Thank you for the update! I really enjoyed reading the recent chess chapter. It's pretty neat that you make each chapter different.

Yes, I also love the friendship that Severus and Lucius have, I like them when they have their little childhood fights. Thanks for the updates!

-Shockdead

I really like your stories and this fic. You’ve got Snape down to a T. I think you should write a one shot from just after Snape wakes up from his mark being cured by Harry. Would be interesting to know how he felt when he truly expected he was going to die.

You mentioned Hemione/Snape awhile back. I do not ship it as he’s known her since she was a child and I find that in appropriate on many levels. Not only that, but You’ve done a great job writing Snape in character and that Snape would never consider dating a student. To try and write that in now would be very OOC and distract from the brilliant post-DH world you’ve created. Right now you’ve melded JK world perfectly with your own thoughts and any Hermione/Snape would put a giant ooc hole through it! I think it’s best to stay away from that ship.

This was such a fun and heartwarming in a dysfunctional way chapter. It's good that he's closer with people now and that he's letting people celebrate his birthday with him.

I love this story and this chapter was fantastic. Lucius and Severus ara as I and my brother :)

I really enjoyed this chapter. The way you write their friendship is how I always imagined it to be.

lovely chapter :)

Great chapter!

I like it.

I really love how you write the Malfoys and Severus. I enjoyed the chapter. Thanks for updating and good luck!

This second party shows that the Malfoys really do know Severus well. They all enjoyed themselves, even Severus the non-party animal.

Awesome possum!

ahh one commenter named it beautifully. lucius and severus have such delicious hateful banter

I don't agree with you at all about whether Snape had killed anyone before Dumbledore - shared responsibility for their deaths, yes, but directly killed someone, no. There is other evidence besides Snape's question about his soul, for instance that Dumbledore have asked "What about those you let die?" rather than "those you killed?" and that JK's answer to a point-blank question (about whether he could see thestrals, IIRC) was that, like all the other Hogwarts staff, he had seen death.

But even more than that, the whole idea of revels, murdering for sport, and random VW1 killing is more fanon than canon. (Unless JK has changed that post-series? it wouldn't be her first retcon by any means.) All but one of the named VW1 victims were explicitly canonically identified as Ministry or Order members, or their families (which could have been collateral damage rather than direct targeting) - and the one exception is the one about whom canon tells us nothing but the name. So there's really no evidence that any DE *killed* unnecessarily or for fun - not even for the Muggle-baiters of GoF, or for Macnair or Bellatrix, who were (by VW2, anyway) known to delight in causing pain.

(Not even for Voldemort. We see him kill for pragmatic reasons, not for the joy of it.)

There's more evidence for random killing in VW2, perhaps, though we're only shown one DE meeting so we can only guess about strategic reasons that might or might not have existed. We see one person killed at that meeting, but she had explicitly and publicly set herself against Voldemort; she wasn't a random victim. And balanced against that we have Voldemort leaving Order members mostly alive and at large after coming to power, and even after the final battle expressing his wish that those of wizarding blood should not be killed unless they continued to fight against him.

Of course, there are broad-scale attacks on Muggles, and Muggle infrastructure, in VW2, and such might have been for strategic reasons in both VWars. But picking individual Muggles for target practice is only mentioned in the Potterwatch broadcast (ch22 of DH): "Meanwhile, in Gaddley, a Muggle family of five has been found dead in their home. Muggle authorities are attributing their deaths to a gas leak, but members of the Order of the Phoenix inform me that it was the Killing Curse ... more evidence, as if it were needed, of the fact that Muggle slaughter is becoming little more than a recreational sport under the new regime.
... "Muggles remain ignorant of the source of their suffering as they continue to sustain heavy casualties," said Kingsley. "However, we continue to hear truly inspirational stories of wizards and witches risking their own safety to protect Muggle friends and neighbors, often without the Muggles' knowledge. I'd like to appeal to all our listeners to emulate their example, perhaps by casting a protective charm over any Muggle dwellings in your street. Many lives could be saved if such simple measures are taken."

And even there, my earlier comment still applies, that since we don't see DE meetings, we can't be sure if they had strategic reasons for those deaths.

You might say that we can judge DE conduct in VW1 by VW2, but I don't think that holds, because Voldie has clearly deteriorated mentally, and top-ranked DEs who had spent years in Azkaban would also have done so. (And given Ministry collusion during VW2, can we even know that deaths attributed by Potterwatch to DEs were not actually done by Umbridge?)

I love all these interesting plot lines you are making. Neo Death Eaters running around would absolutely happen in a situation like this.

As far as if Snape killed anyone or not, we obviously can't know for sure since we don't have confirmation on it, but I can see it going both ways. I do think there were different jobs for people, and I think Snape might have possibly been more intel and some other things, yet like you said, he was in his inner circle. You would think they would need to do something violent in order to prove themselves. I personally get the vibe he didn't directly kill anyone, but it's still possible he did. It would be nice if we got some official information about his active Death Eater era.

Regardless, he was still definitely involved in immoral things, and it's wonderful character development to have him deal with that and come to terms with it, then maybe start to heal from it. How you phrased his experience was so realistic. He didn't have much time to think about his past actions. He was always doing so much ,and there was always so much going on. Now, things are calmer, and he has time to think. It's going to be difficult for him.