Always

Credits to the owner of the original photo.

Fear. That was the very emotion that struck me the moment I saw Professor Severus Snape on the silver screen for the very first time. Could you blame me for that? The reaction must have been expected from a 9-year old like me back then.

On the succeeding hours of Sorcerer's Stone, as well as the next installments of the Harry Potter series, that fear transformed into pure and unadulterated disgust towards Snape. Need I say more about it?

Until the final part, the Deathly Hallows, made one of its most astonishing revelations in the series. It is where compassion took over, wiping away a decade's worth of hatred we used to set aside for Snape and him alone. Where the villain that was Snape turned into one of the victims, just like Harry—and everyone else. Where we came to see him as a hero, too, after learning the double life he had to lead, and of his sacrifices until the last moments of his existence, for the sake of Harry, the son of his one and only love.
Seven books. Eight films. A little over a decade in real time; nearly half a lifetime in the story's timeline. A spectrum of emotions. It all had to sum up to a heartbreaking end for Snape. Just as everything about him became clearer, he had to pass on. We didn't even have the time to bid him a decent goodbye.

Never.

***

Most kids of my age—whether true and pure-blooded Potterheads or not—grew up knowing Alan Rickman as that villain-turned-hero of the Harry Potter series. Of course, he was a wonderful actor with a handful of other memorable performances, but—well, how about seeing the same actors again and again and again in a span of ten years? Like the rest of the stars who were stuck to their characters for the whole film series even long after its final curtain, Alan Rickman is the one and only Severus Snape for all of us.

Always.