Quote from Giorgia on June 11, 2023, 4:03 pm

Every one of us was Severus that night, when he apologized to his friend, his love interest.
The words remained hidden in his heart when he could not answer the question of why he considered Lily different.
Each of us lives with regrets, wrong choices, unspoken words or too many times that hurt.
It is in the human soul to make mistakes out of love, when one is most vulnerable and fragile, as Severus might have been on that terrible day when Potter had the brilliant idea of removing Severus' underwear.

How many times must he have thought back to that day? It is mentioned in the book as his "worst memory."
From that moment his life changed and a rift occurred. A perfect split down the middle.
Life before that prank and life after, as if it were a transition of initiation from life as a child/adolescent to adulthood.
I think in time Severus regretted and even hated himself for not saying those words to Lily when he had the chance.
The opportunity had passed him by; unfortunately, he was a 15/16-year-old boy who had just been severely bullied.
Declaring his love was "too much" that night when he had to metabolize his feelings of frustration, anger, loneliness…
In adulthood I imagine him mentally going over Lily's green eyes begging for an answer that he never received.

He remained in perpetual silence.

He lived with this feeling all his life and was deeply loyal to it, "his best self" according to Dumbledore.
In my opinion Severus had many better parts and not just the love he felt for Lily.
As I often repeat, he was a multifaceted character, dispelling the idea that Severus was just "Always."
He was brave, intelligent, sarcastic, loyal, and so much more: he managed to get back on the straight and narrow despite being considered the ultimate undesirable by all.
It would have been the most comfortable choice to remain in the Death Eaters and continue his trail of horror and bloodshed, but instead he changed... risking his life every day.
I am sorry for those who believe otherwise, but this choice was not made just for Lily... Severus is extremely intelligent and in time will have understood Voldemort's madness.
I will conclude by saying that I am proud to have loved this gray-shaded hero for almost 23 years.

I have never regretted it and it is a pleasure to see that the fandom will always give him a second chance, the happiness he deserves.