He shook his head. "Thank you, Hermione. You have no idea how much this means to me."
She raised an eyebrow. "Who are you? What happened to Severus Snape?"
Heh.
" Good God, has someone drugged Potter?" Severus asked in wonder.
Double-heh. ;-)
"And what exactly did you expect, a bloody virgin?"
If JKR ever comes out with a quote that "Snape was a virgin," I shall scream. Loudly. And stage a book burning.
I'm glad you got Part 2 up fairly quickly. ;-) I had read Part 1, but apparently never remembered to comment on it and tell you I liked it. Your portrayal of Lily's material-girl shallowness might be a bit exaggerated for effect--or then again, maybe not--but on the whole you drew out a very believable scenario. That it turns out to be his subconscious mind "re-living" and "re-writing" what happened is all the better! I really do think that he would eventually have come to terms with seeing Lily as she was, flaws and all.
And I LOVE the backstory for how he got into his wish-fairy hallucination: leaping on a ready-to-explode cauldron to protect the students from a dangerous, potent draught. (Not to mention from the explosion itself.) Severus and Hermione fumbling their way into a romantic relationship amused me: one minute making love, the next losing their tempers and reading all of their insecurities into the other person's words, reconciling sort-of, and sitting around analyzing their barely-begun relationship in detail, philosophizing on what it means to love someone, waffling between insecurities and desire, and finally the hell with it, let's make love again and go for it. Nicely done.
And I still think Hermione with Severus, though it has its challenges (as does any pairing, in fiction or in life), makes a hell of a lot more sense than Hermione with Ron. ;-)