Green, yellow, brown, red, all swirling together. Images slowly formed: his seventh birthday “party,” the time he broke his ankle, his first memory—fixing breakfast for Duddley. The sounds were there. But then some newer memories came along. He was fixing dinner for guests during the summer. He relived the end of fourth year. Things seemed more muffled, the newer the memories were. Something changed suddenly.
It was his birthday. During the middle of reading a card from Ron, a chilling silence filtered through the room. He looked around, expecting to hear at least something—a car slam from the street below or an insect in his room. But he heard nothing. Adrenaline started pumping through his veins. Was it a Death Eater attack? What was it? He swallowed heavily. Then he paused. He didn’t hear himself swallow. He couldn’t hear anymore.
The colors swirled again. A glance of a class at Hogwarts, a piece of a book, fragments of all kinds flew through his mind. The colors didn’t appear sharper nor did touch seem more acute. There were no sounds. Nothing at all.
What did he sound like? What did his friends sound like? He tried to dredge up older memories, but they too had faded. Finally, he sunk back into darkness, accepting the emptiness that he would always hear.
The Sound of Silence.
~ * ~ * ~
Harry sat in his bed gasping for breath. He hoped no one would hear him, but casting a silencing charm caused too much noise. His insomnia was becoming more and more intense. He had always been a light sleeper, but this was getting extreme. It was bad for his health to continue this. The potions that he had gotten from Snape didn’t help him much. They blocked out Voldemort related dreams, but that didn’t stop his own personal hell from being. Oh, what he’d give to be normal.
Slowly his breathing calmed down. He lay back down on his bed, remembering his childhood. Even that wasn’t normal by any standard. He was belittled, unloved, and tormented. He was emotionally as well as physically starved. Nothing seemed to go his way. Even weh he was sick…
Harry broke the train of thought immediately. He breathed in slowly, trying to clear his mind. Breath in…1…2…3…4…5…6…7…hold for another seven and release on seven. Over and over he did the breathing technique. Finally his mind calmed and he drifted to sleep once more.
~ * ~ * ~
“Speak,” wrote Snape in what had become their ritual meeting. It had been two weeks since Harry’s secret had been discovered. Christmas break had just begun. “Discuss any issues you’ve had lately.”
“Nothings really happened.. The only thing lately was the finals so there was very little lecturing. I did fine on my finals, except for yours, sir,” Harry ended with a smirk. Snape raised an eyebrow.
“Are you trying to distract me, Harry? We discussed it yesterday that we would talk about how you started losing your hearing. You can’t avoid the topic forever. If you don’t want to talk to me, you can talk to Dumbledore.”
Harry shrank back into his chair in typical adolescent behavior. He snorted and was about to comment, when Snape wrote something else. “Since your down here already, you can clean all my specimen jars.” Harry snarled at his potions teacher.
“Fine, I’ll talk. But I’m warning you now, this will destroy any preconception of my life.”
“My life has never been an easy one. I was dropped off at my aunt and uncles house after my parents died. They always made sure that I knew this. My first real memory was that I was making breakfast for my fat cousin Duddley. I was two at the time. All my life I was forced to do chores. I was to clean, cook, and handle the garden. I thought this was normal until I went to school
“My aunt and uncle couldn’t care less about me. My room was the cupboard under the stairs, even though there was another bedroom just for my cousin’s toys. I wasn’t fed much, and if I did anything wrong, that food would be taken from me. I was ignored and mistreated, but I was never beaten. I only went to school because it was the law. I only got shots, or muggle health treatments, if the school required it. I got my glasses for free at the school. I never got new clothing, only my fat cousin’s remnants. If I was sick, then I would just have to tough it out. The only time I went to the hospital was when my cousin jumped on my ankle while I was working outside and broke it. My life was not happy in any sense.
“When I was eight, I got sick, really sick. Since I wasn’t well nourished, my immune system was weak. I had a high fever that wouldn’t sink. I had hallucinations and horrible chills. For a week I was like this. Finally, my fever broke. But the damage was done, my hearing started fading. I didn’t notice it at first. Then I noticed I couldn’t hear people coming like I used to. It got worse as the years progressed, but I still could hear pretty well. It didn’t make much of a difference in school, though.
“My cousin was the bully of the class. He was fat and stupid and would chase kids around and beat them up. I was his favorite target. The class never wanted to cross Duddley, so they would never help me. If I did better than my cousin in school, he would beat me up. The teachers just assumed that I was “slow” and needed to be spoken to very slowly and softly. Because of these teachers, I developed my lip reading abilities. My cousin would sometimes call me deaf and dumb, but none of them ever guessed that I was really going deaf.” Harry leaned back in his chair and watched Snape’s expression carefully.
A bit of anger fluttered through his eyes, then some shock and dismay. A burst of something unidentifiable followed, but then the cold stare of no emotion came through. Snape looked at his desk then wrote something on his paper. Harry didn’t even need to look at the paper to see what it said.
“You couldn’t have known. No one did.”