The Voices in Rose's Head

Disclaimer – I own nothing but the plot. All credit belongs to the creator of the Harry Potter World, Lady JKRowling, whose highness shall maintain the throne over this domain forever more to come.

Note – Rose isn't schizophrenic. She probably has Asperger's or a very active imagination, whichever rock's your boat.

Rose Weasley had a sweet tooth. Her mother blamed her father, and her father blamed the cook; the cook blamed her parents, whom she thought were far too tolerant of Rose. Rose didn't blame anyone but the sweets, because it was they who called her to them. They and the voices in her head drove her to do all the many things she did, and there was only so much a little girl could take of instructions before she felt a compulsion to follow through with what she was told. And the voices in her head were nothing if not persistent.

Rose spent a lot of her time talking to the voices in her head. She didn't know that it was strange that she could hear things in her head, or that she was eerily advanced for her age in terms of knowledge. The two went hand in hand with one another, with each new area of experience upon which she came coming with a voice in her head who was an expert in that area. It was because of this that Rose could flip through a medical dictionary, and be able to diagnose the various people around her with the information she gained. The voices in her head catalogued what she learnt, and would speak to her of the people around her and the objects surrounding her, and try to get her to act in regards to these things. She informed her parents cook in her little no-nonsense voice that she ought to get the purple bruise-like thing on her lower legs checked out, because it was not a bruise as it had grown since the last-time Rose saw it, and was likely Lichen Planus; she did this not because she particularly cared, but because Prudent-Pru, one of the voices in her head, said that it would be best to, "nip the thing in the bud." And then Doctoring-Dickens went ahead and spewed a whole lot of medical nonsense for Rose to tell Cook. Cook ignored Rose, thinking her a presumptuous 5-year old, but Rose insisted that it would increase Cook's chance of having cancer if she didn't get it treated.

Exasperated, Cook took Rose and a drowsy Hugo with her to St. Mungos, where a healer inspected the purple formation, and immediately consulted with another healer in hushed tones. Cook was slightly worried, and gave a small jump when Rose spoke up from between the healers where she'd snuck unnoticed.

"No, it doesn't require operation. That is far too serious a treatment. What you should do is find out what triggered it, then apply a cold compress, then soak the affected skin in something with hydrocortisone." The healers looked down at Rose in slight annoyance, and more than a little marvel, but decided that she actually was right.

Now, back to the sweet-tooth that was the very root of many of Rose's most harrowing punishments. Rose was sitting at the kitchen table, her colouring book open in front of her, and a box of crayons resting between her and her brother Hugo. Hugo was colouring in a dinosaur, with all the expertise of a fumbling four-year old who was sure that all dinosaurs were brown and green. Rose wanted to tell him that no one knew the exact colour of a dinosaur, because they had been dead for a very long time, but held her tongue because Hugo might cry if he thought his picture was wrong. Rose herself was disdainfully colouring in what muggles thought were fairies, but which in actual fact were about as real as Barbie doll women. Not real.

Rose was slightly distracted from adding a price-tag to the fairy – just to make it clear that it was not real – as Cook opened the oven door. Rose tensed as Munchy-Munch in her head growled that he smelled sweets. Manners-Morton shushed Munchy-Munch, and told him that dinner was in two hours, and now was not the time for snacking. Prudent-Pru agreed with Manners-Morton, and asked Rose to return to her colouring task, which Cook would much rather Rose continue with. Munchy-Munch growled and said if Rose didn't get a few sweets in, he would make Rose's tummy ache. Rose asked Prudent-Pru what she should do, as she didn't like tummy-aches, and no one ever believed her when she said Munchy-Munch was making it happen. Hero-Zac told Rose that he would stop Munchy-Munch, but Rose knew that Hero-Zac wasn't as strong as Munchy-Munch, because Munchy-Munch had the power of sweets on his side, and that was a lot of power. So Rose decided to get some sweets.

This was how Munchy-Munch frequently used the power he wielded in her mind to make her believe that it really was lack of sweets causing the ache, when in actuality, it was preliminary hunger pangs.

Distractedly continuing to colour the grass in as many shades of green – and some yellow – as she could find, Rose sent all the people in her head to the room of play-things, where Rose collected all the toys she had ever admired. She called Plotting-Plotter to the Map room, where they planned how to sneak some of the cookies that Cook had made so that Rose could eat them. Rose and Plotting-Plotter were great friends in her head, and he was a lot like Teddy in that he changed what he looked like so Rose could act out her plan in her head, just to make sure she had all the possibilities thought out. Though this may seem a tedious and time-consuming pursuit, in actuality, it took all of one minute. Much like dreams, Roses' discussions and antics in her head operated on a different wave of time – so what may seem to take half a day actually lasts five minutes.

Rose put the crayons in her hand on the table, and Cook came over to see if she was done. Cook was actually also a nanny and a maid, but Rose had always called her Cook, just as she'd always called Munchy-Munch his name, because that seemed to be their primary function. Father's primary function was fathering, so he was called Father. Mother's primary function was Mothering, although for a time it was nursing, and Rose had changed what she called Mother accordingly. Uncle Harry's main function was Pulling Hair, but Prudent-Pru told her it would be rude to say so, and to call him what everyone else called him.

Cook patted Rose on the head, and said it was very nicely done. Cook had long since stopped being surprised by Rose's advanced skills, and it no longer fazed her that Rose's colouring looked more like a Da Vinci than it did like a child's attempt at crayon murder. Hugo eagerly shoved his paper up to cook and gave a dimpled smile as he watched Cook praise him. Hugo's colouring was far more normal in terms of ability. The dinosaur had streaks of white where Hugo had missed while scribbling with his crayon, and there wasn't a line which hadn't been coloured out of. Rose knew all this, and also knew that Cook was lying as she said it was the best picture that she'd ever seen of a dinosaur, but Rose knew that this was called encouragement (because that's what Manners-Morton said it was), and she also knew that Hugo needed a lot of it, because she'd heard her mother and father talking (and Prudent-Pru had remembered a book that said something about encouragement being key to successful development). So Rose joined Cook in praising Hugo, and even told him that his dinosaur looked much more real than her fairy, especially because her fairy was all wrong. Hugo beamed, pleased that he'd done something better than his older sister. Then he held up his hands to Cook, widening his blue eyes innocently. Cook sighed, seized his grubby hands, and led him away to the bathroom to give him a clean.

Rose seized the moment.

Plotting-Plotter instructed her to quickly grab a napkin, into which she dropped five cookies, seized so that you couldn't tell any were missing. Cook had made more than thirty cookies, and Counting-Candy informed Rose that there had been 38 cookies. Rose then bundled the cookies in the napkin, ignoring Munchy-Munch (who was yelling at her to eat them now!) and slipped next to the kitchen door, placing the bundle beside the pot-plant which rested there. Rose then dashed back to the cookies, hearing Cook as she neared the kitchen again, and Rose seized a single cookie and took a bite, because Cook probably expected her to have stolen some, and would demand that Rose return them, so best to take the suspicion off.

When Cook entered the kitchen, the first thing she saw was the second cookie in Rose's hand. Then her eyes tracked to the first cookie, half-gone. Rose knew that since she had eaten a cookie, Hugo would have to be allowed one as well. Having a second cookie in her hand meant Cook would think she'd meant to sneak it away after she'd eaten her first. A smug smile crossed Cook's face – she'd caught the little genius red-handed.

Rose endured the telling off with her head hanging, and trudged out of the kitchen to her room for her punishment. She took her colouring book with her, and 'accidentally' dropped it as she exited the door. Bending over, Rose slipped the cookies in front of the colouring book so Cook wouldn't see them, and trudged up to her room using the colouring book to hide the cookies.

When the door was safely closed behind her, Rose let a gleeful grin sit on her face as she and Munchy-Munch enjoyed their spoils. Manners-Morton made sure that Rose didn't spill a crumb, while Prudent-Pru tutted and asked Rose how exactly did she think she would have enough room for dinner now? Mouthy-Mary stuck her tongue out at Prudent-Pru, and said that that was ages yet, Rose could have a little snack. Rose nodded, digging with relish into her third cookie.

Yes, Rose Weasley blamed the sweets – they were the reason Munchy-Munch made her steal them. When her mother knowingly asked her if she'd only had the two cookies, Rose could honestly say that yes, she did, because Munchy-Morton had taken over when the other five had been scarfed down. Her mother wasn't to know that Mouthy-Mary and Munchy-Munch were in her head, gagging a Prudent-Pru and Manners-Morton, holding the two hostage so that Rose could lie to her mum and save them all the horrors of further punishment, which varied from having to eat washed lettuce, to being made to stare at Blank Wall for an entire half-hour. It was just self-preservation! Plotting-Plotter was conferring in the meantime with mini-Rose in Rose's head – they were trying to determine the best way to get at the jelly which had been made for after dinner.

A/N

So, I hope you enjoyed the newest addition to the series of one-shots that so far make up my creative liberties on . Unfortunately, I can't write anything more time-consuming, because of this little, tiny, eensy-weensy thing called…HSC DUN DUN DUNN…it's a month long examination process which I am currently in the midst of, and it ranks you out of the whole of Australia at the very end, so it is a rather big deal.

So, wish me luck, leave a review telling me how to improve! I need all the feedback I can get at this moment, you know! Thank you for having read what I have churned out of the Black-hole that is MY BRAIN. Toodles!