Hear No Evil

Hear no evil

Ok, gods its been a while, but now I am free of college course work and can spend more time writing which I'm excited about. So here's 3500 words of me projecting onto Sirius Black being hard of hearing. Tw: mentions of inbreeding, effects of inbreeding and chronic illness

1st September 1971

Sirius Black stumbled into the Great Hall amongst all of the other first years. James Potter, a boy he had met on the train and had become a fast friend of his, stood by his side. The confidence he had exuded before seemed to turn into nervous energy as he practically bounced across the room instead of walking. Professor McGonagall stood in front of the new students with a dusty old pointy hat in one hand and a roll of parchment in her other hand. A name was called out, but the professor was quite far away so he didn’t catch it. Her lips moved again, and the words didn’t travel, if the people behind him would stop chattering perhaps he would hear her.

“Sa… Bul—” was that his name? No, a girl stepped forward instead. She was quickly sorted into Hufflepuff.

“S…us B…” God was that his name he couldn’t make it out. Think, what did she say? His thoughts were interrupted by James nudging his arm and whispering something to him, but all he heard was a sort of shhing sound. Looking up at the professor he noticed she was looking right at him.

“Si… la…” she said again. It sounded like his name, but if he was wrong then he would look like an utter buffoon. Then again no one else was going up, but they might not be able to hear her either. How had everyone heard her so clearly before him? They were probably closer to her. James nudged him again, so he started walking to the stool at the front of the hall and hope he was right. When no one corrected him he continued walking with a little more confidence than before and sat on the stool as the hat was placed on his head.

30th October 1971

The four friends were stuffed under James invisibility cloak trying to set up a prank for Halloween that would cover people in irremovable orange paint. Sirius had thought just putting buckets over doorways and charming them to turn when people walked under them would be funny enough, but Remus said if they charmed all the goblets in the great hall to skirt the paint every time someone tried to drink then it wouldn’t technically be against the rules. He wasn’t sure how that worked, but considering how many times the four had got detention after only two months of being in the school they could use a prank that didn’t land them scrubbing trophies or clearing cobwebs in unused classrooms.

“Ok, soooo how do we do this?” James whispered to the group. Sirius felt lucky that they were all so close together other wise it’d be too quiet to hear them.

“Dammit James” Sirius couldn’t see him, but he would bet money that Remus was rubbing his eyes in mild frustration. Peter who was next to Sirius while James and Remus were behind him started explaining… sort of.

“We have to tickle the pear”

“What does that even mean, Pete?” Sirius whispered back. Various amounts of shhing noises joined the quiet corridor coming from all three of the other boys

“What? I’m whispering same as you” Sirius was slowing getting annoyed.

“Shuddup you’re going to get us caught!” Remus voice travelled to Sirius ears, and he couldn’t hear a difference in the volume, but it didn’t seem worth arguing over now.

“So where are we going?” Sirius spoke up again and James’ hand clamped over his mouth

“Flitch might literally kill us!” he hissed.

“Alright so Sirius don’t say another word and we’re going to the kitchens which is this way” Remus whispered to the group.

Sirius didn’t understand. He was whispering like the other three, so why were they being so… vexatious? The way Remus and told him to shut up hurt a little more than he’d like to admit, but he didn’t say another word all night.

2nd December 1971

The great hall was already filled with students when Sirius walked in. Everyone was shouting over the next person, but it all sort of blurred out into the background. Sirius walked up to his friends and plonked himself beside Remus and faced James opposite him. Remus was carefully pilling food onto his plate, where as Sirius grabbed a croissant and shoved it in his mouth. James snorted and decided to follow his best mates behaviour by skewering a sausage on his fork and biting half of it off the end. A ruckus of laughter followed the motion from the friend group as both Sirius and James tried to one up each other. The line was drawn when Sirius reached for a slice of toast on Remus’ plate.

“Not my food you menace, get your own! Ast” Remus was known for slipping Welsh into a conversation every now and then. Most of the time it was to call one of the three a rude word he couldn’t say in front of McGonagall.

“Oh, come on Remus you’re ruining our fun” Sirius barked up with a smile

“huh?” Remus responded

“What?” ok that was confusing. What had happened?

“Sirius you gotta yell to be heard over all this noise” Remus’ voice had a teasing undertone which sent Sirius into a state of more confusion. He was yelling, right? He’d been matching the energy in the room and speaking like Remus was to him.

“I said you’re ruining our fun” Sirius said a little louder

“What?” ok now he was just poking fun, there was no way he didn’t hear that. Why would he say this? It was just frustrating and made everything awkward when this happened. People often said Sirius was too loud or too quiet and it never made any sense. He was speaking the same volume.

“Stop ruining our fun!” it would’ve been funny as a one-time thing, but it just seemed to go on forever. I mean they did it all the time. He was so frustrated with his friends, so he walked out and decided that maybe going to class early today wasn’t a bad idea.

7th January 1972

The four friends had been back at Hogwarts for a few days since the Christmas holidays ended and already the workload was killing them. Sirius and Peter sat together in Flitwick’s class while Remus and James were sat on the other side of the room. It was Friday and the last lesson of the day, all Sirius had to do was get through the next hour. Seemed easy enough.

Despite being quite near to the front of the classroom the short professors voice didn’t travel very far so it was hard to keep up with everything he was saying.

“ague-ti …. Water ch-. Useful when- and can be” What the actual fuck was he saying? A few words seemed to travel back to his ears but nothing of importance reached him.

“Mr Bl- tell me the- for the … ter charm.” Despite being so quite the annoying high pitch squeaky voice caught Sirius’ attention.

“What?” was the only response he could think of.

“per- you could pay … Mr ..ck. Detention.” What had he done?! The weaselly little professor was too quiet to hear and somehow that warranted Sirius getting a detention! Often Sirius could understand why he got detention. Mouthing off or another one of their stupid pranks but this time he could not comprehend what he’d done wrong. How was he supposed to know what the professor had said? It was totally and completely unfair. With his brows furrowed and his bottom lip pressed into what can only be described as a pout Sirius let out an annoyed huff through his nose, curled his hand around his quill and gritted his teeth in an attempt to get through the lesson. Glaring daggers into anything that crossed his line of sight was shortly added to that list. Anger seemed to be bubbling just below the surface, very carefully controlled but very easily escapable.

The end of the class finally arrived, and everyone filtered out pretty quickly. James and Remus were waiting outside when Peter and himself started walking with them to the next class.

“It’s ridiculous!” Sirius started to complain “Why the fuck did I get a detention? It’s not like anyone else can hear him, the mousy little twat!”

“Sirius!” James was always abashed when Sirius disrespected someone older than him, despite being a troublesome prankster James Potter was always one for respecting his elders.

“What? I didn’t do anything wrong!” Sirius yelled down the hallway

“Well, you weren’t exactly listening” Peter said almost nonchalantly

“How can I?! He sounds like one of Remus’ broken records! No one can hear him!” Sirius was getting more and more frustrated by the fact that his friends weren’t defending him.

“Sirius? What the fuck are you talking about?” Remus looked at him as if he was a confusing question on an exam. Merlin, were they still trying to make him feel crazy?

“This isn’t funny anymore” he said in a voice that was considerably quieter than a second ago, but still with the same amount of annoyance laced into it.

“What the fuck do you mean?! We aren’t trying to be funny you’re the only one that can’t hear him Sirius.” Remus’ voice was calm and collected which was odd. Whenever anyone had accused Remus of something in the passed few months he got snappy and sarcastic. You’d have thought the calm voice would have calmed Sirius in turn however it did the exact opposite.

“Eurgh just fuck off!” he didn’t give them a chance to respond, just shouldered James aside to get through.

22nd January 1972

It had been just over two weeks since the incident with Flitwick and Sirius hadn’t had much opportunity to talk to his friends. About three days into giving them all the silent treatment he caved and talked to James mostly because one lesson without messing around with his best mate had to be the most tedious times of his life. He most certainly didn’t apologise because he didn’t have anything to apologise for! Peter sort of acted as if nothing happened, he was quite level-headed that way, or just really good at hiding his true feelings. Either way Sirius was glad that he wouldn’t have to deal with another grumpy friend. Remus, however, was difficult. He’d started spending all of his time in the library and it was hard to catch him when he wasn’t in class or sleeping. Even in the great hall he stuffed his face and then bolted as quickly as possible. It had been 15 days to be exact and the most conversing Sirius and Remus had done was asking one of them to pass the butter over breakfast. He wasn’t going to apologise, but he did want his friend back. Maybe he was a bit rude, but he felt so humiliated. He could talk to Remus, but he wasn’t apologising. Even if he was a little bit in the wrong.

Now he just had to find Remus. It was Saturday so they were free of lesson for the weekend. Remus would usually be in the common room reading in the little nook by the window, but he was nowhere in sight, so the library was his best bet. Lily had said he’d been in there whenever she was there so Sirius sauntered out of the portrait hole. He started thinking, thinking of what to say, where Remus would be in the library, where to go next if he wasn’t there, what Remus would say back to him. One step in front of the other thinking, thinking, thinking. Sirius was watching his feet move faster and faster on the flagstones, watching as one foot went in between the cracks and how the next foot landed directly on the crack. He watched it happen over and over again, his body dragging him through the halls almost on instinct when his face collided into something. Well, more like someone. The boy looked up through his strands of hair that had fallen in his face to see none other than Remus Lupin holding his hand to his forehead slightly pushing his brownish curls away from his eyes.

“For fuck sake! Sirius you ever look where you’re going? Anyway, doesn’t matter I was looking for you come on!” Before he could respond Remus had grabbed his wrist and pulled him into the library, Sirius had had a growth spurt over Christmas, so he stood an inch or so taller then the mousy haired boy. The height difference wasn’t dramatic, but it did make it a bit more difficult for the shorter lanky boy to drag him in to the library. They passed several bookshelves until they reached the back corner of the back corner. Stacks of books were towered onto the table, with about 5 different scrolls of notes with Remus’ messy scrawl. A few larger books were strewn open across the centre of the table, it looked like Remus had taken up the table to himself. Sirius didn’t know where to start or what question to ask first so he settled for a quizzical look.

“Come here look” Remus looked a bit frantic moving around the piles of books and shoving aside different scrolls to reach an old leather-bound book. It was placed carefully in front of Sirius; the page was slightly crumbled around the edges, and they were yellowing like most of the books in the library. However, this book didn’t look like it could be used as a doorstop, it was rather small. Well for a book in the Hogwarts library it was small to be fair it was a regular sized book instead of one that could squash a whole ants nest.

“What am I looking at?” the eye roll from Remus was practically audible.

“It’s a spell. It was used by solider almost 5 centuries ago when they were spying on other armies and finding out their tactics. It’s actually brilliant, the spell got lost in history because they didn’t want everyone finding out about it, so it was only recorded a few times. It’s a harmless spell just enhances your hearing and wears of after a few hours, but look I found it!” Sirius took a second to look over at Remus his jumper was haphazardly thrown on this morning and looked a little crumpled. The usually brown curls that hung over his forehead were sticking up in all different directions like a mimic of James. The dark circles under his eyes were more prominent and Sirius kicked himself for not noticing that before today.

“and why were you looking for it?” There was another eyeroll. Sure, it sounded like an interesting spell, but he couldn’t think of how to use it for a good prank so what was the use.

“Ok look at this” a heftier book was dragged over, and Sirius started reading.

Effects of inbreeding on the body and mind

Various families have started to marry their own cousins to keep the blood pure. While this helps to keep pureblood families intact it can have a negative affect on any child that comes of the marriage. This tactic of marrying relatives such as cousin and even siblings was first used within royal families so no one would have to marry beneath their station. This however, caused some issues and why we haven’t seen many monarchs live their lives as fully as others.

“You have go to be kidding me?!” Sirius rounded on his friend quicker than a bludger.

“Look! All I’m saying is that inbreeding-“

“Messed me up?” Sirius face looked a bit funny, like there were so many emotions going through him he couldn’t pick which one to present.

“You’re not messed up, I just noticed that you were struggling to hear things and I wanted to help”

“My hearings fine! Y’know this prank of yours is going a bit far don’t you think? Hmm? Like I don’t know my families crazy I need my best mate going and …” he trailed off not sure how to finish his train of thought.

“I don’t know what prank you thought I was playing but you know that you’ve had problems hearing. The sorting you couldn’t hear McGonagall say your name, in a bunch of lessons you say you don’t listen, but I see you, you try so hard. Just let me help you, please. I’ve found a few different solutions and I’m sorry for bringing your family into it.” Remus’ rambling came to an abrupt halt.

“You noticed all those?” all the anger had dissipated from the taller boys body as his expression softened. Remus, however, looked surprised and bewildered at eh question.

“Yeah you’re one of my best friends. Now are you going to let all this research go to waste because I haven’t handed in any homework in for 2 weeks.” A hearty laugh left Sirius chest and clearly it was contagious, and Remus’ soft laugh also filled the space between them. When they had both gained a sense of composure again Sirius spoke up.

“Yeah ok let’s experiment some old spells” The cocky grin had returned to his face as the dark-haired boy sat on a rickety old chair with his legs tucked under himself.

Here is the rest of the book with some history on inbreeding in the royal family:

If we look at previous monarchs we can see that several of them had varying diseases and deformities. For example, King Charles II could barely speak or eat. He was a part of the Habsburgs line which was known for having an oversized jawline and large tongue which made matters such as eating and speaking clearly harder for this royal line. Due to the severity of this inbreeding, he was unable to procreate despite being married twice and he died quite young even for the 1700’s. At 39 he left behind a thrown with no heir ending the Habsburg rule in Spain.

Joanna of Castile, Catherine of Aragon’s older sister was from the house of Trastamara. Her parents king Ferdinand and Queen Isabella were second cousins and their family had been partaking in cousin marriages for centuries. This long line of inbreeding could have been the reason Catherine couldn’t bear children. Joanna was married into the Habsburg line at 16 to the son of the Holy Roman Emperor. Philip the Handsome was also a product of inbreeding and was known for having several mistresses. Despite all of this Joanna had fallen in love. Throughout her reign she had several mental breakdown and became frustrated with Philips behaviour towards her, this led to her stabbing one of his mistresses in the face. When he died unexpectedly she slept beside his corpse every night. She is remembered as Juana la Loca (Joanna the Crazy).

Ferdinand I of Austria, a descendant of Joanna of Castile, was born to double first cousins Emperor Franz II and Marie-Therese. Due to this Ferdinand was born with hydrocephaly, this condition was also common to the Habsburgs, this condition causes pressure on the sensitive tissue and leads to brain damage. He also had the famous Habsburg jaw and epilepsy, despite this the King insisted that the line be carried on to the heir and carry on the bloodline. His disabilities stopped him from directly controlling matters of state, these responsibilities were kept by a mastery of counsellors and regents. One of his favourite activities was to sit in a basket and roll around on the floor. He held the thrown for 18 years until he abdicated to his nephew Francis Joseph. Despite all of the problems inbreeding caused him Ferdinand lived to be 82, 27 years after he abdicated the throne.

Queen Victoria’s genes went all of over Europe, her daughter, Princesses Alice, was the mother of Tsarina Alexandra Romanov, the last Tsarina of Russia; grandmother of the last Viceroy of India and great-grandmother of the Duke of Edinburgh. All of Queen Victoria’s children were inbred as her besotted husband, Prince Albert, was her first cousin. She had the blood clotting disorder hemophilia, which was passed to all her children and then went all across European royalty. While the Queen herself didn’t suffer much from the disease one of her children and five of her grandchildren died due to complications because of the disease. This disease is caused by both parents having the recessive gene for it, both Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had to have hemophilia for it to be passed onto their children. For such a rare and recessive disease to be strongly present in cousins, there is speculation that the queen herself may have been the product of inbreeding and whether or not her biological father was actually Edward, the Duke of Kent. Hemophilia has become known as the ‘royal disease due to the reach Queen Victoria had with her blood line.