This is getting too long for one reply, have to post it in pieces…
First of all, if someone else reads this: I asked cardigrl to post it here. She was very considerate and only mailed it to me, not wanting to upset me. But it's perfectly ok to have this kind of discussion here, on this comm. I like to discuss the characters and their motivations.
That said, on to the reply (rubs hands... ;) )
But keeping Hermione Granger so much in character (which you do brilliantly) makes it so much harder for me to accept an HGSS pairing, unless you make Snape OOC, which I think this does.
Thank you. I'm very glad that you find my Hermione very much in character. But, of course, they both are somewhat OOC. Furthermore, their characterisation is based on the end of HBP, not DH. I do see both of them slightly different now, but not very much so. But in this story I stick to the characterisation I started out with.
And don't forget: canon Snape loved Lily. The type of woman he finds attractive doesn't have to be perfect. Neither is he.
The problem I have, I think, is that Granger reverts back to the frailties in character she showed in canon, to the point where I just can't have any sympathy for her. Definitely too much for me to believe that Snape would ever want much to do with her unless she starts to grow up very quickly. Yes, he's a teacher through-and-through, but surely he's not completely without some support in those caves other than a couple of Gryffindor school girls. ;-)
Hermione *is* a school girl. And a young woman, too. And yes, Severus does have support in these caves, as the episode with Lola and Emmeline hopefully has shown. However, if he just fell for the charms of very young women, he wouldn't have rejected poor Susan so strongly. Hermione has something the others don't: she is 'in the know' about the most dangerous things. She knows about his spying, she has an idea what he went through, she knows Harry's task, she's always been in the thick of things. And he knows without a doubt that he can trust her. No one else in the Underground qualifies.
I've expressed happiness in the past over the way you don't immediately turn Granger into a brilliant, sexy uberwitch in the first two chapters. And I still like that. But it really bothers me here that, even after all the time Snape has spent trying to teach her to think about tactics and long-term strategy, Granger *still* doesn't get it that it did NOT protect the DA to maim Edgecombe after the fact.
I can't write the type of uberwitch. I'm not particular fond of it. I'm not particular fond of uber-Severus or Saint Severus either.
I find the misconception that Hermione's spell would be inefficient as protection stated on occasion. It is a misconception.
The DA were only betrayed late in OotP, soon afterwards the battle at the Ministry happened and other things were important.
However, if the DA had been betrayed earlier, which would have been a possibility, it would not have stopped. The children who were caught would have been punished and watched, but with the help of Dobby and the map, they would have found another place and would have continued. Only, if there had been another one thinking about betrayal, he or she certainly would have thought twice about doing it, now knowing the consequences.
The justification of using such a spell without telling them the consequences is another thing. But it certainly was a protection, and wouldn't have been inefficient either. So, Hermione does get it quite well, and starts to be ashamed. To admit to have been wrong isn't easy though. She was even younger then, and faced with dangers no child should be faced with. You may note that Sev didn't chastise her for using questionable spells, but for not taking the consequences for herself into account. And for pretending to be morally superior.