You took away the magic and you moved the story to the US and I still recognised the characters. What an accomplishment.
I loved the transposition of the characters and the details to this new setting. The only thing that made me wonder was the change in Severus' name. I got used to it very easily. But, I did have a moment's pause when I discovered that Severus/Steven had buried his background - I almost expected to learn that he'd changed his name to something more common and less identifiable.