A/N: More humour and drama and very much thanks to rhodabush, debs, aldira, smithback, guest, sereniterose, Lugia'schallenger13 and hillstar for reviewing! I got sick the other day but am better now and sorry I didn't update this yesterday :( but hopefully this chapter is worth a few laughs cheers!

and thanks to my beta who insisted hermione's parents be angry, though there is a surprise twist to the end of this chapter ;)

xx

~o~

Saturday 6pm.

As they knocked at her parent's door, after apparating, Snape scowled at the general, posh upper-middle class neighbourhood, which was worlds away from both Spinner's End and Hogwarts. Severus Snape looked particularly uncomfortable in the muggle, black suit he was wearing, a compromise from his usual black wizard robes. Although it did match Hermione's little black dress handsomely.

"I'm only doing this because I don't want to sleep with Lucius tonight."

Hermione grinned. "So you have reminded me repeatedly. Tell me, does the real Lucius Malfoy know he's being turned down?"

"Don't be ridiculous, I'm talking about the cat, not the wizard!" Yet Snape had a trace of a smirk in his eyes as he said this.

Hermione hoped Snape continued to lighten up this evening. For she did not want her parents to think she was dating a major grump. Even if he was a decorated war hero, Severus Snape could still rub people the wrong way when he was being surly.

"Try to smile," she told him.

"You know I don't smile," Snape hissed, showing off his recently whitened and straightened teeth. (Hermione had told him all about how her parents were dentists and what they did, and apparently, this made him insecure, so he researched teeth perfecting spells all the next morning. And now Severus Snape's smile was almost as white a match to Gilderoy Lockhart's.)

"Try to." Hermione winked. "Your smile is bright enough now to light up a Christmas tree. If nothing else, they're going to love you for your dental hygiene."

"Don't remind me." Snape shrugged and put his arm around her waist. Yet she could tell he was fighting to suppress a smirk.

Snape had been told by several people today that his smile was nice; perhaps it would become a new thing for Snape to be a bit vain or at least take some pride in his appearance. He was actually quite a good-looking wizard, if distinctive, he was still tall, brooding and dark. Her mother for sure would love him since most women did seem to fall under the charm of his deep, intoxicating voice.

"Thank you for doing this," Hermione whispered one last time before the door swung open.

She wasn't sure what she was expecting but suddenly her mother's and father's smiles turned into frowns and looks of horror.

"Hermione dear who is this man? Is he Severus's father? Where is Severus?"

"Mum and dad, this is Severus," Hermione muttered, feeling her skin redden with embarrassment for Snape. She couldn't believe her parents were being so rude.

"Hello," Snape chuckled, the only person unaffected by her parent's horror, since he had been expecting this. "May we come in?"

~o~

"I told you this would happen," he whispered in her ear as they sat down at the coffee table in the living room and her parents went off, presumably to chat amongst themselves too in the kitchen.

"Perhaps we should go. Merlin, I'm sorry." She pressed at her temples.

"No, Hermione we're already here, and frankly, I'm almost amused by how horrified your parents are."

Hermione stared up at him. "You're just going to use this to guilt trip me forever, aren't you?"

"Don't be ridiculous. I just find it amusing that your parents are looking at me like I'm a bloody cradle robber!"

"Severus, I will get them to apologise to you! I don't know what's gotten into them, I think they're just being protective—"

"Protective? Murderous, more likely," Snape drawled unhappily, toying with his wand like he wanted to use a spell on something.

They both fell quiet as her mother and father stepped back into the room.

"Hermione dear, I'm sorry," her mother said evasively. "You surprised us a little."

"Yes," her father said crossly.

Hermione tried not to get too defensive, though it was hard not to when they were being so judgmental and embarrassing her in front of her boyfriend.

"You invited Severus, remember? I told you all about him, he's a potions master, and you said you wanted to meet him—"

"Hermione, you never mentioned his age," her father said, looking anxiously between Snape and her on the couch as if he really did want to hang Snape. "Don't expect your mother and I not to be shocked, he's our age for bloody's sake."

"Mum, dad, please! Can you honestly not see how rude you're being—"

"Hermione, let me handle this." Snape cleared his throat. "I'm sorry sir, I neglected to fully warn Hermione that you, as her parents, would probably not be comfortable with the age difference. And I do not blame you or hold it against you, I did not intend to fall in love with your daughter either."

"You're in love with her?" her mother gasped and covered her mouth.

"Well, of course, he is!" her father muttered. "She's half his age!"

"That is NOT true."

"Well, he's hardly your age either, is he, and it is a big surprise!"

"I'm not sure what the surprise is unless you mean to say something less than kind about Severus?" Hermione defended him.

"Not at all! Look at him!"

Finally, Snape stood up, he could not take being the subject of so much conflict between her and her parents. "Sir, madam, I'm sorry that you do not approve of the age difference between your daughter and I, but the fact is I love her and I'd actually like to marry her—"

"You WHAT!? You want to do what to my daughter?!" Dr. John Granger was reaching out his hands to try to strangle him. "I'LL KILL YOU!"

~O~

Severus Snape awoke with a shudder and let out a gasp of relief. That horror show of whitening his teeth to be like Gilderoy Lockhart and then being skewered by Hermione's parents...had thankfully all been a bad dream.

"Oh, thank god, Merlin's sake," he muttered and closed his eyes, feeling the sheets under his palms.

He was still back in bed with Hermione sleeping beside him and that damn Lucius curled up at his feet, obnoxiously snoring.

Hermione murmured something in her sleep and then curled up closer to him. "Severus, are you alright?"

Snape stared helplessly up at the ceiling. "Would it make you feel better if I said I just had a nightmare about your parents?"

Hermione poked open an eye. "You can't be serious?" Hermione groaned. "Oh, c'mon, you're just going to meet them, nothing's going to happen, it'll go perfectly fine."

"Your parents wanted to kill me."

"That was my dream parents, it wasn't my real parents. My real parents are lovely!"

"You also got me to whiten my teeth like Gilderoy Lockhart, I looked like a bloody clown! But you insisted your dentist parents would like it."

Hermione finally sat up sideways, placing her weight on her elbows. "Severus, you're being absolutely ridiculous and I have never insisted or told you to get teeth whitening or any other cosmetic procedure or spell. Goodness, the idea alone is ridiculous, do you really think I'm so superficial?"

"I don't know, dream-you seemed to quite like the teeth whitening and insisted I smile."

Hermione smirked and reached her hands across his chest. "Well, that's the extent of which dream-me and me share in common: I do think you should smile more. You have a lovely smile, Severus."

Snape scoffed and shrugged her hands off his chest. "Unlikely. I know I'm not that easy on the eyes, Hermione, don't flatter me otherwise. I won't suffer foolish praise. I know I'm no beauty!"

Hermione groaned. "Fine. Be a prat, but teeth whitening or not, I expect you to meet my parents if you care about me."

Snape hissed. "Is that what you call caring? Forcing me to meet muggles?"

Hermione's eyes bulged. "They're not 'muggles', they're my parents, the people that gave birth and raised me, so I don't see why you wouldn't want to meet them if you truly care for me." She dusted off the sleep from her eyes. "Now if you don't mind I better get up."

"So you do think I should get a teeth whitening spell?" Snape asked from bed as she got dressed.

"I did NOT say that."

"But you do think it is a good idea?"

"Severus, your teeth are perfectly fine."

"But are they, by muggle standards?"

"Severus, I refuse to talk about this subject further. I don't know why you're getting so insecure about meeting them."

Because I bloody want to ask them for your hand in marriage one day! Snape wanted to shout. But he couldn't. It was an absolute secret and he wasn't sure Hermione would even want to get married to him. And he didn't feel like meeting her parents yet before he proposed and knew where he stood with her, but now this whole meeting was rushing things. It was wrecking his plans.

He noticed then the cat watching him smugly and Lucius hissed.

"This is your doing," Snape muttered. "I just know you're gloating at my mishaps."

Lucius hissed again and licked his paw as if to say 'get your act together, human, I had nothing to do with it'.

"Oh, do shut up!"

~O~

a/n: So I was going to put the actual meeting with her parents here...but I think Snape was so worried and tense about the whole thing that he had a nightmare instead. And just to clarify: snape isn't generally an insecure man, he's very strong, but this thing about meeting muggles and posh, rich ones makes him uncomfortable because it brings up old issues of how he was raised and scorned by muggles as a poor child in Spinner's End. So snape is feeling a bit stressed about it, also he may or may not have a proposal in plan...idk it will depend on whether Lucius gets involved or muddles up his plans! ;)

thanks for reading!

Question: do you think Hermione's parents would react so angrily to snape like they did in his nightmare or would they just not care? Or would they be scandalized because of the age difference? Or do you think Snape would win over her parents?