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For Drishti's Member Challenge on HPFC, with the character Rose Weasley, the color red, and the prompts journal and festive. This is a sort of prequel to a story I'm working on that may not ever be completed, but oh, well :)

All is quiet in the smallest bedroom on the highest floor of the Granger-Weasley adobe – all except for the enthusiastic scratching of a phoenix feather quill on parchment bound together in a red leather book from the tiny hand of one Rose Weasley.

Outside, night is settling in, bathing the city in starshine and moonlight and breezes that ring wind chimes, but inside, Rose remains lost in her own little world, ever the daydreamer of the Potter-Weasley clan. The fact that she's probably not the best choice for daydreamer amongst her cousins like Lily and Lucy and Dominique doesn't even cross her mind as she scribbles away happily.

Ron hesitates a moment before knocking on his daughter's door, an affectionate smile playing on his lips as he watches Rose through the space between the door and the frame. "Rosie? Can I come in?"

Brilliant blue eyes, sky-bright doubles of his, look up and catch his gaze, lighting up with her smile. "Yeah, of course, Dad! Why are you in here so late?" she asks, leaning over to dip her quill in the inkwell.

"Because you're up so late, silly," he retorts easily, grinning as he sits down on her bed and the mattress, used to supporting her petite, ten-year-old frame, sinks mightily under his considerable weight. "Your mum had planned to check on you, but she's so tired from all her paperwork that she fell asleep."

"Oh," Rose giggles, underlining something in her journal. "I'm fine, Dad, really. I'll go to sleep soon, promise. I'm almost done." Beyond her window, a wind howls against the evergreen trees, rustling the leaves and punctuating the moment with a chilly breeze inside.

"You don't want me to read you a bedtime story?" Ron demands, faking a dramatic gasp of outrage, and looks pointedly in the direction of her bookshelf, cluttered with all kinds of books – magic and muggle and romance and fantasy and humor and horror and everything in between – in one corner of her room.

"You haven't read me bedtime stories since I learned how to read," Rose points out, laughing at his melodramatics. "Even Hugo doesn't ask for bedtime stories anymore, Dad. Why?"

Ron smiles, a little wistfully, and reaches out to tuck an auburn curl of hers behind her ear. "Because you'll be going off to Hogwarts in less than a year, Rosie, and who am I supposed to read to, then, huh? And pretty soon, Hugo will be off, too, and heaven knows your mother isn't going to give me any more children to spoil."

Rose laughs, sliding a silk ribbon a festive shade of green into the page she'd been writing on to bookmark it and closing her journal. "All right, Daddy," she beams, "Can you read me Narnia, then? I haven't read those in a while!"

"You mean re-read those in a while," Ron corrects, amused, and turns to sift through her bookshelf in search of the Chronicles of Narnia. They sit dead-center in the middle shelf, so he finds them easily and tugs out the first one he touches – The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

"How's this one?" he asks his daughter, looking around to find her already settling into her bed, nice and comfy in her yellow pajamas and auburn ponytail and blue eyes bright with anticipation, ready to dive head-first into her favorite magical world.

"I love that one!" Rose says immediately, though Ron gets the feeling she would have said that about any of the Narnia books. "Read it to me?" With an imploring smile, she pulls up her blue blankets to her chin and gets ready for his storytelling.

Ron opens the book to the first page, takes a deep breath, smiles, and begins to read.

For the next half-hour, until her eyes begin to close of their own accord, Rose sits in her bed, enraptured by the story he tells her of a King and a Queen and their miserable little cousin who fall into a painting and end up on a ship with another King and a mouse and a minotaur and many other creatures. She listens eagerly as Ron dramatizes their adventures, telling of the islands they landed at and the battles they won and the Lords they found and the strange, exciting new characters they met.

Halfway through, he takes a break to drink water, his throat having gone dry in the process, and he takes that moment to marvel over her love for this fictional, magical kingdom that's so thoroughly captured her budding imagination. Rose is more than a dreamer – she's the kind of girl destined for the Wizarding Academy of Dramatic Arts, and the fact she's fallen in love with this series, with the Kings and the Queens and the Lion and the Talking Animals, speaks volumes about the magic of the books themselves.

"Why do you love Narnia, Rosie?" Ron asks her on a whim, genuinely curious as to what it is about these books that she loves so much, that makes her believe in magic more intensely than ever before.

Rose takes a moment to answer, tilting her head in thought. "Because of the magic," she tells him finally, a smile brightening her face. "Because Narnia is full of magic and doesn't it make you want to just believe in it?"

"In magic?" Ron blinks, taken aback. "Or in Narnia? Because you're a witch, Rosie, or have you not noticed?"

Rose giggles. "Don't be silly. In both, of course. In the real kind of magic, the kind of magic that can't be forced by waving a wand, that only comes from the heart. And in Narnia, a place where only believers get to go, a place full of magic and adventure, a place you'd love if you were there."

Something about the way she's talking, the dreamy inflection in her voice, the stars that sparkle in her eyes, makes him think that maybe, just maybe, his little girl already knows all about magic without ever having gone to Hogwarts herself. Rose understands real magic, somehow, at only ten years old, the kind of magic people spend their entire lives searching for, the kind of magic he'd only found the moment he'd kissed Hermione.

How was it that she already knew?

"I'm tired," Rose announces, sliding down her bed until her head hits her pillow. "Can we finish tomorrow night?"

Ron shakes his head to clear it and nods. "Yes, of course, sweetheart. Sleep tight." Leaning over, he smoothes away her curls from her face and presses a kiss to her forehead. "Good night."

"Mm," murmurs Rose, blue eyes already half-closed, her voice a sleepy whisper. "'Night, Daddy."

With one last smile for his beautiful daughter, Ron slides The Voyage of the Dawn Treader back into its revered place on her bookshelf and stands. "'Night, Rosie."

And he leaves his daughter to her dreams of Kings and Queens and castles and crowns and magic, real magic, because that's where Rose belongs.

Author's Notes: Also, for Drishti herself, because she's amyzing, and in honor of her trying to guess who the person starring alongside Rose was ;) She didn't quite get it, but I hope you like it, silly twinny! =D

Does that make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside or what? :D Ron is too adorable as a father, and I hope you guys liked this new, spruced up version of Rose I'm testing out! If you read this, please drop me a review to tell me what you thought!

Don't favorite without reviewing, please and thank you :)