*Please don't forget chapter 249 after this one!

* If you've read the story and loved it, please, drop a comment and/or spread the story for others to enjoy. I want to hear all your opinions, your critical views, and especially, what made you love it so much.

A Final Author's Note

"Words are in my not so humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic."
- Albus Dumbledore

I started writing Severus Snape and the Art of War some time back in late 2015/early 2016 (I don't quite remember). At the time my life had punched me into a slur, and I held several jobs to just, as they say, keep my head above the surface. Delivering newspapers was one of those jobs, which meant that I had to wake up at 4AM every day, six days a week, to have papers delivered in the neighbourhood by 6AM. I came home at 6AM on the dot, opened my laptop, and started to write for an hour straight. It's how I managed to post one chapter a day, always roughly 2k long, before the rest of the world woke up.

Never in my life had I imagined that the story would become as big as it has become. I dove into it with only one thing in mind; that I wanted to write the story that, so far, I had been unable to read on any fan fiction website. Because it broke my heart that Severus Snape never had any control over his own life in Rowling's world, it was very important to me to incorporate that aspect into this story. I wanted him to have control over his own choices, so that, this time around, he gets to have it all.

The biggest surprise (to me) about this story has been the butterfly effect. I did not intend on it to go this way, and yet it did. Sirius got to live, knowing his little brother died a hero. Frank and Alice now get to raise their son, as do Remus and Tonks. James got to fight and die a hero. Dumbledore and Grindelwald found peace together in the end. Even Peter found his proverbial courage and got to stand up against Voldemort. All of this, because Severus changed his attitude and ended up making different choices. If there is one thing that this story has taught me, is that our choices always have consequences in the long run.

The reason I named it "The Art of War" is because I had just finished reading Sun Tzu's – The Art of War. I wanted this story to pave the path for Severus to find his way back to Lily, but it's the War itself that ties this story together. It's not just about the magical War within the Wizarding World, but also the physical War that he had with his father, and about the mental War that he wagered against his own conscious. The internal battles were just as much a War as the external ones, and he needed the freedom of choice in order to conquer it.
Another aspect that I tried very hard to incorporate were elements of all the seven books that Rowling wrote. The Philosopher's stone, the horcruxes, a (new) prophecy, the significance of stags and does, elements of the lore and the history before Harry (such as Scamander and Grindelwald), existing spells and potions, Voldemort's war, time-turners etcetera. She handed us a hell of a lot to work with, so I tried my absolute best to stick as close to the original world and with as little OCs and made-up information as possible.

I must admit that I don't like the first twenty chapters or so. When I started writing, I had a clear image in my mind of wanting Severus to have a proper father figure this time around. I had first settled on Slughorn, but as the story progressed, Erwin took over. For Severus to encounter Slughorn in the "in between" just doesn't make a lot of sense anymore. There are a lot of things I would've done differently, but alas, what can you do.

As I mentioned, I didn't expect the story to become as large as it has become. When I just started writing it I had expected it to be 50k at the most, but now that it has reached over half a million words, I can't help but want to smack myself in the face for spending all that time and energy into a piece of fan fiction, rather than focus on writing and publishing an actual novel of my own. One with my own story, and my own characters. To put it in perspective, the entire Harry Potter series (British Standard Edition) is 1,084,170 words long, and it took Rowling over a decade to reach that point. For anyone who has ever written a very large piece of fan fiction (or otherwise), will understand the struggle that I speak off.
Knowing now what I'm capable of writing, I am going to be doing just that. Write my own novel – and getting it published. I think it's time to let my own work speak for itself.

If you've read this entire story – thank you. Thank you for all the time you took to read through my creation. Thank you for the comments, encouragement and constructive criticism. Thank you for enjoying a Snily, and for wanting to stick with Severus until the very end.

A special thank you to Animalium for encouraging me to finish the story after I no longer felt that it deserved my time.

Another special thank you to FancyWasMyName for reading through all my chapters and making the necessary corrections. My Dutch lion pride likes to pretend it can write English flawlessly, but sometimes it needs to be kicked down and be reminded that it doesn't. Thank you for being my beta reader.

And the greatest thank you of all to J.K. Rowling, who made my entire childhood magical. For making me stand in lines in the middle of the night once a new book came out. For releasing your 7th book while I was on holiday in Scotland. For allowing me to sit in the same chair you sat in at The Elephant House café in Edinburgh, where you wrote most of your first three novels. For making me the first person in my home country to see the 8th movie in premier. For teaching my dyslexic arse to enjoy reading and writing fantasy, and the greatest thank you of all, for making me fall in love with who I deem to be the greatest anti-hero of our time; Severus Snape.