A/N: Guess what? I've just finished Chapter Ten :D I feel accomplished. Yes I know you're saying well where is it? But I'm keeping a bit in reserve in case I get writer's block. Also I'm going back and editing some parts...But just for re-assurance if I drop dead in the next couple of days you will have up to Chapter Ten because in my will I have added that Tali must upload any chapters that haven't been uploaded before she can have any of my stuff :p

Also I've decided to give Tali a week to beta a chapter before I upload anyway...She's had 10 tens sooooo I'm uploading ^_^ Enjoy!

Phoenix: Shut up *glares*

Tali: Never, hahahahaha!

Phoenix: *glares fiercer*

Tali: *looks up* Hey! I have to do stuff to get your stuff when you die!

Phoenix: Yes! Wins :p

Chapter Six:

The conversation with Professor Dumbledore was interesting to say the least. The Dursleys were still in such a state of shock when they returned that they didn't realise that Sirius, Ron and Hermione had let themselves into the house. Hermione had been setting up a place for them to sleep on Harry's floor while Ron watched Sirius in amusement as he examined the appliances in the kitchen with awe.

Dumbledore arrived shortly after them and took everyone into the lounge room to talk. He explained Harry's state and that Ron and Hermione would be staying there to look after Harry. Vernon ranted and raved and yelled and forbid them from staying in his house. He finally agreed when Dumbledore told him 'I am surprised and grateful for the love you are showing your nephew by offering to be his full-time carer'.

Ron and Hermione had gone upstairs to wait while Sirius and Dumbledore said goodbye. Sirius gave Harry a big hug, with a few tears, while Dumbledore handed him a letter.

When they had left Vernon turned to Harry. 'Blind, eh?' he asked.

'Completely,' Harry answered. 'The curse completely destroyed my eyes. I'm actually quite lucky; it could have gone straight through my head.'

Vernon muttered something that made Harry think that his uncle wasn't too sure if that was lucky. He then sent him up to his bedroom. Harry walked up the steps slowly, able to manoeuvre the small familiar house far easier than the large and complex Hogwarts. He found his room and opened the door.

'You guys in here?' he asked. Hermione leap to her feet and grabbed his hand, steering him through the obstacle course that was his room. He sat down on his bed gratefully.

'Hey guys?' he said, tentatively, scared of what he was about to do.

'Yeah?' his friends answered.

'I've got something to show you,' he said. 'This' – he gestured to his face – 'wasn't the only thing I got from that night.' He pulled back his left sleeve and revealed the Dark Mark emblazoned on his forearm.

Harry waited for the sounds of disbelief, shock and disgust that were slowly becoming all too familiar but they never came. What did though was unexpected. Hermione and Ron had both silently got up and were now hugging him. It seemed to go on minutes, hours, days, forever. Harry became aware that the front of his shirt where Hermione had buried her head was slowly becoming wet. She was crying, crying enough tears for her best friends who couldn't. For the boys that were prohibited either by pride or physical impairment. For the wreckage that had become his life. And for what was undoubtedly going to come.

The next morning his friends had untangled themselves from his sleeping form and he awoke alone.

'Ron? Hermione?' he asked the darkness, nervously.

'I'm here, don't worry Harry,' Hermione had said, sleepily from the floor and Ron grunted from the other side of the room. Harry sighed with relief and retrieved from his pocket Dumbledore's letter. He held it out and asked:

'Hermione? Could you please read it for me?' She took the letter, opened it and gasped. 'What? What's it say?' he asked, scared.

'I don't know,' she admitted softly. 'It's in Braille.'

There was silence for several minutes. Ron finally broke it by asking 'What's Brav-el?' obviously confused.

'It's Bra-ille,' Hermione said slowly. 'It's what blind people read with. Look –' she paused, no doubt showing Ron the letter '-each letter is represented by a dot which is raised so that a blind person can feel them. Oh! There's a translation card here too.' She said excitedly. 'Give me a few minutes.'

Harry and Ron waited impatiently for her translation. 'It says; Dear Harry, I want you to learn Braille. I will be sending you a copy of your textbooks in Braille and want you to practice over the summer. Hermione will no doubt translate this for you, but I wish her to refrain from doing so as it is important that you learn to read it for yourself,' she finished. 'There's more, but you're gonna have to learn to read it,' she said, firmly.

Harry groaned. Hermione passed him the translation card and helped him translate the rest of the letter. He struggled a lot and was unable to read it fluently. 'A Braille typewriter will be available upon your return to Hogwarts. Ron and Hermione, I ask that you attempt any training that you think will help Harry adjust. Arrangements have been made to collect you on your birthday. Be careful, the politics within the Ministry seem to be heading in an ugly direction. Sincerely, Albus Dumbledore,' Hermione read out when he once he had identified each letter correctly.

The following weeks passed quickly even if they were uneventful. The Dursley's mostly left him, Hermione and Ron alone. Of course this was after Vernon's attempt to lock them in Harry's room was foiled by Hermione's threats of reporting him to the police for child abuse. After that they were too frightened to come close to the three teenagers.

Ron and Hermione were reacting to Harry's condition in very different ways. Hermione was suffocatingly over-helpful. She tried to be sensitive but she wasn't very good at it either making him feel ashamed or dancing around the subject. Ron, on the other hand, had taken a very different approach. He'd taken to calling Harry 'Bat' when he was feeling particularly down about his blindness. He was more likely to allow Harry to have independence than Hermione would. However, he often took this too far, being embarrassed or unwilling to help Harry through tasks he needed help on. He tried hard not to resent either of his friends, gently guiding them on the appropriate behaviour, but he would have preferred to have a mixture of his friends as his carer rather than the two extremes.

With Hermione's help he would scrutinise the Daily Prophet for news of Voldemort's plans. Much to their disappointment, even worry, however, not a lot was being reported after the initial wave at the end of the school year. Harry was scared by what this implied. Could it mean that he was gearing up for a full on attack? Or maybe he was lying low trying to undermine Fudge? Harry had not gone public with the only solid proof of Voldemort's return yet and both the wider Wizarding community and the Ministry of Magic were beginning to doubt Fudge. Occasionally Harry would be mentioned by certain members of the Ministry but none of these comments were nice. They seemed intent on defaming his image from the Boy-Who-Lived to a slightly deranged and lying teenage boy. And unfortunately the public seemed to be buying it. The teenagers were certain that Fudge wouldn't be Minister much longer and that could only spell trouble for Harry.

Meanwhile, Harry was slowly realising how much he had relied on his sight. Without it he had to measure the size of his steps, tell the difference between people from their scent, movements and clothing, learn to read body language from sound and touch, bury the habit of opening his eyes in the morning but most of all that he couldn't do everything on his own anymore. He was learning though; he was able to relearn how to do most things after one or two assists from Hermione or Ron. However his pride did sometimes still get in the way. He almost killed himself in his first shower since his blinding.

He had insisted that he wouldn't need any help and, when Hermione refused to leave him alone in the bathroom, on wearing shorts. The first thing he did was nearly scald himself by turning on the wrong tap. Then he slipped and probably would have really hurt himself if Hermione hadn't caught him. Harry had begrudgingly accepted Hermione's help in turning on the taps. He held her the back of her hand while she did so and he tried to memorise where the taps where in relation to him.

Once the water was on he tried to wash his hair. The first lot of shampoo missed horribly but the second hit his head without Hermione's help and he felt quite proud of himself. It became apparent quickly though that his wound hadn't entirely healed when some of the lathered shampoo leaked down his face, burning the healing wound. Hermione had to catch him again as he slipped and she washed his face off gently, removing the stinging substance from the wound. He was careful to tilt his head back as he washed the shampoo out of his hair. Unfortunately he tilted his head too far back and got a mouth- and nose-full of water. He chocked and tried to cough up the water, to no avail. He backed into the wall but, disorientated, he couldn't get his head to get in an angle that would stop the water. He groped wildly in the air trying to find the taps when Hermione realised what was happening. She decided that a shower was too dangerous from now on and insisted that he only take baths.

All of this was mightily embarrassing, but he learnt his lesson on being too independent too quickly. He allowed Ron to help him shave for two reasons; one, he didn't need any more scars and two he would obviously do a horrible job himself considering he missed great chunks even when he could see.

His textbooks had arrived and Hermione insisted that Harry spend at least two hours a day trying to learn Braille. It was incredibly difficult and frustrating. Harry had managed, after a week of persuading, to convince Hermione to read the letters out as Harry passed his finger over them. Contrary to Hermione's belief that this would hamper his growth, it only increased it and Harry was reading, albeit slowly and disjointed, Braille independently now.

Hermione and Ron had invented several 'games' to help his independence. Handing him different objects for him to name; making him guess who was in front of him with less and less hints and one game that Harry had taken a great liking to filled the majority of his holidays. The basis of the game was for Ron to pretend he was feeling a particular emotion. Then Harry had to guess by various bits of body language. He was becoming quite good at it. He was able to hear the difference between gasps, feel the difference between stiffness, and the game had now progressed to tones as well.

Something that Harry felt he would never become entirely comfortable with was the lack of knowledge of who was near him. His sense of smell had developed dramatically over the few weeks and he was able to tell the difference between Ron, Hermione and the Dursley's through their scent. Another one of Hermione's brilliant ideas helped Harry with this, a little at least. It was seeing people through his fingers. He had been practicing with Ron and Hermione and he felt that with a few more people to practice with he would be able to see, in his mind's eye, what someone looks like. Although it was far easier for them to just say who it was when he or they entered a room, they had, for his sake he was sure, allowed him to swipe a hand over the features of their face. It made him feel more comfortable and he was grateful.

Dudley stayed out of the house for the majority of the summer, switching between his friend's houses and bullying the younger kids of the street. Vernon tried to maintain some sort of authority over Harry but failed miserably whenever Ron or Hermione entered the room. Petunia flat out refused to acknowledge his existence. With the only part of him that really connected him to Lily gone she could safely ignore her nephew without being tortured by her sister's eyes. The Dursley's had conceded to buying him a walking cane so that they didn't have to face Ron and Hermione as often. He didn't actually need it often, as he had developed to a point where he could manoeuvre without it after a couple of visits, but it told people quite obviously in big bold letter 'I AM BLIND'. Harry became used to the cane quickly and soon had convinced Hermione that he could go for walks around the neighbourhood without killing himself.

It was on one of these walks that Harry realised just how wrong he was.

A/N: No it did not take this long for Harry to get clean! It took Harry this long to have a shower. I always thought that Madam Pomfrey wouldn't let her patients have a shower, whether it was bath or a cleaning spell instead…