Oh, how I adore this! Thank you so much, mystery author, for a charming, bittersweet, funny, sexy and touching story.
I love how your Horace is cleverer than he let's on to others - and that is a perfect part of his Slytherin-ness. His turn of phrase - hyphens were once again in style - is ideal, as are the sensual analogies he and you make throughout: lemon-scented exhalations of questions; disappointment smeared across his face like clotted cream on Sunday morning scones. There is such vividness, there; you tell us much about the character's life and world-view with just a few well-placed words.
I'm also delighted by the relationship you have made between Horace and Albus, here - replete with the teasing, awkwardness and second-guessing, and such a sweet ending. The socks theme is absolutely precious - from such clever use of the cannon, "I do love knitting patterns", through to the younger Albus' quasi-academic insistence that, making love while wearing socks intensifies the stimulation(!), to the denouement of a purple-cable knit gift and decision that, "We are never too old to experience all aspects of life." Albus' flirtation about the foot-massages and Horace's reaction was just wonderful!
Thank you again for this fine fic; I really like it :-)