Sybill/Eileen! I'd never have thought that I could be completely sold on, engrossed by, and tearing up for this pairing, but then, I'd never have thought that one could bring them as close to me as this. This really is Beholder at its best -- three minor characters whose canon presence serves merely for laughs (Sybill) or background for a major one, turned into full, three-dimensional characters, explored with insight and understanding, and brought together in a compelling, believable, heart-breaking story.
Your three POVs are amazing; I can virtually hear Tobias, with his simple man's voice and hopes, the good intentions (from his POV) that are clearly there at the beginning, later the disillusionment that life didn't even fulfil his "modest" wishes, and then the obstinacy and the coping by escaping reality in drink and asserting himself with the last power, the last advantage over Eileen that he has – physical force. Eileen, too, rings so true for a woman who has never had reason to believe that life would ever surprise her with any happiness. As for Sybill – wow! I've never seen her written like this. It's such a fine line you walk there, conserving all her esoteric world views and the haughtiness that so often comes when one perceives oneself to be more sensitive than others, also the tendency to spice up her lonely life with the occasional Sherry, but you give her some realism and a sense of her limits ("corrective lenses" *g*) that make her three-dimensional and likeable. Love, love, love the life you've given her – of course she, as someone who seeks like-minded people with similar "gifts" but who has always had difficulties relating to others, would see the appeal in the life of a Commune (I could so see her in an ashram – something Auroville-style, perhaps). And then there's that sucker-punch (in the best possible sense) of an end. The last two lines left me open-mouthed in front of my screen.
Just excuses, that's all they was. Excuses. So that she could cut Tobias out of her life, make him a stranger in his own home. -- Ouch. And so, so plausible, this entire train of thought.
"It's too perfect," she'd said, proving her prescience once again. -- Of course this would seem prescience to Eileen – rather than a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The first time she had really talked with Sybill had been near Christmas of their sixth year at Hogwarts. -- I love the entire Hogwarts backstory you create for them, how they first relate to each other because they're lonely and then slowly develop intimacy, and how gradually they explore their attraction and desires and their own sexuality. Beautiful, and beautifully told!
Hadn't Professor Slughorn, her own Head of House, chosen to deny her his mentorship even though he knew her ability with Potions? -- Damn, yes, that is exactly the thing he would do.
Madam Blastasky -- Poor old Helena is really getting her share of incarnations in the Potterverse. *g*
Sybill didn't think it was tempting fate too much to say that Eileen's love had been the best part of this plane of her existence. [...] She collected delicate china tea cups (for one must have beauty) and knitted herself soft, colourful shawls (for one must make one's world vivid) and took long, soul-cleansing walks. -- Your Sybill's voice is a triumph, and these are just two examples. The bits of esoteric language and thinking, and also the little instances of false modesty that shine through, show her exactly like the woman she is in canon, but you give her depth and show her struggle to find a place for herself, which I love. And I love how you work with her Seeing – sometimes she's spot on (for example when she "Sees" Eileen's unhappiness), sometimes far off the mark, and she never can distinguish one from the other.
Everything would be fine. Sybill could See it. -- Wow. That hit me hard.