Title: Punishment

Author: Cut-Wrist Kate

Pairing: Snape/Harry

Warnings: angst, character death, self-mutilation.

Summary: The blade was his prosecutor, his mind the judge, his hand the jury and his body the convicted killer. He was a sick twisted murderer and he was punishing himself the only way he knew how.

He stumbled into his house blindly, falling and catching himself on the back of a chair. He continued his way to the bedroom tearing off clothes as he went. He didn't care that he was scratching his skin as he did so, all he could think about was what he had done, and the look in his eyes as he did it.

Once completely free from all clothing he ran the short distance to the bed and jammed his hand underneath the pillow to find the one thing that could stop the never-ending onslaught of condemning and painful thoughts. He grabbed the beautiful lifesaver and marveled at its beauty for a short while.

His eyes slid slowly up its form, starting at the handle sleek and silver with an emerald and an onyx set in it side by side. From there his eyes moved to the blade itself, it was smooth and so sharp that it was heaven. If you wished you could throw a tomato at the blade and it will cut it clean through. It was his beauty, his pride and joy, the thing that has kept him alive for almost all of his life while also killing him softly and slowly.

Already his nervous twitching had begun to slow and calm. But he knew that simply looking at it would not be enough. He looked at his arms so beautifully filled with parallel lines with a perfect and exact distance in between them. His gaze then traveled to his legs that looked strikingly similar to his arms, in fact, the only difference between them was the number and to place in which they are on his body. His gaze finally settled on his chest and abdomen, it was nearly completed but he still had a small ways to go before he could restart and lessen the distance between each line by placing one directly in the center of two.

At the moment all he had to do was cover the lower left side of his abdomen from the bottom of the rib cage to the hip then he is done. He started with perfect caring precision. Placing the blade against his skin in exactly the right spot before slowly dragging it across to a prefect size and moving on to do the same. With every line he became more and more relaxed and when he finished marking the remaining skin he was finally able to think clearly and contemplate how to relieve himself of the problem he seemed to have found himself in.

And he moved to the shower his thoughts slowly turned to the look of pure betrayal that filled that face as he murdered the most loved and looked up to man that had ever walked this magic infused earth. It was a perfect mixture of betrayal and shock with a slight amount of tears and sadness to top it all off that really struck him deep inside. It was the picture of sadness, loneliness and betrayal yet it looked so beautiful on his face that all he could do was think about ways to cause that face to make that expression again.

That is was struck him to the core, the fact that the most attracted he has ever been to someone was when they had just lost their one and only mentor, that it what caused him to need to use his bade again, that is what caused him to freeze up for a moment before he took off running. He did not run because he was scared of being caught for the murder of the man who he thought of as a father, he did not run to save the young man standing beside him who's initial job it was to kill the old and wonderful man. He ran because he was scared, scared of his reaction to the face of the boy who remained hidden throughout the entire ordeal but suddenly came into view when the last flame of like went out in the man.

The blade was his prosecutor, his mind the judge, his hand the jury and his body the convicted killer. He was a sick twisted murderer and he was punishing himself the only way he knew how.

Severus Snape was found dead in his muggle home early this morning when Aurors went looking for him to charge him for the murder of Albus Dumbledore. We don't know how he died yet but we'll be sure to keep you informed on this story. In other news….

A/N: I hope you liked it; I got the idea for it while reading a story by my wife called All of This, by That-Fresh-Rain-Smell. Love you; I didn't even finish reading it before I wrote this. It didn't quite turn out how I thought it would, but oh well. I hope you liked it.