Very nice. I really liked this version of Snape. Not one we generally think about. Nice narrative style, nice characterization, an all around good piece.
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Allie

What an interesting look at Snape! I appreciate what you've added to his character. I think it explains his bitterness towards students in general (and also why he doesn't like Hermione!-D). I like Minerva's advice. I also like the look you've taken into their relationship. I never really thought about Minerva knowing Snape since he was eleven.-D Good job!

Wow. Your writing style is excellent. I don't entirely agree with all the ideas you explore in this piece, but it is still powerful and I enjoyed it nonetheless.

In a way, this was a character study on Severus. I rather liked it, especially the ending. The whole 'and those few moments...' because I see Snape thinking like that. Anyway, good job.

I liked it. I can tell you are a latin scholar (I followed your explanation of the title quite well). Nice story.

It's well-written, but completely non-canon, to the point of being the *reverse* of canon. Snape doesn't seem to *like* teaching, but in canon there's no doubt that he does it very well, from a practical point of view. Even Umbridge, who was seeking to find fault, grudgingly admitted that his classes performed to a more-advanced-than-expected standard, and we're told he expects and presumably gets a very high pass rate at OWL, which is what he's paid to do. He's not paid to be "pastoral" to anybody except the Slytherins.

It's also canon that far from the other teachers trying to advise him and finally giving up, when he tried to discuss a teaching problem with Dumbledore Dumbledore dismissed him with a platitude and couldn't even be bothered to look up from the magazine he was reading.

He undoubtedly has an abrasive style but he apparently learned it from McGonagall, who is much harsher than him, although less confrontational. Prior to the Sectumsempra incident, we only see Snape hand out seven detentions in six years, while McGonagall gives out twenty-two detentions in the same time-frame. Although Snape nags Neville far too much he only punishes him twice one detention for blowing up his sixth cauldron, and three points for brawling whereas McGonagall punishes Neville very harshly in a way designed to humiliate him, and basically for the crime of having a poor memory.

In seeking to understand Snape's abrasive teaching style it's important to remember how he started. He was 21, untrained and under great stress, since he was worried about Lily and in immediate danger of being killed by Tom. Two months after he started teaching he sufered a catastrophic bereavement, and he was also investigated by the Ministry and very possibly arrested and questioned under torture, since we're told that that was the norm at that time.

When he started teaching, the 5th, 6th and 7th year students had all been at school with him when *he* was a student, and knew him as Snivellus, the bullies' favourite target. Many of the 7th years had probably seen him being hung upside-down and stripped (and if they hadn't seen it they would certainly have heard about it), so he was teaching students who were barely younger than himself and who had seen, and jeered at, his naked genitals while he dangled upside-down. Keeping order would have been a nightmare and he would have felt himself surrounded by wolves, so it's not surprising he got into a bad habit of ruling by fear.

Imagine yourself, as an untrained and socially-awkward 21-year-old, trying to teach a bunch of 17 and 18 year olds who had laughed at you while you were stripped and put on public display. How would you control them?

Sad, but correct: he is not a teacher, never has been, never will be...