Ophelia Won't Talk
5th July 1983
‘Ok,’ whispered Hope, ‘now don’t forget to keep it down.’
‘Ok Aunty Hope,’ whispered Stefan.
‘Yes Granny,’ laughed Harry.
Remus went into Ophelia’s bedroom, and checked if she was awake. Ophelia looked up at him bleary eyed having only been awake a few minutes.
‘Morning princess,’ beamed Remus sitting down on the bed.
‘Morning Daddy,’ yawned Ophelia snuggling down into his lap.
‘Do you know what today is little one?’ asked Remus stroking her hair.
Ophelia shook her head. At this moment the bedroom burst open, and Stefan, Harry, Hope and Lyall came into the room.
‘Happy Birthday!’ yelled Harry at the top of his lungs.
‘I can’t believe my little niece is two years old!’ said Stefan practically dancing around the room carrying Ophelia.
‘I can’t believe you’ve lived with us for nearly two years Stef,’ said Hope.
‘I can,’ smirked Lyall.
‘You see all these grey hairs on my head,’ said Lyall indicating his hair, ‘I’m only fifty, I shouldn’t have grey hair, but since I’ve started living with three excitable children, my hair gets greyer by the day.’
‘You love us really Grandpa,’ said Harry hugging Lyall around the legs.
‘Do I?’ asked Lyall raising his eyebrows.
Stefan and Remus looked at each other meaningfully.
‘Hug attack!’ yelled Stefan and Remus.
Lyall was pulled into a huge hug, by not just Stefan and Remus, but Harry, Hope and Ophelia as well.
‘Why couldn’t God have given me a normal family?’ laughed Lyall as he hugged his family.
‘Because that would be boring Cariad,’ said Hope.
‘Would our little birthday girl like her breakfast?’ asked Remus.
‘Yes please,’ said Ophelia.
‘Well I think we can arrange that as you asked so nicely,’ chuckled Lyall.
The family had breakfast, and then they started setting up for the birthday party, fortunately it had stopped raining, and it was a sunny day so they could have the party outside.
Ophelia was turning two and loved hearing about the fairies that Pandora and Xeno told her about. So, they were having a fairies and elves birthday party, Muggle fairies and elves of course rather than magical.
They would have held a regular fairy party, but well over half of the kids were boys, and the idea of Charlie and Bill dressing up as fairies even for just one day didn’t even bear thinking about. So the girls were coming as fairies, and the boys were coming as elves from Lord of the Rings.
The children arrived with their parents at ten o’clock, and the first part of the day was very important. All of the children had to wait their turns to have their make up done. Hope, Pandora, Xeno, and Alice had gotten the face paints out and were doing the children’s make up.
Frank, Mr Weasley and Mr Diggory kept the children entertained by telling them funny stories or pulling silly faces whilst they all waited patiently to have their faces painted.
The elves mainly had a lot of sparkles and some leaves. Bill did not look impressed to have his face covered with paint and glitter and couldn’t wait to wash it off tonight.
‘It’s ok Bill,’ laughed Charlie, ‘it’s just like the paint we put on for watching Quidditch matches.’
‘That doesn’t have glitter in it,’ muttered Bill.
‘Besides, I’m wearing so much green I feel like a Slytherin.’ Bill was wearing a lot of green, as he was wearing a dark green dress shirt of his Dad’s which was quite baggy on him so it looked more like a tunic with a belt around the middle, but the green leaves that Alice was painting onto his face were not helping.
‘You a Gryffindor then mate?’ asked Frank.
‘You bet,’ beamed Bill, ‘I’m going to try out for Quidditch next year.’
‘You’ll be great,’ laughed Frank, ‘Gryffindor’s the best house there is.’
Frank and Remus high fived each other beaming.
‘I would beg to differ,’ said Mr Diggory, ‘Hufflepuff is the best house.’
‘Yes Dad!’ cheered Cedric who wanted to be a Hufflepuff like his parents when he grew up.
Cedric had decided he wanted to come as a fairy, so was wearing one of his Mum’s old party dresses which she had cut down to size so Cedric wouldn’t trip, along with a pair of fairy wings, and a flower crown on top of his dark curly hair.
‘We’ll agree to disagree,’ chuckled Remus.
‘But I think we can all agree that Slytherins are a bunch of tossers,’ said Frank.
This made all the children laugh of course.
‘Tossers!’ beamed Fred and George.
‘Frank!’ scolded Alice.
‘I mean um idiots,’ stammered Frank, ‘Slytherins are idiots.’
‘I can see the reasoning behind that,’ nodded Xeno as he finished off Charlie’s make up.
‘Well if the Ravenclaws agree, then it must be right,’ said Mrs Fawcett shaking her head.
‘I don’t know I met quite a few decent blokes who were Slytherins,’ said Mr Fawcett.
Every head in the room, even little Ginny turned to stare at Mr Fawcett.
‘I was joking!’ chuckled Mr Fawcett putting his hands in the air for surrender.
Whilst the elves had glitter and leaves, the fairies had flowers and glitter, and the flowers usually matched their dresses. Ophelia was wearing a lilac party dress, with matching wings, so Alice carefully covered Ophelia’s face with intricate purple flowers.
‘Say thank you darling,’ said Remus as Alice finished Ophelia’s make up.
Ophelia wanted to say thank you, but couldn’t seem to, so instead she gave Alice a huge hug.
‘That’s alright dear,’ beamed Alice, ‘why don’t you run off and play.’
Ophelia skipped off to play with Ginny and Luna. Luna and Ginny were running around the garden in their dresses and wings pretending that they were real fairies, and Ophelia joined them skipping through the grass.
‘How would you fairies really like to fly?’ asked Bill who had come over with Charlie.
Bill had been home for a week, and Charlie had spent every moment with him to make up for the last year when Bill had been at school.
‘Me! Me!’ yelled Ginny jumping up and down.
Bill held his arms open for her and lifted Ginny high in the air so she was actually flying.
‘Be careful with her Bill!’ called Mrs Weasley nervously seeing Ginny high in the air.
‘She’s fine Mum,’ laughed Bill.
‘I want to fly!’ said Luna seeing how much fun Ginny was having.
‘I think the birthday girl should go first,’ said Charlie.
‘Do you want a turn Ophelia?’
Ophelia shook her head and ran around the garden flapping her little wings instead.
Luna and Ginny screamed in delight as Bill and Charlie flew them through the air.
They played all the usual party games, but they had to do them all in character. They played musical elves and fairies not musical statues, and flapped their wings or pretended to fight each other rather than dancing, and stopping when the music stopped.
They then had a fairies tea party, eating tiny sandwiches and cakes cut into the shape of flowers and hearts, and drinking fruit squash out of little teacups.
Bill thought that all his mates at Hogwarts would be in hysterics if they saw him at a two-year-olds tea party eating a heart shaped sandwich and drinking pumpkin juice out of a tea cup, but they were just jealous.
‘So what’s Hogwarts like Bill?’ asked Stefan who was looking forward to going in a year.
‘Awesome,’ said Bill, ‘there’s the ghosts, and flying around the grounds, and learning all sorts of cool spells, and of course there’s Quidditch.’
‘How big is the library?’ asked Percy excitedly. Stefan nodded beaming.
‘You two idiots,’ muttered Charlie.
‘A cool school like Hogwarts, and all you two want to know about is the bloody library.’
‘Leave them,’ said Bill, ‘yeah the library is pretty great. Got books on nearly everything, even dragons.’
‘They’ve got books on dragons!’ exclaimed Charlie, ‘Hogwarts doesn’t have a dragon does it?’
‘No,’ laughed Bill, ‘but I think from talking to Hagrid that it’s not from lack of trying.’
Charlie looked slightly disappointed, but he soon cheered up as it was time for cake. After cake came presents.
Most of Ophelia’s presents, were books as Ophelia loved to read especially with her Daddy, she just loved stories. Hope and Lyall had gotten her some Muggle fairy tales for her birthday, so now she didn’t just have Beadle the Bard, but also Hans Christian Anderson, and the Brothers Grimm.
She had also been given a fairy stone on a necklace by the Lovegoods, which according to Pandora if you wished hard enough on it, the wish would come true.
‘We’ve still got another present,’ said Remus carrying a large crate.
‘What’s in there!’ exclaimed Neville excitedly.
‘Let Ophelia open it and you’ll see Nev,’ said Frank.
Ophelia opened the box, and found two large bunny rabbits like the ones she had petted in the zoo last week. One was snow white, and the other was a dusky grey.
Ophelia looked at her Daddy with her mouth hanging open.
‘Yes darling they’re really yours,’ said Remus lifting one of the rabbits onto Ophelia’s lap.
‘See this one’s Flopsy,’ said Remus indicating the white one on Ophelia’s lap, ‘and this other one’s cotton tail.’
‘Weird names Remus,’ smirked Frank.
‘They’re from a Muggle children’s book,’ explained Hope, ‘and they’re very cool.’
Ophelia looked down at Flopsy and twitched her nose at the same time as the rabbit.
‘Are they going to sleep in her bed?’ asked Fred.
‘No, they’re not,’ said Lyall, ‘rabbits sleep in their hutch in the garden.’
‘I think you’ll have some trouble trying to convince this one of that,’ chuckled Mr Diggory.
Ophelia was now hugging the grey rabbit close, as if it was a teddy bear.
After presents, the older children ran off to play, and Luna, Ginny and Ophelia were playing with the rabbits, whilst Harry, Ron and Neville talked.
‘Ophelia,’ said Ron.
Ophelia looked up at him curiously and nodded.
‘Why don’t you talk?’
‘What?’ asked Luna.
‘Ron’s right,’ said Neville, ‘Ophelia don’t talk.’
‘Yes, she does,’ said Harry.
‘I’ve never heard her,’ said Ron.
‘Or me,’ said Ginny confused. If Ophelia was one of her friends, why didn’t she talk to her.
‘Ophelia does talk!’ shouted Harry.
‘When?’ asked Luna.
‘To me!’ said Harry.
‘And her Daddy, and Stefan, and Granny and Grandpa.’
‘But she don’t talk to us,’ said Luna.
‘Don’t you love us?’ asked Ginny looking like she might cry.
Ophelia looked at her friends nervously, she wanted to say something to them, but she just couldn’t!
Instead of saying anything, she burst into tears and ran away from her group.
‘Hey princess!’ said Remus scooping Ophelia into his arms as she ran over to the adults.
‘What’s up?’ he asked, ‘why are you crying sweetheart?’
Remus walked back over to the group, where Ginny and Luna were now crying as they thought Ophelia didn’t love them, Neville was crying because the other two were, and Harry and Ron were arguing.
‘She can talk!’ shouted Harry stubbornly.
‘Can’t!’ shouted Ron.
‘Can!’ shouted Harry.
‘Can’t! Can’t! Can’t!’ yelled Ron stamping his little feet.
‘Ok kids,’ said Mr Weasley separating the two boys, ‘what’s the problem here?’
‘Ron says Ophelia can’t talk,’ said Harry sticking out his little lip.
‘I never heard her,’ said Ron.
‘And why is everyone crying?’ asked Alice kneeling down in the grass and trying to comfort Neville.
‘Ophelia no love us,’ cried Ginny. Luna nodded tearily.
‘This is ridiculous,’ muttered Remus shaking his head and stroking Ophelia’s hair.
‘Why don’t we play a game of hide and seek?’ suggested Mr Diggory trying to think of a way to cheer up all the children.
Most of them ran off, but Ophelia didn’t want to join in, and clung on tightly to Remus instead of playing.
No one said anything during the party, but once everyone had gone home, and Harry and Stefan were playing upstairs, Ophelia was still clutching onto Remus like a limpet.
‘What’s the matter princess?’ asked Remus, ‘why were you so upset?’
‘Don’t know,’ muttered Ophelia snuggling down into his lap.
‘Why can’t you talk in front of your friends?’ asked Hope, ‘you like Luna and Ginny.’
Ophelia nodded slightly.
‘I love them,’ she agreed.
‘But you can’t talk in front of them,’ sighed Lyall.
‘We’ve got a problem here Remi,’ said Hope nervously.
‘I think we need to get you looked at little one,’ said Lyall kissing his granddaughter on the forehead.
‘She’s fine,’ interjected Remus.
Hope and Lyall looked at him meaningfully.
‘No she’s not is she,’ muttered Remus.