What a lucky girl I am!!! And what a fantastic treat to come home to this evening. Thank you so, SO much for this most excellent fic! There's so much I want to talk about--characterization, inventive magic, the, um, hottest sex in the world . . .
Characterization. I loved Harry in this. I thought you did an amazing job with his overall character and especially how he was affected by the Elder Wand. It felt natural and real to me. Excellent. Snape was fantastic. There's not much more I could say about him (other than he was fantastic!!). Draco--especially when in Dom mode--was really great. In canon, I've always thought that Draco is "dominant" but he's not dominant. What I mean is he's commanding, but he still looks to others for direction. You played with that brilliantly by having Snape as the Master of them all. And, given how little control Draco's had over his life, I could easily see him as the dominant in a sexual relationship with a peer. (and in the same vein, I can easily see Harry as the more submissive partner--wanting to let go).
Inventiveness. I love magical theory and you did a fantastic job of coming up with an incredible way to deal with the Elder Wand issue and make teh sex make sense--not just in a "oh, it makes sense that they're having sex now" sense, but in a characterization sense. When Draco told Harry that he held pain and let it fester, I was nodding right along. Really fantastic. Also, Draco as a wandmaker is ingenious. The ritual was fantastic and well done. It felt very three-dimensional to me. What I mean by that is that the ritual scene worked on so many different levels, touched on so many different aspects of the story. It was well integrated.
The sex. Well. What more can I say? It was amazing. I don't know if you have a lot of experience with D/s, but you you really seem to know your stuff--especially your description of subspace and what Draco did to keep Harry from falling too far down the hole. A subtle point, but an important one. And Harry's inability to experience pleasure! That was perfection! Of course this is what he would struggle with. He could take all of the pain in the world, frankly even the submission, but having to ask for what he wanted, to revel in it, to take pleasure because he wanted it--it was both a deeply shaming and deeply liberating act for him. Again--that felt very "canon" to me, in that I think Harry has always had trouble asking for what "he" wants and taking it.
I'm incredibly lucky to have received such an outstanding gift. Thank you for all of your very, very hard work on this and for taking the time to craft such a fantastic story for me.