Adding to the love for your responses in this thread. :) I've been nodding my way through it and wishing that I could write with your clarity. Also, since reading DH, I'd agree that while Snape sort of is situated between Harry and Voldemort on the scale of the different choices orphans with bad pasts can make, I'm more and more inclined to see parallels between Dumbledore and Snape. While Harry and Voldemort embody a straight trajectory in the kind of polar opposite lifestyles they choose, Dumbly and Snape serve as a reminder that we are not the people we were at the age of 18 and that growth and a sharp change in the kind of outlook we have is always possible. The difference being that while their motivations both stem from the traumatic death of a loved one, Dumbledore channelled that change and epiphany outwards to reach as many aspects of his life that he could whereas Snape constantly seemed to internalise it, couldn't move beyond it and saw his own good work in protecting Harry as further reminder of his failure to do the same with Lily. Which made him a bitter bitter old man.

OR maybe I'm just babbling. I think my friend put it best after we both read it when she said that Harry Potter characters really don't know how to let anything go, do they? =D