione won't help us with!"
Both Hermione and Hedwig now looked at Ron as if he'd lost his marbles. "Didn't you just say owls are wise birds?" Hermione asked him, and Hedwig continued.
"If we are, why should we answer your questions, then?"
Ron looked at them in utter shock. "Harry! Your owl is just like Hermione! It's an Hermione-owl!"
"I'll take that as a compliment," Hedwig said, and Hermione beamed at this.
"I think I like Hedwig when she talks," she told Harry. "Perhaps we should give her the ability to talk permanently. She can have Ron's ability to do so – everyone would be better off, then."
Ron looked about to protest when Harry caught sight of the time. "Sorry to break the news to you, but if we don't leave now, we'll be late for Potions!"
Hurriedly, the three stood up from the Gryffindor table. Hedwig flew up and sat down on Harry's shoulder. "I suppose I'll just go back to the Owlery, then," she said, sounding a little sad.
"Isn't there something you've always wanted to say?" Harry asked as she started to sit up.
She was silent for a short time, and then she said, "You know the owl treats you always get me? I would like something new, something different for once. Other than that, I can't think of anything. You're doing a great job as my owner." With that, she spread her wings and flew off.
"That was – weird," Ron commented as they made their way towards the dungeons, and Hermione prodded him between the ribs. "It's true!" he protested. "A talking owl! How often does that happen?"
"She probably won't be talking anymore the next time we see her," Hermione said, sounding a bit sad.
"We could always ask Fred and George to give her more of that… drink they fed her," Harry said, smiling to himself. He'd be sure to buy Hedwig some new treats as soon as he had got rid of the treat she had left him on his robes.
A/N: So, what do you think ;) Did the unbelievabilities seem a little believable? Let me know, please review!