Dearest fellow Harry Potter fans,
I know you. You know me. We are the kids that grew up alongside Harry, Hermoine and Ron, and tackled every adventure by their side as each new book was released.
We were the kids at the midnight release parties and who spent summer vacations locked away in our own "cupboard" with our noses stuck in a book, or two, or seven.
We were the kids who secretly wished beyond hope that our letter would arrive soon and by owl.
And along the way we learned the lessons that shaped us into who we are now;
"It is our choices that tell us who we really are, far more than our abilities." - Dumbledore
"It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends." - Dumbledore
"Books! And cleverness! There are far more important things - friendship and bravery." - Hermoine
"We are all human, aren’t we? Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving." –Kingsley Shacklebolt
"Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if only one remembers to turn on the light." - Dumbledore
But above everything we took something else from those books. Something that took the entire series to unfold and left us breathless and hollow as we lost Snape.
Snape, who we had hated all those years. Who had been the evil part of every theory we had. Who had been the reason we dreaded potions and who we always sought out on the Marauder's Map.
Snape, who was a Death Eater. Who was the person that killed our only hope, our Dumbledore.
Snape, who loved Harry's mother above all else...
And as we lost him, and learned his secret, we learned perhaps the greatest of all lessons. That true love is eternal, no matter in what form.
So as we lose our Snape again this week I look back and reflect. I know it was a matter of casting, and that Mr. Rickman was not truly Snape. But I have to say he was the closest match to exactly who I envisioned as I read those books (except maybe for McGonagall, Maggie Smith made for a perfect Professor McGonagall). He embodied the character in every way, made us hate him-- and then love him, and then in the end, showed us that love was there all along.
I know the movies are not as important as the series itself (hell we all know the books are better!). But I do feel without a doubt, Alan Rickman was who made the movies great. He was the piece that fell so perfectly into place in the end and gave us back the biggest missing part of the puzzle. He was the loss we felt perhaps the greatest.
And we are all feeling that loss again this week. The loss of a man who embodied a piece of our childhood. The loss of a man who like us, found that true love lives forever, even if within a fictional series-- and he loved it just as much as we did.
He will forever be the face I see when I hear "always."
You will always be our Professor Snape, Mr. Rickman. Thank you for teaching us, the Harry Potter Generation, what love really means.
And fellow fans, I ask this of you--live your life with this kind of love. A kind of love you can look back on and whisper, "always..."
"Do not pity the dead, Harry, pity the living, and above all those who live without love." –Dumbledore
