Perry,

You sure do write good mush!  I love the talk Snape had with Harry before he punished him.  He clarified not only clarified his own thoughts and feelings for Harry and Draco, but made Harry feel much, much more secure.  Harry desperately needed to hear what Snape had to say.  I don't think even knowing Draco had heard that he'd been spanked was all that bad now that he has a better idea of where he stands with Snape.

I continue to feel sorry for Draco, especially in the new light of the information we have about the boy from Severus.  Harry seems determined to take the high road.

Love it!

Tracy

Good chapter.  I loved seeing Snape's POV this time around.  And the spanking was perfect.  In that it seemed more symbolic than anything else. I love Harry's little sniffle before the first spank and Snape going easy on him as a result. 

I thought Harry's arguments about the different between spanking and beating were interesting.   I mean Snape is hitting him. And it might be argued that a bare bottom spanking with a ruler might be considered a beating. Snape himself said he should "whip"  Harry good for the incident at Malfoy Manor.  I understand you are talking about motivation behind punishment and it was good to point out Harry's rationale that Snape talks to him before a spanking.  I hope you don't take this as critisism.  I love your story. 

I may just be grousing because you seem to be drawing an arbitrary abuse line at the cane.  Instead of sticking with the theme of motivation. There are a couple of great stories where Snape uses the cane on his Slytherins that don't seem abusive to me.  One is, An Obedient House, by Rebecca Webb. You can find it by googling the title.  The other is Of Ordinary Wizards over at fanfiction.net.   Keep up the awesome work your chapters are getting better and better.   

You are a gifted writer, and your story is just a delight –  fresh and funny and warm and wise.

You have such a good eye for the small moments of life, weaving them together imperceptively over time to form the bonds of a close relationship.  My very favorite moment was when a drowsy Harry measured his hand up against Snape’s just before falling asleep.  I loved Harry fuming in the corner fantasizing about having only round walls in his house, and I thought I would die when Harry heard something fall into the wall during his party after Hermione announced that she used leftover dead bats in her potions.  You have perfect comic timing, and the restraint you use in developing the story leaves us all beside ourselves anticipating the next chapter. 

My one reservation about the story comes in this chapter when Snape knowingly allows Draco to overhear Harry’s punishment.  Punishment is one thing; public punishment is something else entirely, and Harry did not deserve that humiliation nor, in my opinion,  that of having to face and apologize to Draco mere moments after a spanking, when he is still fighting back tears.  I think Snape owed Harry at least the opportunity to recover sufficiently and compose himself before facing Draco.  I will grant you that occasionally there is a time and place for allowing someone to witness severe punishment, but that is rare and should be reserved for only the most egregious and outrageous misbehavior.  Giving Draco the enjoyment of listening to Harry receive a spanking and the weapon of humiliation to use against him was very poor – and very surprising – judgement on Snape’s part.

I hope when you have the time that you will consider going back over some of your shorter, more rushed chapters and filling them out a bit more.   Truly this is not a criticism – just a suggestion for polishing your little jewel of a story..