He could hear them.
At the most quiet of times, in the dead of night, in the silences of movie theaters and awkward dinner parties, he heard bangs. Shouts, creaking, gunfire, screams, crying, yells, and the most frightening of all, the whispers of the boogey man that would slither into his ear- "Boo.".
He would lie awake, shivering in the darkness, his hands covering his ears and his screams of "no, no, No, No, NO-" becoming louder with every malicious moan.
His parents would come in at night and ask him if he was okay, disrupting the screams and whispers until only his own cries of pain and suffering, his labored breaths, were all that could be heard over the soft coos of his mother and his father's warm, deep voice reassuring him that everything was okay.
His little brother would peak into the room then and hold onto his old stuffed rabbit that he loved so much, and James would try and put up a brave smile for the three year old, but it would not convince any of his family members. Then the family would hold each other close before mother had to leave, Lily's cries echoing from the nursery breaking the moment into little shattered pieces, and his father would get up and put his brother back to bed, leaving James alone in his dark room of horrors.
Sometimes the noises would go away.
Other times they wouldn't.
It wasn't just bangs and shouts and screams and other loud clamors, but voices.
James would hear people talking when others wouldn't- "James, what are you talking about, sweetie? I don't hear anything."- but he knew he was hearing them. They clinged to him like a leech, the older he got the more they prowled in his head, their shackles rattling against their prison bars- his mind. He put up a front the older he got, and his parents had dismissed it as nightmares.
When he was reading a book, he would hear someone call out his name. The voice was never the same, but it was never distinguishable- male, female, young, old, he could never tell since it never seemed like one voice, almost as if a bunch of peoples were morphed together to form one ghostly and scratchy diction.
They ignored the way his head would snap up at random times or the way he was always muttering something under his breath. If you listened closely enough, you could tell that he was having a conversation with only they could assume was himself.
They ignored it. They ignored all the signs. They brought him to a doctor when he was younger, but the doctor only wrote it off as hallucinations of a sleep deprived. His parents made him get lots of sleep. They forced food down his throat. He took sleep medications and after a year of this treatment, when James saw the large circles under his mother's eyes and his father looking more drained and lifeless after a long day at the office followed by staying up till two in the morning trying to coax him to sleep, James decided to act like the voices had gone away.
His parents brightened up soon after, like flowers that were exposed to sunlight after being deprived of it. His mother laughed more; his father cheerfully whistled in the morning, his whole family seemed happier after they thought that his episodes had stopped.
(But they didn't know that during the night, he curled up into a ball in a small little cocoon, a silencing spell around his bed as he muttered "No, no-" under his breath, every little creak and moan and yell and spark of gunfire amplified as he tried to cover his ears, and tears leaking out from his eyes. You will never escape. The voices said in his mind. We won't let you.)
For the Ten Day Competition, Hard, using the prompt: next gen kid with illness or disorder.
I actually really liked writing this; it gave me more of a chance to study this disorder that has always interested me. It gave me a chance to learn more about the other kinds of hallucinations too. In a way, James's doctor wasn't that far off.
James has paracusia, or auditory hallucination syndrome. You can hear voices, music, or other sounds in your mind. Paracusia can be linked with Narcolepsy, a sleeping disorder in which your body doesn't have a set sleeping pattern, causing you to fall asleep at random intervals when you are relaxed enough. You can experience heightened or slurred senses and paralysis. I believe that I am going to write a story about this soon, I don't know when exactly.
I do not own Harry Potter.