Once upon a time was how fairy tales began. Those inexplicable tales intended to impart a lesson to children; lessons like don't wonder into the forest alone. Don't alienate your friends. Don't fall in love with strange men. All of these were lessons his parents should have taught him, yet he only managed to glean them in hindsight. Now here he was at only twenty one, widowed with a child and facing the looming threat of war. In a way he supposed he did have a story book life. It was a rather gloomy tale, rife with desolation, bad choices, and depression; it showed no sign of improving any time soon.
Somehow at the end, or intermission, of all the chaos, betrayal, deceit, and espionage, Severus found himself as a Professor and head of house. He had spent some of the less miserable years of his life in this dungeon, so if one were to try and grasp at straws, you could say that it was rather fitting that only after three years away he was back again, bringing with him a son and little else. "Mu!" Tommy said, reaching out his little arms for him. Severus bent down to lift the toddler, brushing back a stray lock of black hair from his eyes. He wasn't sure if he should try to get Tommy to switch the rudimentary Mum to Dad.
In the wizarding world certain genetic abnormalities weren't as uncommon as they were in the muggle world. So, when he was born with a penis that was for urinating and not much else, as well as a completely female reproductive system (the opening for which was located where the testicles of a normal man would be), it gave his bastard father another reason to hate him and his freak mother. "Couldn't even give me a proper son," he'd mutter drunkenly at him. He still had a masculine name, however. It wouldn't do to have a child that looked male wondering around with a name like Mary. It might have passed in the wizarding world but in the normal world you couldn't go around proclaiming how much of a disgusting freak you were. So he was raised like a boy, quietly ashamed of his deformity. He still felt a bit awkward about it now, which was why he was considering changing his son's "mu" to "da". Now that Tom was gone, at least for the moment, there was no need for it to get around that he was more female than male. However it would be much harder to explain where the other parent was.
As the mother Tommy could be explained as the progeny of an anonymous, ill advised one night stand but the problem with that was one ran the risk of being branded a harlot. He could say it was non-consensual, but children stemming from such an unfortunate union tended to be viewed with a stigma that he would rather avoid. If word got around of his son he supposed he could say the father died in the war and that he didn't wish to speak of it. For the moment anyway, it was the truth. He just wasn't sure what to tell Tommy. He felt he had a right to know who his father was, but explaining that he had been an up and coming dictator with murderous intentions for the vast majority of the world's population was something that could be rather hard to swallow for a child. Severus didn't want Tommy to hate his father. Tom loved their son and was a wonderful parent, but his ideals and actions would have gotten them killed sooner rather than later. Up until Tommy had been born, he had been perfectly fine ignoring the repercussions of Tom's actions. The problem with Severus' love was that it tended to be blind, deaf, and dumb. Perhaps it had been his youth, or naive and twisted ignorant idealism, but he was certain he would die with Tom when it all came crashing down and he had been perfectly fine with that. Then he had a baby with him. It was supposed to be difficult for someone with his… condition to conceive. Normally it required the aid of strong and complicated potions. But Severus always had to go above and beyond the call of duty, even if it was a mistake.
Tom had been thrilled. Severus, less so. Neither one of them had any idea how to be parents, so how the hell were they supposed to raise a child of their own without severely fucking the poor thing up? Not to mention that neither one of them had a lot of free time. Tom was busy trying to get an empire off the ground and Severus was constantly making potions and doing research. But, as time went on parental instinct took over and he grew to love his unborn child. Devotion to Tom took a back seat to making sure his son lived. So, for the first time in his life, he did the right thing. Severus sold out the only person who had ever well and truly loved him in exchanged for clemency to raise the madman's son
