Amazing, hits the spot on just every level. What worked best to me in this story was Snape’s innocence, and seeing him so… bluntly trying to accept Harry’s hand, well blunt compared to what we’re used to from him. But yes, the innocence, he’d been purified, and given someone like Harry around
Severus envied him. He wanted to be him, he wanted to be friends with him and he... Well. He just wanted him. It was a painful, hopeless kind of feeling that he knew wasn’t healthy. It was going to be Lily all over again, only worse, because this went beyond kindness and friendship and into something – something that Severus wished to Merlin that he didn’t feel, but he did, so much so that every waking moment was measured by it. that Harry could make Severus feel too much, it’s so adorable.
Harry had cast a Sound-Concealing Spell but he still felt like he needed to whisper. "Okay?" he asked as they reached the Gryffindor portrait entrance. you’re making me melt into a puddle of goo. Harry and Severus under the cloak, sneaking about, so cute.
"You are enough of a child not to see the problems inherent in your suggestion," Severus said dryly. Harry frowned. "When you – when you were eighteen and you chose to take the Dark Mark, were you a child then?” GO HARRY!
Really lovely, Snape was prickly, but with the addition of some TLC when he was tenderer, he was smoothed for Harry! I loved Hermione’s awareness of what was going on, so often for this ship must their love remain a secret; it was nice that it was more open. Severus comparing Draco to Lucius, the dragon pendant, and Severus’s revenge on Draco! So nicely done, really well done!