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Someone wrote in snarry_games,

I read this basically without stopping which has the disadvantage of lack of thinking through the imagery. But you write so vividly that your fic had a definite impact. The way grief and guilt as ghosts seperated Harry from nearly everyone else,the unexpected beauty of Severus' blood roses, the difficult stairway that makes you struggle to reach a goal that lies not where you anticipated it. I am not quite sure, I must admit, how to interpret the rose wards, but I was definitely able to picture them clearly in my mind. That is another strength of the story. You describe some tableaus so skillfully that I have a detailed picture of it in my head, like Severus sitting on his porch, motionless and covered in roses.

If I have one little point of criticism it is that the ending, for me, felt a little bit rushed. First there is all this apparating back and forth from one life threatening situation to another, followed by the need to completely confront and accept their emotions. Then Severus takes all of Harry's ghosts into himself, a sacrifice that increases in meaning when we realize that he knew exactly what he was dealing with. That was another punch in the gut, that Severus had to deal with the same plight as Harry for years and years. And lastly, we learn that for Severus this sacrifice was more an act of creation, which is on the one hand heart wrenching but on the other raises questions about the way he sees Harry (a person, a lover, all of his sins as he says in the end?). So we have a lot of psychological dynamite but nothing of it is really addressed, since Harry's cleansing makes everything else unimportant for him in that moment. This fundamental change in Harry left me a bit unsatisfied, since up to this point the development of Harry's emotions and opinions were executed so slowly, believably and in reaction to all the big and little things that happened around him. I missed that in the ending.

Regardless, I really enjoyed getting lost in your world. It is one of the few fics I read that manages to impart the feeling of a post-war world, where everyone still deals with the aftermath and needs their own time to move on.

Thank you for the wonderful read.
Best wishes,
Krabat