A Tale of Two Wizards

"After all these years?"
"Always."

Severus Snape. Once a hated character of the Harry Potter series, now loved by many. It's common knowledge to anyone who has ever seen a Harry Potter movie, that Snape hates Harry. But in the seventh book/eighth movie, his character is revealed for the role he played during the course of the entire series. *Spoiler Alert*

In the last book, Voldemort is getting very strong, and nowhere is safe. The end of the sixth book features the shocking scene of Snape killing Dumbledore, and revealing that he is a double agent for Voldemort. However, Snape is truly unmasked when he gives Harry his memories just before he dies himself in the seventh. Harry sees the memories, and becomes fully aware of Snape's past, and whose side he truly was on.

Lily Evans(Harry's mother) and Severus Snape were childhood friends before they entered Hogwarts. Entering Hogwarts, Snape was disappointed to be separated from her, with her being a Gryffindor, and he a Slytherin. She made new friends, and didn't like the friends he was making. But Snape was in love with Lily, and whether she was ever in love with him, we don't know. What we do know, is that despite their friendship ending, Snape still loved her. Lily married James Potter after Hogwarts, and didn't have much contact with Snape. He still loved her.

Snape began to work for Voldemort, and when Voldemort was making his plans to kill Harry, Snape asked him to spare Lily. Having no empathy, the Dark Lord didn't hesitate to kill her once she tried to stand in his way. Snape was heartbroken and devastated, and went to Dumbledore. Seeing how much Snape had loved Lily, Dumbledore trusted Snape because he realized that his love was greater than his loyalty to Voldemort. As Harry said, Snape was Dumbledore's the moment he started hunting down Lily.

So what did Snape do from there? Well in a nutshell, he dedicated his whole life to working with Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix to protect Harry from Voldemort. He was pretending to be Voldemort's spy, but was really on Dumbledore's side. Harry is a strange character to Snape, because in the image of his father, he is the reminder that Snape never had Lily, and that he never would. However, he is the last piece of her that is left, and that's enough for Snape to get along.
So in overview, a man dedicates his life to preserve the son of the woman he loved. Even though she is already dead, and she married someone else, he died to save that last piece of her, because it's what she would have wanted.

I don't know about anyone else, but this gives me some serious, A Tale of Two Cites vibes. In A Tale of Two Cities, Man 1 gives his life so that Man 2 could live. Man 1 was in love with a woman, and that woman was in love with Man 2. He gave his life so that she could be happy with who she was in love with. Quite a tragic story because, to me, that act in itself shows true love. Snape was truly in love with Lily, and he still did what would have made her happy even after she was killed.

There should be more men in the world who are like Severus Snape.