Hermione lay in bed, staring into black. The room was pitch dark, the only illumination coming from the shard of moonlight that had pushed its way through the gap between the two threadbare curtains. But Hermione didn't know, all she could see was nothingness, eyes open or not.

Her sightless eyes were wet with silent tears. Tears that were one part of many that had been shed in this very bedroom.

Hermione had spent hours on end sitting on this bed, a mess of emotions encircling her like a not-so-comforting blanket. She had attempted at reading Braille, and had only partially succeeded. A fair few of the letters were still meaningless bumps on a page to Hermione. She had tried for weeks, but to no prevail. Being extremely discouraged, her already quavering emotions got the best of her, and she had sobbed until she had no more tears to cry.

Coping with her blindness had never gotten much easier over the past few months. Although the others had been quite supportive in helping her, Hermione still felt isolated and distant from them. She made constant excuses to get away from everything they could see and she couldn't. Her only companion these days was herself alone, and she seemed to be drifting further away from the real world with each passing day, becoming disconnected.

But no one else could know that. Hermione still acted strong, self-reliant, brave, and not fazed by her sudden blindness, while she really felt weak and alone.

Hermione also felt stupid and clumsy. She was incapable of performing simple day-to-day tasks. Everything she attempted at became something of an idiotic mistake. While helping Mrs. Weasley with dinner, for example. She wanted to show that she was fully functional, but her performance did just the opposite. Setting the table was quite a task; she never knew where to put any of the silverware, plates, or napkins. Forget about cutting vegetables, as she had cut herself more than once. For these reasons, Mrs. Weasley had advised against Hermione going to Australia to lift the charm on her parents until a later date.

"I understand you miss them dear," Mrs. Weasley had responded upon her asking. "But I don't think you're ready yet. I think we should wait a while, until you become more accustomed to things. Oh, but your parents are fine, I'm sure…"

These words, only upon remembering them, brought fresh tears to Hermione's eyes that she didn't know she had. In this case, her own parents wouldn't even see her for her eighteenth birthday, when you came of age in the Muggle world. Instead, she would be here, at the Burrow, celebrating something her parents had no idea about.

Then Hermione heard a knock on the door, jerking her back to reality.

Hermione stopped abruptly. She quickly positioned herself as if asleep. She heard the door being pushed quietly open, but shut again just as quickly. The room was silent again.

Harry, Hermione thought immediately. Or Ron… Judging be the heavy footsteps heading upstairs, she knew it was one of the two. Both of them really cared and wanted to help her, but Hermione had been pushing them away from her this whole time.

She missed them. She wanted things back to normal. But no magic she had ever heard of could cure blindness, and she couldn't read anything about it if she wanted to find out. If she couldn't even talk to her own friends anymore, everything else would be lost.

"Oh, what am I going to do?" she whispered to herself.

Hermione only fell asleep to get away. Only to take a break from everything that was happening. But she knew plenty well that she would have to get up and face another day tomorrow. She knew that too well.