3. BATMAN

Getting settled into the house had been considerably quick; the Wizard Protection Program had already furnished the house with appliances and furniture. They had only needed to unpack their own possessions and clothes, which had been shrunk into their bags. Harry and Ron had already had a row with Snape about moving the furniture, which could be heard from the other side of the wall and "gave him a bloody headache."

The first night in Chicago was an utter fiasco, starting with a trip to the bank. The Order had unanimously voted Snape to go and withdraw some of the money that the WPP had put into an account. They had taken care of basically everything, except for teaching them how to live as Muggles. Two thousand miles away from home.

Severus Snape threw on his cloak and left in a huff. He knew he was sure to get chants of the Batman theme from insufferable Muggle teenagers, but he didn't care. He could hex them wandlessly if he needed to.

To his surprise, no one made fun of him on his way to the bank, but rather stared. He found the bank without a problem, just having to ask a scrawny cabdriver for directions, who seemed quite frightened of him. He walked inside and made his way to the front desk. Two young employees in suits whispered to each other and stifled giggles. Snape could've sworn he'd heard "Batman" in a whisper. He rolled his eyes.

"May I help you?" the first one asked, leering over at his partner. His partner seemed to choke on the water he was sipping, escaping to the back room.

"I would like to withdraw from my account," Snape said in a business tone of voice. He heard spasms of laughter from the back room, laughter that was probably directed towards him and not meant to be heard.

"Card, please," the employee asked. Snape handed over the card and the employee inspected it. "This a new card?"

"Obviously," Snape drawled, glaring at the employee.

The employee did what he had to do with the card, finding no problems with it. "How much would you like to withdraw?"

"I… How much is sufficient for a few days? I have a rather large… family back home," Snape said, almost laughing at the irony of the word "family", considering most of the people he was being forced to live with felt mutual hate.

"I… I am not sure what you mean, sir. Grocery-wise? Paying bills? Shopping for necessities?" The employee looked at him suspiciously.

"Grocery-wise," Snape said almost instantly. He assumed it would be for groceries. If anyone needed money for other things, he would force them to come to the bank themselves. He didn't not want to deal with any insufferable idiots like this employee.

"A hundred dollars, maybe two?" the employee said. "Is this some kind of joke?"

Snape was almost ready to crack. "Joke? Why in the name of Merlin would you suspect my presence to be a joke?"

"Name of… Merlin?' the employee, though clearly shocked, stifled laughter.

Snape stood there for a moment, silent. "Yes. Merlin. My father," he finally said. This was the best he could do. "Now please give me my money. I have things to do."

The employee looked taken aback. He pushed a receipt across the table in addition to two crisp hundred-dollar bills.

"What is this?" Snape asked, staring blankly at the piece of paper the employee had handed to him.

"A receipt, sir. You sign it. Do they not have these in England?" the peeved employee said. Snape nodded. He wasn't sure what to do with it.

"It's customary in this country to sign with a pen… Seeing as you can't do that, here's a crayon," the employee said, handing him a green crayon. "Unless you can't use this either."

Snape impatiently took the crayon, his cheeks starting to burn (he was never publicly embarrassed simply because he could hex people as much as he needed to). He signed his name in his miniscule scrawl. At that, everyone in line started to cheer. He handed over the crayon and the receipt in exchange for the money and glared at every last person in line as he made his way to the door.

He was ready to Apparate back to the house when he remembered that he was not allowed to do magic anymore. He hurriedly walked back to the house, suffering through one chant of the Batman theme from a car full of rowdy Muggle teenagers. They were silent the second he glared icily at them.

"Never… again," he huffed as he blasted through the front door.