If things were slightly different, they would be a good couple.  The good girl Lily would have an endless project in Tom, and Tom is one of the few who could survive her goodness.  But Tom is a badder boy than she realizes, and Tom, like Giovanni, like Mozart, can do naught else.  The canon dictum, 'Love, the emotion the Dark Lord knows not,' is cast into doubt as being a construction of a chronicler who believes the world is saved through the magic of motherly love.  If this relationship had developed, Harry would find himself in the position of Hamlet or Luke Skywalker, but that would be an even darker tale.Thank you for all the choice comments.

I think this qualifies as a rare pair.  Lily is attracted to a harmless old man who needs improvement, but she may be even more attracted when she discovers how powerful he is.  Tom is concluding that one can take only so much goodness and improvement.  Thanks for reading this.

Thanks.  It wasn't easy to write two light-hearted chapters while knowing what is going to happen. 

Ah, yes, they will meet again two months from this story's end.  Outdid myself?  Gee, I hope not.  Something in this chapter must have resonated with you.  Hope it's not a spoiler to say that the early chapters of 'Perseus' have romance-at-a-distance with the heroine somewhat clueless.

I didn't review a lot, because it's hard to pick out any one thing, but it's one of those perfect chapters.  You have us right in there with sweet mundane things and a little humor.  Then you take us out into a wider view to show how this fits into the whole of his master plan, then we go back narrow again to passion and UST and bittersweet what-ifs and as it finished, the horror of what their next meeting will be just grabbed me.  There's such a mingling of a lot of flavors there, in just the right proportions.I hope you're enjoying Perseus.  It's such a contrast to your view of that witch but some of the same forces at play.  She's been brought up to see the business end of marriage and the whole other part of the transaction will take some getting used to.  She's a quick learner, though.

Thanks.  Somehow, in this one, he is both a bad boy and the innocent party.

Is Lily turning the tables on him, or is she, like the Black sisters, finding what she wants in him?  Would Lily be attracted to someone full of good intentions?

I hadn't thought of that, but you're right.  Her greatest need is to be a better person than those around her.  He's discovering that he has needs, too, though, so this relationship fulfills a mutual need.  There was some movie or TV show that described love/romance as two mutually compatable psychoses finding each other.  It seems apt, here.

Thanks.  I planned a one shot.  I wrote part of a second chapter, but the story would have to go AU or spiral into doom.