What did love mean?
A question asked over and over again, never to be solved.
What was this great invisible force that seemed to move mountains.
People had said love was the feeling of home.
Others had said love was an ocean to cross, constantly storming and dangerous for everyone who dared navigate across the waters.
Scientists said love was just a bunch of hormones.
Hermione knew they were all wrong.
Love wasn't just some hormones, love wasn't a weird metaphor, love was the feeling of clumps in her eyes and colours slowly draining from the world.
It had started a cold winter morning, the tension was high, the horcruxes bearing on their mind heavily. A time where the days started with harsh cold and the brightness of the world and ended with Hermione secretly crying herself to sleep, back turned to her friends.
It was so bad that Hermione didn't even notice at first, how her jumper suddenly was a light grey instead, when yesterday it was a light violet.
When she did she rubbed at her eyes and asked Harry the colour of the jumper, and he confirmed that it was violet. He didn't ask why and she didn't give an explanation. It simply wasn’t necessary.
Over the next months as they prepared for what inevitably would be the final battle of the war more and more colours disappeared. First her beloved violet, then red, her house colour and Harry's favourite, after that blue, reminding her of how much she missed Luna, just as spring came and the first plants grew again green disappeared, yellow was gone just two days after that.
- - - — - - -
Hermione had only one colour left, no matter how much she loved every other colour, orange was the most important one, she couldn’t lose orange. Orange like warmth, orange like pumpkin juice, orange like Ron’s hair, always shining bright.
She was scared. She was oh so very scared.
It was the night before everything would end and Hermione had snuck away, just for a few minutes, to a place far enough from Ron and Harry, a place they wouldn't hear her. She’d have to be strong tomorrow so she had to get everything out of her system tonight.
Silent sobs turned into something just short of screams but it all came to a sudden halt when she wiped her tears away and her hand came back a bright orange. Another dam broke. Something in her body tore apart as he saw the bright orange on her hands slowly turn to a rusty bronze and then a dark brown maroon before eventually all that was left was a dark grey, smeared all over her hands.
And then she was snapped out of her daze by a loud howl echoing through the forbidden forest.
Her head snapped into the direction where she thought it came from. Hurriedly she got up, noticing the shadows around her being wildly different from how they were when she arrived, she must have spent hours sitting there, mourning.
With one last glance to the surrounding forest she ran off, back to her grey friends, ready to face tomorrow.
- - - — - - -
The battle passed in a blurr, her stomach churning with anxiety and the need to run, the devastating shock, the joy from seeing her friends, or at least most of them, alive, the guilt of knowing she didn’t save them all.
And then it was over. The injured were tended to, Hogwarts rebuilt and though it was hard, life moved on.
Harry and Ron left Hogwarts, Hermione stayed.
She went to Madam Pomfrey soon enough and under the guise of a spell from the war explained her deteriorating eyesight and lack of colours.
Life moved on, towards the end of the year the world was blurry and pale around her, even with the strong enchanted glasses she wore, her eyesight would barely last for another year.
Life moved on and yet the shining crystals in her eyes hurt more and more, making her bleed and cry even more. And even if it was painful, and horrible, she saved everyone of her crystals.
Saved every bit of her love.
- - - — - - -
By the time she had graduated and started her rapidly growing career at the ministry Hermione had figured out everything she’d need.
She had a list of accommodations she’d require, a set of skills learned specifically for this, spells to help her throughout her day. All that to replace the simplest aspects of having functional eyes.
And next to all that she had a small flat in London with a closet that contained a huge bag full of crystals that shone like stars.
- - - — - - -
Hermione threw her all into her last months of sight, spending her time with work and friends as much as she could, there was no second of boredom. Not with her constant promotions, not with running around to catch this celebration and be on time for that reunion.
And then it happened, it was coming for a long while, she had a protocol set up for this. And still it hurt the way the night she lost orange hurt.
After a long night of crying as huge crystals finally fell from her eyes and grew in her eye socket, separating her nerves completely a single owl left the flat.
And it should stay that way until a week later her pre-approved leave was over and her pre-bought supplies dwindled.
And then it was back to work, back to paperwork she could easily fill out with the help of magic, back to the paths she could walk from memory and with assistance of the cane that had supported her for months.
Nothing dramatically had changed, logically she knew that, before that she could barely make out shapes without the glasses and with the glasses it was nearly as bad, but now everything was gone. Light was gone, darkness was gone, shapes were gone.
All that was left was nothingness.
Nothingness she wished she could blame Ron for.
But she couldn't, it was never his fault.
It wasn't his fault that she loved him. Loved him enough to create the most precious things just for him.
Life moved on and so did she. It took Hermione another year to be fully over Ron, it took a year for the last crystals to be shed.
Wizards were not like muggles in regards to their disabilities.
Here a well spoken spell could make up for the worst she was missing.
A spell to hide the weird shine and directionless gaze her eyes had.
A spell to write down what she was saying.
A spell to call her cane to her side.
And life continued.
- - - — - - -
Or it did until Ron asked to meet up.
In of itself nothing too unusual, they were friends after all. WHat was weird was that Harry wasn't mentioned. And that they were going to a cafe. And that Ginny called her just before they were meant to meet up to help her pick an outfit.
Hermione shooed her off fairly quickly, Ginny was one of her closest friends but this was a bit weird, especially since this was supposed to be a casual hangout.
And how it often was in life, it didn't go as expected.
They sat in the cafè and chatted a bit, when it came time to pay Ron insisted on paying until she gave in. Then he invited her to a nice walk through the park, by now it was early evening and the temperature was a big chilly, before Hermione could even comment Ron gave her his jacket.
It felt a little weird to Hermione, Ron had absolutely never acted this way, it simply wasnt their dynamic.
And then, the reveal came, the reason for their meetup, the reason for Ron's behaviour.
“I love you.”
“I’m sorry, I loved you.”