Well, Janet, it turns out that no matter how much someone matters to you, your life is still your own, and your decisions are based on what, at that moment, you think is best for you because, spoiler: you have to survive, especially if you don’t have loving parents waiting for you at home to give you a hug, no savings for the future, no stable life, and no functional prospects because you were raised in a fucking shack with no money or resources and with parents who neither protected you nor gave you any sense of security.

Heathcliff loved Cathy in an obsessive way. Snape loved Lily. In both cases they were childhood friends, for a time it was them against the world and she was the one who saw goodness in him despite his pride and spite.

In both cases the girl’s sibling loathed the boy and the feelings were returned tenfold.

Heathcliff was discriminated because he was part gypsy, Snape lived in a Muggle community and under the roof of a father who hated magic and seems to have been abusive towards his mother.

Both characters have strong antagonism with a rich guy their age who has more prospects and who ends up marrying the girl.

Snape on the other hand, uses Lily’s death as inspiration to become a better person.  He fights for a side that actively tortured him personally in the past, but does it because it is right for the world as a whole.  This is the opposite of Heathcliff, who wallows in his own suffering and doesn’t care about the rest of the world at all.  Snape isn’t perfect; he’s a bully to Harry and to other Gryffindors, but he does care about them and the other kids at Hogwarts, arguably more than other teachers.  Snape is not well groomed and still lives in a shabby Muggle laborer house even though his salary allows him to live better.  He is not conventionally attractive.  This tells the reader that just because you don’t look nice and are socially awkward doesn’t mean that you will be a bad person, that you can’t be a prince.

He never told anyone.

There was no point. It would only make him seem weak, vulnerable, or even delicate.

And no one cared.

No one ever cared. Why would they?

Hidden

However: