Normal

I'm normal. Really.

I just don't feel like I am sometimes.

I don't know what I feel like half the time. I just watch the clock, notice how the hour hand moves. Most people can't see it because they won't just sit there and watch it.

I wouldn't when I was younger. But when you have nothing else to do, time seems to be irrelevant.

I used to read books when I was bored, but the only books we have around here are so cheerful that they depress me more. Just what I need.

We don't have any good music, either. All the stuff I like is too pessimistic and questionable apparently. So they play the radio all day, but only on channels that play dance and 'pop' music. If you concentrate hard you can almost imagine it away, but I gave up on doing that a long time ago now.

My Mum burnt all my records last year. If I try hard, and think about it, I can still remember the smell, drifting through my window.

She left pretty soon after that. Left, taking Cy with her. Dad pretends he doesn't miss them, but he does. He isn't the best actor, he doesn't have the knack of just holding it all inside and not caring about anything. He cares about everything, about Mum, about Cy, who was only two and will never know Dad, never even know that I exist. Because she won't tell her, and how will Cy remember a practically mute brother, who wasn't even wanted by his own Mum?

I can't care, I can't give a damn about anything. If I did, then I'd break down. I'm close enough to it already. I stopped caring when they left, when Cy wasn't even allowed to hug me goodbye. When Mum didn't speak to me or Dad, and just flew away on her old cleansweep...

She'd been going to get me one of those, one day. She'd whisper that in my ear as she tucked me into bed when I was seven. When I was cured, when I was normal again. I'd fly, I'd be the best damned flyer at... The school.

Wen I turned eight she'd stopped tucking me into bed. Dad would turn out my light, but all he'd say was goodnight before he'd be gone.

When I was nine I stopped noticing. Sometimes I'd go to bed, and sometimes I wouldn't. Sometimes I would just stare at the ceiling, but sometimes I'd sleep for days on end.

When I turned ten, I'd sleep every night for exactly ten hours, turning my own light out. I wouldn't sleep under covers, but curl up on the duvet and make sure I woke up dead on nine. If I didn't, then who knows what would have happened.

When I turned eleven, I'd fall asleep in front of the window. It'd always be ready to open, should there have been a tapping on it, by the small foot of an owl. There never was of course, they only let normal people into school. The ones like me, who are normal but are told that they aren't, aren't even considered. We are just an unfortunate accident, the ones who doesn't deserve even the knowledge that owls do get sent out, that there is a school.

I'll be damned if I say the name of that place. I've never said it, not that I say much now. Dad used to sit there for hours, pleading me to talk to him. He gave up after a while.

I talk to myself sometimes. When the window's shut and I'm in my room. My voice has been turned hoarse, but I can still do it, even if I'm out of practice.

When I turned twelve... Well, it was today. I go to bed at seven and wake up at seven. Nice and normal. I don't sleep half the time, but that's normal too. I just take my Dad's sleeping pills, and I wake up at seven again - nice and normal.

That's one thing you should know about me. I'm the normalest person you'll ever meet. Even if I do get a bit crazy at times.

Everyone has their crazy moments, or so I've been told. Don't tell me you don't - because you lie. That's what people do. They eat, sleep, excrete and lie. Don't tell me you don't. You're contradicting yourself.

Dad just turned the radio off. That means they were about to have the news. He says it depresses him, but I see him reading the papers and hear it playing late at night when the pills don't work. He thinks it depresses me, but it doesn't. I'm just detached from it. I've never met the people these things are happening to, I never leave this house. As far as everyone else goes, I don't exist. As far as I go, they don't exist.

I found my Mum's old wand the other day. She lost it, back when I was six. She spent days looking for it - they aren't cheap, and we were - well, we still are, poor. In the end she took me to the shop to get her a new one. She still had hope for me, then. There were so many boxes, and I remember thinking that one day, one of those boxes would be gone and I would have it.

I know now, that I won't. Even if one was going to be mine, it will have gone to someone else. Someone more suited for it.

I tried some old spells Mum used to do. Wingardium Leviosa used to be a favourite of hers when she dropped things and wanted to pick them up. I can levitate everything in my room, now.

The Ministry of Magic would have called if they'd thought me normal. Now they'll just put it down to uncontrolled and untrained magic, the fault of an unfortunate accident. That's all I am, an abnormal side product of an unfortunate accident, as far as they can see. If they think of me at all, which they don't. Why would they bother?

But I'm as normal as hell. Don't you dare say I'm not.