Via threw her bag down and launched herself at a sofa in the Ravenclaw Common Room. She was fed up. She'd had a long day, with far too much homework in it. Professor Sprout had told her off in front of everyone for not doing her Herbology homework. She'd been late for dinner and been left with a choice of curry or fish pie, both of which she hated. Then, to cap it all, she'd bumped into Alicja Nowak, the most beautiful girl in all creation, in the corridor and nearly knocked her flying. Alicja had never looked twice at Via before, and she certainly wouldn't now, except to tell her friends what a stupid kid Via was.
Flora, one of the girls from Via's dormitory, came over, laughing.
"Did you see the look on Alicja's face?" she asked. "It was like comedy in slow motion – I'd pay to watch that!"
"Shut up," Via growled.
"What's got into you?" Flora said, raising her eyebrows. Flora's boyfriend, Gerry, came over, along with a couple of his friends. "Via's in a mood," Flora told him.
"I'm not, I just don't think it's very funny," Via shrugged.
"Someone's had a switching spell used on their sense of humour," Gerry grinned. "It's not a big deal – Alicja didn't even take points off you or anything."
"She'll think I'm an idiot," Via said, as yet more people came over, laughing and talking about the scene in the corridor.
"So what if some stuck-up Prefect thinks you're an idiot?" Flora asked.
"Unless you've got a crush on her or something," one of the boys said. This was greeted with guffaws and shouts of laughter. Via went red to the roots of her dark hair.
"So what if I have?" she said quietly.
"Huh?" Gerry said.
Via took a deep breath. She'd had enough. She'd known for a while now that she liked girls, and she was tired of not feeling like she could be herself.
"So what if I have?" she repeated, louder.
There was a stunned silence. No one spoke. "I like girls. I'm a lesbian," Via declared.
Flora stared at her in disgust. "You've seen me getting changed!" she said indignantly.
"I don't like all girls," Via said disdainfully. This raised a laugh, and Via began to hope everyone was going to accept her and move on.
"So... you want to snog Alicja Nowak?" Gerry asked.
"Yep," Via said defiantly. "But she probably doesn't like girls, and she definitely thinks I'm an idiot, so..."
"And you don't ever... watch us get changed... and get turned on?" one of the other girls in her dormitory asked.
"No," Via said. "You're like my sisters – we've known each other since we were eleven."
"I guess you've got good taste," Gerry shrugged. "Nowak's gorgeous."
"Hey!" Flora protested.
"Not as beautiful as you, babe," Gerry said. He hugged Flora but winked at Via over her shoulder.
"Wanna be each other's wingman... person?" asked Dave, one of Gerry's friends. "I like Alicja's friend, Clara. How about I get myself a detention with Alicja, and sound her out about you? Then when you two are dating and totally loved up, you can set me up with Clara."
Via gave him a playful shove. "Don't be an idiot," she said.
It didn't happen overnight – Via still had to endure inane questions and idiotic boys offering to 'snog her straight' – but eventually Via being a lesbian just became something that was, like Flora being a vegetarian, or Gerry supporting Chudleigh Cannons, or Dave being ginger. Via never got to go out with Alicja Nowak, but coming out gave her the courage to ask out a Gryffindor girl she thought was flirting with her at the Halloween Feast a few months later.
And it gave her the courage, some fifteen years later, to tell another beautiful woman how she felt; a beautiful woman who would later become her wife.
A/N ~ I'm back! Not with Year 5, that's still a work in progress (I'm around Valentine's Day, so probably a little more than halfway through, so you've probably got a couple of years still to wait for that!). In the meantime, here's part of what has made progress on Year 5 so slow: Coming Out! You've already met Via in the main series, as Muggle Studies teacher Professor Reuben. This story started off about her and her wife, Professor Clarissa Cooke, and then it morphed into also being about Oscar Peakes and Liam Coote, two Gryffindor boys in Mia's year who are not mentioned very often. The prologue for this is set a few years after the Second Wizarding War.