Oh, thank you for this!! (That, incidentally, is a mantra I started chanting somewhere on page 1 and kept up pretty much all the time I was reading.) This story makes it all better – all the things I’ve groused and grieved over since reading DH, things that I’d wished JKR had done differently ... you’ve fixed them.
Ok. I don’t want to fall into full gush mode (am I too late?) – but I did love this story. How you so neatly and believably engineered the alternate universe, and made it such a warm and welcoming place. How Severus, not Harry, is the hero in this world (as we see in the article written by – what’s this, a sympathetic Rita Skeeter?? How Harry, having benefited from a loving home, is calmer and more secure than in the other universe, yet is still essentially the same. And I really love that this is set while Harry’s still a student. I’ve figured out that I’m just not ready to think of him as a middle-aged man with a wife (or ex-wife) and a bunch of kids -- I may never be ready -- so there’ll always be a special place in my heart for fics set while he’s still at Hogwarts or not that long out of it. This one’s going into the “reread often and feel better” file. :-)