A/N: Rose learns how to get around. Hermione/Rose mother-daughter fic.
Submission for:
The Battlefield Wars: Battle #3 - Rose Weasley. Hermione Weasley. Prompt - One of the characters is suffering a physical impairment, the other helps.
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry (Challenges & Assignments): Potions Assignment #10 - Write about someone moving on in their life.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
It had started when she was four. I noticed she was falling whenever she walked, tripping over objects that were strewn around her bedroom. At first, I thought there was something wrong with her feet but then I realized she wasn't reading well. That's when I took her to healers and found out the truth - Rose was slowly losing her eyesight.
Magic could fix many things but it seemed that visual diseases were not one. There was so much that could go wrong, so many nerves and tissues that needed to be considered, that nothing was 100% fool-proof. Even with my own research, I couldn't find anything to help my little girl.
The healers weren't much help either. They had given me a potion to drop into her eyes every day, in hopes of stopping or reversing her deteriorating sight. I followed the healers' orders, administering the potion religiously but nothing was happening. Her eyes continued to get cloudier and cloudier, those baby blues I loved so much fading into a milky white. Eventually, the healers told me to give up. Rose would lose her eyesight completely.
After that, she began to sit on the back-porch every evening, watching the sun dip below the horizon as she drummed her fingers on the steps in time to her own made-up rhythm. Her eyes would water from the strain of trying to focus on the bright colours and the birds which flew across the sky, though I think sometimes, these were actual tears. Everything was getting fuzzier and fuzzier and the darkness was creeping in around the edges. There was nothing left to do. By the age of seven, Rose was completely blind.
I tried to help her all I could. I would sit with her on the back porch and describe all the colours I saw, the greens of the trees, the browns of the birds and reds and yellows of the flowers in my garden. She would listen diligently, committing them all to memory but I knew she was still sad, knowing she would never see them for herself again.
I helped her to move around the house, using her hands as an extension of her eyes to feel her way around the house. I walked behind her, guiding her cautious steps as she mapped her surroundings in her mind.
She fell many times, tripping over a forgotten chair or her own feet and I helped her up, wiping away the tears. "Remember, Rose. I know it's hard but you have to get this. Life is hard and not everyone's going to help you. You have to learn how to move around on your own without anyone else's help."
She would nod, more tears streaming down her face, before we tried again, her feet in front of mine.
Then one day she was sitting out on the porch by herself. Ron and Hugo were out the house and it was just me in the kitchen. I heard her rise to her feet, my own ears keen to any sounds she made, as she made her way towards me.
"Mummy! Mummy!" she cried, moving quickly before she stumbled, her chin hitting the porch step.
I stepped forward, ready to drop the knife and carrot I had been cutting before I caught myself. Rose had to learn. Life was a mean place.
"Mummy!" she cried, her chin turning red as she cried. "Mummy! Help me! I can't see."
My heart broke but I forced myself to look away. This was for the best.
"Help me! I can't get back up! I can't see!" she cried again.
I took a deep breath. If she still couldn't get up in the next few seconds, I'd run over to her and-
But her wails stopped with a few gasping sobs. She picked herself off the ground slowly as she held her hands out for support. Her head moved around, her bright eyes focused on nothing before her as she listened. There were birds chirping around her, and the grandfather clock sounding in the living room.
The tea kettle whistled next to me and I almost jumped out of my skin. Rose turned her head towards the sound before she moved closer to the wall, her hands guiding her slowly along as she entered the house and made her way towards it.
"Rose," I said softly, fearing that I might break the small miracle I was seeing. "Rose, come to me."
Her eyes widened as she recognized my voice and she moved a bit faster now, eventually pushing herself off the wall to cross the room and walk right into my arms. I pulled her tightly to my chest, my own tears dampening her little shoulder.
"Why are you crying, Mummy?" she asked.
I pulled away and looked into her face, into those eyes that would never see, and I smiled. "Because I'm happy, baby," I said before I hugged her again. My little Rosie would be fine.