Amazing story! I love the combination of gritty realism with magic and fantasy. That seems to be characteristic of your work, of which I have read some, even though i think this may be the first time I've commented. This is an amazingly grounded, focused, sane Severus that you've crafted. Poor Harry must have been fed some kind of Susceptibility potion by Lucius from the get go, for Lucius to have played him so completely.