This was fantastic!  This feels very possibly true to character for him, and it is both eerie and sad that he has such a fruitless obsession.  Love it!

Very well done, and not a little scary.

That was unexpected...deliciously so.  

Brilliant!

Ooh, you had me so fooled!  I thought it was Lily (as you no doubt intended).  What a vivid picture of obsession.

A very good job. I had no idea you were a SS/HG shipper though...

more, more, more, please!!!!!!

Love obsessed Snape :) And I especially love the ending of this tale---very deep impact, the switch from thought to reality [and the implications behind it]. It's exciting to see fresh darkfic in the SS/HG ship that has no cheap outs and no flimsy justification. Well done !

He's obsessed all right! :)

Very nice and twisted. Loved it!

Effin' brilliant. Like WHOA!!! Seriously!!!! Damn. Had me tossin and turnin on who it actually was he was thinking of (since Lula's had SS/LE tendencies) but I thought... Naaaaah. It's gotta be "Miss Granger". Damn. Those last 3 lines. Eeep!!!! Fantastic!!!! Bravo!!!!  *shivers*!!!

Oooooh...br-r-r-r-r-r.  I wasn't entirely certain who it was Severus had in mind (and since you didn't put this story in the Potions Under Duress category, I can only conclude that this was wholly intentional on your part).  I thought it might be Lily, especially since canon Severus was clearly obsessed with her.  The doeskin pouch even made me think briefly that perhaps the woman in question might be your OFC Rawa, either before they became a couple or because she passed away (I remember reading another story in which Hermione and Severus were married, and he gives Polyjuice to a prostitute so that he can briefly pretend she's still alive).  The story doesn't say where Severus is at this point in time -- so even though it seems unlikely in the extreme that he'd let a prostitute visit him at Hogwarts (no matter how secretly), it leaves open the faint possibility that the woman on the other side of the door really is Hermione.  You did a very good job at keeping the story ambiguous on both counts.I do have one nit to pick, however.  I think you'll find that at least according to canon, Finite Incantatem and not Priori Incantatem is the spell which Severus would have needed to use in order to dispel the effects of Polyjuice had he chosen to kill the prostitute once he was finished with her -- I think you'll find that Priori Incantatem was the charm through which Harry's wand caused Voldemort's wand to disgorge shadows of the people whom he'd killed in GoF (because both wands contained feathers from Fawkes).  For that matter, I'm not certain Finite Incantatem would even work on Polyjuice since it's a potion rather than a spell and might not necessarily contain any spells per se -- which might explain Severus's apparent contempt for "foolish wand-waving".

Wow. That was pretty dark and twisted... and utterly delicious. I kept waffling back and forth between thinking he was obsessed with Lily or Hermione. I was uncertain, right up to the end. Snape's self-loathing but inability to stop himself from indulging his obsession smacked a little bit of Nabokov's Humbert Humbert. Very well written.

Very well written!  Enough angst and uncertainty to drive Snape (and me) to near distraction.  His thoughts about murder were chilling, but the only one I could see him actually comitting would have been the gormless Ruthven.  Certainly not the woman... like he said, it would spoil the illusion.As I read I found myself thinking I knew about whom he was thinking... Lily... Hermione... even Ginny Weasley, for God's sake!  I was not surprised to see that Hermione was at his door, but until that moment I was uncertain.Well done!  And such a lovely birthday present for such a lovely lady.Beth

This is gorgeous! So deeply moving and wonderfully dark at the same time. I loved the ending!bylby

Oh, so well done, Hechicera.  Deliciously dark, frightening, sad and sexy.  I thought his obsession was Hermione at first, then I changed my mind and decided it was Lily.  In the end I was pleasantly rewarded to see Miss Granger was the object of his unhealthy desire.  All that talk about killing gave me the shivers. You wrote a dark and lovely tale for a wonderful lady. *enthusiastic applause*

Thank you for this trip to the dark side of SSHG! I bet you are very pleased to be out of this mindset now, aren't you? *toasts hechicera with mah beer*

Author's Response: Yes! Back into the light for both of us!

This piece is so well done that I thought that Snape was finally going to possess his dear Lily, but it is Hermione he craves. Very well written. Do you plan another chapter? If she is alive, perhaps she will have him. EWE makes no sense to me. I don't see the academic Hermione with Ron for any length of time.

Gah... I love that the whole of it is filled with anticipation and then is just cut off. And flawlessly written. You had me completely taken into the world of your story for a time. I enjoy losing myself in your work.
"Pen"

This was fantastic! Very well done