This has been the central question and mystery of the Harry Potter series and for this alone, it will be Snape whose character lives on in literary history as one of the most complex ever written. Here's the bottom line: Voldemort's gonna buy the farm. There's no mystery there. We just don't know how Harry will accomplish his classic Hero's Journey toward offing the bad guy, so the mystery, the climactic "gasp-worthy" moment, must come from another character in the form of either a betrayal or a redemption. Some believe that has already happened when Snape killed Dumbledore. I don't agree.

Snape has has no motive for continuing to be a servant of Voldemort. What would Snape get out of being Voldie's minion now with his all enemies dead? Power? Hardly. He's a master potion maker who is quoted as saying that he can can "teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death." What does he need Voldemort for? The babes? A cozy cottage in the Cotswolds and time to write his novel?

I think Snape is much like the Fitzwilliam Darcy character in Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice." Darcy is socially stunted and not very charming. And you don't really know if he's an upstanding guy because every encounter with the protagonist, Elizabeth, is a bad one. Since the book is written from the point of view of Elizabeth Bennett, we don't know what's really happening with Darcy or what kind of man he is until she knows it. However, we're repeatedly told that he's a great chap -- just misunderstood. This estimation always comes from other characters in the story who know him far better than Elizabeth. Elizabeth refuses to believe it because she's stubborn and chooses to believe lies, rather than the truth that was right under her nose. We can't disregard this literary device of "you can't judge a book by it's cover." It's a classic structure, and Jane Austen is one of Rowling's favorite authors, so ... you do the math.

It's the same here with Snape and Harry. Except for a few choice scenes, the entire book is written from Harry's point of view. Harry has no idea what Snape is really up to. The only people who know for sure are Snape and people close to Snape: in this case, Dumbledore, whose high estimation of his potions professor is repeatedly voiced by him in every single book.

Snape is a character whose off-the-page time is his real storyline -- good or evil. I'm not suggesting that he's actually a happy-go-lucky fellow who's playing the role of a cranky old coot. No, he's really a jerk. But there's something mysterious going on with him and has been since the very beginning of the series. and since the very beginning, Snape's off-page time has been more essential than any other characters', frankly, because has been a spy and may still be one. Snape is the only character in the all of the books who has actually been identified as a someone who spied in the past and spied in "real time" during the course of the books. And that's important to note. Spy stuff is supposed to go on under the radar until it's time to come forward (or be outed by, but that's a post for a Keith Olberman blog!!) The central conceit of a spy is that he or she acts in secret to achieve a goal. His off-the-page time is integral to the real-time plot even if we don't know it's happening. In other words, not all is what it seems when you're dealing with a SPY!!

Now, for Tim Haddock's cry of murder. First, I'm not condoning murder. And if Snape did murder Dumbledore, he should be strung up by his toes or be forced to spend 45 days with Paris Hilton. But if I may indulge in a bit of CSI Hogwarts-style criminal detective work, the circumstances surrounding the Headmaster's death are a little dodgy, not the least of which is how he reacted to the killing curse that night on the Astronomy Tower. First rule of Potter club? If Rowling repeats a fact, she means for you to remember it because it's important. His death was very different than the way its effect has been painstakingly described more than once in the books.

When you're hit by the Avada Kedavra curse, it is described, a person just keels over. No flourish, no acrobatic maneuvers, no drama. Dumbledore, on the other hand, did a dismount off the Astronomy tower that would have made Kerri Strug jealous. Then there was the exchange made between he and Snape right before the dastardly deed was done. Was Dumbledore pleading with Snape not to kill him or was Dumbledore pleading with Snape to settle up details of a previous agreement that may or may not have included killing Dumbledore as some sort of sacrifice? I think we have to set the issue of morality aside until a final book answers those questions.