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Beatrice
They thought she was stupid. They'd call for her and she wouldn't come to them. Loud noises would happen and she wouldn't even flinch. She didn't react like a normal toddler.
Turned out she was just deaf.
She was nearly two by the time they realised, but once they did everything just... fell into place. Her early years were her parents, together, sat close and making sure she could see their actions. See their mouths move.
They all learnt sign language together.
When she was four they started to visit St. Mungos more regularly. They wanted her to be able to hear, but she didn't really understand why. This was all she'd ever known, and it was great. The healers were nice though, their tests seemed like games to her at that age. It was fun.
They spoke of animals that could help. Fish that could connect to her brainwaves and pick up sound waves for her. Translate them into words. Allow her to hear. But they couldn't give them to her yet, not whilst she was still growing at a significant rate. She needed to wait.
Her mother was muggle born so they took her to a doctor too. The fish the healers spoke of reminded her of muggle hearing aids, and so they invested in some. She was five when she got them, and suddenly she got it.
Her mother didn't just look and feel and smell a certain way, her voice had a certain cadence. Her father's voice was deeper, more melodic. She could hear them coming now before she saw them. She could tell by the weight of the footsteps which one of them it was.
It was.. magic. Without magic.
Who takes longer to get ready?
VEE
Bringer of Joy
Once she could hear some she became unstoppable. She wanted to go everywhere, see everything, but mostly she wanted to just stop and listen. Her parents were nothing if not giving. They spent days filling her sense with everything they could think of. Wonderful sounds. Love, and laughter.
She learnt the spoken language connected to their signing first.
This movement sounds like this. Mouth shapes connecting to sounds. Her father's sounds sound different to her mother's sounds, she noticed this early on. She didn't question it at first, but one day she just had to ask. He told her that he's from a different country. Pointed out that she called him '
tad' and her mother '
mam' and other children she'd come into contact with didn't use those words.
She started to learn Welsh.
Who is most likely to trip over?
ME
Hero
Her mother died suddenly. She's not sure how, she never got a chance to ask. She's not sure if it was an accident, or if she got sick suddenly. It all happened quickly. She was seven.
Tad didn't handle it well. He struggled to look after her on his own. She was too young to properly understand, and he was grieving. She would never, ever blame him for it.
Her whole life, she'd never met any other family. She knew of a war. She thinks her mother's parents died during a battle. She'd never even heard mention of her father's family at that point... so when they moved in with his mother she had no idea what to expect. But he couldn't do it alone, and there was no other option.
The manor was... insane. They'd come through a small seaside town on the Welsh coast. No cars were allowed down into it, and all the houses were coloured in bright colours. There's muggle tourists everywhere constantly but its not a muggle place. Its hiding itself in plain site. The manor overlooks it all. Watching. Somehow sinister despite its bright pink exterior.
Her hearing aids started to glitch the second they arrived.
Who smells the best?
VEE
Brave One
They held up for maybe a week before her hearing aids just became static. She cried for three days straight after, but mostly out of frustration than anything else. She could sign, tad could sign, nain could also sign too, weirdly enough? Although she spoke Welsh alongside rather than the English she'd been used to accompanying it, so that took some getting used to.
St. Mungos became a common destination for them, but for her father. He was sick, she knew that much. According to her grandmother it was some old injury flaring up from the war. Nobody would say much about it. Nain made comments about 'the wrong side' but tad always reminded her that was the side that won... She didn't ask questions.
They asked the healers about the animals whenever they could. The ones that may help her hear. Every time they told them that she was still too young, and when her grandmother insisted that wasn't a good enough answer they eventually told them that she needed to hit puberty first.
She didn't actually know what that meant.
Who's the one to get rid of the spider?
ME
Selwyn
Her Hogwarts letter came on her 11th birthday. It was an unexpected Christmas present - she'd been unsure if they'd be willing to deal with a disabled student.
It made the first Christmas without her dad slightly more bearable. Slightly.
Sometime after New Years a professor came to visit them, to discuss what she might need. Nain acted translator, but her English was minimal at best. At least it made her more confident with her own lip-reading abilities. She'd be needing them.
The start of the school year was a blur.
She'd sat with some other first years on the train but she hadn't attempted to speak out loud. Not sure if she'd been able to explain why she couldn't control the volume of her speech properly, why her sounds were stilted.
There'd been this one girl she couldn't help but stare at. The way she spoke drew her in even though she couldn't hear a word of it. She'd dropped a handkerchief as she'd left the carriage and she couldn't decide if she'd ever give it back.
Sorting was terrifying. She'd stood at the front staring solidly at the Professor's mouth, not wanting to miss her name. The hat had a mouth but she'd be wearing the thing - not able to see. Nervous didn't begin to cover it.
But when she put it on, she could hear the voice. Inside her mind as it sat on her head. The clearest sound she'd heard five years. She tried to hold back the tears threatening to form.
She gave up when she heard the name of her mam's house clear in her mind.
Who takes up the most room in bed?
... probably me
Castle-Friend
She got her first period on Tuesday, December 6th 2016. She was sent home immediately. The next morning they were at St. Mungos, and she was staring at a jar with two fish in it that were about to become a huge part of her identity.
Really, she felt like she should name them.
She listened as the healer explained. They would mostly live inside her ears. She shouldn't sleep with them in. If they weren't in her ears they needed to be in some specific tropical water. She was given a large jar of it for them to swim in overnight and a smaller pot she could carry around, along with instructions on how to keep the waters clean. They wouldn't need feeding because they fed off her brainwaves. How exactly they worked she hadn't quite figured out. Something to do with channeling soundwaves directly into her brain?
When she put them in for the first time, she cried. It was even more magic than the first time she'd worn a hearing aid. With the muggle device there'd always been some background fuzz, constantly just underlying all other sounds. Static from the machine.
Babelfish didn't have any static.
She was given the last week of term off and spent the time wandering the small town below the manor. She'd never appreciated Portmeirion before, but being able to sit on the beach and hear the ocean lapping against the sand made all the difference.
She found herself falling a little bit in love with the place. She found herself excited to get back to Hogwarts, wondering what the castle would sound like.
Maybe she'd actually talk to Viola on the train too.
Who said 'I love you' first?
...
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