Amazing story! I like your interpretation on Ad, Slughorn, and all their mistakes concerning Severus and the Marauders. Good characters interactions, and Severus-porttrait Dumbledore interaction. It was very interesting. It would have been nice, though, to have another chapter based on all the other character's regret, after Severus's death. Ah well, still a fabulous story!

This was really good.

A couple of small criticisms first. One is factual, in Britain we have free general healthcare. I truly cannot imagine anyone having to pay for an ambulance, it sounds horrific! If you're ill or hurt then you get medical attention regardless of how poor or rich you are. (I know this probably seems like a small point but unfortunately it was glaringly obvious and took me by surprise and out of the story for a bit). The second is a small point on your writing style. Sometimes you jumped viewpoint for a bit (with Lucie and Phineas for example) and you often moved across time quickly without it being obvious within the first sentence of a new paragraph. It didn't detract too much but it did get slightly confusing every now and then. Oh, another very tiny thing I noticed was that if Severus knew he would (hopefully, if all went well) be sending Harry to his death then he wouldn't be likely to bequeath him the photo he found. Like I say, not a big detail, it just hit me a while later (while I was still thinking about this story so you can see how it affected me).

Overall, however, I really, really enjoyed this. It must be one of the most comprehensive stories about Severus during this year. I loved how you built the pressure up on him. At the beginning of the school year he knows how difficult things are and will be but he can still find certain situations amusing and he would definitely have liked the power he held. Towards the end, however, we see how it has all become almost too much to bear. Still, our Severus keeps it all together of course!

You wrote his interactions with Slughorn brilliantly. I completely agree with how you see Snape's past relationship with him. I reckon Old Sluggie was far too interested in 'connections' to ever get to know all of his students. Snape would have definitely taken more care of his students and known exactly those kind of details he spouted.

Likewise, Minerva's conversations also held me. I just wish there were a few more of them! And Sinistra's midnight confrontation was well done. More than anything you really show how isolated he was, how dependent he was on the portraits - who, by the way, were excellently drawn. Phineas comes into his own and Albus remains his overbearing but seemingly reasonable self.

So I really liked how you saw him interact with his colleagues and portraits but also how you gave entirely reasonable reasons for certain things. Like why he went to Grimmauld Place, how he knew Harry was in Hogwarts and also things like his concern over the goblins realising the sword was a fake. You made the facts of DH real, which is actually quite an achievement since some of them are just bizzare!

When I opened the story I saw that it was two chapters, as I was getting to the end I realised that the first would end with his death (portrayed well I thought, he would have been so frustrated that he had failed after everything. Of course Snape would have thought that Harry was a hallucination, also liked the detail that he didn't know if leaking the memories would work or not). Anyway, I was hoping that the second chapter would be everyone's reaction or something. I don't know, it just seemed far too sad. I suppose this should be enough because your remit seemed to be to make DH real from a different viewpoint, sometimes I just get a bit sappy!

Loved it - and by far the longest review I have written!!

it was a very good story, and Snape very much in character with very fitting snide comments. thanks for giving us his perspective on DH year. Phineas is fun to read and he fits well as somebody who would be able to talk to Snape and help him. conversations with Slughorn and with Dumbledore regarding Slytherins situation hit the mark perfectly, I can see Snape ranting at them about it

This story is absolutely amazing. You write a wonderful, true-to-character Snape. I'm impressed by how well you capture the stress and horror of his "final year" without either being overly dramatic or forcing him OOC. Thanks for sharing!

Simply wicked.

love it. very long but very good.

Wonderful story. You managed to stay exceptionally close to canon and even JKR wrting style. The house-elf sequence was so touching! And the fight between Severus and Dumbledore's portrait was incredible.
What I didn't like though was that you attributed Neville's developpement to a charm Severus had cast on him.
All in all, it was one of the best DH stories I've ever read!

fantastic job! ive been looking for stories about snape during dh but i cant really find any that i like. i dont think jkr every really gave snape the credit he deserved, but your story definitely does. great job

This is simply fantastic! Great job!

I feel this story belongs in DH more than the boring 'sitting around in a tent' ever did. You did a great job filling in the missing scenes, and I loved the final moments between Severus and the Malfoys.
I had tears rolling down my face on several occasions, and surely it's a sign of a good story teller who can stir the reader's emotions. I was so disappointed by canon that I have turned to fanfiction in order to find some answers, a better version of the story, and get rid of the bitter aftertaste DH has left in my mouth. You have accomplished all three! I look forward to reading more of your work.
If you'll allow me a little negative criticism, I agree with one of the previous reviewers that the song lyrics are not necessary, and may distract a non-German speaking reader.

I'm not much good at reviewing, but I just had to say I thought this was a fantastic story. I read Sticks and Stones some years ago and loved it ("You have no right... I have already been judged for my sins!" is a fantastic line and one of the most memorable lines I've ever read in FF).

Anyway, I was searching for you today and came across this and I loved it. Your writing is amazing, so readable and intense at the same time. I wish these stories could be bought in paperback form, I would love to keep them and read them again off screen.

I liked lots of bits, but I agree with the previous review that "You're a monster" "Yes" was an amazing moment and I liked Phineas Nigellus taking him off to help him where Albus couldn't.

Very good story overall. There are a few problems with odd phrasing or misspellings but they're not too bad.

I'm very amused at your solutions for why the heck Severus would go ransack Grimmauld Place, trying to make up for the stupid way the Fidelius Charm now supposedly works, and the encounter with Griphook when stowing the sword that makes it more sensible that Griphook would later do the same thing for Harry.

I'm confused about "the Slytherin Head Boy" not having a name. Unless you're positing one of the new students being 17 and being selected when they've never been at Hogwarts before, logically this should be Draco, shouldn't it?

I like Severus's rant to Dumbledore about his complicity in why Severus made the Dark choices he did and how he has been treating Slytherin house unfairly, although I sense a bit of "author mouthpiece" there (not that I disagree with what he says).

"Lily had rotten choice in friends: a bully, an accused murderer, a werewolf, and a cowardly traitor. But he’d known that already – she’d befriended him, hadn’t she?" Aw, poor Severus.

The stiff exchange between Severus and Slughorn when discussing the syllabus is good. I like that Severus is getting some perverse satisfaction over being able to enact different disciplinary practices (even if he thinks they're a bit much) and all the swooping around and intimidating he gets to do.

McGonagall blanched. “You’re a monster,” she whispered.
“Yes,” he replied softly, his expression blank. -- oh my, this is just great. Means things on several levels. "Only the good die young" was good in the same way.

“Their hearts were in the right place,” Dumbledore said mildly.
“Too bad you can’t say the same about their brains,” Snape griped. -- LOL!

I'm annoyed at Dumbledore that it was Severus's bravery and self-sacrifice which apparently made him worthy of a second chance, and not anything else, as though nothing else COULD have made Dumbledore think that... but it's very in character for him.

The random German song lyrics were kind of distracting though. Not only was it kind of a left turn into songfic, but being untranslated was a real slam on the brakes.

Your story deserves an accollade for the bare fact alone that you do not cater to the saccharine 'snape wants to see Lily's eyes one last time' interpretation. I first thought of it as an instruction, so that the little idiot would know what to do next, and on second thoughts as a plea to look at him, Snape, without prejudice. On the down side, 'your' Snape is a tad too much in reverence of Dumbledore still, even after he's berated him for all his wrongs (and oh are there many!). He's seen through the man, knows of his affiliation with Grindlewald and his sacrificial lamb plans with Potter and still he thinks dear Albus is the Cat's Whiskers? Leave that to La Rowling and her ilk. Snape's more intelligent and has developed a morality that's a damn sight better too. (Mind you I have a sneaking feeling he's always had it, and was simply pushed towards the Deatheater side because they were the only ones that welcomed him while the rest rejected him. Bellatrix testimony proves he wasn't the 'have a muggle for breakfast' kind, anyway)It's been awhile that I read the books but I can't remember Snape even being on a first name basis with AD. So but for that one point, your story is up there with the best.

I do hope you're better than canon--given he was left to rot in the Shrieking Shack for his sacrifices, and the Malfoys allowed to walk free in their glorious corruption. Must be nice to be rich and pretty in the Rowling universe!

Then again, he's probably sick of life, considering what it's given him.

(as for him being a victim of James Potter, people who have to fight four on one usually are. "Because he exists" was of course sufficient reason for a Gryffindor, just like serving Harry up like a pig to slaughter was to Dumbledore. Given that the only two people to regret their misdeeds were left to die hideously and alone, one wonders what sort of moral lesson is to be gained here).

That was wonderfully written and had me teary eyed at several points in the story. Thank you for giving us this look into Severus' pov.