This is lovely and restrained, with much more emotion underneath than is allowed to show on the surface. I really like the contrasts and echoes (But wait, wasn't he dead already? versus "He'll live." … "And he'll come back" setting up The boy would come back. … His face is a white mask, and she almost reaches out to rip it off his face, to force him to unfreeze versus "Her thumb had left a faint reddish trail in its wake." … Only his heart is beating fast, fast, fast, but it doesn't show echoed at the end by "…the last thing she knew was that, under her palm, his heart was falling into an ever-firmer, ever-faster beat."
The fact that Snape is given no voice throughout the story only emphasizes the haunting quality, the uncertainty of his presence. It's perfectly summarized by the line that threatens Poppy's stoic control: "I don't know where his soul is," she finished, much softer than she had intended. Which is, again, beautiful in its understatement.
Snape starting to warm up and move back toward life only when Poppy breaks down crying gives this the quality of a fairy tale, of Sleeping Beauty, where it takes a kiss, the touch of love, to dispel the terrible magic of Living Death. And then there's the way Poppy refers to him in her mind by his full name or his title until the moment it becomes apparent that he wants to live, that he's going to wake up, and then at last he's "Severus." And she can let go her vigil and lie down beside him and feel safe.
Poppy is the soul of this fic, but I also enjoyed the portrait of Minerva, and Aberforth's cameo. And I love that it ends just before Severus actually opens his eyes, with the suggestion that when he does, it will be to find Poppy sleeping beside him.
A very moving and delicately controlled story. I've thought about it all day, until this moment when I've finally had the chance to jot down some of my thoughts. Thank you for such a quiet, compassionate, beautifully wrought fic.