Shearer is a professor of American literature. In this essay, Shearer examines the ways in which Severus Snape's actions bear out Rowling's philosophy of love and redemption.

Severus Snape's role in the Harry Potter series has been controversial from his first appearance. In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Snape singles Harry out in his first Potions class, calling him pompous and humiliating him in front of the class. Harry comes to dislike him intensely; readers usually agree with Harry. In later books in the Potter series, readers learn of Snape's conflict with Harry's father in their school days, and it seems even clearer that Snape has bad intentions when it comes to Harry Potter. But Albus Dumbledore's continued trust in Professor Snape makes all these assumptions questionable. When the most powerful wizard on the side of good insists on trusting Snape so thoroughly, eventually placing his...