Disclaimer: All portions of the HP universe/worlds/characters are the property of JKR, the WB, and respective publishing companies. All portions of the Animal Ark universe/worlds/characters are the property of Ben M. Baglio, associated authors, and respective publishing companies. This story is nothing more than a simple FanFiction that I have written for my own enjoyment. I have made no money from this or any of the other stories I have posted on this or other sites.

AN: Please note that this story is self-beta'd; so there may be occasional grammatical or spelling errors that crop up every now and then and for those I apologize in advance.

Bird on the Bed

It was the sound of crying that woke him several hours later. There was a moment's disorientation as he opened his eyes to a dark room but his memories of everything that had happened when he woke up the first time soon came back the moment his eyes could make out the bars of his cage. Shuffling towards the front of his cage, Harry canted his head in an effort to pinpoint where the crying was coming from and possibly figure out who it was that was crying. The soul wrenching sobs struck a cord in his heart the longer he listened as they reminded Harry of the end of his fifth year when he'd spent the last two weeks of school grieving for Sirius. Oh, he'd never bawled his eyes out because there'd been far too many people watching him but that hadn't stopped the burning ache that had ripped at his heart day in and day out.

A door opened somewhere and a shard of light brightened the room just enough to make it easier to see the other cages beyond the bars of his door. The crying abruptly broke off but not before whomever it was that opened the door had heard it. Hesitant footsteps entered the room and Harry easily recognized the familiar features of Simon as the man passed in front of his cage a minute later. The man never even looked his way though as he moved further into the room in the direction the crying had been coming from.

His voice rose above the soft background noises of other animals moving in their cages, "Mandy? Is that you? What are you still doing here? Are you alright?"

"I don't know what I'm doing anymore, Simon," Mandy choked out a moment later and the pain Harry could hear in her voice tugged at his heart. "I thought they'd always be here. It's not fair; why did they have to die? What am I supposed to do without them? This past week, helping you care for the poor parrot; it was easy to pretend that I was back at Animal Ark and mum and dad were once again trusting me to help them nurse their patients back to health. The first thing I did after I left this morning was head for the nearest phone so I could call dad to tell him that the bird had woken up. I couldn't wait to tell him what a wise cracker the bird turned out to be and it wasn't until I got the recording stating that our number had been disconnected that I remembered that they were both dead and that I will never again be able to share my funny little stories about the animals I meet because they're gone."

"I know it hurts right now, sweetheart, but there will come a day when the pain isn't quite as overwhelming as it is right now and you can fondly think back to all of the good times you and your parents shared," Simon soothed and Harry imagined that he'd taken Mandy into his arms as the girl's sobs had grown muffled. "They'll always be watching over you and I bet you anything they saw what happened with the parrot earlier and laughed with you over the bird's outrageous comments."

The girl gave out a wet laugh that was so full of pain and longing that Harry found himself blinking back tears of his own as he thought back to his own long absent parents and the godfather he'd barely gotten the chance to know. For some reason the mere idea that the cute little blonde that had apparently saved his life was wracked with such soul wrenching grief struck a sour chord in Harry and he wished there was something he could do for her to ease her pain.

As he sat there listening to her cry her heart out, old memories of when he used to sit outside of the old church in Little Whinging on Sunday mornings and listen to the congregation singing hymns floated up out of the depths of his subconscious. He'd never dared step inside of the church, his hand-me-down clothes far too ragged and embarrassing when compared to the fancy suits and dresses everyone else always wore on Sundays. He used to love listening to the choir sing though and after getting caught hanging around the back of the church several times by the vicar, the man had given Harry one of the older hymnals so he could sing along if he wished. There was always one song that Harry had liked above all others; a song that had given him hope during the times when he'd been locked in his cupboard for days on end or whenever he was on the verge of giving up.

Harry sang that song now, his parrot voice soft and low as it cut unexpectedly through the room, "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me…"

When he finished singing the last verse, Harry let his voice trail off as he leaned against the wire door of his cage and closed his eyes; his thoughts and memories on his godfather once more. The sound of soft footfalls approaching his cage had Harry opening his eyes and he shifted away from the door in an unconscious desire to avoid any attempts by either human to pet him. A minute later, Mandy's tear streaked face stopped right in front of his cage and Harry felt his heart ache for her once more.

"Hey cutie pie, don't cry," Harry blurted out in an effort to cheer her up. "Let me kiss your tears away."

"You are an incorrigible flirt, Mr. Potter," Mandy declared with a small smile as she let out a soft chuckle. "I bet your owner is missing you something terrible. Do you think he might have belonged to a movie studio or maybe the circus, Simon? Someone put a lot of effort into training him and it would make sense if he was trained to perform for a crowd."

"May the old codger choke to death on his lemon drops for eternity in hell," Harry rasped irritably as the girl's mention of training reminded him all that he'd learned about Dumbledore manipulations from Snape and… and… a dark someone wearing a hood.

Keeping one eye on Mandy as she leaned against the outside of his cage, Harry sipped at his water before he hobbled to the other side of the cage to inspect the food dish as his stomach made itself known for he first time all day with a soft growl. The birdseed looked unappetizing and he would have turned his beak up at it if he hadn't been starving; not really surprising considering he'd been unconscious for a week. Sighing in resignation, Harry dug through the dish for a peanut and immediately ran into a slight snag; he had no idea how to crack it open without his hands. He'd never really spent any time getting used to his animagus form nor had he ever really studied any birds outside of Hedwig but even he knew that parrots behaved nothing like owls.

He spent a good five minutes trying to crack the shell of the peanut open before he gave up and dug back into the food dish for a sunflower seed thinking it would be easier. It wasn't. In fact, the smaller seed was even harder for him to hold onto and he kept dropping it. He dug back into the food dish in desperation to find something that was not a seed, shelled nut, or processed pet food and lucked out when he found bits of freeze dried fruit. He carefully dug out each piece of fruit before he spent several minutes figuring out how to crush them with his beak before swallowing them.

"You're such a silly bird, Mr. Potter," Mandy declared, making Harry jump a bit as he'd forgotten that he was no longer alone in his single minded quest for food. "I've never seen such a picky eater before nor have I ever seen a parrot that doesn't know how to crack open a peanut or sunflower seed."

"Bird seed is for bird brains," Harry snootily declared as he turned his beak up at the food dish; his attitude making Mandy laugh.

"Come on, Mandy, I'll drive you back to your hotel so you can get some rest," Simon announced after Mandy's laughter died down a few minutes later.

"No. I already checked out of the hotel, Simon. I can't stay here any longer. I should have left days ago but I wanted to make certain our clever little friend here pulled through. I'll help you lock up and then call a cab to take me back to Cambridge."

Panic seized Harry at the mere thought of never seeing the cute little blonde again; something inside of him telling him that he couldn't let her out of his sight. If Harry's core hadn't been completely depleted and if his most recent memories weren't so fuzzy he would have known that it was the life debt he owed the young woman for saving his life that was drawing him to her.

"Please take me with you, cutie pie," Harry begged as he pressed right up against the door of his cage.

"Oh you silly bird, I can't take you with me; what would I do with you while I was in class?"

"I'm housebroken, I can cook and clean, and while I might talk in my sleep I swear I don't snore. I'll even be your watch dog and guard your house," Harry promised before he let out a string of realistic sounding barks and growls. "Just, please don't leave me."

"Oh, he's good," Simon drawled with a short laugh as Mandy stared at Harry with a deer-in-the-headlights look.

"I can't…"

"Oh my wounded heart!" Harry dramatically cried as he staggered backwards and swayed from side to side. "I have been forsaken by the light of my life and it cuts like a knife." He slumped backwards onto his back and stiffly stuck his feet up and played dead as he stage whispered, "My life is over before I'd even begun to live."

"You know he'd just end up in the animal shelter once he'd finished healing," Simon gently pointed out as he smothered the chuckle that Harry's antics had elicited. "If you take him with you, you'd have a better chance of tracking down his former owner and he'd have a good foster home in the mean time."

"Simon…"

"Today was the first time I'd heard you laugh since you arrived three weeks ago, Amanda," Simon cut in seriously as he took her hand in his. "I know you miss your parents; I miss your parents. They were my best friends and my bosses for over nine years. I worry about you going back to Cambridge all alone with no one to watch out for you. I also know that James headed back to Scotland with his parents and you and I both know you haven't really made any friends at Uni; you'd always been far fonder of animals than people anyway. Take the cheeky parrot with you; he'll at least keep you company and give you someone to pour your heart out to when you're missing your parents. We both know you'd love to keep the little blighter with you anyway."

"I… fine. When should I come back for him?"

"You can take him now. You've already paid for his surgery and all he really needs is time for his bones to mend and his feathers to grow back. He can do that as easily at your place as he could here and I know you know how to care for him. It's also obvious that he likes and trusts you; just like the rest of the animals do. Go ahead and pull him out of his cage and bring him up front and I'll set you up with his prescriptions and a carrier for the ride home."

Harry scrambled up onto his feet as he heard the door to his cage open and this time when Mandy held her hand out in front of him he wasted no time in stepping up onto her fingers. He preened his chest smugly as she lifted him out of the cage and if he'd been human he'd have had a smirk plastered across his face. When she shifted him up onto her shoulder, he couldn't resist warbling out a couple of sea shanties and pirate songs as she carried him through the darkened clinic. Her soft laughs and giggles encouraged him to let loose and be himself in a way he hadn't been able to do in years. It was liberating and Harry found himself not minding the fact that he was currently stuck in his animagus form for an indefinite period of time.

He offered no resistance when he was transferred into the cardboard carrier that Simon provided; not wishing for the girl to change her mind. He peered through the holes in the side of the box and watched the man ring up a couple of bags of bird seed, a tall cast iron and oak perch, and a couple of prescriptions while the girl signed the release forms that would allow her to take him with her. He found it curious that no cash actually exchanged hands as the man had used existing credit to cover the cost of everything (indicating that the girl had prepaid for him to spend an extended period of time at the clinic while he healed). Harry was then left on the counter while the two of them closed up the clinic and waited for the cab to arrive.

Harry ended up sleeping through most of the drive from Welton to Cambridge; his body still weak from his recent injuries. He didn't wake up until he felt his box being lifted up off of the floor of the backseat of the cab and he splayed his claws to prevent himself from being tossed about the box as he was carried a short distance before being set down. He knew, from having overheard Mandy giving direction to the cabby, that they were now in Cambridge and that she lived at Number Sixteen Auckland Road. Beyond that, Harry knew nothing about the young lady who was now his temporary guardian aside from the fact that she'd just lost both of her parents and she was attending the University of Cambridge.

Twenty minutes later, Harry got his first view of his temporary home. The front door opened onto a cozy sitting room furnished with a tasteful if inexpensive couch, several bookshelves stuffed full of books and old VHS movies, a low coffee table, a pair of end tables set on either end of the couches, a pair of standing lamps, and a rather outdated entertainment center with an old television, an older VHS player, and a low end stereo player. A small fireplace sat centered on the left hand wall. The floors were done in oak flooring and covered with what appeared to be handmade throw rugs while the walls were hung over with hundreds of framed photos of animals of all shapes and sizes.

Connected to the sitting room was the dining room. There was a small oak table with room enough to seat four comfortably, an antique oaken hutch filled with two distinct sets of dishes (one of which was obviously made of china while the other appeared to be made of heavy earthenware), and a tasteful handing lamp and ceiling fan combination. On the walls were several lifelike oil paintings of rabbits, foxes, dogs, and horses. Like the sitting room, the floor was done in oak and this time there was a mock Persian rug spread beneath the table and a thinner runner that stretched from the archway leading to the sitting room all the way to the door that led into the kitchen.

The kitchen itself was rather small and boxy with a counter running the length of the room to the right as you entered the room and a shorter counter on the left just beyond the backdoor that led to the small porch and garden that was Mandy's backyard. The stove and oven were set in the middle of the longer counter and the refrigerator fit into a niche right at the very end of the counter closest to the dining room. The sink sat right below the kitchen window that over looked the small yard beside which sat a small microwave and coffee pot. Beyond the kitchen was the downstairs bathroom.

The stairs leading up to the first floor were found in the dining room and led up to a small hallway, two bedrooms, and the second bathroom. The smaller of the two bedrooms had been converted over to a study slash office with a small desk, several more bookshelves, and a well worn armchair. On the desk sat an old desktop computer, a printer, and a large stack of heavy textbooks. There were no rugs on the wooden floor but the walls were once more covered with photographs of a large assortment of animals.

The second bedroom was slightly larger than the first and furnished with a queen sized sleigh bed, a pair of nightstands, a stand alone wardrobe, and a small vanity. There was another comfortable looking armchair that was situated in front of a second fireplace that sat directly above the fireplace in the sitting room. There were several handmade rugs depicting cats and dogs spread out over the floor and taped to the walls were dozens of animal posters; some of them obviously quite old given their frayed edges. The upstairs bathroom was tucked between the two bedrooms. Overall, it was a boxy little apartment well suited for a college student.

After Mandy gave him a tour of the house, which seemed kind of odd because as far as she knew he was just a bird, she set up his perch in her bedroom. She then transferred him from her shoulder onto the perch before disappearing back downstairs to grab her suitcase and the rest of his supplies. Harry watched her unpack his things and fill up both his water dish and his food dish before she unpacked her suitcase. Then to Harry's mortification she began stripping right in front of him.

"Ah my virgin eyes!" Harry cried out as he immediately shoved his head beneath his right wing in order to resist the temptation to stare. "Have you no shame woman!?"

"Methinks your previous owner was a pervert if he taught you to say things like that, Mr. Potter," Mandy countered with a laugh as she dug through her wardrobe for a change of underwear and her pajamas. "It is safe to uncover your eyes now, Mr. Potter, I'm decent. Do behave yourself, young man; I need to get some sleep because I have to be up early tomorrow so I can get in touch with my professors to make arrangements to get a list of what assignments I missed and track down a classmate or two to borrow their notes or get a copy of the lectures transcripts while I was out. So, goodnight, Mr. Potter."

"Sweet dreams, cutie pie," Harry automatically offered as he glanced up in time to see Mandy slipping beneath the sheets of her bed.

Harry spent an hour trying to get comfortable on his perch but he kept feeling like he was going to fall off since he wasn't used to balancing on a bar for so long. It didn't help that his left leg was starting to ache from all the weight he was putting on it (slight though it was in his bird form). At that point, Harry jumped down off his perch and expected to glide down to the floor so he could find a more comfortable place to curl up for the night only to end up in a pile of feathers when his wings refused to work for him (his left greatly restricted by the splint he wore).

The discovery that someone had clipped the ends off his flight feathers had Harry cursing up a storm as did the renewed pain that shot through his entire left side and back from his graceless crash landing. Grumpy, in more than a little pain, and feeling out of his depths because of everything that had happened since he first woke up, Harry decided that he deserved to sleep in a nice comfortable bed.

It took him close to thirty minutes to climb up the side of Mandy's bed using the comforter. He began having second thoughts about sleeping in the same bed as his rescuer when he came face to face with the sleeping blonde. He couldn't help but feel like a pervert as he stood there on the edge of her bed watching her sleep; especially when his mind kept supplying him with tantalizing images of her clad in nothing but her bra and panties. In the end, he gave in to his desire to sleep in a bed and made his way over to the unoccupied pillow. He then burrowed down beneath the covers, curled up against the pillow, and promptly fell asleep.

Mandy reached out and shut off her alarm clock as she stifled a yawn, stretched out her back and shoulders, and sat up. As she pushed the covers down off her legs she heard a sleepy complaint coming from beside her and she turned to find the parrot that had weaseled his way into her home curled up on the pillow next to her. As she watched, the bird seemed to grope for the covers with his wing before he sat up and took hold of the blankets with his beak and pulled them back up over his body. Mandy couldn't hold back a laugh over how silly the bird looked curled up in her bed as if he thought he was human.

"Oh you silly, silly bird; what are you doing in my bed?"

"Sleeping, now shush!"

Mandy laughed again as she slipped out of the bed and picked out something to wear for the day. As she headed to the bathroom to take a shower, she couldn't help but work on the puzzle that was one Lord Harry James Potter. Over the years she'd met quite a few animals that were right characters but she'd never before met a creature quite like Mr. Potter. There were times when his outrageous verbal responses and behavior seemed distinctly unbirdlike; like the way he'd begged and pleaded for her to take him with her. She also recalled the way his piercing green and gold eyes had seemed to stare right through her as he weighed her soul when she'd asked him his name and she shivered in remembrance.

She returned to the bedroom fifteen minutes later to find the parrot still sleeping on her pillow and she grinned to herself as she dug out her camera and snapped a couple of pictures. Oddness aside, the bird was absolutely adorable and his antics were amusing. Putting the camera away, she changed his water and made certain there was plenty of food in his dish before she turned to wake him up. Mandy hesitated a moment with her hand outstretched towards the bird; recalling his rather extreme reaction to being petted the day before. Pulling her hand back she decided she'd try verbally waking him before she just picked him up so as not to startle him.

"Rise and shine, boy; it's time for breakfast," Mandy sang out crisply. She was completely unprepared for the response she got to that simple statement.

"Coming, Aunt Petunia!" Harry called back as he literally jumped out from under the covers and promptly stepped off the side of the bed where he ended up in a pile of feathers; as if he'd not expected to walk off the bed.

Mandy shook off her confusion as she rushed to the bird's side and quickly gathered him up off the floor to make certain he hadn't injured himself further, "Are you all right, Mr. Potter? You didn't hurt yourself did you?"

"Cutie pie?"

"Yes. Let's get a look at you and make certain you didn't hurt yourself when you took a tumble off the bed just now when I tried to wake you up."

Harry sighed but tolerated the manhandling as Mandy inspected both of his wings and his legs before she attempted to help him to his perch. He refused to go; he needed to use the bathroom and he was not bird enough to just let loose wherever or whenever he felt the need to go. Once he got the girl to understand what he needed he was more than a little mortified that she stayed to watch him use the toilet. He tried making a joke out of it by shouting bombs away as he went to the bathroom but even though she smothered a laugh he felt the joke fell kind of flat. He wasn't certain if her soft praise when he flushed the toilet afterwards made it worse or not.

Once that minor ordeal was over, Harry found himself being fed two pills (one a painkiller and the other an antibiotic) stuffed inside of a slice of banana and he was almost offended that Mandy thought she was fooling him. He purposefully picked the pills out and ate the fruit as he watched her purse her lips in mild frustration mixed with disappointment. He then haughtily told her that he was a big boy and that he didn't appreciate tricks that questioned his intelligence before he promptly ate the discarded pills. The gob smacked look on her face was totally worth the foul taste the pills had left on his tongue (muted though it was since parrots didn't have anywhere near as many taste buds as humans did).

He was given another two slices of the banana as a treat before he was carried back upstairs and placed upon his perch facing his food dish. He took one look at the birdseed inside of the tin cup and sighed before he diligently fished out the bits of dried fruit. Mandy scolded him for being picky but Harry just couldn't bring himself to eat bird food because even if he looked like a parrot he wasn't really a parrot and bird seed sounded unappetizing no matter which way you looked at it.

The girl locked him in her room on his perch not long after that; telling him to behave while she was gone. Harry listened to her footsteps moving off down the stairs and heard the distant sound of a door opening and closing. He waited another half hour to make certain that she had left before he called for Kreacher and Dobby. Unfortunately, neither elf responded to the call because Harry didn't have enough magic available to properly call for them. Growling in frustration, Harry resigned himself to healing the muggle way as he stared around the room that had in essence become his new prison. He'd spend the rest of the morning napping on the tray below his perch (not wishing to end up crashing to the floor for a third time) as the pain meds kicked in.

When he woke up around lunchtime, Harry attempted to call the two house elves a second time with the same lack of results. Sighing, he eyed his food dish full of unappetizing bird seed with disdain as he felt the first stirrings of hunger clawing at his belly. Eventually, he gave into the hunger and spent two hours teaching himself how to crack open peanuts, sunflower seeds, and pumpkin seeds; he still refused to touch the rest of the bird seed though and the processed biscuit like bits were thrown onto the tray of his perch with much prejudice.

Once he'd taken the edge off of his hunger, he spent the afternoon hanging around bored out of his mind. He couldn't really explore the house, even if he could safely get down off his perch, because he'd been locked inside of the room. He couldn't return to his human form because of the cast on his left leg and the splint on his left wing; not to mention his current lack of magic. He couldn't even peer out the window to get an idea of what the neighborhood looked like because his perch wasn't close enough to the window. So he occupied himself by singing an assortment of silly songs, practicing using his beak as a nutcracker, and putting forth the effort to get better acquainted with his current form so he wasn't so clumsy.

When Mandy returned around supper time, she would find Harry hanging upside down by one foot from his perch singing bawdy drinking songs at the top of his lungs.