Could Snape ever be a hero?

[saidicam29]

No: HPFGUIDX 135587

David wrote:
> I have one slight hope for Snape yet.  As he fled the grounds of 
> Hogwarts after killing DD, he gave Harry one last piece of advice -
 an 
> odd thing for a true villain to do:
> 
> "Blocked again, and again, and again until you learnto keep your 
mouth 
> shut and your mind closed, Potter!" sneered Snape... (page 562, UK 
> edition).  If Snape is truly evil, why would he feed Harry advice 
> about how to defeat him or defeat He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?  It's 
a 
> small thing, but it hints that Snape's true loyalty may not be 
with 
> HWMNBN... in fact, my impression is that Snape's loyalty is all to 
> Snape and Snape alone.
> 

There's one other thing that stuck out to me, in this same scene, 
that also gives me a little hope for Snape.  Forgive me, I don't 
have my book in front of me, so I am paraphrasing by memory.  
Someone hits Harry with a spell, causing Harry great pain and I 
would assume eventual death.  Snape saves harry!  Now, his apparent 
excuse is that they had been ordered not to kill Harry becuase V 
wants to do that himself.  However, if Snape truely hated Harry as 
much as lets on (I'm not saying he likes Harry, mind you), and he 
hated DD and was truely on V's side...then why would he care if 
someone else broke V's orders and killed Harry?  Snape's butt 
would't be on the line, and he would have Harry dead to boot!  I 
found that odd if Snape truely was on the DE's side.  
Besides...Snape didn't attack anyone else there, and as soon as he 
killed DD (the *only* action he attempted to do) he gets all the 
DE's out of there...even though they weren't losing or anything.  
Why not fight as well?  Why not try to take the school...call more 
DE's to the rescue?  As for him knocking the other professor out in 
his office...I'm thinking that (possibly) he did so to ensure that 
he wasn't followed to the tower.  If he knew what was going on, and 
that he might/would have to kill DD up there...having another 
professor would interfere with the plan because surely they would 
try to stop him, or would be killed in the process.

Saidicam29