Sorry, No, Rowling Knew What She Was Doing With Snape. She Wrote This Character A Specific Way. Also,

Sorry, no, Rowling knew what she was doing with Snape. She wrote this character a specific way. Also, strictly, she didn't "forgive" Snape. We only see Harry move on from his hatred, that is part of his growth and character development, not Snape's. JKR is well aware that Severus is not a completely good (or completely bad) character - because she wrote him that way! Canon is canon, even and especially if you disagree with it.

You can think what you think, I’m not going to force you to hate Snape

But, even though J.K. said he was in the grey area, she also said he did die to save the wizarding world, implying that, basically, that one act pulls him from “dark” to “grey”

And I mean, yes, that was a big thing. But also, Snape was so obsessed with Lily that he made her his life, despite being a bigoted and racist towards her. So when she died, do you really think Snape wanted to keep living?

It’s almost like the sith (yes, I’m making a Star Wars reference). But imagine that the Empire is the good guys, the Resistance are like Voldemort’s followers, and Snape is Anakin

Keep in mind this analogy won’t be perfect

Snape grew up loving dark magic. He automatically gravitated to The Future Death Eater’s of Slytherin House™

[Parallel: Anakin was raised to be a Jedi, a good guy. He was raised to fight the sith]

Voldemort then killed Lily. Snape was devastated. He didn’t start disliking all the dark magic and the mass killings and the innocents dying, he started disliking the thought that Lily was dead. He then went to Dumbledore.

[Parallel: Anakin thought Padme was in danger. He then turned to the Dark Side because they said it would keep her safe. He didn’t - at first - start hating the Resistance, just wanted to keep Padme safe, and so what if it was with the bad guys]

The love of Snape’s life was dead. He was probably so lost, and probably borderline suicidal. And considering how long he hung on to Lily (since they were kids all the way into adulthood) I doubt he’d be able to get over that depression anytime soon

Yes, he made the choice to die for the Good Guys™ but part of me thinks he wasn’t, like, completely devastated that he might die. And after what Voldemort did to Lily, do you really think he would die for his cause?

And can we also talk about the fact that he tortured the students that weren’t in Slytherin.

I mean, yes, he needed to make sure Voldemort didn’t suspect he was a double agent yadda yadda yadda, but he was horrible

He could have just messed with house points, or favored Slytherin, or been unfair with grades, or even just given out detentions. I mean, we’ve all had bad teachers who were unfair or mean or had stupid rules

But Snape bullied students. Don’t even try to deny it. Like when Hermione had the spell cast that made her teeth grow and he said he didn’t see a difference. There were probably a lot more events that happened that we didn’t even see

And can we talk about Neville’s boggart?

Neville could’ve had so many fears. Bellatrix, for one. The person that tortured his parents into insanity.

Maybe even his aunt, who was constantly beating him up about not being a better wizard or living up to the Longbottom name (she could’ve been like Hermione’s boggart being failing an assignment be like her fear of failure/expulsion/going back to a normal life knowing she’s a wizard)

Maybe his uncle or someone (remember, Neville was hung out of a window in an attempt to make his magical powers appear, and there were a lot of other happenings similar to that)

Heck, Neville was scared of a lot (he was frickin’ brave as heck, don’t get me wrong), yet his boggart was his potions teacher

Who he only saw for a fraction of his day, and not even every day, if I remember correctly.

Snape. Bullied. The. Students.

He was horrible to them. Yes, I won’t deny that, even with what I stated above, giving his life was a huge thing. And he did do a lot of things for Dumbledore and everything.

But he was still a horrible person. And his motives weren’t good. His motive was being overly obsessed with a girl.

Yeah, sure, aw it’s so sweet he still loved her “after all this time” et cetera, et cetera, but can you honestly look at Snape’s love for Lily and everything and tell me that’s healthy?

If we’re talking about soley what Snape has done for Voldemort and the Death Eaters vs. Dumbledore and the Order, sure, we could say he was in a grey area

And I know Harry eventually forgave Snape enough to be okay with him (his naming his son after Severus was, and I’m paraphrasing J.K., not just to honor Snape, but to try and justify that he could be forgiven himself for the deaths at the Battle of Hogwarts)

And yes, Snape gave Harry information to help with winning the war. He wasn’t completely bad. I admit that. But Harry is going to link winning the war, at least partially, with Snape

So of course he would be somewhat redeemed in Harry’s mind.

But if we’re talking about who Snape was as a person (which is what I was referencing to and what I assumed J.K. was referencing to) then I think he is almost all black

But again, you can think whatever you want, I’m not going to force you to believe what I believe