Oh, I was re-reading this and ran across Minerva's comment about the first flush of of romantic infatuation always wearing off. Maybe mostly, but I have to say: Not always. I've been with my beloved for 39 years, and we are still giggly crazy mischievously besotted with each other. Just sayin

I love this, and am looking forward to seeing where both this and 'Sons of Prophecy' end up, if you have time to complete either or both of them. A friend of mine who has written a number of 'Dragon Rider' fanfics, most of which involve painful things happening to the hero (including one version in which he loses an arm from an injury that wasn't treated in time), comments that Ben Greenbloom is one of her favourite characters, which makes her hurt him, and you seem to have the same effect on Severus Snape - but mainly because you want to nurse him back to health, either from physical injuries (here), psychological trauma (this and 'Mood Music/Sons of Prophecy'), or being dead ('Giving Extras'), and give him a chance to be loved and appreciated, and to talk to the other characters as one adult to another, rather than as teacher-to-pupil or employee-to-employer.

I like the way the relationship between Snape and Harry is developing, and our realisation that a lot of the friction between them is a result not just of personal circumstances (Snape's experience of both Harry's parents) and magic (each of them sensing the presence of Voldemort in the other), but of simple misunderstandings that had never been resolved until now. I like your insights into Snape's experience of being a teacher - not just of being frightened, humiliated, and frustrated at not being able to get pupils to pay attention, but the idea that he has a softer side to his character that we don't see in the books (because they are told from Harry's point of view), and that what looks to everyone else like blatant favouritism towards Slytherin House, from his point of view is just being a protective, fatherly figure to some of the most troubled children in the school. He isn't simply becoming a nicer person because other people are now making more an effort to be nice to him - he is someone who clearly was a very caring person anyway, and who is finding out that the dividing lines between friends and enemies aren't drawn where he expected, in either direction.

Your stories are helping me to be more sympathetic to people I know in real life. A few days ago, I was on the phone to a friend who, because he was sexually abused by men as a boy, has a lifelong phobia of men - so that it's not just a matter of not wanting to be treated by a male doctor, but of walking out of a shop if there is a man standing behind him in the queue. He said that if men didn't want him to treat them as enemies, they should prove to him that they weren't going to hurt him. I felt that he was being unreasonable - how were random strangers in a shop supposed to know about his past, and understand that they had to prove their trustworthiness? Then I thought about Snape's experience here, and realised: my friend probably knows that he's being irrational, but he can't help feeling this way - and if he is thinking so illogically that he doesn't understand that it is irrational, then he can't help that, either.

Whitehound, thank you for your lovely, lovely essay about John Nettleship. I won't say, 'I wish I'd known him,' as I (like the young Joanne Rowling) would probably have been too nervous to get on well with him if we'd actually met. However, I can see why you liked him, and I'm very glad that he did get the happy marriage that the canonical Snape didn't (even if countless fen are doing their best to make it up to him).

Absolutely lovely.

I love that you’ve included Neville and Luna and the Slytherins, and that Severus is constantly accompanied by someone.

I forgot to mention how much I enjoyed the MASH reference in the previous chapter and, again, I truly feel like I’ve stumbled upon something grand here.

This is just wonderfully written and I’m learning so much in the process. What did we do to deserve fic writers...not a damn thing. Thank you so much for this wonderful story. I’m only two chapters in and I am completely in love with it!

This chapter was like wizarding grey’s anatomy and it was brilliant from start to finish.

I come back to read the medical portion of this story every so often because I LOVE Adrian. He is one of my favorite OCs of all time.

I don't usually review until the end of a story, but this merits mid review. It is gripping, insightful, warm without being sentimental and bracing about the realities of prolonged torture, physical and psychological, without revelling in it. I loathe torture porn. I like Adrian's brisk efficiency- he'll make a great consultant. Neville is lovely, and beautifully realised. Luna, as ever when well written, is a joy. Hermione is believable, and the warmth of the other teachers towards Snape is you.

I hope that you are doing well and have just been too busy to work on this. It is very powerful. Please continue if you can. Thanks!

This is just...too good. I love how you treat the aubject of torture and recovery so seriously, but don't remotely let it overtake Snape's character. But at the same time, at least once a chapter I ended up doubled over, laughing so hard I wheezed for air. Most recently was Draco's needling chorus comments on Snape and Ron's shouting march, Snape telling him he didn't want a hyena chorus (which I was providing alongside Draco) and Harry's comment about Snape really giving Hermione a hard time. Being able to take us through so many shifts of tone without leaving us uncertain what we should be feeling is a talent.

I'm somewhat heartbroken, honestly, that I have to stop reading. I hope that you can finish it eventually!

This story is wonderfully written, any chance of finishing it? I really want to know what happened next!

This has been a favourite story for so many years and it still is.

Will you ever go on with it? Will you ever finish it? It has been so very, very long...

What a wonderful story! I'm sad to see it's been abandoned, but at least our dear characters have some happiness if not closure.
Edda

Fascinating tale. Hectic and then hillarious at turns. Very well done.