When you first chose this time and location, I had a moment of anxiety about how you'd be able to make it all come alive. It's so far away, in time and space, and I knew you'd be adjusting your narrative style as well. But this was you, I realized, and if anyone could do it, you could. And I was right, and you did.
So glad you chose first person POV; Harry was endearingly honest and real and insecure, but very very good at heart, just like canon Harry. That he was magical, had a gift that he didn't understand, which complicated his life, that he was an orphan and comfortless, rang the familiar canon bells. When faced with the choice of anyone he could want, he chose the outcast, and this Severus, like the one we usually play with, had nothing to really recommend him at first. But then you painted his strength of character, how his pride and intoxication with power became his downfall. A lost soul, until another lost soul found him.
Your narrative style, well, like perfica, you have a gift in adjusting it so that it's a perfect vehicle to deliver your story. Not many authors can do this well; I know I can't. The description of their environment was rich and sensate; I could picture everything, smell the sesame oil, feel the sand beneath my sandals, hear the backdrop of camels and crowded city, and choke against the acrid smoke in my throat as I huddled with them beneath the bed.
I was elated that you bound them together by their common affliction--magic! I loved Harry's dream of Isis, how he took the stripes for Severus, and that ingenious/devious plot that brought them to Pharoah's attention, and ultimately set them upon their own road. Just like Snarry of any genre, what made this work for me was that there really was only one person in the world for Harry, and only one for Severus. Isn't that what we all do when we write Snarry (at least of the romantic variety)? Attempt to make that so? Against incredible odds, Harefre and Severus found each other. All the other wonderful things about your setting and style only enhanced what your true purpose here was--to tell a love story.
You flat-out nailed your genre and prompts. I'm so full of admiration for what you've done, J.. It's a beautiful story, and I know you researched yourself silly, and it shows. But this was never showy or didactic or tedious. It's blended together so that the reader is just carried along, and that's the proof that the reserach gems and all the little touches are just enough, and not too much. So very, very well done! *bows before the Pharoah's handmaiden*