I thought that this was a great fic.

I know you wrote this for a Challenge, but as with your other portrayals of Severus Snape, it does seem so very much in character. The ambivalence over teaching the course, the realisation of what it means when he receives the letter, the tone in which you write his thoughts-- all are so very much in keeping with his character. List of favorites: your observations about the two worst things happening, and his Boggart, and the part where he corrects himself and comments that rather than being "wrong beyond repair" something must just be "beyond (my) immediate influence."