Heroes Assemble!

Call The Exterminators, We've Got Squirrels!

Luna Lovegood sighed. What was potentially going to be an incredibly interesting conversation had stagnated at the 'if I stare at you long enough, you'll eventually cave and share all of your secrets first' stage. The fact that the two involved were one of her oldest friends, Harry Potter, and a potential new friend, Doreen Green, made the silence even harder to bear.

"Who wants to go first?" she asked lightly, her head swivelling between the two.

Unfortunately, her attempt at starting the conversation, fell flat.

Silence continued to reign, just as it had ever since the two had found out that they had the ability to talk to an animal, albeit animals of different species. Really, Luna was starting to get most annoyed at Harry. Yes, he had a bit of stubborn streak, but she was certain that, after spending so many years being kept in the dark from vital information, that he'd have been able to avoid picking up that particular bad habit.

After another five minutes of the pair sitting on separate chairs in Harry's apartment staring at each other, Luna was getting tempted to hex the truth out of the two of them. Unfortunately, doing so would only get the pair focussed on her and she'd be the one explaining magic instead of Harry doing so. And that wouldn't be any fun whatsoever.

"Harry James Potter," Luna began and promptly had to stifle a giggle at how 'Hermione-ish' she sounded. "You're supposed to be the adult here. Therefore, you start."

Finally, Harry tore his gaze from the teenager across from him to scowl at Luna. But that, of course, only lasted a few seconds. For some reason, Harry never could stay angry at her. Luna wasn't quite sure why, but it made her all fuzzy and warm inside and always made her smile.

After running his hand through his hair, Harry sighed.

"I can speak to snakes," he began.

It wasn't much, but it was a start. Luna nodded encouragingly at him and settled back more comfortably into her chair to enjoy the show.

"It's called parseltongue," he continued. "It's pretty rare. Only a handful of people worldwide have had the ability in the past century, at least that I know of."

"I can talk to squirrels," Doreen admitted after a half-minute of silence where Harry was looking at her expectantly. "I don't know if it's got a proper name, but I call it 'squirrelese'."

Harry nodded. "Makes sense. So, is it just squirrels or can you talk to other animals as well?"

"Just squirrels. Well, animals in the squirrel family, I think. I talked to a chipmunk once, but he sounded like he had a really thick accent. And I've never met any marmots or prairie dogs, so I don't know about them. What about you? Is it just snakes in general, or all reptiles?"

"Just snakes, I think," Harry said, before looking thoughtful. "Although, now that I think about it, it might include some kinds of lizards."

"What do you say that, Harry?" Luna asked interestedly.

"When I was in Indonesia a couple of years ago, I was out in a jungle on one of the islands visiting a local village when I thought that I heard someone talking but I couldn't see anyone else around. Not long after, there was a komodo dragon that crossed the path, so I guess that that's what it was."

"Dragon?" Luna asked, eagerly sitting forwards.

Harry gave her a lop-sided grin. "Not a real dragon, like the ones from the TriWiz; komodos are really just a huge lizard."

"Um, real dragon?" Doreen asked, her eyes bugging out. "Are you trying to tell me that dragons are real?"

Luna gave a soft laugh and settled back into her chair, ignoring the annoyed look that Harry shot her.