Hermione loves to learn. She always has. She loves to learn about anything and everything. And most of all, she loves to learn from books. She loves the smell of the pages, the feel of the binding, and the precious, most precious information held within. Perhaps the only thing Hermione loves more than learning from books is getting to test out the information she gathered. And she learns from this, too.

Hermione learned how to kiss from a book. Well, technically it had been a magazine, and it hadn't been hers, she had found it on Lavendar Brown's bed and had read it because Hermione reads everything. She hadn't expected to be so fascinated. And she hadn't realized that kissing was so complicated. She'd always assumed it was something you just did. Clearly, she thought, she had been wrong. Was Ron secretly disappointed with her kissing because she had never done these things? As she read the tips and techniques, some of which (you could do that with your tongue?!) made her blush, her fascination only grew. And because Hermione is Hermione, she felt the need to test it out. Several days later, as she and Ron finally were alone once more, he leaned in to kiss her. Rather than allowing their kisses to follow a natural flow, Hermione immediately began to go through the list of things she had read. Finally, when she had reached what had been number eight, Ron pulled back, looking at her oddly. "No offense, Hermione, but what are you doing?" he had asked. After an awkward moment, Hermione had told him. And then he had laughed, he laughed, he laughed, because, he told her, she already knew how to kiss, silly witch. And that was how Hermione learned to kiss from a book.

Hermione learned that she can admit when she's wrong. She read it once, twice, a million times, and in a million different novels, with a million different characters who could admit when they were wrong. And she believed it, because if nothing else in the world was good and honest and true, books are all of those things. But she herself never had to do such a thing until she found herself utterly, if secretly, convinced that they were fighting a war they could not win. She did everything she possibly could in an attempt to change the fate she believed to be predestined, but she had not thought they stood a lick of a chance. When Harry hugged her for the first time after Voldemort had been defeated, still sweaty and tired, and he felt so solid and warm and alive and good, she thought back to those millions of characters who had been so, so wrong, as wrong as she, and had admitted it. And Hermione swallowed her pride because she knew could admit she had been wrong. She had learned it long ago from her books.

Hermione believes that all the information in the world, everything that needs to be learned, can be learned from a book. And perhaps she is right.