I love this fic. It's beautiful and balanced and heartbreaking and hopeful, and it's got a good handle on life ("Many things aren't fair, Toby-boy") and love (Forever love is pretty good for a story ending."). The parenthetical flashforwards wove in another story perfectly, and I love your depictions of Toby/Severus, Eileen, and Tobias. "Was she beautiful?" [. . . .] "Not especially." That was why Mum's stories were better. They were more true. (That's why I like this exchange so much.) In Miss' books, anything that wasn't what it seemed was always what Miss called a metty-four, and metty-fours were meant to teach naughty children lessons. Hee! Young Toby's PoV is great. Gorgeous fic, not superficially, but in a very . . . real and deep and true sort of way (which is the best kind of story in my opinion).