Prologue
As Hermione joined the check-in line at the airport, she looked down at her clothes with disgust. What had made her think letting Marie, her cousin, pick her outfit for the trip home was a good idea? She was dressed in the last thing she would ever want to wear. "Something girly" as Marie would have said had she been there. The mini skirt was the worst part, riding up with every step. She managed to stop herself from complaining to the elderly lady in line before her by reminding herself of the deal she had made with Marie – she wasn't allowed to say anything about what Hermione was wearing all summer but then her cousin got to pack her second suit case and dress her for the trip home. It was a small price to pay for the freedom her ears had had all summer.
But now she was headed home from Florida and she was meeting the boys at the airport. She was sure they were going to think the sun had fried her brain because she was wearing a shirt that showed her stomach if she moved too much and a skirt that she couldn't even walk around in without flashing someone. Hermione Granger was not happy.
She finally got up to the counter but before she could hand her ticket to the girl behind the desk a voice called out from behind her. A very loud voice complementing her apparently very nice ass. She resisted the urge to turn around and make whoever had just said that very very sorry and instead handed her ticket and bags over to the workers.
As she passed through security she did her best to forget her wardrobe problems. After several breathing exercises and some weird neck stretches her efforts paid off. Too well. The lack of worrying about her wardrobe left her mind open to worry about other stressful things, like who she would be sitting next to.
Hermione had a lot of experience with planes. For the most part they were not bad memories; ok food, nice attendants, good seats. The only thing she never got was a sane seatmate. There was the cat lady who somehow managed to talk the flight attendant into letting her cat onto the plane without a carrier, the old man who clipped his toenails every 30 minutes for the entire 8 hour flight, the two-year old who had never flown before and threw up everywhere, and the business man that made passes at her the entire flight. There were more but those were the only ones she allowed herself to remember - the rest were so horrid she had to force herself to supress the memories.
She spent the entire time between security and her seat worrying about it. When she got to 14D, however, 14F was empty and, as time went by, it looked like it was going to stay that way. Hermione watched the airplane door close and let out a sigh of relief. She wasn't going to have a seatmate after all.
It was at that moment she heard it.
"Excuse me, I need to get to my seat"
She looked up, disheartened that there was a very good chance she was once more going to have to share her seat with a crazy person. But instead of looking into the eyes of a stranger about to make her next 8 hours a living hell, she instead looked into the very shocked eyes of Severus Snape.
