First of all, THANK YOU, Secret Santa. Thank you soooo much! This is the best New Years gift I could've ever asked for. Do we know each other? I have a suspicion that we do, seeing how you seemed to have hit quite a lot of my kinks.
As the comments above have mentioned, this is creepy, but a very well done, intriguing kind of creepy. I love how the line between dream and reality (or is it insanity vs. sanity?) becomes gradually more blurred as the story goes on. But we don't know for sure, since the story is told from Harry's POV and he really does believe in everything that happened in his dreams. In contrast, the day-to-day home life of the Potter-Weasley household is almost too normal.
I like Harry's interaction with his family very much. All the little magical details are great — spelling bath bubbles in different colors, the rubber duck that changes the pattern of its skin... hehe, I want one for myself! *g* Then there's the very reasonable concerns from Ginny. As much as she can come across as annoying and I just want Harry to go spend more time with Snape (heh), I feel for her, who's practically a single mother with three children.
But of course, there's Snape, and what an awesome Snape! The Post-DH universe is ripe for angsty and not-quite-right Snarry, and you did this wonderfully.
And Snape, well . . . after the life he'd led in the real world, was it any wonder that he didn't want to risk losing what he'd found here? Was it any wonder that he couldn't quite trust that things would be this perfect outside of the dream-scape?
That's the contrast between Snape and Harry, isn't it? Snape's weariness from the crappy life he'd had, juxtaposed with Harry's desire to play the savior, to do all he can to wake Snape up. Add Tom into the mix, and you have a dysfunctional "family" that could only work in the dream world. Of course, Harry is too much of an optimistic Gryffindor to leave it at that, even if he seems to have understood Snape's reluctance to wake up by the end.
And the sex is yummy! "It was one of your better efforts, I'll say that for it." *snorts* So very Snape-ish :D
The ending is literally a nightmare come to life, but this time it's not Voldemort alone, it's he and Snape sharing some sort of a strange symbiotic relationship inside Snape's body. I do think there's a part of Snape somewhere in there, or at least that was my initial interpretation of the last few paragraphs when I first read them. They will either have to learn to coexist with one another somehow, or will kill each other very quickly. I'm hoping the relationship Harry'd developed with both of them inside the dream sequence will carry over. But there's another part of me that loves the fact that it ends in utter dystopia. *g*
Again, thank you very much for such a lovely, dark, and all-around compelling read! *glomps you*