Great story, I loved it !

Aw. Poor Snape. At least he did not die alone.

Hey :)
I really liked your story and I hope you read this although you posted the story a few years ago. I grew up with the Harry Potter series and I loved Snape from the beginning. I also think like a lot of people wrote here in the comments that JKR could have put a little bit more attention on Snape in the last book for he is such a key - character really. I mean if you think about it none of the Harry Potter story would have ever happened this way had Severus not overheard the prophecy and told Voldemort. But I do think that Mrs Rowling made up for the lack of "Snape's POV" in the Deathly Hallows by allowing Harry and the reader a glimpse into Severus life through the pensieve. It was so nice though to reread the Deathly Hallows from Snape's point of view in your fanfiction. I'm German so I could read the lines of the poem/song that you put into the story and I found them to be very fitting. They greatly improved the mood of the whole story. Keep on writing, you're doing a splendid job 3
Hugs from Germany!

Thank you so much for that story. It is ingenious and Snape is exactly like the man I also think he is.

My poor heart...

I think you have captured Snape's final year perfectly.

This story is so amazingly heartbreaking. You really capture how alone and battered poor Severus was. Going through the dream sequence with the portraits was a great way to see how this final year is just the icing on a lifetime of suffering.

I just re-read this and cried all over again. I still don't know why you don't have more reviews than this. The pain and loneliness he goes through would have destroyed a lesser man. Severus proved he was the bravest man of the whole bunch.

simply one of my favourite

Utterly excellent story - fills in the gaps in DH, gives a brilliant interpretation of Snape's character without changing what happened. I love the story 'One Man's Island', but it is premised on a long-standing, though unrevelaled mentorship of Harry by Snape, therefore AU; this is not AU but is equally moving.
Thank you.

amazingly written

First of all I can't believe you have so few reviews. This was absolutely brilliant.

I can't tell you how many times I cried while reading this. I really wish the movie had shown Severus finding that letter and photo of Lily. It was very heartbreaking. Seeing everything from Severus's POV makes all the difference. Harry most of the time had no clue what was really happening and most of the time he was wrong anyway. What I find so very interesting is that Severus had such an emotional heart that he had to hid away under layers of sarcasm, hatred and seeming detachment. He had it all buttoned away under those robes. No one ever seemed to see that. The boy who was venerated, scorned and unloved had the heart, intellect and drive to help defeat Voldermort. Without him Harry would have never had a chance.

I found this so very sad:

"Lucky you," Severus said sardonically, glaring over his shoulder. "Mine have never been anything to celebrate. With luck, this one will be the last." He turned away, missing Albus' stricken expression.

"My dear boy… I certainly hope that you will remain in the land of the living for many more fulfilling years. But if your time must come, do not fear. Death is merely the beginning of another adventure."

"I sincerely hope not," the headmaster growled, massaging his temples to stave off an impending headache. "I would very much like Death to be the end instead of the beginning. Existence has wearied me. I do not fear death, but I do fear that I will not find rest. Although what waits in the beyond could hardly be worse that what I have lived through here, it has been my experience that things can always get worse."

So horrifying he can't wait to die. How alone he was all this time.

And this:

"You were right to spare Draco the task of killing you. After all, what difference is one more murder to my soul?"

Even though Dumbledore said it wouldn't hurt Severus's soul to kill him I think it crushed him to kill the only person who had been his friend and father figure.

And while Severus did chose to be a Death Eater he had so much help pushing him to that decision. If only one of these people had helped him - Dumbledore, Slughorn or anyone had shown him he was worthy would he have beome a DE? If Lily hadn't walked away from him? If James and his creeps had left him alone? They all in their own way pushed him to the only salvation he thought he could find and that was the Slytherins who promised him he had a place with Voldermort. To expect a teenager who had never had anything good in his life except for a girl who disowned him to make the right choice when someone gives him a cure all that he thinks will elevate him and bring the girl back is kind of silly. Of course he is going to take the choice of power and success. Dumbledore is passing the buck to let himself off the hook.

deep

Amazing story! I like your interpretation on Ad, Slughorn, and all their mistakes concerning Severus and the Marauders. Good characters interactions, and Severus-porttrait Dumbledore interaction. It was very interesting. It would have been nice, though, to have another chapter based on all the other character's regret, after Severus's death. Ah well, still a fabulous story!

This was really good.

A couple of small criticisms first. One is factual, in Britain we have free general healthcare. I truly cannot imagine anyone having to pay for an ambulance, it sounds horrific! If you're ill or hurt then you get medical attention regardless of how poor or rich you are. (I know this probably seems like a small point but unfortunately it was glaringly obvious and took me by surprise and out of the story for a bit). The second is a small point on your writing style. Sometimes you jumped viewpoint for a bit (with Lucie and Phineas for example) and you often moved across time quickly without it being obvious within the first sentence of a new paragraph. It didn't detract too much but it did get slightly confusing every now and then. Oh, another very tiny thing I noticed was that if Severus knew he would (hopefully, if all went well) be sending Harry to his death then he wouldn't be likely to bequeath him the photo he found. Like I say, not a big detail, it just hit me a while later (while I was still thinking about this story so you can see how it affected me).

Overall, however, I really, really enjoyed this. It must be one of the most comprehensive stories about Severus during this year. I loved how you built the pressure up on him. At the beginning of the school year he knows how difficult things are and will be but he can still find certain situations amusing and he would definitely have liked the power he held. Towards the end, however, we see how it has all become almost too much to bear. Still, our Severus keeps it all together of course!

You wrote his interactions with Slughorn brilliantly. I completely agree with how you see Snape's past relationship with him. I reckon Old Sluggie was far too interested in 'connections' to ever get to know all of his students. Snape would have definitely taken more care of his students and known exactly those kind of details he spouted.

Likewise, Minerva's conversations also held me. I just wish there were a few more of them! And Sinistra's midnight confrontation was well done. More than anything you really show how isolated he was, how dependent he was on the portraits - who, by the way, were excellently drawn. Phineas comes into his own and Albus remains his overbearing but seemingly reasonable self.

So I really liked how you saw him interact with his colleagues and portraits but also how you gave entirely reasonable reasons for certain things. Like why he went to Grimmauld Place, how he knew Harry was in Hogwarts and also things like his concern over the goblins realising the sword was a fake. You made the facts of DH real, which is actually quite an achievement since some of them are just bizzare!

When I opened the story I saw that it was two chapters, as I was getting to the end I realised that the first would end with his death (portrayed well I thought, he would have been so frustrated that he had failed after everything. Of course Snape would have thought that Harry was a hallucination, also liked the detail that he didn't know if leaking the memories would work or not). Anyway, I was hoping that the second chapter would be everyone's reaction or something. I don't know, it just seemed far too sad. I suppose this should be enough because your remit seemed to be to make DH real from a different viewpoint, sometimes I just get a bit sappy!

Loved it - and by far the longest review I have written!

it was a very good story, and Snape very much in character with very fitting snide comments. thanks for giving us his perspective on DH year. Phineas is fun to read and he fits well as somebody who would be able to talk to Snape and help him. conversations with Slughorn and with Dumbledore regarding Slytherins situation hit the mark perfectly, I can see Snape ranting at them about it