Day One: Part Six: Evenings

As the group approached the door to the house they realized something was wrong. They could hear voices coming from the inside. Severus' smile disappeared and he muttered what was most likely an obscenity that the teens couldn't hear before shifting both bags to one arm and opening the door. The sight that greeted them was rather chaotic; old dusty boxes were sitting in the living room and a thumping noise was coming from the attic.

Severus closed his eyes and titled his head up for a moment before whispering to the ceiling, "Please, please, let it be deatheaters." After this rather scandalous statement he looked straight ahead once more and in a much louder voice addressed whoever was in the house. "I thought you went on vacation."

Suddenly a tall woman with long black hair that had a few grey streaks in it appeared from around the corner where the bedrooms were located and after a crash and some cursing they heard footsteps crossing the attic.

Looking away from the place were the crash was heard, and looking towards Severus the women spoke, "Its good to see you as well 'o' prodigal son of mine." At this Severus looked down at the floor for a moment, slightly embarrassed, before once again looking at his mother.

"Its not that I'm not glad to see you," Severus began as he set the groceries down and walked towards his mother to give her a hug, "but I wasn't expecting you back for a while. What happened?"

Before the women could answer a man that was most defiantly Severus' father appeared from around the corner looking dusty with cobwebs sticking to his cloths, but smiling and answered, "The cruise was canceled, something about a hurricane in the Atlantic, so we canceled our plans for the summer in favor of coming back here and annoying you, lad."

Severus eyebrow rose and he opened his mouth to say something then seemed to think better of it and closed his mouth. Then opened it again and said, "I see."

Severus parents both thought this was funny for some reason and his father pulled him into a hug before speaking again. "So, I'm assuming that the four shocked teenagers behind you, you know the ones you've been polite enough to introduce, are the ones Dumbledore ask you to take care of this summer."

Severus ignored the jibe about him being rude and answered, "Yes, sir, this is Ron, Ginny, Hermione, and Harry. Children, these are my parents Eileen and Tobias Snape."

Each one mumbled a timid 'hi' or 'hello'.

"Hi, lads and lassies, so how do you like farm life so far?" asked Tobias his smile never faltering as he addressed the four teenagers.

"Oh, it's been great. The horses are wonderful," began Hermione excitedly.

"Yeah, and the goats, I could live without the chickens though," continued Ginny just as excitedly.

"Well," said Eileen, "I can see it's defiantly still your first day, don't worry the enthusiasm will pass."

"Yes, well," started Severus, "we need to get the groceries put away. Come on kids, if I'm lucky, when I come back in here all those boxes will be gone."

Tobias seemed to find this funny as well and laughed in a deep voice before replying, "don't worry Sev I'll make sure and save some for you."

"Thanks dad."

"No problem, son."

Turing back around to face his parents Severus asked, "What are all these boxes doing here anyway, or do I want to know?"

"Well," explained Eileen, "you know that room at the end of the hall, that's more of a glorified closet where we've been storing all this stuff?" seeing her son nod she continued, "since we will be staying here as well this summer we want our room back and figured you didn't want to stay in the same room as two teenage boys, so the overly large closet is going to be your new room."

Severus blinked. Then he blinked again. After a moment he turned around and headed into the kitchen without another word.

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After the groceries were put away Severus and the teenagers headed back into the living room were the number of boxes seemed to have multiplied. He walked to the end of the hall were the door to the 'glorified closet' was with the teenagers following behind him. Once there the teenagers noted that it was really a room not a closet but it was quite a bit smaller then the other rooms. Whereas the other rooms could have easily held two Queen sized beds without being to cramped this one could only hold one and a desk. Not that they had queen sized beds in their rooms, just a couple of twin beds.

"Well, don't just stand there, get in here and help," said Eileen as she opened another box glanced through it quickly then handed it to Ron. "Go put it in the living room with the others."

"Yes, ma'am"

On his way back Ron passed Ginny, Harry, and Hermione all of which had boxes of their own. The four teenagers were left with the task of walking back and forth between the living room and the room they were cleaning out, while the three adults sorted through the boxes until there was nothing left in the room.

By 7pm the room was empty of boxes but still filled with dust and who knew what else.

"All right," began Tobias, "now that that's done we need to get the bed frame down from the attic, find the mattress that goes with it and then move the boxes up to the attic."

"Actually," said Eileen, "first we need to clean this room then get the bed."

"Well," said Severus, "while your doing that I'm going to go fix supper." With that Severus turned and headed for the door, took a step out into the hall before turning around and continuing, "Oh and by the way, the mattress was used in a bonfire twenty years ago." Before the last word had even reached the other's ears he was down the hall and in the kitchen.

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Just as he entered the kitchen he heard his father bellow, "WHAT!"

Severus swallowed hard as he heard his father coming towards the kitchen. Honestly, though, I wasn't like he could be in trouble for it. It happened twenty years ago, and it hadn't even been his idea.

Regardless of how he tried to reason it out to himself, however, he cringed a bit when his fathers deadly quite voice spoke inches from his ear. "Explain. Now."

"Yes, sir, the summer after Becka graduated Hogwarts, when you left for a couple days for something or another, she decided that she wanted a party, so with the help of most of the kids in town we arranged a bonfire down by the lake. Everyone brought something to burn and we didn't think anyone would ever miss the mattress and since it was Becka's party we had to get the fire started and well…" Severus trailed off looking up from preparing the food to look at his father.

The kitchen was silent for an eternity, or so it seemed to Severus, before Tobias in the same deadly quite voice as before spoke, "Be glad it happened twenty years ago, boy."

Severus released the breath he didn't realize he had been holding, before looking back down at what he was doing then turned a little red as he realized what his father had just done. Getting his blush under control he looked back up at his father with a glare that would have sent most of the deatheaters he knew running to Azkaban.

This, of course, only made Tobias laugh. When he got control once again he began speaking to Severus with the smile he normally wore. "Glad I haven't lost my touch."

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While Severus cooked dinner Eileen, Tobias, and the four teenagers cleaned out the room; however, when Severus came to tell them dinner was ready it look as though they hadn't even started.

"Well, Sev," started Tobias, "It looks like you'll be sleeping on the couch tonight."

Severus merely raised an eyebrow before walking back to the kitchen.

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When dinner was finished and everything cleaned up the three adults and four teenagers we're seated in the living room talking. Eileen and Tobias listened to the teenagers tell stories about their years at Hogwarts with dire threats from Severus along the way if the every 'tried to pull such an idiotic stunt again'. This is where they were at 8:35 when there was a loud knocking at the door, accompanied by the very angry shouts of an older woman.

"Severus Tobias Snape, I know your in there you may as well open the door, boy."

Eileen and Tobias both looked at Severus with a raised eyebrow. Severus went slightly pale before mumbling, "I forgot to call."

Eileen went to open the door.

"Hello, Mary, what did my son do this time?" as Eileen asked this Severus sunk down in his chair as if attempting to hide.

"Well, Eileen, I thought you and Tobias were on holiday?"

"We were, but the cruise was cancelled so we came back. Come on in, Severus is in the living room."

Mary was an older lady, old enough to be Eileen and Tobias's mother, who was slightly round and of average height. Her hair was completely grey and while she had many laugh lines, at the moment she had a look on her face that would have sent a seventh year running towards the forbidden forest. Severus, for his part, would have rather face down 10 deatheaters, and Voldemort blind folded without a wand then the women standing in front of him at the moment; at least he would have had a fighting chance with the deatheaters. Before Severus could even attempt to defend himself Mary reached out and grabbed his left ear pulling him up out of the chair.

"Severus," began Mary in a calm voice, "please, tell me what was so important that you couldn't call us and let us know you were here?"

"I…don't…have a…reason."

"I see," Mary continued to pull Severus's ear for a moment before releasing him. He immediately fell back into the chair and it took all his restraint not to reach up and rub his poor abused ear. Of course, it had taken even more restraint to not to make any noise that would give away the fact that she was about to pull his ear off earlier.

"Gram," began Severus, "I promise I was going to call or stop by soon, and today, as you know, I was going to call you as soon as I got home, but the unexpected return of mum and da' sorta…distracted me and I forgot. I really am sorry and I promise to make it up to you."

"Hmm…Well you can start tomorrow. At twelve 'o' clock we will be here and all of you will be ready and every last one of us will go down to that stream of yours with the tire swing and have a picnic. Got it?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good." Mary then turned away from Severus to the four teenagers who were trying very hard not to laugh, "And you all must be Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Ginny its good to meet you."

"Its nice to meet you to ma'am," started Ginny, "but how did you know who we were?"

"Emily told me, of course. That girl has the best memory ever, she even remembered what eye color each of you had."

"Wow"

"Isn't it something," turning away from the teenagers she began making her way to the door. Just before walking out she turned back and addressed the whole room. "Well I won't keep you any longer. I'll be seeing you tomorrow so have a goodnight."

Everyone wished the grandmotherly lady goodnight and as soon as the door closed, everyone, except Severus, began laughing hysterically.

After a few minutes, the laughter died down and everyone was left catching their breath. Everyone that is except Severus, who was ready for the whole day to end and to forget about it, glancing at the clock he realized it was 8:45 and time to put the four overly animated teens to bed. After that he could go to sleep.

"Well, now that you all have had a good laugh," Severus paused here to send out a couple of mild glares, "I think its time for you four to get to bed."

"Oh come on," whined Harry.

"Its way too early, sir," stated Hermione.

"Honestly, sir, there's no way we could get to sleep now," commented Ginny.

"It's completely mad to go to bed this early," complained Ron.

Severus, however, had been expecting this and wasn't fazed in the least. He very calmly walked over to the teenagers and grabbed two arms. One arm belonged to Ron the other to Harry. The professor's grip wasn't painful, but commanding as he pulled the two boys out of the living room and down the hall to the bathroom; once there, he pushed Ron inside and spoke in a voice that left no room for argument.

"You have 10 minutes to brush your teeth and attend to your other needs, if you can't manage to do this I will help you and I can assure you will not like my help." with that he closed the bathroom door and dragged Harry though his parents room to their bathroom and gave him the same ultimatum.

Severus then walked back to the living room grabbed two more arms, belonging to Ginny and Hermione respectively, and led them to their bedroom. Once there he pushed both girls into the room and using the same tone he had with the boys said, "The bathrooms will be available soon, until then do whatever else you need to do to get ready for bed, when the boys are done you will have ten minutes to get ready for bed. If you cannot follow these instructions I will help you and you will not be happy if that happens. Do I make myself clear?"

Once both girls had said yes sir he closed their door and went back to wait out the next ten minutes.

"I'm glad the two of you took me seriously. Now go to your room," once there Severus spoke to the two boys again. "I will be back in ten minutes if you are not in bed with the lights out you will be grounded for several days," without waiting for a response Severus left for the girls room.

He knocked first waiting for them to say it was safe to open the door before escorting the two girls to the bathrooms and once again repeating the ultimatum. Ten minutes latter both girls emerged from the bathroom. He led the two girls back to their room the told them exactly what he told the boys earlier then left to check on the boys.

Opening the door to the boys room Severus was both surprised that the boys had complied at much as the did, while at the same time angry as to what they did. Both of them were indeed in bed and the lights where out; however, they were sitting on the beds talking to one another instead of attempting to sleep.

Stepping into the room, while rolling his eyes, Severus spoke to the boys in a stern tone, "get under the covers now."

"But…" began Ron.

"The only 'but' you need to worry about is your own and whether or not you want it tanned. Now do as your told." Once both boys had, amidst grumbles and mumbling, complied he left leaving the door partially open to hear if they started talking again.

The girls apparently had understood his threat about as well as the boys had. Only they were on the same bed talking, after getting them in the proper beds and under the covers he left also leaving their door partially open.

Walking back into the living room he was meet by two highly amused parents.

"And what, may I ask, is so humorous?"

"What time were they supposed to in bed, Sev?" questioned his dad.

"Nine."

"What time is it?"

"Almost nine thirty."

"So what time will they be getting ready for bed tomorrow?"

"Eight thirty."

This seemed to satisfy his parents because still chuckling they walked down the hall into their room to go to bed themselves. Not even bothering with a blanket Severus laid down on the couch as was asleep almost immediately.

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A/N: So do you like it hate it what? My muse is on a role and I just keep thinking up great things for this story. Please please please review.

Reposted with corrections, but no major changes