Captured by the resurrected Voldemort, subjected to every kind of humiliation and torture—better off dead!
Ron trembled in fear.
Harry was helpless in the face of his friend's fear, but there was nothing he could do. Who would have thought that Quirrell, whom everyone bullied, was actually the Dark Lord?
He continued recounting the secret he had heard from Vaughn. "...Also, we really misunderstood Snape... Professor Snape..."
"You called that old bat a professor?" Ron, who had been terrified a moment ago, was so startled by that form of address that he immediately forgot his fear. "Did Vaughn cast the Imperius Curse on you?"
Harry rolled his eyes and looked up at the blue sky over the castle. Recalling what Vaughn had told him about Snape and Lily Evans, he sighed. "Snape is a pitiful man, Ron..."
"Oh, give me a break. You pity a venomous snake, but it won't pity you. Maybe Snape has his reasons, maybe his story is tragic, but that doesn't stop him from hating you, Harry. I saw through him ages ago. He practically wants you dead!"
Harry neither agreed nor disagreed with Ron's words.
In the story Vaughn had told, he had seen a man deeply in love but unable to attain it, unable to let go even after retreating. Every word had been steeped in regret and pain.
So even though Vaughn had said that Snape's hatred for Harry mainly stemmed from James Potter, and that the hatred could not be resolved—
Because Snape loved Lily Evans so profoundly.
Harry, who loved his mother just as deeply and yearned to know about her childhood experiences, simply could not bring himself to hate Snape.
Perhaps that was a different kind of loving the crow and loving the tree?
Yet the facts proved that Ron's