Chapter One

Hello guys,

After my hiatus of posting HP fanfics (I have been busy with my Narnia story) I am back. This story will be relatively short with six chapters, none more than a thousands words. I begun it as a one shot but it became a little too long and required some structure so I has sat languishing on my computer whilst I have been busy with other projects. I will be posting as and when I can but at least one chapter per week I just cannot make commitments to days.

This is a return to my familiar territory of HGSS which I do enjoy writing. I would like to say it is a stopgap whilst I am writing something bigger but at the minute I have nothing major planned in writing, therefore ideas, plots or suggestions for my next big project would be welcome. I will consider almost anything in the HGSS or HGDM categories as long as it is not graphic.

Anyway after that welcome on with the show. Please review and as always enjoy.

Love C.J.

Hermione laughed fiddling with her hair at the boy sat opposite her. Boy was a little misleading Samuel Horton-Hallsworthy was at least 25, three years older than Hermione herself. She smiled at him again.

"Really Hermione?" Half her mind asked"did you really just laugh at a boy's joke because he is attractive and not because he is funny?" She shuddered a little "when did she become that girl?" She looked at Sam "what was it that had made her say yes to a date two days before her birthday?"

She looked at him closer, he was attractive that couldn't be denied. He had black hair that appeared to be an inch or so too long for him. His eyes were deep blue and he had a face that appeared to have been stolen from a Milanese model or a Vatican statue. "Anything else?" She wondered, he was intelligent and could be charming but he was also selfish and full of self importance. Currently he was telling a story about how he had fired his secretary that Hermione didn't think was funny at all. "Why are you on this date?" She asked herself. She looked a Samuel "would he make a good husband? No," she answered herself. He cared too little for anyone but himself for that. "A lover then?" She asked. "You have had a string of them lately maybe it's just neither of you want marriage". She wondered for a moment then dropped that notion too. Sam would be too busy with his own pleasure to think if hers. More than likely he would thrust a couple of times then fall over asleep.

Hermione having exited her conventional relationship with Ron three years ago and found the only thing she missed was the pleasure and intimacy of their sexual relationship. She had since then taken to short casual relationships and the odd one night stand. Not on a regular basis just when she needed it. She looked at Samuel again still talking about his secretary, she did need it but not from men like him.

"So what do you think?" He asked her. She furrowed her brow curious that he would ask her for any opinion. She was saved by the waitress.

"Any sweets Madam, sir?" She asked.

"Black coffee," Sam said "and be quicker about it than you were with the fish".

"Chocolate fudge cake please," Hermione smiled at the waitress "to take away". The waitress stayed professional and didn't say a word just looking from Hermione to Sam and allowing a smile perhaps a quarter of an inch to appear on her lips. Hermione turned back to Sam who hadn't apparently heard anything.

"So Hermione," he said "I don't suppose you would have heard of fiscal tightening in your job but..." Hermione was saved any further drivel to listen to when the waitress appeared.

"Black coffee Sir," she placed it in front of him.

"And chocolate fudge cake to go."

"Thank you," Hermione smiled at her. "And here is your tip I doubt he will give you one." She nodded towards Samuel.

'To go?" Sam asked.

"I'm sorry Sam but quite frankly I have a lot better things to do with my life than listen to misogynistic crap from a man who lives on the money provided to him by a job his father got for him."

She grabbed her coat and the cake and exited the London restaurant into the night air. She breathed in deeply. As she imagined Ginny saying things like "go girl," and "good for you Hermione". Hermione pulled her coat closer against the bitter British cold.

"Thank Merlin," said a voice "I wondered quite how much of that appalling excuse for a conversation I would have to listen to". Hermione almost jumped. Almost. The year of being on the run was still in her somewhere and she lashed out at the voice with a little wandless magic. She began to run weaving her way through busy shopping streets and into the tube. As she turned one corner trying desperately to find her Oyster card, she felt a hand grab her waist and she disappeared. The only thing to show Hermione Granger was there was a box of squashed chocolate fudge cake.