Amy remembered the day she lost her voice.
When she was seven, the Dursley's went to the beach, and unlike all those other times, there was no babysitter available and she had to come - not that this usually deterred the Dursleys, but Aunt Petunia had a brand-new oven delivered and didn't trust that Amy wouldn't use it for something nefarious, never mind that she had never used one before.
She had never seen the sea before, and was hard pressed to hide how happy she was. The Dursley's were allergic to Amy's happiness, after all.
There was a lot of sand, a lot of people and the water stretched as far as the eye could see. It was beautiful and she wanted to see everything. Other children played in the sand, making sand castles and Amy loved having playmates that didn't know she was a freak.
Except, Amy forgot. She forgot that Dudley was still there.
Half-way to the first day of the vacation, Dudley took up Amy-Hunting again. This time, she wasn't in her home turf and she didn't know the best hiding spots. This time, there was no library that was practically Dudley-repellent.
But.
There was the sea.
There was the sea, full of water. And Dudley didn't know how to swim.
Faced with Dudley's fists and the sea, Amy took the sea…then she forgot that she couldn't swim too.
When she was seven, Amaranth Lilian Potter drowned.
.
.
She didn't expect to wake up.
She was in the water, deep and tossed to and fro by the current.
She was breathing.
Her mouth opened in shock and she gurgled in further shock when she realized that the saltwater didn't burn her throat and that she could, in fact, speak.
Human throats weren't meant to vocalize underwater, and if Amy were any older, she could have recognized the change.
But Amy was very young, and the only thing she did was try to find her way back to the shore, where the Dursley's didn't even notice their young charge missing.
.
.
Then, she surfaced.
And she couldn't speak.
.
.
Amy doesn't remember much after she and everyone else realized this, except that there was a lot of doctors.
Aunt Petunia seemed terrified about it and couldn't stop demanding things, screaming at the doctors and asking what was wrong.
Amy couldn't tell her.
Every breath that passed her throat burned and any attempt at speech resulted in a high-pitch, glass breaking screeching sound.
Breathing air didn't hurt, exactly. It's just that air felt too much. It felt like gulping in too much oxygen, like she was drowning in dry land.
The air brushed against her eye lashes, brushing her face, and she was reminded somehow of the waves brushing her face under the water.
Finally, when the tests all said inconclusive, a nurse took her aside and gave her a pamphlet. It was a school for British Sign Language, a cheap one near Surrey.
Thank you, Amy tried to say with her smile.
The nurse understood and patted her on the back.
Behind her, Aunt Petunia didn't scream anymore. She started crying, the sound startling.
In all her life, she had never seen her aunt cry and she understood, for the first time since entering the hospital, the gravity of her situation.
.
.
Aunt Petunia was harder on her, after that.
There was a lot of teachers, and Amy could sign things. But there were very few people who bothered to learn BSL and most times, she tried signing, only for the other person to look confused.
So. Amy took to carrying note cards. Some things got repeated and she took it into her head to have notecards. Some, like, "Hello, Nice to meet you." Got wrinkled from constant use.
After someone tried to bully her only for Amy to somehow end up on the rooftop with no idea how it happened, she resolved to never have mean words in her notecards. It would be too easy for people to punch her when she couldn't cry out for help.
The screeches she made were painful to hear and the last time Amy resorted to it, her bully ran away with bleeding ears.
.
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When Amy turned nine, she remembered one more thing from her drowning.
That she could, in fact, breathe underwater. Breathe water, and even speak in it.
Children's memories were fickle things and the fact that she could remember it spoke much about the moment.
So the moment when the Dursleys were away for more than a day and Amy was left to her own devices, she filled up the bathtub to the brim and, as an afterthought, added some salt.
The discovery that her memories were, in fact, real and not a drowning dream, made her cry out in surprise.
And further shock, because what came out of her throat was not a screech but a gentle and melodic, "Ah."
Amy flushed in pleasure. And then dread, because this just solidified the fact that Amy was a freak.
The dread was there, but so was the glee. It was so cool.
Amy was a mermaid.
She couldn't tell anyone, but that was okay. It was her own secret and that made it more precious, a pearl that she had to keep safe.
.
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When Amy turned eleven, a giant knocked on her door and told her she was magic.
.
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I am pleased to present, MERMAID AU!
*wild enthusiastic applause*
Thank you, thank you.
Reviews please!