I am dying for a sequel. This story was beautiful, but I still want to know more!

Wonderful story! I think Australia is the perfect place to "Start over" again - for both Hermione AND Severus!

Toronto, Canada also has an underground shopping district. It is called the PATH, with links to hundreds of shops, as well as several subway stations, hotels, business towers, conference centres, the CBC broadcasting centre, The Greyhound Bus depot, Metro Hall (municipal city hall admin building), and the Hockey hall of Fame.

Short (kinda) and sweet. I can really see them as friends, though I see those hints you keep making in the end XD Great story :)
- Scintilla of Myself

I enjoyed this, I'm just sorry it's so short. I could have just kept on reading and I'd definitely read a sequel.

I've read this story dozens of times. I'm back for yet another read through :)

Oh, dear-that is dreadful news for someone like Hermione. And she'll likely be too tired to manage color-coded anything, and will have to accept help instead of giving it.

Thank you. I've been ill for a few years now with some vague, mild yet painful thing. Its not really been diagnosed and I became depressed as well. This made continuing my medicine course very difficult. So I took a gap year. I'm trying to get myself together but I'm experiencing a LOT of doubt about the course and my ability etc. This story has been quite motivating. I really think I can do this and this lovely story has helped make my mind up. Cheers. x

Its beautifully written, nicely detailed and all that too. ;)

Where. Is. The. Next. Chapter button!? Arrrrrg! I want more!

Um, excuse me? Bull**** that Snape is not a Legilimens! You lost me there...

It's a nice story. That's really the best way to describe CC. It's not an epic or a drama or even particularly fluffy. Franky, I'm not sure if it's very memorable either. That doesn't mean however that I didn't like it.

But lets start from the beginning. I am not going to summarise the story and I will try to avoid spoilers such as there are. What Paisley Snail manages from the start is to intrigue me as a reader by her summary. It is an art in itself to write a summary without giving too much away or boring the read and making her go to the next story. I have to say, however, that judging by the summary alone I expected the story to be a little different.

The greatest strength of this story is the way the author handels language. Just the fact that there are no gramatical mistakes or weird sentences or /god help us/ author's notes in the text is admirable. Add to it the nice flow of the text and the read itself is great. The best parts are the descriptions of Sydney because you can feel through the word how much the author likes the city and wants to share with the reader. I think the floor tiles of the Lowest Basement and the Muggle Mall was both a nice symbol and a detail that will stay with me. Reading the descriptions of Australia made want to go there.
Another nice detail is the reference to the Aboriginal Magic. An interesting topic that I wish were explored more in the story. And herein (I've always wanted to use this word...) lies the problem. While the plot is more or less solid and I get the feeling that the author did put some thought into it and the language is very nice, the character development is less than stellar.

I am sorry, I don't mean to flame or to bash anyone but the most fleshed out characters in CC are Hermione's parent. And they are OCs. Very nice OCs for that matter but still. The best descriptions of the interaction between Snape and Hermione come from point of view of Hermione's father and that part is towards the end.
Hermione basically has two settings in CC. She is passive and petulant in the face of her illness or furious. There is really no in-between.

Snape is a little less one-dimensional but as I reader I never get to know his motivations. In the epiloge he muses over the possibility of returning to England and the Hermione is his link to continuity but what about the first nine and a half chapters? Why does he start being nice to her? What is he thinking wandering Sydney beside the value of anonymity? What happens to his survivor's guilt?..
Even the reunion between Hermione and her parents is a bit rushed. It's like everything is forgiven and forgotten and they carry on a normal. There is no rebuiding of that relationship at all.

I am not sure if the author is planning a sequel and if that's why there are so many holes in the story or if he/she simply needed a plot device to move the story along and never tied the loose ends. Like what happened between Ron and Hermione, did the press ever found out about her illness, what about the time gone from Hermione's parents memory and their connection to Wizarding MI5. I don't even know what Hermione is studying at the University (not that that's a very important detail).

In conclusion, I think that the author should try writing original fiction. S/he has the language skills and good attention descriptive details but maybe it will be easier to work with characters of her/his own creation instead of pre-existing ones.

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It was a little too long to post here.

What a treasure! ****slight spoilers in my comments***

This story was so compelling from start to finish. I loved that Hermione and Snape were kept very true to character. The build up to their budding mutual realization that they need and genuinely enjoy each other was deftly written.

I would love a sequel but I'm also very happy at the promising open ending. It's enough to know that when Hermione is ready to return to England, Snape is determined to be holding onto that port key with her. Something about the way that part was written was more romantic than all the graphic snogging scenes I've read elsewhere. And even if they end up as friends rather than lovers, it is still a comforting thought that Hermione has a friend who can handle her illness without coddling or patronizing her and who can challenge her lively mind, and that Snape has a source for an endless supply of all the warm hugs of unconditional friendship he missed out on all these years. We all know what a loyal friend Hermione is! He also has someone who can match his sarcastic wit with sharp, but not mean spirited, comments of her own.

Hermione's family was so skillfully brought to life, also. If only they could have been so alive in canon like this! Thank goodness for good fan fiction such as this story to fill in the empty spaces.

I loved the Australian setting. I would have needed to flee to such a different environment myself if I'd been through what Hermione and Snape had been through. What a lovely place to heal and regroup!

As a sufferer of some kind of autoimmune problem that has yet to be diagnosed as I get tossed about aimlessly amongst myopic specialists, I appreciate the unique premise of such a defined and prominent character as Hermione learning to come to terms with autoimmune disease. Having lost a career to my endless recurring bouts of fatigue, weakness and pain, I found her struggles realistic and poignant. It is indeed a long hard road to reinvent one's identity and redefine one's place in the world when illness takes you so far off course from your original plans and dreams and expectations of your abilities. Bravo! Well done!

This was a lovely story. I really enjoyed their slow to grow kinship and Hermione's rekindling strength (mental strength), and yet their growing closeness, here, makes everything all the sweeter.

Thank you so much for this and for the hope for both of them at the end!