Limned in Blue Light
Author: tryslora
Title: Limned in Blue Light
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/s: Gen
Character/s: Erica, OCs for her family
Summary: When Erica’s letter for Hogwarts arrives, she doesn’t know what to think. Her siblings help her figure things out and make up her mind.
Warnings: near-miss with physical child abuse, making a child feel guilty for epilepsy (emotional abuse), Hogwarts AU
Word Count: 896 words
Prompt: #6 Family
Author's Notes: This is a part of the Hogwarts AU series A Kind of Magic. I’ve been really looking forward to delving into more about Erica in this ‘verse and this offered a perfect opportunity to see how she starts out. Also, I don’t own the characters or world of Teen Wolf and Harry Potter, but I do love playing with them.
Erica holds the letter in her hands, smudging pencil across the heavy white paper. The words on it make no sense. The owl that found her in her backyard and delivered the letter didn’t really make sense at the time, either. But this… Hogwarts? School of Wizardry? She reads it, over and over, trying to understand what it really means to say.
Her mother finds her there and Erica’s first instinct is to hide the letter behind her back. She smiles up at her mother and nods when she’s told that her older brother is coming home for dinner soon and the little ones need someone to take care of them while mum makes dinner. And to be good, and try not to do anything odd because her father will be home that night.
Erica dreads the nights when her father is home. Dreads the way it makes her episodes worse. Dreads the way it makes her more likely to just have her brain turn off until her body twitches and resets and she comes back to life on the floor with the family staring at her like she’s some kind of an alien. She dreads the aches from bruises and the burn of muscles and joints that were stressed during seizure.
She obediently follows her mother inside and convinces her younger siblings to play a game, the four of them sprawled together with her all across the floor of the room she shares with her younger sister in their London flat. She still has the letter tucked into her back pocket, forgotten until she herds everyone down to dinner and it falls out of her pocket, onto the floor, right in front of her father.
He picks it up. “What’s this?”
Erica starts to shake. She sees the halo that warns her that an episode is coming, but she thinks she can keep it away. It’s all in her mind, her mother says. It’s just because she wants to make her father angry. She is only eleven years old, but she knows that it is all on her that this happens.
“I don’t know,” she answers honestly. “An owl gave it to me.”
He laughs then, and she winces, trying to ignore the narrowing of her vision. She reaches for the table, gripping the edge of it tightly. “It says it’s for me,” she says. “It says I’m… I’m supposed to go to school. Something about magic. I want to know all about it.”
He slams his hands on the table and she jerks back from it, stumbling on unsteady feet.
“We don’t have time for this, Erica,” he yells. “This is a good family, a strong family. We support each other here, and your mum needs you to be helping her, not making up some fanciful stories about magical schools and owls and shite.”
Erica blinks. Her father is limned in light, surrounded by a bright blue halo that shimmers in her vision. “It’s not made up,” she protests. “The owl gave me the letter. I’m not lying.”
She sees him stand, and that’s the last thing that makes sense. The blue brightens, explodes out into the room in a shower of sudden rainbows, and her head aches. Her body goes stiff and she finds herself on the floor, her head in her brother’s lap as he holds her still, fingers combing gently through her hair.
“Dad flew.”
She can’t see which of the little ones it is that speaks so excitedly, can’t sift through the voices in her memory to tell them apart. The words don’t make sense either. “People don’t fly,” she says, and her tongue still feels thick, the words strange.
“Dad did.”
That’s Colin talking, his voice a low, calm murmur above her. He’s fourteen now, and his voice has dropped, not nearly as deep as their father’s but it’s not high pitched enough to blend in with their younger siblings.
“He raised his hand,” Colin continues. “He was going to hit you. Then he just… flew backwards. Like magic.”
There’s a tap at the window and Erica looks over to see another owl. It makes her smile when the kids start shrieking and one of them goes to let it in. She sits up cautiously, her head still not feeling quite right, and she waits for Colin to place the envelope in her hand.
They read it together, and in the end Colin hugs her. “You have to go,” he says. “I think you did that, tonight. Right before your seizure. I think they can help you.”
Erica looks from him to the little ones. They are a family: six kids, two parents, and a whole hell of a lot of chaos. “Who will help with the kids?”
“I will,” Colin says. “I promise. I’ll help Mom, and I’ll make sure Dad doesn’t cause any trouble. You go get the help you need and learn how to control that.”
Erica leans into her brother, and finds herself with a lap full of siblings. She loves them all so much, but she thinks Colin’s right. Maybe she has to leave her family behind to figure herself out. It’s a terrifying thing to think at the age of eleven, but there’s this letter, and this owl, and she’s going to send a reply back somehow.
She’s going to go to Hogwarts.
Title: Limned in Blue Light
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/s: Gen
Character/s: Erica, OCs for her family
Summary: When Erica’s letter for Hogwarts arrives, she doesn’t know what to think. Her siblings help her figure things out and make up her mind.
Warnings: near-miss with physical child abuse, making a child feel guilty for epilepsy (emotional abuse), Hogwarts AU
Word Count: 896 words
Prompt: #6 Family
Author's Notes: This is a part of the Hogwarts AU series A Kind of Magic. I’ve been really looking forward to delving into more about Erica in this ‘verse and this offered a perfect opportunity to see how she starts out. Also, I don’t own the characters or world of Teen Wolf and Harry Potter, but I do love playing with them.
Erica holds the letter in her hands, smudging pencil across the heavy white paper. The words on it make no sense. The owl that found her in her backyard and delivered the letter didn’t really make sense at the time, either. But this… Hogwarts? School of Wizardry? She reads it, over and over, trying to understand what it really means to say.
Her mother finds her there and Erica’s first instinct is to hide the letter behind her back. She smiles up at her mother and nods when she’s told that her older brother is coming home for dinner soon and the little ones need someone to take care of them while mum makes dinner. And to be good, and try not to do anything odd because her father will be home that night.
Erica dreads the nights when her father is home. Dreads the way it makes her episodes worse. Dreads the way it makes her more likely to just have her brain turn off until her body twitches and resets and she comes back to life on the floor with the family staring at her like she’s some kind of an alien. She dreads the aches from bruises and the burn of muscles and joints that were stressed during seizure.
She obediently follows her mother inside and convinces her younger siblings to play a game, the four of them sprawled together with her all across the floor of the room she shares with her younger sister in their London flat. She still has the letter tucked into her back pocket, forgotten until she herds everyone down to dinner and it falls out of her pocket, onto the floor, right in front of her father.
He picks it up. “What’s this?”
Erica starts to shake. She sees the halo that warns her that an episode is coming, but she thinks she can keep it away. It’s all in her mind, her mother says. It’s just because she wants to make her father angry. She is only eleven years old, but she knows that it is all on her that this happens.
“I don’t know,” she answers honestly. “An owl gave it to me.”
He laughs then, and she winces, trying to ignore the narrowing of her vision. She reaches for the table, gripping the edge of it tightly. “It says it’s for me,” she says. “It says I’m… I’m supposed to go to school. Something about magic. I want to know all about it.”
He slams his hands on the table and she jerks back from it, stumbling on unsteady feet.
“We don’t have time for this, Erica,” he yells. “This is a good family, a strong family. We support each other here, and your mum needs you to be helping her, not making up some fanciful stories about magical schools and owls and shite.”
Erica blinks. Her father is limned in light, surrounded by a bright blue halo that shimmers in her vision. “It’s not made up,” she protests. “The owl gave me the letter. I’m not lying.”
She sees him stand, and that’s the last thing that makes sense. The blue brightens, explodes out into the room in a shower of sudden rainbows, and her head aches. Her body goes stiff and she finds herself on the floor, her head in her brother’s lap as he holds her still, fingers combing gently through her hair.
“Dad flew.”
She can’t see which of the little ones it is that speaks so excitedly, can’t sift through the voices in her memory to tell them apart. The words don’t make sense either. “People don’t fly,” she says, and her tongue still feels thick, the words strange.
“Dad did.”
That’s Colin talking, his voice a low, calm murmur above her. He’s fourteen now, and his voice has dropped, not nearly as deep as their father’s but it’s not high pitched enough to blend in with their younger siblings.
“He raised his hand,” Colin continues. “He was going to hit you. Then he just… flew backwards. Like magic.”
There’s a tap at the window and Erica looks over to see another owl. It makes her smile when the kids start shrieking and one of them goes to let it in. She sits up cautiously, her head still not feeling quite right, and she waits for Colin to place the envelope in her hand.
They read it together, and in the end Colin hugs her. “You have to go,” he says. “I think you did that, tonight. Right before your seizure. I think they can help you.”
Erica looks from him to the little ones. They are a family: six kids, two parents, and a whole hell of a lot of chaos. “Who will help with the kids?”
“I will,” Colin says. “I promise. I’ll help Mom, and I’ll make sure Dad doesn’t cause any trouble. You go get the help you need and learn how to control that.”
Erica leans into her brother, and finds herself with a lap full of siblings. She loves them all so much, but she thinks Colin’s right. Maybe she has to leave her family behind to figure herself out. It’s a terrifying thing to think at the age of eleven, but there’s this letter, and this owl, and she’s going to send a reply back somehow.
She’s going to go to Hogwarts.