Augh, I wrote you a response two nights ago and somehow it didn't get posted. I must have closed the window before hitting the "post" button. My sincere apologies.
Because, you know? Your comment absolutely blew me away. I've never had the experience before of a reader entering so wholeheartedly into a story of mine, and it makes me feel intensely grateful and just, well, euphoric - with that little hysterical voice inside squeaking, "I did it! I seduced a reader! I breathed life into Harry and Snape!" And I want to wrap myself up inside the words "incredible precision and craft of your language," because I've always been prone to stylistic excess, to overindulgence in imagery, and it's been a lifelong struggle to bring my purple prose enough under control that readers don't feel suffocated.
I'm humbled by how much you love this fic, even though I can't agree with you about how it compares to other Snarries. There are writers in this fandom toward whom I feel nothing short of adoration. But I'm thrilled to my toes that this fic swept you away, that it touched you like that.
I'm guilty as charged of writing obsessive Harry. ;-) I think when he's around Snape, something gets triggered. Or maybe it's just me. But Harry needs to learn, at the most visceral level, how the weight of sin and guilt can twist one emotionally. He's in a position now to understand Snape - never mind whether understanding Snape is something he ever wanted - because he's far more like Snape now that he's lost his innocence.
I'm delighted that you like Odile, because let's face it, for an OC she gets a lot a screen time and that might have backfired. And Ron - oh dear. The devastating irony of Ron's storyline is that I wrote the scenes of his death and funeral the month before my oldest friend fell ill and died. So for me this fic is haunted, and always will be.
Now I have to confess that I'm *really* chuffed you found the sex scenes to your liking. Because I'm with you - I often skim them, since the initial thrill of OMG-hawt! has worn off. Mostly because it stops being about the characters and becomes just about the sex. Don't get me wrong, I also miss sex scenes when a fic seems to be crying out for that sort of intimacy and the author doesn't provide it. But when Snape and Harry are fucking I feel as if they should be even more themselves, more Snapish and Harryish, more deeply at odds and yet deeply connected. I put off writing both the big sex scenes until the very end because I knew how important it was to get them right and I worried I wasn't up to the task.
My rush to finish this was fevered and frenetic - hah, that describes me during the final two days and nights of writing this fic! I'm rambling now, but I hope you know how very much your comment means to me. Your generosity fills me with joy, and my muse is positively shivering. In the typically egotistical fashion of neurotic writers, it makes me want to rush forth and commit more fic. *g* So thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Which is what I meant to say two nights ago. I've been floating on air ever since.