It's easy to protect those you like, but giving your life for someone who hates you is the hardest thing in JKR's universe and I think he died satisfied because he'd managed that necessary thing.

I'm not sure that's at odds with my original statement. Snape doesn't just give his life for someone he can't stand who hates him, he entrusts it to that same someone. There's an astonishing bravery and vulnerability in that. He lets himself be seen wholly by someone who might learn all his secrets and still hate him—the equivalent of the fans who argue that Snape can never be truly redeemed. (It is not a relevant question for me, for the record; it's not a concept I find very useful in either my life or my fiction. Atonement and restitution make a lot more sense to me. I find Snape to fulfill those conditions. Is it enough? How would I know? It's what he could do.) At the same time, there's no more important person who could see him than Harry. The stakes are high and complicated and all of this in a man who for all his life-saving spy's self-control has canonically never handled vulnerability—it usually comes tied up with mockery—well. Knowing it had to be done, like just about everything else in Snape's life since the death of Lily, can't have made it easier.

This guy is one for the ages. I like smart grumps.

They are excellent.