The only difference between martyrdom and suicide is press coverage -Ryan Ross
The grounds were oddly quiet as a sense of awkward peace settled upon them. A quick sweep of the grounds revealed many bodies lying, limbs bent at odd angles, one could hear the moans of pain, the groans of relief. It was strangely serene as one thought entered into the minds of all those still alive. It was over. There wasn't a single other thought. The response to pain, to broken limbs, bleeding, that was all secondary to the realization that it was through.
That was the only thing going through Severus Snape's mind as he lay, gasping raggedly on the ground. It was over. The press was already starting to arrive, he heard the awful click of cameras and scratching of quills. He watched through eyes that were rapidly slipping shut as the reporters came closer. Every one of them wanting to break the news. And he didn't want to talk, he didn't have the energy.
He supposed it was a good thing, as he dared roll up his left sleeve to find the mark, the scar that had been there faded away. He smiled faintly to himself and let his eyes slip shut, relaxing onto the ground. It wasn't so bad. His breathing slowed until finally he let out one last harsh gasp, still smiling slightly, knowing that he had done his part.
It was a good thing he was dead then, when the news broke. He would have never stood for the amount of attention that he got post-mortem. The boy-who-lived-again was rather glad to be off the front page, and didn't protest. There was far less interest in the living than in the dead, after all the dead could be romanticized without any worry of repercussion. Especially if the dead had no living relatives.
And so it was that Severus Snape was made out to be the unlikely hero of the whole saga, the man who was forced to betray his true allegiance to Dumbledore for a much greater and better cause, who suffered much personal angst at the issue, who had never once believed in the death eaters, who had joined with the intention of being a spy from the first.
Great mention was made of his inner struggle, of the hardships he must have had to endure from no one on either side trusting him, of being all alone in a cruel and difficult world, but continuing on because of his belief in a greater good. It's funny how a good reporter can make you believe anything, they can spin you a tale and have you eating out of the palm of their hand. Three weeks after the final battle and you'd believe that he was Saint Severus, without a drop of evil blood in his body. Even Harry Potter was starting to stray from his steadfast belief that Snape had been evil from the first.
The papers have the great ability to ignore any faults of someone, unless that is the point. If they're trying to find fault, it is easy to find six pages worth of faults, but when trying to cast a person as a hero, it is extremely easy to ignore the fact that the man might just have, in fact, been a greasy git. That maybe his reason for throwing himself in front of Harry Potter had been entirely self-serving. If you thought about it long enough and hard enough, he had good reason to do so.
After all, no matter which side won, he was going to be denounced for it, for everything that he had done. If he had lived through it, he would have gone down as the man who killed Dumbledore and was nothing more than a two faced coward who refused to pick sides until the last minute. Which, true as it may be, is a horrible way to think of a person. And if the dark side won, he would either be killed for his deception or promoted to the top of the ranks, neither of which were horribly appealing choices.
Which left the last option, to die on the battlefield, and let the press do what they wish. There is a small section in the Hogwarts trophy room that houses his Order of Merlin, First Class for heroics on the battlefield. It is easy to make someone a hero after they die, it is easy to laud them. To turn them into a martyr for the cause. No one stopped to consider that his death had been entirely for his own benefit, to avoid having to live a life in exile, which isn't much of a life at all. And if he had gone and offed himself quietly, he'd be remembered as even more of a coward than he was.
No, no matter how much he may have despised the press, despised what they could make of people, he had chosen this for himself. Better to go down a martyr, to become a hero who selflessly sacrificed himself in battle to save the boy who had been the bane of his existence, than to be forced to live even less of a life than he had lived when he was in between camps, playing each side against the middle. At least this way he could gain some sense of peace for himself at last.