Hermione had always been a firm believer in books. Books held facts and theories. Books had research and ideas and history, but most importantly, books had answers. She was convinced that the explanation for almost anything lay hidden somewhere in the lofty aisles and towering shelves that made up Madame Pince's domain. So it was no surprise that when she had a troubling personal problem, Hermione turned to her infallible books.
Settled neatly on her desk, in chronological subset relevant order, were over twenty assorted leaflets, scrolls, and books. One unlikely anthology lay propped on the floor by her chair as it was too big to fit in to her organized filing system on the desk. She had thumbed through Greet the Grooms; The Non-traditionalist's Guide to Unorthodox Weddings; pored over I Now Pronounce You Wife and Wife; Homosexual Liaisons Throughout History, and was currently quirking her eyebrows at Lasses Who Like Ladies, and Ladies Who Lust Likewise; Lissa Larange's Large Leaflet on Lesbian Love. These books discussed lesbian affairs, politics, common misconceptions, and sex, but nowhere did she see anything to help her indicate if she was, indeed, a lesbian. The closest she came to identifying herself as gay was when she read about Agrippa the Flying Motorcycle Dyke's fondness for brown flats. Sharing the same shoe preference does not make me gay, she grumbled to herself.
She noticed Padma Patil sitting at a nearby desk, black coiled braid piling up next to her homework, scratching away at a rather long parchment. Hermione assumed that it was Padma as Parvati would never voluntarily stay still for that long to do anything other than paint her nails. She noticed Padma's smooth olive skin, the dip of her palms, the arch of her inky eyebrows. Hermione was carefully scrutinizing the curve of that elegant neck when suddenly dark brown eyes met Hermione's own. She blushed, mortified, but those exotic eyes just smiled. Hermione turned away, bright red and stunned. Why am I blushing? I was simply exercising my eyes; they were getting restless with all the staring in one place. I was just protecting myself from eyestrain; there is no cause for such embarrassment, she chastened herself. But in the back of her mind in an unbroken chain, like the broken records her father had once pulled out of the basement and could no longer play, I'm not gay. Malfoy is wrong, I'm not gay. Malfoy is wrong, I'm not gay, it churned furiously. Wait, why not? A small voice piped up. Why not? Hermione shut her eyes tightly for a moment. When the whirling migraine of her thoughts receded to a tolerable level, she returned to perusing technique number seventy eight in Madame Larange's Leaflet with a vengeance, eyestrain be damned.
Back in her bed that night, Hermione was free to ponder her dilemma. She had finished her Potions lab, finished up all her other assignments, and spent a healthy amount of time studying for her NEWTS. After all, they were only seven months away. Now, alone with her thoughts, Hermione's vast intelligence was left with no other distractions from her current quandary. She had decided that a list was best, to weigh the pros and cons of the situation. Now that she had determined that there was a situation. Hermione had decided, sometime during dinner, that she was, indeed, a lesbian. To put it simply, she was attracted to girls. Boys were fine and nice, she supposed, but they were not what she wanted. The revelation was still rather shocking to her previously conservative senses. Back in the Muggle world, her parents had always been rather silent on sexual minorities. On anything different from the norm, really. They were quiet folks, living with dental tools and books and little controversy to be seen. This made for a straightforward existence, as long as one was not faced with any controversy. At first, Hermione had been a bit unsure of her position on this newest twist in her life. But her pragmatic straightforward mind had won out and she was now the newest, if slightly dazed, inductee into the Sapphic club. Currently, Hermione was attempting to measure the effect of her newfound feelings on her conjectured life. Politics were out. Officially, wizarding law did not ban homosexuals from office, at least not since 1977, but the ill feelings towards such people were still in depressing abundance. It depressed her to note that Muggles had only ceased to categorize homosexuality as a psychological disorder that same year. Gay and Lesbian Wizardfolk could adopt children and join the Aurors, but discrimination abounded in every field. Hogwarts, being a forward-thinking institution, housed many books on homosexual history and lifestyle, but Hermione was no so naive as to believe that other establishments were so progressive. Her biggest worry was that her research, she knew she wanted to do research, would go unrecorded or unnoticed because of her sexuality. It was not unheard of, even in this modern age. Damn you, Malfoy, she thought unreasonably. Damn you.