Thank you so much!  I'm really happy you continue to enjoy my little story!  Severus really is trying, but as you said, there's just too much past animosity for Harry to be able to trust him right away.  I really am anxious to get to the parts where they can share warm fuzzies (I love warm fuzzies; just take a look at all my other fics, lol), but I'm trying not to rush it too much. 

And yes, they are both very awkward around one another right now.  Severus doesn't know how to make things better, and if feeling very out of his depth, while Harry is afraid and really can't imagine why Snape would want to change, though he is about to begin wondering about it all.  But warm fuzzies are definitely coming in the future!  Thanks again! 

Thank you!  I'm trying not to rush things.  I'm not sure exactly what you mean about how Severus and Harry can't be father and son and still live by the dictates of the slavery spell...it may be difficult at first for Harry to see it that way, but I do think they can become a family.  In fact, I imagine that eventually the father/son relationship will be stronger than the slavery spell.  Perhaps not in the sense that that can counter-act the slave spell, but in the sense that they love one another as father and son, and that they realise they would still want to live together and be a family even if the slavery spell is one day lifted.

The nature of the spell, as I have imagined it, is that there are two things the spell could kill Harry over:  trying to run away or escape, and trying to physically harm Severus.  Someone asked if Harry attempted suicide, would the spell interpret it as him trying to escape, and I said that I believed it possibly could, but I'm not going to have it work that way.  In my mind, the spell does not differentiate between near-death experiences, whether it is accidental, a suicide attempt, or otherwise.  That's simply because I don't want the spell to kill Harry.

Then I said that he had to live with Severus for 9 months out of the year.  I suppose the year would begin on the day the slavery spell was enacted.  Harry also cannot own property or money.  All his possessions must now be legally owned by Severus.  Of course, though, Severus can let Harry use these things as he wishes.  DD said that if Harry disobeyed this part of the contract, the slavery might punish him through causing some kind of pain.  DD did say that he didn't know for sure if that was how this particular spell would work, but that he did know of some kinds of magical contracts that caused excruciating pain when broken, and that Harry did not want to find out the hard way.

The last condition was that Harry had to obey Severus, or Severus could punish him as he chose.  The spell itself won't do anything, but Severus could do basically whatever he wanted.  So as for answering Severus' questions, if Harry refused, Severus could punish him if he chose.  But at this point, Severus isn't going to punish Harry, and I'm not going to have the spell hurt Harry either ( or perhaps I should say I'm not going to have the spell punish Harry.  I think he's been hurt enough already.)  The rest of the story is about Harry and Severus bonding, Severus helping Harry to heal and believe that life can be good again.

Thank you for reviewing, and asking thoughtful questions.  There may be some little technicalities of the spell that don't fit...I imagine people could find issues, such as whether the spell should consider a suicide attempt as an attempt to escape, but I'm going to say that any inconsistencies can be because the spell is so ancient and unheard of, that even DD wasn't absolutely sure about some of the consequences or precisely how it works, though he knows the gist of it.