I really love this story. I love how it is told from Snape's perspective and I like how it is not an attempt to rehash the books. I love the way the Slytherin students are made much more three dimensional. I love the way you have developed Snapes character as the story progresses in a believable way. One of the things that really irritated me in the books was how Snape and Sirius were basically acting like 13 year olds towards each other even with the war ongoing. I found this annoying and somewhat unbelievable. I wanted to put the pair of them in magical timeout until they were willing to act like grownups!

Re. nettle: I'd have loved to see the scene of Snape's upbraiding his Snakes with an analysis of just how realistic it was for them to think the Gryff "dunderheads" able to accomplish such a thing ~and~ telling them that if they couldn't ID the perp(s), they certainly couldn't expect him to enlighten them.

Coming back to this after a couple weeks...

I'm starting to get tired of hearing that past events don't matter, especially from your HP who never suffered as Snape did.

Having skimmed past chapters, I'm also puzzled about Snape's attitude to Draco Malfoy - not sure why I didn't react to it before. What purpose does it serve to make him a worse jerk than he was in canon? Won't help HP and certainly won't help Snape, who has to put up with Draco's even worse behavior.

I am re-reading this, after years. This was and is magnificent! I have read to ch 4 but cannot put it there, as had already reviewed there.

So nice to see this updating again! I know I read this a while ago, I remember Merlin’s Mirror. Not sure where I left off.

The enchanter plot line is interesting, I can’t wait to see what you do with it. (Harry the Bard whelming Voldie with the Power of Metal!)

I adore this story and your version of Harry and Snape. I look forward to reading what you come up with next.

Well now. That, I was not expecting, at all. Even the absolute best of the mentor!Snape fics that I've read don't much go into the nature of the revelations Snape must have to change himself.

Those little details you throw in make me laugh. So, they know it was Double Q this time.

Yes, Professor, when you don't berate the skin off people, they do better in general.

Ah, THUNDEROUSLYPISSED!Snape is always fantastic as a rescue medium. I always felt that if he ever knew what Harry went through, there would be... something. As an abused lad himself, I'm surprised he never saw. Of course, getting the right balance is difficult, and you've done well. Good job!

Yes, the scar hurting when the Horcrux died *should* be a clue to somebody, and I hope it is. At least they brought a rooster in case the basilisk wasn't all the way dead yet.

Yay Harry!

No, they were not. Repeated torture (physical and "just" mental) and attempted murder of one boy by a gang of four is in no way comparable to even the bitterest rivalry between two individual boys. (If it were bullying rather than rivalry, I'd say Vernon was highly likely the bully, not the victim.) Such torture cannot be forgotten no matter how many years pass - unless the victim represses it, which is worse.

Delicious! No one else I've read ever thought of that particular method of ensuring Harry's good treatment. Ditto (last chapt.) for Snape's giving HP a precis of his history and the attitudes he was likely to find upon entering his new world. Go Snape!

Pardon the nit, but wouldn't Snape get HP different-looking frames to avoid having to look at JP's face? The glasses strike me as a significant part of the "James Potter" look.

It's refreshing to see Dursleys that are abusive but not outrageously monstrous (repeated life-threatening beatings or starvation, rape, dumping HP in a ditch). Abuse doesn't have to threaten life or inflict great bodily harm to be seriously harmful.

Very good, too, to see Snape thinking strategically: he might as well milk this for all he can while helping HP. A win-win strategy, if at all practicable, seems to me far more Slytherin than one of making enemies by forcing others to lose.

Wonderful start. Your relatively recent update leaves me cautiously optimistic that this will in fact be finished.

Your characterization of Snape is one of the very best I've seen, if anything better than Rowling's. (Of course I'm a Snapehead and like him rather better than she does, but still...) He's predisposed to dislike or hate HP but not so much that his spy's observational skills utterly desert him in the boy's presence. And his observations (ruminations) about the other characters are priceless - so very like him.

What's more, you make many of your points with far more subtlety, and artistry, than is usual in fiction.

If you don't already know him, give Patrick O'Brian a read. Unless you can't bear historical fiction at all, I think you'll appreciate him.