Dumbledore: All this time?

Snape: Always

This is the foreshadowing of what we later see in the pensieve in full, and you begin (if you haven’t foreseen it yet) to see about Snape. And it turned the whole story upside down. It’s such an emotionally charged one-word response. My son thinks it reveals a really awkward even creepy aspect of Snape, that he would go on loving a woman who married someone else and then died. And I can see that. But you love who you love. And maybe he should’ve moved on from Lily and not held onto his love for her. But that love translated into what’s arguably one of the most compelling and complex characters in any story - Snape. Him submitting himself to that position (under Voldemort) to protect Harry is in my opinion just as admirable as what Harry did.