Disclaimer: Not for profit- for entertainment purposes only.

Spoilers: Through HBP, just to be safe.

A/N: Huge thank you to Kris and Larilee for the beta- you ladies rock! Part of the 7Spells challenge on live journal, assignment: Hermione Granger. Prompt: Supernova


The biggest lie anyone ever told about Hermione Granger was really a misconception. But when the truth was so glaringly obvious to anyone who actually cared to look, misunderstanding and prevarication crossed at that funny intersection of gossip and hearsay.

As it was, the lie took on various forms. From casual conversations between former classmates at Wizarding Lamaze to Firewhisky-induced gabfests across a scarred and well attended tavern bar. At faculty meetings regarding detentions and passing times. In the dust-choked aisles of Flourish and Blotts. At Quidditch matches, Portkey locations, and kitchen sinks.

Put quite simply, Hermione Granger had no passion.

It was common sense, they said. She hadn't dated anyone publicly since her failed relationship with Ronald Weasley. Some might suppose that the public scrutiny over that breakup would have put Ms. Granger off of romantic liaisons, but even the Tattler had found it difficult to print anything beyond "Harry Potter No Longer Third Wheel: Golden Trio a Trio Once More" as the split was rather amicable. So amicable, in fact, that the famously single witch was often seen in the company of her two best friends with no noticeable discomfort.

How boring, indeed.

But still, some would say, there was another possibility. It could just be that the brightest witch of her generation, never seen in the pursuit of eligible wizards, was actually not so "wizardly inclined." All those years of seeming celibacy post-Weasley could have been a cloak to shield prying eyes from orgiastic détentes with comely witches and double x-chromosome Quidditch players.

But that didn't really make sense either.

Maybe the Wizarding world wasn't as "progressive" as the Muggle world she'd come from and obviously still embraced, but preferring witches to wizards wasn't a crime. And especially with her standing and fame, weathering the public reaction to the news that Hermione Granger was gay would have been relatively easy. Still, the broom closet had remained firmly sealed.

So she wasn't actively heterosexual and there was no reason for her to be a closet homosexual, and truly there were no rumors of the sort that had any basis in confirmable fact…so what was she? Perhaps she was what she always had been, former Hogwarts classmates claimed: only concerned with her studies and now that the hollowed halls of Hogwarts were a few years behind her, research in her chosen field had become her focus.

Most assumed she was more content to converse with ancient tomes and distant runes scholars rather than pull a chap at a club. It was quite obvious that carnal passions simply held no allure. And probably passion of any sort was alien to a workaholic, self-concerned, brainiac book nerd.

While her work with the connection between Egyptian Hieroglyphics and magical formulas certainly occupied her time, it was a question of cool aesthetics and calculating conjecture, not obsession and driving need. The fit and fire of her youth, her flaming rows with Ronald Weasley and feats of courage against Voldemort and his compatriots once so prominent, was the final flash in a now cooling pan. Put quite simply, Hermione Granger was talented, educated, clinical, and thorough, but never passionate, tempestuous, or sexually driven.

There. That was the answer. The public continued to shake their heads, resigned to the fact that one of their most famous public figures was actually quite boring now that the survival of Wizarding culture no long longer rested partly on her shoulders.

But that misapprehension was ludicrous, completely without basis, and oddly, quite convenient for the witch in question.

How wondrous it was to burn bright in the dark, her light traveling so far and so fast, on the edge of bursting, and for the world at large to be so completely, and utterly, bamboozled.


tbc...