A/N I need to thank Emma for asking about Hermione's middle name… I hadn't realised that it's definitely Jane in canon, but I've made the correction now… so if you're wondering why she's not calling herself Marie now, you know. I've now also gone back and changed it, so hopefully nobody will get confused… if you see one I've missed, please tell me. I'm posting this chapter unbeta'd again, because I'm so happy with myself at the frequent updates that I thought I'd make use of it as much as possible. I'll repost this chapter after it's been beta'd; hopefully there won't be too many major changes. I have another two chapters written, and I'll post them over the next two weeks… hopefully giving me time to write at least a little more. IB really sucks. Thanks to all of you who have reviewed. Enjoy.

Hermione woke early the next morning, and decided to make reparations for her argument last night by cooking breakfast – a decision made more because she was in a good mood than out of any guilt over her treatment of her professor. She had just finished cooking and serving an extremely unhealthy meal of fried eggs, fried bread, fried tomato, and sausages when Snape, showing excellent timing, made an appearance downstairs. With a cheerful smile that would have put Mary Poppins to shame, Hermione indicated the table.

"Good morning, sir. I've just cooked breakfast."

"So I can see," he replied. He sat at what had become his place without thanks, but waited for Hermione to seat herself before beginning to eat. Seeing as his good manners in the latter made up for his bad manners in not thanking her, Hermione decided not to spoil the day already by making sarcastic remarks. Instead, she sat down and began to eat her breakfast, surreptitiously watching Snape.

His eyes widened in surprise and appreciation as he ate the first mouthful, and Hermione smirked to herself. She had obviously not lost her touch with cooking, despite the years at Hogwarts leaving her slightly out of practise. With a jolt, she thought of Harry and Ron, and wondered what they would be doing right now. Eating breakfast too, probably, she thought sadly to herself. This homesickness kept hitting her at the strangest of times. Trying to shake herself out of her sudden melancholy, she said,

"So how was your evening last night, sir?"

He raised an eyebrow at her attempted small talk, but replied nonetheless, "Prior to our argument, quite passable. I have no desire to repeat the experience any time soon, however."

"I'm afraid you're going to have to, sir. Tomorrow night, in fact."

"My memory is not bad enough to warrant reminding of that fact, Miss Granger," Snape said sharply.

"Yes, sir. I mean, Alexander. Uhm… we really should try using our new names, ah, Alexander. If we slip up in public…"

"I never slip up," he told her stiffly. Then he grudgingly added, "However, it might be prudent for us to make use of our middle names in order to become familiar with doing so. Very well, Jane. I will remind you that we will have this morning off from lessons. Do you wish to go into town?"

"Not particularly," Hermione said, pleasantly surprised. She had forgotten that they would have Thursday mornings off. "Um… you do remember that Melissa's Mum is going to bring a group of people over here tonight, don't you?"

"Of course."

"Well, we might want to make the house more, ah, muggle-friendly. If they come in here and don't see light switches and things, they're going to be very suspicious. Also, I think many of them are going to want a tour of the house. We're going to have to either hide or disguise all the obviously magical stuff. Maybe we should do that this morning."

"Very well, Jane. I might suggest that we make a start on that this now, then."

"'kay." Seeing that she had finished, Snape surprised her yet again by stacking her plate on top of his own and putting her glass in his before taking them both into the kitchen. Hermione watched, mouth open, as he pointed his wand at the plates and said "Scourgify," before repeated the procedure on the cutlery and glasses. She immediately felt embarrassed; she had spent the last three days washing everything up by hand out of habit. She frantically cast back her memory, trying to figure out whether he had seen her doing that, and whether he was likely to mock her for doing so. Instead, he merely raised an eyebrow at her. She realised that she was still standing with her mouth open, and promptly shut it.

"Shall we begin with this room, then?" he asked.

"Of course. Um… Well, we need a light-switch for one." She glanced up. "And a light bulb." Hermione busied herself at the wall, and had soon transfigured part of the wallpaper into a light-switch that flipped up and down. Turning around, she was surprised to see that Snape had finished crafting a surprisingly accurate bulb from the ceiling, and was standing back admiring his work. He turned and glanced at her.

"Does it meet with your approval?" he asked. Hermione, uncertain as to whether or not he was mocking her but deciding that he probably was, simply nodded.

"Perhaps you can charm them so that it glows when the switch is facing up, sir?"

"Of course." A few moments later, he had done so.

They went from room to room, adding light switches that gave the appearance of working and power points that would do absolutely nothing. She cast attention detracting charms on all the books in the living room's bookshelves that had anything to do with magic (about half of them), and then went upstairs to do the same to her bedroom. She was thankful that there were no paintings on the walls, because making the people within them stay still would have been impossible.

When the house had been made muggle-friendly, it was time for lunch. Snape surprised Hermione yet again by offering to make the lunch. He was actually pretty competent at making the sandwiches, too, something that surprised Hermione greatly. Had he learnt to do that from watching her, she wondered, or had he known all along and had just let her do all the work? Deciding to keep a closer eye on Snape in the future, she accepted her sandwich from him with a word of thanks.

Snape surprised Hermione yet again during their lunch by breaking the silence. "What exactly is going to happen tonight at this… housewarming?" he asked, repeating the word that Sue had used as if it left a nasty taste in his mouth.

"I suspect a lot of people will turn up with food or small gifts to help us settle in. Then they'll stay and talk for a few hours, look around the house, and just… gather. We might want to construct our cover story more thoroughly though. Oh! We'll probably have to feed them, too." Momentarily forgetting Snape, she rushed into the kitchen, looking through the cupboards to see what they had.

Snape followed her into the kitchen with their plates, taking care to keep the amused smile from his lips.

"We don't have anything!" she told him. "They'll expect food of some sort… crisps, fruit maybe, cake, biscuits… come to think of it, we're also running pretty low on milk and I used up the rest of the eggs this morning. And getting in some frozen food would probably be a good idea. Actually we should also…" she trailed off, muttering to herself.

Snape raised an eyebrow, still fighting the smile. "It seems another trip to the supermarket is in order, then. Shall we leave now? What time will the muggles arrive?"

"You'll have to stop referring to them as muggles," she commented, "considering we'll probably be seeing a lot of them."

"One moment," he said sharply. "'Seeing a lot of them?'"

Hermione glanced at her watch. "Can we have this argument later, please? They could be here in less than four hours, and we need to shop and put things away and set out food and make up a cover story…"

"Then we will leave now."

Hermione eyed his robes. "You're going to have to transfigure yourself some more muggle clothes," she told him. "In fact, better yet, we'll go shopping next weekend. We can go into London… the ministry's financing us, after all. Why don't you get changed, and then we can go."

Snape raised an eyebrow at her. "You're becoming extremely familiar, Miss Granger. I do realise that I will need to change before I leave the house."

Hermione blushed. "Yes, sir. Alexander, that is. Okay. Um… okay. I'll wait down here."

Snape merely raised his eyebrow a second time and left the room, robes swirling. Hermione sighed. She had no idea what to make of the man. He seemed determined to keep her off-balance. Still, she thought, brightening, I'll meet Melissa in a few hours, and maybe some of her friends, too.