okie dokie then, here is Chapter five, ready and willing! hope to have more excitement here! Might even be longer than my usual short chapters!

previously......(do ya like how i'm making this look like a serious fic?)
Under normal circumstances,
he wouldn't have done anything, he might have walked away or said some smart remark, but these were no normal
circumstances, and this was no ordinary muggle. So against his own will, he shook her hand with a small smile.
"Severus Snape."

Ch 5 The Erin and Snape expedition (Oh and Charles, he was there too.)

She smiled, relieved that he didn't just shut the door in her face. Her dark brown hair framed her face beautifully, thought Snape. Er, for a muggle that is.... he added as an afterthought.
"Listen, my mum told me about how you're a, wizard, or whatever, and i don't really believe in that kind of thing, no
offense or anything, so i wondered if you wanted to come into town with Charles and I, he says he needs some new earrings, and, you know, buy some clothes?" She was looking at him and his robes aprehensively. Hmph. She doesn't 'believe' in magic. Well, she will when she sees it. But he did forget to change into only set of muggle clothing today, and it might be -educational- to go into their shops.
"Alright. I'll be right down." he said. She smiled and walked down the stairs. Then with a jolt of realization, he remembered what Dumbledore had said in the note: 'A haircut or any other change in physical features would help keep you concealed.' He also remembered a comment Minerva had made to him a few weeks ago: "You know, short hair is much more sensible, Severus.... not to mention stylish...." He scowled at the thought of getting his hair chopped off by a muggle. But then he thought to Erin, and what she would think about it. He slapped himself mentally, thinking of what his mother would say about his thoughts. 'Severus, pull yourself together, a muggle? that's the best you can do?' she would say. 'Really, Sev, I mean, what about that Gryffindor Lily Evans? What ever happened to her?' his brother would say. Then he would hit his brother and run from his mother for hitting his brother. That was life for Severus Snape back in the days. Suddenly he realized what he was doing and opened his suitcase to find his muggle clothes. he changed quickly and came down the steps to the door, where Charles and Erin were waiting.
"ready?" she asked him. Charles had put on a long, black coat, *A/N like in the matrix!* and Erin had on hers too.
Snape had only brought a cloak, and he was pretty sure that it wouldn't look very muggle-like to wear it. He could just brave the cold. They opened the door and walked over to a little beaten up-car, thing, which wasn't there yesterday. A cold wind brushed upwards, making him shiver. He should've just brought the stupid cloak.....
Pretty soon, though, they had gotten into the little car and peeled out of the driveway, Snape in the front and Charles in the back. Now he was forced to deal once again with the bloody seatbelt. Unfortunately, Erin was a very reckless driver, and he had trouble staying in one spot long enough to buckle the thing. finally, she reached a sign that read, "STOP" and she had obeyed it, thank God. In that short amount of time he had been able to buckle it and could lay back and relax for .038924 seconds. But after his mini holiday from the car in motion, he had returned and was now flat back against the seat from the sudden burst of speed. He gripped the sides of the seat nervously. She noticed this action and laughed.
"Scared?" She asked. Snape glared at her. She laughed again, and went faster. There was a loud Honking noise behind him and Snape turned quickly to see where it had come from. The only moving object behind them was an old man in a van. It didn't seem likely that this was the source, though. He turned to the front in time to see a few buildings that read such things as, "Pizza Hut" and had signs in the windows with food on them. He had no idea what pizza hut was, but it sounded like some sort of foreign food, which Snape usually had no fancy for. Suddenly the car lurched to the left, along with its passengers, down a different road with more buildings. Then, as soon he was over the turning motion, they turned again and stopped. He sighed with relief. She turned to him and asked, "First time in a car?"
"Just with you." he replied scornfully. She smiled sheepishly. "Sorry, forgot to mention that I was one of those drivers. Oh well, I'm pretty new to it, anyways. Our first stop is one of Charlie's places, what's it called again?" She asked, turning to Charles. He smiled.
"Hasn't got a name. They haven't decided on one yet." He said. Erin looked nervous about this.
"Yes... well, we'll see what it's like..." Snape wondered what she meant by that. They walked into a small shop and he knew why in an instant. There was some sort of screaming music playing and in the clothing in the store were pictures of skulls and odd sorts of things. Colored lights that could give a person seizures were on the walls, and Snape had to restrain himself from pretending to have a seizure just so he could leave the wretched place. The man at the counter had an appearance similar to Charles, but much more extreme with percings and other forms of voluntary torture. He looked like a zombie from the cover of a book Snape had read as a child, only more freakish. But Charles wasn't the least bit scared of the zombie person, for he greeted him with a smile. Surprisingly, so did the zombie person.
"Hey Char." The thing said.
"Hey Kevin," Charles said, which must've been the thing's name. "Listen, i was wondering if you had any of those hooks left? I lost my other one." The- er, Kevin, reached under the disgusting counter and pulled out something in a translucent glossy box, the material of it Snape was sure he had seen once before.
"Thanks, oh, and would you happen to have anything for my friend Severus here?" said Charles, beckoning for Snape to step forward. He did so, reluctantly. Kevin looked at him, a thoughtful frown on his face. Suddenly, he snapped his fingers and a smile broke over his half-metal face.
"I know just what you need! Be back in a Jiff." He said, lurking over to a scratched up door and disappearing behind it. Erin turned to her brother.
"Charles..." She said, trying to hide her despair. He looked at her innocently. "Whhhat do you think he's bringing out? You don't reckon it's a...." Charles shrugged.
"Who knows with Kevin? Could be anything from a t-shirt to a tatoo." Erin stared at Charles. Snape cleared his throat.
"Excuse me, but, what is a tatoo?" He asked. They looked at him as though her were a very strange creature.
"You should know, you have one on your arm." His eyes widened in shock as he looked at forearm. It was glimpsing from his clothes, glowing slightly black. He looked at the two of them with some difficulty, and pointed to his arm.
"This," he said quietly, "is not a, tatoo, of what you speak." There eyebrows lowered in confusion.
"Well then, what do you call it?" Asked Erin slowly.
"Here we are, the perfect addition to your wardrobe." Kevin said, playing his part as the salesman. He was holding in his hands a black leather trenchcoat much similar to Charles'. Snape looked at it carefully, then took it from Kevin and put it on. It fit comfortably, and Erin looked relieved that Kevin hadn't brought a needle from the filthy doored room. She pulled the tag hanging from the sleeve, along with Snape's arm, towards her for a better read. Her eyes widened when she saw what it was priced.
"Ehehm, I think it's a bit pricy..." She said to Kevin. He looked around as though checking for spies.
"Well, ah, yes, it is, but you see, i think i could knock it down a bit." He took a black stick thing out of his pocket and pretended to write with it on the tag. Wait- he did write on it! Well, hmm. Odd sort of quill. But anyways, Erin looked at this new price and a mischevious grin spread over her face. She held out her hand.
"Kevin, you have a deal." He shook her hand, and she gave him the proper amount in muggle money. Snape thought it strange how muggles used paper money, it seemed like more of a hassle than a good sturdy coin. but he shrugged this off as he thanked them as he put on his new coat. They stepped out into the cold, Snape being glad he had something to warm his coldness. They crawled back into the little car and zoomed out of their parking space. Soon they had veered into a new parking spot and swung to a stop. They were at a tall tan building with a blue sign stating that it was 'The Gap'. Erin grinned mischeviously at Snape, who looked at her suspiciously.
"What? It's not a... Women's store?" He asked with a grimace. She shook her head gently and smiled.
"No, no no... Don't fret." She said as then walked up to the entrance of the intimidating building. Inside it smelled strongly of a sort of potion used to ward off warts. Of course, not that he had ever used it, but he had smelled it enough times to know.
There were racks upon racks of clothing, standing in the middle of the building and on the walls. There were pictures on the wall. still, pictures, of muggles in the store's clothes. This was interesting to look at since he was used to them smiling or scowling or running away screaming, Mostly the latter. But the most intruguing thing to him was the two sets of metal stairs that were moving, one up and one down. The steps appeared from out of nowhere and disappeared in the same way. He stared at these stairs (or were they stairs?) and tried to figure out how they worked. Erin was scanning the first floor boredly to see if there was anything to offer. There wasn't. apparently, everything was- upstairs. She was going to have to lead him up the escalator, which probably would be quite fun.
"Severus?" She said sharply. He snapped out of his trance and looked at her as though she was a student answering a question. She looked back confidently.
"We have to go up the escalator." She told him like a mother to her son on his first day of preschool.
"Obviously." He sneered, looking around at the horriblly bright colors. She ignored this and walked briskly towards the escalator. He followed her to where she stood at the elge of the moving platforms. They were whirring unpleasantly. She directed him to stand closer to the evil..... thing. He did so.
"lust step onto one of the steps now. Go on! and stay on one until you get to the top and just step off. simple as that." Unfortunately it wasn't as simple as that. The steps were moving to fast. He tried several times but he would only have one foot on when the step would start to move up. He growled in frustration.
"Excuse me young man, are you going up?"
Snape turned to see a little old lady in green with huge glasses that reminded him of Trelawney's. He stepped out of the way politely. She smiled at him and got on one of those bloody steps as easy as pie. Erin held back laughs. He stepped back from it, preparing to leap for it. But again he lost courage, halfway through his jump. He ended up doing a rather long hop and he landed on a step. He swayed to keep his balance, gripping the rubbery rail, which was moving in unison with the stair. Erin and a reluctant Charles followed him. He had a death grip on the railing, for he feared the end of the ride where he would probably fall off. he scowled internally imagining if any of his students could see him now...
Suddenly he realized that he wasn't moving. he was off of the stair, at the very edge, and the railing was gone too. He straightened up and moved out of the way of the irate muggles who wanted to purchase clothing.
Erin and Charles gave him appraising looks. He turned on his heel to observe the racks of clothing. On the walls there were mostly muggle men. I needn't mention that they were inanimate. He approached a rack and looked at the clothing impatiently, sure that he wasn't going to find anything worth purchasing. He grimaced at a garish orange striped shirt and moved hastly to the next rack.
Finally he found a shirt that might be worth spending money on. It was a black button-down cotton with white cuffs and collar. The problem was that he was sure it would be too small. Erin approached him cautiously, carefully concealing a stack of clothes for him to try. He sneered at the shirt in disgust, almost trying to will it to fit him properly. She coughed to switch his attention to herself. He looked up, sneering a bit less viciously.
"Do you know what size you wear?" She asked, looking at him, then at the shirt, and then him again.
"No, I don't and yes, I know it won't fit." he said holding up the shirt to his chest.
"Where did you get it?"
He gestured toward part of the rack they were next to. She looked through the clothing in the same impatient way, checking the tags on them. after a few minutes of scanning the shirts she took one carefully off the rack and held it up to him. It was about the same size as the last one. She nodded and handed it to him, taking the first one.
"Here. Try these on." She thrust her selection into his hands and walked away briskly before he could push them back. He looked at the clothes, speechless. They were apallingly bright colored shirts and pants. To his horror, the disgusting orange shirt was in the selection. He looked around for the mad(ly beautiful) muggle-ehem, the muggle. who was nowhere in sight. But upon scanning the room he did happen to see a room entitled 'fitting room.' He approaced it cautiously and entered. Inside the brightly lit room, there were wide stalls for changing. hesitantly, he bent lower to see of there were feet under the door he was considering. Since there weren't, he tried opening the door. It was locked from the inside. He did the same with another door but the same was also true. He guessed he would just have to wait for one of the muggles to come out so that he could start his journey through clothes - shopping. He sat and pondered life as he waited. He wondered why he-
"Wanting to change sir?" A hyperactive looking girl with pigltails asked. Most shockingly, he only shuddered with surprise. But he did jump with surprise when he looked closer and realized that the hyper thing was actually a man. He was wearing fishnet nylons and a short skirt which made Snape want to give his breakfast to the outside world again.
"Sir?" asked the manwoman. Snape gulped and nodded nervously, hoping that the frightful thing wouldn't touch him.
"Right this way!" It said with a toothy grin, walking gayly towards an empty stall Snape had attempted earlier. It fumbled with a key, then pushed it in the door and pulled it open. Snape walked in, not daring to look at 'It'.
I wish that I could tell you that his shopping expedition was successful. I wish I could tell you that he walked out of that store with 5 shopping bags with pictures of inanimate muggles on them. I wish I could give you more than one positive outcome of the trip, but I can't say any of these things. The only positive thing about the whole trip was one new pair of muggle clothes, if you could consider that positive. Snape thought the whole situation was ludicrous; muggles who were.... Well, you know. Muggle clothing itsself was ridiculous looking, he felt like a fool standing there with his paper bag reading "Gap." What was that supposed to mean anyway? Gap? He imagined a muggle falling through a gap in the floor, then another muggle pointing and saying, "That's it! The Gap!" He tried removing this random image from his head as he stumbled onto the escalator. He was now to journey to what the muggles called a salon, which must be another clothing shop.... Or something of that sort.

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Ok I'm kinda type hyper! as you might be able to tell....... I can't even make proper sentences!! * Type hyper: I'm hyper through the keyboard, not as in jumping around the room singing "im a giant tequila banana pickle." but as in typing, "im a giant tequila banana pickle." Yes yes.... I am sorry if there are cultural errors but NOBODY helped me out with that little problem.... *glares at the readers of her story, who whistle and pretend that they didn't read my HELP ME notice* Oh well that's not my problem! hope it was ok anyways. tootles!
Richalness*