All of this was stunning, but if I could, can I just yammer on embarrassingly long about this bit right here:
For all his ill-beginnings, Severus even now struck her as a work-in-progress. He cloaked himself in haggered adultness - a forbidding scowl, caustic wit and vocabulary so large he erected it about himself like castle battlements. Many were fooled. Most were intimidated. Minerva, however, was no stranger to the defences of the reserved.
First: GUH, my heart breaks, yes! Such a work in progress. ♥ Then you perfectly describe who Severus is and why perhaps he is like this and then, THEN (as if that weren't quite enough to be going on with in one paragraph) you show how they are the SAME in that reservedness and what it does to you.
BRILLIANT!
I also, really, really liked how you played with the almost rigid morals of the human Minerva and the pure id of the cat.
All of this was stunning, but if I could, can I just yammer on embarrassingly long about this bit right here:
For all his ill-beginnings, Severus even now struck her as a work-in-progress. He cloaked himself in haggered adultness - a forbidding scowl, caustic wit and vocabulary so large he erected it about himself like castle battlements. Many were fooled. Most were intimidated. Minerva, however, was no stranger to the defences of the reserved.
First: GUH, my heart breaks, yes! Such a work in progress. ♥ Then you perfectly describe who Severus is and why perhaps he is like this and then, THEN (as if that weren't quite enough to be going on with in one paragraph) you show how they are the SAME in that reservedness and what it does to you.
BRILLIANT!
I also, really, really liked how you played with the almost rigid morals of the human Minerva and the pure id of the cat.
STUNNING!
I just really, really liked this fic. ♥