The Tigress Lily

Severus Snape smiled to himself. His plan had gone off perfectly. Not only did he now have two careful and precise student assistants, he had been saved the embarrassment of asking anyone for help. A small voice in the back of his head congratulated him... “Severus, you are a genius.” The more rational voice that kept him in the place he deserved or at least believed that he deserved, piped up. “Don’t congratulate yourself too heartily, Snivelless, if you weren’t despised by every teacher and student in this school, you could have just asked for help. But of course that will never happen, will it? You stupid git.”
The smile faded from Severus’ face. He leaned back into his chair and sighed, he felt very old and alone at that moment. His hand brushed the inside of his right wrist and he felt the old and familiar scars there. Severus did not look at these scars. He only touched them. He counted up his wrist, using his long and sensitive fingers to trace each one. One...two...three...
He counted seven scars, evenly spaced and perfectly straight. The first, like all the others began at the right side of the arm and drew a perfect line across the wrist to the left. It was slightly raised, although time tur turned it white. It was almost the same color as the skin of his wrist, marginally darker, as to still be visible. The pattern of the scars left no doubt in the mind as to their origins. It was obviously not an accident that had produced these scars. Of course, a simple potion or glamour would have covered them, but Severus preferred to be able to see and feel this ever-present reminder of the past.
His hand did not stray to his left wrist. Three new cuts were in the process of healing and he didn’t want to remember... Two nights ago as the knife had sung across his skin he had thought, “If I go just a bit deeper it could all be over.” He could all but feel the blood in the large veins beneath his knife. He would bleed out before anyone found him because of course there would be no one looking. He could practly sly see his father’s sneer when the voice in his head began again. “If you where a real man you would let the knife do its work. Of course you don’t have the courage to go through with it, you always were weak.” Severus gripped the handle of the knife tighter, he would have loved to hurl it across the room but forced himself instead to lay it gently on the table beside him.
It was always the voice of his father that berated him inside his head. He had never heard his own voice say such hurtful things about himself. Severus father had spoken with a gravely, rasping voice, exactly opposite of Severus’ own voice, which seemed to many to be more of a velvety purr than a voice at all.
Severus shook himself out of his reverie and pulled the pocket watch from his jacket. The clock read twenty after eight. He pushed himself wearily from the chair and began his preparations for the harvest ahead.