YAY! -- part 1
Hello, Still-Mystery-Author! Thank you so much for this fic, and apologies aplenty for me being so very late with my reply to it. I've had real life crashing down around me for a few weeks now, and when this was first posted I missed it (though earlier I had been checking the community diligently to see if my gift fic was up -- RL timing was against me, unfortunately!). And then this is the first chance I've had to give this my full attention and comment.
First off, let me thank you for writing this wonderful, long, fantastically textured story. I was so excited when I realized this was nearly 25,000 words, because I adore long and plotty fics. But it wasn't just length I found as I read, because you created such a rich story with your choice to focus on older Harry returning to Hogwarts to teach and unexpectedly find Severus Snape.
The magical mentions/moments are really wonderful -- I liked the Can't Tell Jinx so much, as a child's game device that worked out so fittingly in this Severus-turned-adolescent situation -- and how hilarious was it for him to utter the Key word during the sex scene and not a moment before?
Other lovely magical moments: details about Severus's favorite Firewhiskey (remembered by MacGonagall, aww!) with the visible puff of air it releases when someone drinks it, worked so well. That sort of thing works so well here, as enhancing mentions of magic you slip in subtly, using them to layer the feel of the story rather than as more obviously pointed-out devices.
Great work also in laying out little breadcrumbs of issues or items or habits that later become key to the story -- we hear how Harry rues all the publicity that still follows him, and learn how Albus avidly reads the gossip magazines to keep up on both of his parents, well before the jealousy-motivating moment Severus has when he sees the picture of Harry with Oliver Wood.
Having this thinking-he's-younger Snape was such a treat -- it was like a de-aging story without the physical side to de-aging! But the adolescent attitude was fantastic, spot-on, and generally hilarious, as Severus sulks and acts sly and tries out his flirting techniques on a beleaguered Harry. Great twist on the de-aging convention.
I was happy to find Ginny treated so well in your story -- she seems like someone Harry still considers a close friend and enjoys a great deal even if they're no longer together, which seems exactly right to me. Interesting that the very thing they thought would be safest for their marriage (both of them pursuing same-sex partners on the side rather than anything else) ended up being the end of their romantic relationship.
I really liked Albus (ASP!) here -- he's fun but also canny, tolerant but also aware of markers of class and status, a strategic Slytherin open to being friendly with a range of people (as a Slytherin raised by Harry in the post-Voldemort world would surely be). His involvement in the story was well-handled, both in terms of his usefulness to various narrative developments (like his role in showing, inadvertently, the jealousy-inducing photograph), and in his presence allowing us to see what sort of father Harry is, and how Harry's attitudes to houses and Hogwarts and students manifest as he interacts with his sons and their peers.