Work Text:
Have you ever had visions before? I've heard voices before.
I like to think that I had a normal childhood.
My brother certainly complicated things. Your definition of normal changes when your brother goes mad, chasing after fabled vaults and runs away. My definition had to change. Because suddenly normal was seeing my brother's face in the newspaper and knowing that the whole world was watching, waiting for me to go mad too.
But even when all of that is ignored, I was never normal and my childhood certainly wasn't.
The first time I heard voices I was only three. I've long forgotten the words, perhaps as a toddler they were incomprehensible to me, but I'd never forget the chill that ran over me. The voice sounded cold and it physically ran up my skin like encasing ice.
I screamed and cried, begging for help. My parents swooped down to me and asked me what was wrong, I tried to tell them, but they didn't understand, couldn't understand.
They kissed my forehead and told me it was okay, that their was nothing there, nothing to be afraid of.
If only that were true.
It was only a couple of years later that they finally started to notice that there was something peculiar about me.
I didn't hear voices often, but in rare moments they'd come to me. Most of the time the whispers were too quiet to understand, but other times I could hear them more clearly than my own voice.
Sometimes the voices would speak to me, and I'd speak back.
When my parents caught me talking to the air, that was when they became afraid.
I remember their frenzied wild movements as they huddled over me. They were scared, and I didn't want them to be.
So I learned to hide it.
My brother was the only one who knew. He found it utterly fascinating and constantly asked me questions. Asked me what I'd heard.
Most of the time I could never satisfy him with an answer. He was always desperate for more knowledge, which I was lacking in.
I asked him once if he thought I was mad. He laughed and told me no. He said, “You're not mad. Wizards always label those with gifts and ambition as mad, but you're not mad. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.”
Those words meant everything to me. I clinged to them like they were my only salvation. They were the string that dangled me over the edge.
And when brother was expelled, when he ran away, when the media called him mad … that string was cut and I could only fall.
I don't know what the voices are. I don't know what they want.
But I'm not mad.
I can't be ….
I'm not like my brother. I'm not like him, I'm not!
But still the voices whisper to me ….