Birds of a Feather

Summary: "I decided, at the crack of dawn one morning in July, that I hate birds." Random, silly, pointless, fluffy, Harry/Ginny one-shot.

Disclaimer: No, it doesn't.

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I decided, at the crack of dawn one morning in July, that I hate birds.

I was awoken from a lovely deep slumber by a painfully loud squawk coming from my windowsill.

See, I'm not much of a morning person. In fact, I'm about as far from a morning person as anyone could possibly get. My ideal wakeup time is eleven o' clock, a privilege that is often unfortunately denied to me. On school days, I'm forced to get up at the ungodly hour of seven-thirty. Weekends and the summer holidays are the only times I can get up as late as I please, and you can be sure that I take full advantage of those days. During the summer, I've often emerged from my bedroom in time for lunch. The surest way to get Bat-Bogey-hexed would be to disrupt me from my much-needed sleep.

So, on that morning in July, when I was unceremoniously plucked from the depths of sleep, I opened a bleary eye long enough to see that there was a stupid bird outside my window squawking its head off, and that my clock said that it was only seven o' clock, before burying myself under my blankets and attempting to go back to sleep.

That was a feat easier said than done. The bird continued to emit its loud, croaky squawks every few seconds. Moaning, I pressed my pillow over my face in a heroic attempt to block out the sound. When the bird's squawks continued to reach my ears quite clearly, I let out a loud groan of frustration. The bird, obviously sensing my distress, proceeded to emit its loudest squawk yet. I retaliated by groaning more loudly. The bird squawked even more loudly than my groan, and I screamed.

I heard my door open, and Harry tumbled in, hair sticking up in all directions, rubbing sleep from his eyes. For a moment, I forgot about my sleepiness and simply lay on my bed staring his adorable, mussed-up appearance.

"Ginny, wha—" A huge yawn punctuated his sentence. "What's going on?"

"Make it stop," I pleaded, pointing at the window, where the bird had promptly started to squawk again.

Harry blinked, then chuckled when his eyes traveled to my windowsill. He crossed the room in one swift motion, opened the window, and slammed it shut. The bird gave a particularly loud squawk of protest and flew away.

"There," said Harry, dusting off his hands. "All done. Anything else I can do for you, Gin?"

Yes, come over here and snog the senses out of me, my brain said.

"Nope," I said sweetly, settling myself comfortably on my pillow in preparation for a few more hours of sleep. "Thanks, Harry."

"Glad to be a service." He flashed me a grin and exited my room.

I was just drifting off to sleep with Harry's face swimming in my mind when I heard it again.

SQUAWK.

I almost cried. "Harry!" I yelled at the top of my lungs.

Harry came running into my room, slightly more awake than last time. "Again?" he said, dismayed. He slammed the window shut again and watched the bird fly off.

"Thanks," I said.

"No problem." Harry stood studying the window for a moment. "Though I don't see why you want to get rid of the bird so badly… it clearly likes you and wants to serenade you to sleep."

I snorted. "I'd rather be serenaded by a banshee." It was so wonderful to see Harry out of one of his depressing moods.

Harry laughed. He stood in the middle of my room a bit uncertainly, before turning to leave. "See you later, Ginny," he said, closing the door.

I smiled to myself as I drifted off to sleep once more, certain that I would finally attain some quality sleep.

SQUAWK.

This time, I actually did cry. If that stupid bird was going to sit outside my window and wake me up at seven o' clock every morning, I didn't know how I was going to survive.

At that moment, Harry entered my room again, saying as he opened the door, "I thought I heard something again—"

I turned away quickly, but he had already seen my tearstained face. I was absolutely, completely mortified. Harry had faced Lord Voldemort and the death of his godfather, and he had never cried about it, and here I was, crying because some bird woke me up. He must have thought I was such a baby.

"Er… Ginny?" he said, cautiously approaching me. "Is it that bad?"

"No!" I gasped between sobs, willing myself to stop. "It's not. I just—I don't even know why I'm crying. Ignore me—it's fine. Just—just give me a moment." I closed my eyes and took a few shuddering breaths.

Harry sat down on my bed and stroked my hair. "It's okay," he said softly. "The next time that bird comes here, I'm going to kill it. I'll strangle it and we'll cook it for dinner and eat it."

I cried even harder because he was being so nice to me. He wasn't supposed to be nice. He was supposed to tell me to snap out of it because I was being ridiculous. Then I wanted to laugh because he was taking me so seriously.

"You must think I'm such an idiot," I mumbled when I had calmed down somewhat.

"No. Of course I don't." He was still stroking my hair.

"I'm sorry," I said. "It was stupid of me, really, crying for no reason. I mean, you've been through so much, and you never… you never…"

"Shh. It's okay." And then he bent down and planted a soft, gentle kiss on my lips.

I gaped at him. He blushed so hard that his face was roughly the color of my hair.

"Ginny, I'm so sorry! I don't know what came over me, seriously. I'm sorry. Can you pleased just forget I ever did that and we can still go on being friends and—"

He suddenly found himself quite unable to continue, because I had just pulled him closer, and our mouths were fully occupied for the next ten minutes. It was absolutely exhilarating.

The bird gave another loud squawk. We broke apart long enough for me to throw my slipper at it, and it flew away, eyeing me reproachfully.

You know, birds really aren't so bad after all.

FIN.

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Author's Note: I actually did have a bird waking me up every morning at seven o' clock for the past week. It was not pleasant, especially since I didn't have a Harry to help me get rid of it. However, it did give me inspiration to write something, so it's forgiven. I would appreciate any feedback on this, and also on my last story, "Firelight." Funny how I got nearly 200 hits on it and one review.

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