Sorry I'm so late in replying, but - this comment still makes me bounce with happiness. Because you succumbed, you responded, to the whole range of things I was trying to do in this fic. Plus you reassured me about certain trouble spots - dialogue, for example (not one of my strong points) and sex (because the hostile charge that surrounds them cries out for a sexual corollary). And it was such a relief to give Lily a real personality - I don't mean that egotistically, just that it nagged me in the books, especially after The Prince's Tale. I could no longer simply accept a sacrificial mother figure as the sole explanation.
I'm also elated that this fic gave you even a momentary conviction about Snarry being possible. And your words - "raw and right" - they're so perfect for how I perceive this pairing, which is founded in struggle and yet has the potential to give them both the sense of being wanted that neither has ever had. I aimed for that feeling, the intensity that carries everything before it, even Lily's doubts and grievances and her divided heart. And Tom, yes, another hint about the need for forgiveness. Whenever I think about how I would have ended the series, the theme of forgiveness keeps cropping up.
Thank you for such extraordinary engagement with the story. It's wonderful to have a reader who's so spectacularly attuned. :)