Hi! Thank you so much for this epic tale. Truly brilliant.

Sorry, Jean, I'm giving up on this because it's just too depressing. Beautifully written but so downbeat that if I read the whole 880,000 words I'd probably commit suicide. Also, the revelations in the later books contradict your version of character backgrounds so much that it's jarring. You have been what we in the Buffyverse fandom referred to as 'Jossed'.

please do write a sequel

Hello! I just finished this and really enjoyed it. I hope you finish what I think is the sequel sometime soon!

Very much worth reading, right through to the end. It's a shame the sequel is still in its infancy, but I will certainly be reading it.

As of yet, this is another excellent portrayal of Snape. It frustrates me how you play fast and loose with certain aspects of the plot of books 1-5, but this story is too good to stop reading just for that.

Rereading, and just as wonderful. So much richness of language, plot and characterisation.
I love your depth in minor characters.
This is a joy to read, and ultimately life affirming despite the pain and sorrow. It's also funny at the right time.
Thank you for this.

THIS IS SO UNDERRATED I LOVE IT.

good story

Lovely story!

Hmm. Master Seldon. Would that be Hari Seldon, founder of the Encyclopaedia Galactica :D?

Beautiful final chapter - it made me cry, the way beautiful things always do. I don't really think the 'two seasons' interpretation of the prophecy can be correct - after all, a season isn't a cycle of anything, but a stage in the cycle of the year. If 'sun cycle' doesn't mean a day (the time taken for the Earth to turn itself to face the sun again) I'd have thought it could mean either a year (the time taken for the Earth to cycle round the sun) or eleven years (the time taken for a cycle of activity in the burning of the sun itself), in which case two sun cycles would give Snape until he's nearly sixty - not a long life, but long enough to see the end of the war and see his children grow to near-adulthood, at least. He might decide that this is better than nothing, or he might decide that it would be unfair to have children when he will die when they are still in their teens - or, if he marries Molly, that her body has been through enough in producing seven children so far.

Beautiful chapter - the scene where Snape is naming his Matryoshka dolls was so emotional that it made me cry. I'd have thought a sapient pearwood broom would be intelligent enough simply to understand if Arvid Rosier told it that she was giving it to Severus Snape (the Luggage certainly seems to accept being given to Rincewind willingly enough) - but maybe the blood rite helps. The bit about the cactus reminded me of Jake Thackray's song 'The Cactus'. Do you know it?

I notice that by this stage you ARE referencing Half-Blood Prince, if only as a horrible reminder of what might have been. Even though you've made different decisions about some characters' backstories from the ones Rowling turned out to have made, they work for this story - for example, Petunia might accept advice from a teacher at Harry's school who understands how hard Harry can be to deal with, but might not have wanted help from Lily's annoying friend Sev who used to come into her room with Lily to pry into her private stuff when they were children. And even though Dumbledore in your version is heterosexual, he is still someone who has lost family members to Grindelwald and feels guilty about having allowed this to happen - even if, here, he doesn't have the guilt of having been a former friend of Grindelwald and having either directly or indirectly killed his own sister.

Lovely massage scene (I feared from the warning about 'any of you familiar with the phrase "happy ending" should realise that this is a story for adults,' that maybe it was warning that happy stories are only for five-year-olds and adult readers should expect nothing but grimness. I'm glad that's not true). I'm glad there is counselling available for recently-turned werewolves. And (going back a few chapters) I loved the comment about Madam Pomfrey having become friends with one of the gargoyles after treating him for a lichen infection.

I know Harry has a lot of anger and resentment in him, but I'm not convinced he would enjoy dreaming about murdering Snape and taking pleasure in it - or, if he did, that he would still feel happy about the dream when he woke up. Yes, we've seen that he was starting to head towards the Dark Side when he attempted to use Crucio - but it isn't until a couple of years later that he actually DOES. And saying that he had enjoyed watching Snape's memories in the Pensieve flatly contradicts the book (yes, Snape would have assumed he did, but this section is supposed to be written from Harry's point of view). But the Star Wars reference was a good touch - and if Harry thinks about what the end of the dream implies, there's a hope that he MIGHT finally start to empathise with Snape.

In the books, didn't Dudley's diet-and-exercise regime start a couple of years earlier than this? By the beginning of Order of the Phoenix, he's already transmuted from flabby lardarse to trained boxer - which, of course, just makes him into a more effective bully. But it's good that he seems to be mellowing a bit, even if it's just the effect of the potion - in the books, even if he's secretly grateful to Harry for rescuing him, it's two years before he can actually bring himself to admit it.