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Severus Snape's backstory was revealed to us in the Deathly Hallows, and many fans use this as proof of his redemption. Severus Snape has no redemption. He has many faults, but for now we're simply going to discuss his obsession with Lily Evans.
THE TRAGIC BACKSTORY
Snape was born a halfblood wizard, to a witch, Eileen Prince, and a muggle, Tobias Snape. From the little we're shown of his childhood, it doesn't seem to have been a very happy one. He was abused at home by his father, and was a lonely outcast, at least until he met Lily Evans, who was his first - and probably his only - friend.
Fast forwarding to starting Hogwarts, Snape and Lily were good friends, and Snape began to harbour romantic feelings for her. He became the target of bullies, notably James Potter and Sirius Black, and he and Lily begin to drift apart. Snape's resentment of James Potter slowly grew, and at the same time, Lily refused to have anything more to do with Snape because of the company he was keeping.
Snape's resentment and anger towards James Potter grew into full on hatred when Lily began to date him in their final year of school, and Snape became a full on Death Eater either then or shortly after leaving Hogwarts. His hatred grew and grew as Lily and James married and had a son. One day, for an unspecified reason, Snape was spying on Dumbledore when he heard of a prophecy. The prophecy said that a boy born in late July of 1981 to parents who had escaped Voldemort three times would eventually cause his death.
Snape immediately rushed to tell Voldemort, not caring that this meant the death of a child until Voldemort took the prophecy to mean the Potters. Snape begged him to save Lily's life, still not caring about James and Harry. When Voldemort seemed apathetic about not killing Lily, Snape went to Dumbledore instead and started working as a double agent.
He loved Lily so much that his patronus was exactly the same as hers, and he did his best to protect her son over the years, and extracted his memories as he was dying to show Harry the love he had for his mother, before dying at 38 years old.
THE REAL BACKSTORY
That sob story is the one most Snape fans offer, but they conveniently leave out a lot of information. Let's start with the fact that even in the very early days of their friendship, Snape had absolutely no issue with hurting people Lily loved, attacking Petunia just because she was listening to their conversation.
Now let's move on to the fact that at Hogwarts, Snape began to hang out with the kids of Death Eaters. He had no pressure to do this. His family was not pure blood, and his father was not a Death Eater, so unlike Draco Malfoy, Snape willingly made the choice to make friends with Death Eaters and eventually become one himself. Him making friends with Death Eaters and still expecting to be friends with Lily is like somebody in 1940's Germany expecting a Jew to still be friends with them after they join the Nazi party.
He called Lily a mudblood, pretty much the wizard version of the n word, and didn't understand why she didn't want to be friends with him anymore. He thought something that happened to another muggleborn, Mary McDonald - probably dark magic, given the severity of the situation - was a joke, and was harmless fun.
Even though he supposedly loved Lily, he did not respect her decision to date James at all. Lily was not an object or a prize to be won, yet Snape treated her like she was, and though she was happy with James, Snape didn't care. Even when she married him and had their first child, Severus Snape was still angry. If he had truly loved Lily Evans, he would have let her go, would rather have seen her happy with somebody else.
Snape joined Voldemort of his own free will, and when he heard the prophecy he was not at all concerned with the fact that Voldemort was going to kill a one year old child, the child and husband of the woman he supposedly loved. Instead, he begged for Voldemort to spare Lily. He would rather have seen her grief stricken and heartbroken than happy.
Not to mention that Snape would have absolutely no qualms about killing if the prophecy had been about the Longbottoms. He wouldn't have cared at all.
His patronus was a doe like Lily's, whilst James' was a stag - showing that James was her soulmate, and Snape obsessional. Upon Harry starting school, Snape bullied him because he looked like his father and did not in the least protect him. He destroyed a photograph of Lily, Harry and James, tearing her face out to pretend like she was smiling for him, getting rid of the two people she loved most in the world.
He died because Voldemort thought he was the master of the elder wand, and somehow thought it appropriate for the child he had bullied for years to know that he had been obsessed with his mother.
A true hero.
Snape was bullied and had a bad childhood, but that did not give him any excuse to treat Lily the way he did, or to treat anybody the way he did.
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