Disclaimer: Not mine. How sad.
A/N: Not BETA'D Either.
Luna is everything Hermione is not. She is carefree, silly, unorganized, messy, honest, and straightforward. She says what she thinks and never tries to be anything that she already is not. Luna sees the world the way that she wants to, and never tries to be anything other than what she already is. Luna doesn't try to please others and Hermione very much admires her for it. She holds no secrets; she loves freely, and hurts freely. She is what Hermione calls, simple beauty. But she is walking chaos, and it is not her that Hermione loves.
Cho has everything Hermione wishes she had. Cho has long straight hair, big soulful eyes, she is curvy yet slim and strong. Cho wears clothes that flatter her and knows just what to say in all the social situations. Cho, who was born and bred in high society. Hermione thinks of her as a swan among ducks. But Cho has a tragic secret behind all her polite laughs and the big brown eyes that most men get lost in, that Hermione thinks that is rather unappealing. Besides, she reasons, it must be lonely at the top, and Hermione has more sense than that to love someone like her.
Pansy is the girl she hates, but secretly envies. Pansy is crude and grotesque and unmannered, smacking her bright red lips against the pink bubblegum as she whispers rather loudly something nasty to her peers. Pansy, with her thick mascara thickly painted around her eyelashes and nails a shade of red too bright to be appropriate, the nails chewed down to the flesh. Pansy the loathsome girl who wears her skirts a little too high and her heels a little too tall. Pansy who has a bit of her morning's breakfast on her otherwise wrinkled school collar. She is the queen of Slytherin, with Malfoy as her lap dog. She wears her crown proudly and boasts to anyone who cares to hear about it, even when they don't want to. Pansy treats her subjects without pity, and still they admire her for the sheer nerve the woman has in standing up to her elders. But Hermione, through all the jealousy, still hates her, if nothing more than for being a Slytherin, and for kissing the traitor Malfoy, so she knows that it is not Pansy that she loves.
Fleur positively breathes sex. Fleur, with her blonde hair that cascades down her back, her perfectly manicured nails, her bright blue eyes that belie the seemingly vapid expression, her vela heritage. Fleur the once upon a time ice princess of Beuaxbatons. The one that would freeze the green eyed jealous girls with a single pointed look, and melt the boys' hearts at the same time. Chosen to represent her school in Hermione's fourth year, she has an intelligence and strength that is evident in the way she swings her hips. She wears her sexuality like a second skin and it sends shivers up Hermione's spine when she looks at Fleur. Hermione feels flustered, hot, flushed, bothered and positively primal around Fleur. There is a feeling of warmth that creeps up her spine and flooding sensation just below her abdomen every time Fleur looks at Hermione. Her lips get dry, and Hermione secretly envies Bill for wedding a woman like her. But Hermione labels this as nothing more than lust, so she knows that she is not in love with Fleur.
Out of all the girls however, the one that has caught her eye the most is Ginny Weasley. And she knows its wrong, that she should like Ron because that's normal. Something that she has tried very hard to achieve since she was eleven and found out that she was a girl with some very unique gifts and a set of rather large front teeth. But Ginny is fiery, spirited, carefree, passionate, beautiful, complex, and a best friend. So Hermione doesn't find it difficult to be hopelessly in love a woman like that. It is because Hermione is hopelessly in love with Ginny, that it surprises her at the question seemingly coming out of nowhere. It had seemed an innocent enough question, even if Ginny does not fully realize how close to the bone she had come.
"Hermione, how do you know when you're in love?"
She had blurted on evening upstairs in her bedroom, on the squeaky and protesting bed and the lumpy mattress over the summer.
Suddenly the room seems too small for Hermione. She is hot and bothered and can't bring herself to look Ginny in the eyes.
"Er, well, um" She fumbles about, looking at anywhere but at Ginny.
"It's kind of like your first real kiss" she tries to explain as her fingers find the edge of the pillow. Ginny looks at Hermione puzzled, clearly not expecting this answer. She raises her eyebrow in confusion, prompting Hermione to continue.
"You know," Hermione gestures about, as if she were trying to pull an acceptable explanation from the air itself. "The tumbling over the edge, stars exploding, heart beating so hard and fast that you think its going to burst, the knees going weak, sick to your stomach filled with nothing but nerves, and your hands shaky and sweaty feeling." Hermione finishes, swearing that by now she is blushing to the tips of her toes.
"Huh," Ginny says, processing this information and chewing a corner of her lip. She pauses for a while, and then finally says, "Mine wasn't like that. I mean sure, I liked Michael and Dean but they were lousy, sloppy kissers and were always groping. Kind of like Ron and Lavender." She giggles for a bit remembering her brother's brief disaster with the blonde.
"And Harry was too preoccupied with saving the world for any real passion."
"Yeah, Harry's always been like that, desperately trying to play hero and rescue everyone." Hermione says, forcing a laugh and frantically trying to change the subject. But Ginny doesn't seem to want to let it drop.
"So how was your first kiss?" She asks, in seemingly pure curiosity. "You never made much mention of it."
Hermione sighs heavily for she knows that Ginny won't stop until she gets the answer that she wants to, so she decides to tell her honestly.
She thinks for a while, carefully choosing her words, before saying, "Honestly, and in retrospect, I'm sure I would have said the same thing. Back then it wasn't that great. Victor was a gentleman, sure, but there was never any romance or any chemistry between us." She knows the question that is forming on Ginny's lips, so she hold up her hand and continues, "It wasn't really until after Victor that I really felt some sort of passion and lust."
In a hasty whisper, as if it was all that matters now, Ginny whispers, "Who?"
Hermione stutters for a second, toying with the collar of her shirt, which she is sure is now crumpled and stained with sweat.
Ginny's on the edge of her seat now, eyes wide and eager, wanting to hear about the secret life of Hermione Granger. Hermione briefly wonders if Ginny will hate her after this, and prays to whomever might be listening that it not be true.
"Fleur, at the end of fourth year." She says with tight lips and a rushed breath, looking down and fiddling with the pillow.
"It was at the train station, after Victor had already said his goodbyes. She came over to me and kissed me full on the lips with no hesitation whatsoever. She then pulls back, smiles that mysterious French smile of hers and whispers straight into my ear, "Au Reviour, 'Ermione. Until we meet again."
Ginny doesn't say anything immediately, she just smiles, and her eyes are twinkling. Hermione is feeling awkward and ashamed when she hears Ginny murmur, "So does that mean you're in love with Fleur?" Hermione thinks it ironic that the object of her affections is asking her about the woman that would turn men into puddles of unintelligible goo, as seen many a time when Ron would be around, when she walked into a room. She laughs quietly to herself before shaking her head no. "Oh god no. Fleur just helped me realize some things, that's all." She says, wishing that Ginny would stop with the questions, for she feels that she is being cornered and there seems to be no way to escape.
"How was it really?" Ginny asks, and Hermione can tell that somewhere along the line she has lost control of this conversation and starts to realize that maybe the initial question wasn't so innocent after all. Trying to regain her composure and lessen her blush Hermione takes a moment to let the information sink in and come up with some sort of answer. She takes her time, pausing in between words as she remembers Fleur's lips crashing upon her own.
"Sexy. Sticky. Sweet. Sensual."
But that's not it really, and Hermione, who's done with thinking and blushing and being nervous, decides to show Ginny just exactly what she means the best way she knows how.
She kisses Ginny softly but firmly, expecting everything but the small 'mmmph' noise Ginny makes in the back of her throat before starting to kiss her back. They break apart after a bit, slurping in air, cheeks flushed, and eyes dilated, Hermione feeling ashamed at her own boldness.
Finally, it is Ginny who breaks the silence.
"Hermione?" Ginny asks, her voice wavering and filled with uncertainty as she looks for Hermione's eyes
"Hmm?"
"I think I know what you mean about the being in love thing."
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