"After all this time?" "Always." // "the last enemy to be defeated is death"

Disclaimer: if you do not like Harry Potter, there is no point in you reading this entry. I completely nerd out.

I have been thinking about Harry Potter a lot lately (more so than usual) for a couple of reasons.

01. Half Blood Prince came to theaters (you have been living under a rock if you did not know this.)

02. I recently (as in yesterday) finished rereading Deathly Hallows.

I am thinking mostly about Snape. In my opinion, he is one of the greatest characters in the series, if not the greatest. I really admire his love for Lily. When I read The Prince's Tale chapter, I am completely blown away again and again. The compassionate, romantic Snape has never before been exposed to the readers, but it still fits. It suddenly all makes sense. Besides finding out that he is indeed with the Light, we find out so much truth about his core character. It is even clear in his dying action: looking Harry in the eyes. Lily's eyes.

Dumbledore always said it was love that protected Harry. Voldemort never believed it and Harry rarely did. Love did protect Harry: Lily's love for Harry, supplemented by Snape's love for Lily. Even though, to Snape, Harry was the symbol of everything he had wanted. Harry is a representation of Lily's love for someone else. Snape had every reason to detest Harry- the son he never had with Lily. Despite that, Snape continued risking his life for love. Maybe he thought that he owed it to Lily; to protect what she loved was to protect her memory.

Oh, Snape. I hope to someday love as you did.

-----Completely Different Topic, While Still HP Related-----

Remus Lupin has the crappiest life of all the characters who I've contemplated so far, and he handles it really poorly.

In school, he was sort of the less cool counterpart to James and Sirius, his only dignity coming from the fact that he was (and always is) 10x cooler than Peter Pettigrew.

He grows up and James is murdered.

For 13 years, he believes his other best friend to be a murderer, and even if he wasn't, Sirius would still be locked up in Azkaban.

Even when THAT is cleared up, Sirius dies two years later.

Meanwhile, Peter Pettigrew just continues to be a douche bag Death Eater in Voldemort's pocket.

Then he marries Nymphadora Tonks, which is cool, except for how he doesn't really love her 100%.

Harry, then, calls him out on his crappy behavior so Remus knows he can't hide behind his "for the cause" attitude.

AND! during all of this, he is a werewolf, a lifestyle accompanied by terrible stigma.

Things start to look up for Remus. He has a kid and seems pretty pleased about it.

Though he doesn't know it, things against Voldemort are going pretty great, relatively speaking.

And then he goes and dies. Talk about a crappy life. It makes me sad to think about.

His happy ending, though, is in death, I suppose. He is on with all of those who died before him: James, Sirius, Lily, Tonks. This sounds trippy, but I think that when I have accepted that death actually happens to people, I will understand more of who Remus Lupin is and be able to look on his life with hope that things are better for him.