Bathsheba Babbling!  I LOVE IT!Oh, sweetheart.  This is brilliant!  The damaged Room recognized the damagaed wizards and they will try to Heal one another!  I am gape-jawed with awe.

Oh, I loved the moment when Severus realized that Neville's inclusion of him was a gesture of respect.  He needs those little rewards along the way to may it easier to take the next step.Whoa ... the end of the chapter was like breaking through a wall into another part of the story, and it is where I left off reading last time.  On to virgin territory, as it were ...

Ah, man.  From the other side?  THAT gave me chills.  You have a gift for the mystical, darling, and what's more, it's unique.  Never think that just anyone and everyone can write as you do, my dear.  I, for instance, could not have created this story with its intricate dips and turns, its gossamer layers.  It awes me.

He knew despite the way his stomach clenched that he wouldn’t rest until her fear and gratitude had been replaced with nothing more agonising than love.

These are the cards that fell, but you and you alone created the magic of their interpretation.  Breathless, you leave me.

You wind and twine and add depth and dimension in such beauty ... happy sigh.

GAH!  It leaves me breathless to read of this dance, the steps performed with them so close to one another that they are inhaling one anothers' breath ...

The reading still give me chills ... and, of course, his stubborness makes me want to knock him in the head, but that's nothing new.

So much in this chapter reads like poetry.  The description of Dumbledore's enslavement of Severus, the description of Severus' bad choices rebounding on him from the enclosed walls of his home ... and in a blaze of light, blew the Darkness away.  GAH!

OH!  I am so glad that he was brave enough to touch her - just to touch her - and the relief washed over them, and over me, too.

I love how the Muggle fortune teller pushes back at him and tells him that wizard folk are not the only ones who understand magic.  And in spite of all the agony and despair, I smiled to myself when Hermione noted that ten years of "death" had not improved Snape's social skills ...

It's been since December since I read - I know I've forgotten important things.  I'm beginning again.The shadow in her wake grabbed him.  It (the shadow) always had.  That lure of the Darkness.  He recognized the fissures in her aura.  He submitted to listening to the Muggle read his soul.

shiverYep, it still grabs me.

I'm rooting for all of them, it is so good to see them regaining their composure.

What had the power to reach beyond the grave, plunging its long fingers into the hearts and souls of those who’d had the misfortune to touch it?  “Malevolence.”

“What’s the remedy?” she whispered.  “Trust.”

When I read this above exchange it sent me scurrying back to the beginning of the story, and in chapter two I found what I had been reminded of:

“Too much fire,” continued the fortune-teller as she reverently touched three cards in tandem, each bearing flaming wands glowing with malevolent heat. “Traps you in an endless circle... you are convinced that you must find your way out alone.” The older woman paused, and the curve of her back and angle of her shoulder as she leaned towards the trembling woman forcibly reminded Snape of a mother’s embrace. He watched as the fortune-teller furrowed her brow, finally nodding, focussing on a card in the centre of the spread.This is brilliant!  Now that all of them, the eight of them (with their wands), have come together and shared their stories and their emotions, they have come to trust each other more and more.  And now the time has come for them to return to the Muggle fortune teller so that she can elicit the light from each of them and weave it into the magical, healing tapestry that she had begun with Hermine and Severus.Thank you for this wonderful chapter.  It has answered some of my questions and I'm so looking forward to your next update.BTW, this is really brilliant!  Beth

what a glorious image!  thanks so much for the wonderful, healing update.  

I think the thing I love most about this chapter is the way Severus and Hermione have come to understand that their relationships with any of the others has no bearing on their relationship with each other.  What they feel for each other is separate and special and theirs alone.  It is not threatened by their friendships with others, and they do not have to worry or fear that these friendships can or will diminish this bond between them.  Their love does not depend on anything other than the love they have for each other.  It's not a spell dependent on some kind of ordinary magic that will lose its potency over time.  It is the most powerful bond there is... the love two people share because they have chosen each other.  What they have cannot be created by a potion or a well cast spell, nor can it be destroyed by any outside entity.  It is a choice that has its foundation in the certain knowledge that the love they share is unshakable and inviolate.  It is beautiful.Thanks for this great update!Beth

Beautiful emotions being released.  glad the room seems to be healing too.

Wow Id almost forgotten I was reading this.  This was an amazing chapter to an amazing story.  Thank you so much for posting ad I look forward to more soon I hope.

The poetry in your writing is, as always, exquisite. I love what you did with the trio, giving them healing and reuniting them, and with Severus, able to see it and appreciate it, despite his struggle with the shadows.It's just a lovely, lovely chapter.

That was quite the cathartic chapter.

My God, what a magnificent chapter!  When I finished reading it, all I could think of was that one of the keys to ridding themselves of the darkness, of the shadow, must be the forgetting of self, and becoming willing to defend the other from all sources of hurt or harm.When Ginny made those first scathing comments to Hermione, Severus stepped into the breech and made it plain that he would block any attempt that Ginny might make to hurt Hermione.  But when Ginny said those awful things about Snape, Hermione defended him and really cut her old friend down to size.  Yes, I think love is a very powerful force.  I can't wait to find out the meaning of the incantation Severus spoke as he trailed this tongue across and down Hermione's body.  Clearly what occurred was important because the couple reclining against the heather "grew solid for a moment as the reed broom took one final circuit and came to rest alongside the beech tree that sheltered it."Wonderful!  Wonderful story!!!Beth

I am absolutely fascinated with this story, and how detailed you have been in your telling of it—first with the Tarot and now with the Ogham.  I wish I were more versed in the meanings of the cards of both, but I will have to be taught little by little as I read on.  I do think that Severus was wrong to dismiss the importance of love.Beth

I am very glad that Severus and Hermione are together.  Being able to touch one another drives the darkness away, and even though I'm not sure what it means, their magic seems to be stronger, too.  In fact, Hermione's seems to be too strong.I'm trying to put together the clues of how they are alike and how they are different.  When Hermione talks about how things were before she met Severus at the Muggle fortune teller's, she seems to become over whelmed with the darkness.  Yet Severus can speak of it and not be completely undone.  And when she tries to use magic, it seems to be too strong for her to control, and his attempts seem to struggle before finally working.  And now she has cast a spell and been knocked unconscious.I don't know how, but their being together is making them better.  Perhaps Albus was right about love...  The melding of two souls can be a powerful magic in and of itself, and perhaps it will be their salvation.Excellent chapter!Beth

I finally caught up with the story.  I can't wait to see what happens next!  I was so suprised and pleased to Molly's reaction.  Sometimes she is painted as such a rigid and difficult character (which can also be so much fun) but I don't think that would be right for the tone of this story.  I think you got it just perfectly.  Great tale - I am really enjoying it!  Oh, and btw - I am loving Neville too!

wonderful.  i can't wait for the next chapter.  the reconcilliation with mrs weasley had me sniffling.  thanks and mucho smoochies