Master Severus Tobias Snape As the new legal guardian of Un-named Male Child you are henceforth from this date, solely responsible for all aspects of care and well-being of the aforementioned child(s), until which point they reach their majority. If at any point it is reported to the Ministry that you fail to provide adequate care, the child(s) may be removed from your custody and placed into the care of another ministry approved family, should one not be available, the child(s) will be removed into a Ministry Approved Care Facility.

oOo

Severus Snape, was a father.

He was a father.

A single father at that. He'd no idea Alice was even pregnant, for that matter he'd no idea she'd even survived the battle. Frankly he hadn't cared. They were not lovers, not by a long-shot. Their one and only tryst had been a few days before the final battle. A public spectacle at a Revel for his punishment, and the Dark Lord's behest. Alice, who had a personality like a young Bellatrix had been more than willing, he had not.

Severus had never planned to be a father, had never gone as far as to dare dream that there would ever be a witch in his life willing to carry him his heir. Especially not now. He was broke, living in a dingy bedsit with no reputation or money to speak of, but if there was one thing that Severus was, it was loyal. The magic that generated these scrolls was infallible. If the scroll said he was the father, then he was the father. And thinking of the dark lord he shuddered, he would be damned if he let his child grow up in a "Ministry Approved Care Facility". They may not be muggle orphanages, but they were disgusting and desolate places that bred monsters. He donated a lot of money to them when he was teaching, to try and improve the lives of the squibs and abandoned children therein, though what good it did them he didn't know.

Steeling himself, he noted the address provided on the ministry scroll and he apparated. The flat he arrived at was in a rough part of muggle London, not far from Diagon Alley. He knocked on the door, but there was no answer, and he could hear no noise from inside.

Where were the ministry representatives? Where would they have taken him?

A quick scan with his wand showed there were no wards or traps to speak of and a homenum revelio showed there was only one small life inside.

His son.

His son was alone in there.

Without thinking, wand forgotten and stepping back to his muggle and impoverished northern roots, he kicked the door in. The smell assailed him then, and he covered his nose and staggered back momentarily.

Booze. Shit. Death.

The small flat was no better than his dingy bedsit, and as he stepped into the living space, the cause of the rank stench became apparent. The body of Alice Avery was laid prone on the dirty tiled floor of the small greasy kitchenette. There were broken booze bottles (stolen, by the look of the muggle plastic security devices still attached) and she was in a congealing pool of her own blood. It looked like she'd drank herself into a stupor and then slashed her wrists, though not before vomiting allover herself, and if the smell was to be believed, shitting herself. Lovely. Combined with the coppery scent of blood it had him grimacing in distaste as he fought not to become reacquainted with his meager could barely afford to eat, so he most definitely couldn't afford to be sick.

The blood was tacky, and it was clear she'd been dead for at least a few hours. He hadn't expected her to still be here, after all it was the Ministry's job to collect her body as she had no living relatives to deal with her. Though clearly the Aurors had decided they had better things to do than travel to the arse end of muggle London to collect the corpse of a dead death eater, instead choosing to leave her here to rot. No one would miss her, and no one would care. She'd be just another anonymous transient that the muggle council would eventually deal with when the encroaching smell of decomposition became too much for her muggle neighbours.

Another noise had his attention firmly back on his son, when he took in the body of Alice with dawning horror. The parchment had said that he was the legal guardian from 10:39 am that morning, from the time of her death. His son had been born the day before. It was clear she'd spent the majority of the night consuming vast amounts of alcohol before bleeding to death from her self inflicted wounds. But it was now nearly 3pm in the afternoon, him having received the scroll some 20 minutes earlier. That meant as the ministry had not cared to attend Alice's body...his newborn son had been alone for at least 4 and half hours in the house with the corpse of his mother. And judging by the bender she'd been on, he'd been without care for Merlin knows how many hours before that.

He dashed into the small bedroom, and was met with the sight of a pale and dirty infant in the centre of the small shabby bed, amidst all the child-birthing mess that was still marring the sheets. He didn't seem to have the strength to cry, but was whimpering and moving his arms sluggishly.

Heedless of the filth coating him all over his small body, Severus gently picked the unwashed babe up. He got a pained whimper at first that made him slightly panic, though when he realised it was because the baby could not support his own head, he quickly adjusted his grip and cradled him to his chest like the delicate little thing that he was.

"It's alright" He said. It wasn't of course, but he couldn't tell this little thing that and he didn't know what else to say, so he said it again. "It's alright"

He was cold, his skin looked dry and red under the mess, he was shivering and his lips were slightly blue, so Severus brought him closer, trying to share his own body warmth, under his outer robes. Too afraid to cast any spells on the tiny delicate human.

There was a tatty book on the bedside table, a bloody and smudged hand-print on the cover suggesting Alice had grabbed for it some time after the birth, so gingerly sitting on the edge of the bed and still cradling his son, he grabbed it and flicked through. Giving himself something to do while his shocked mind caught up with his body, as tremors routinely shook through him.

It was clearly some sort of journal, thoughts and ramblings of the more than just half mad woman. Though it was the last few entries that caught his eye. It showed she'd been looking forward to the birth of the child, as much as a half mad woman can, hoping that when she birthed her husbands heir, she would be accepted and offered asylum by his estranged family. Though she was a violent psychopath, Severus conceded that she had loved her husband in her own way, his death would've destroyed her. His family however, who Severus recalled had remained passive throughout the war, had snubbed her and not wanted to associate with her after his death, not wanting to be tied to the dark arts and a crazy ex-death eater. For whatever reason, when he was born she'd realised the child wasn't her husbands, and fallen into desolation and the results were currently laid out on the kitchen floor, making Severus wish for something to cover his nose.

He looked at the child and debated what to do, he thought about anonymously dropping him off with some childless, rich wizarding family. Infertility was rife in the pure-blood families after centuries of marriages to cousins...and in some cases even closer relations. Like the Carrow twins. He shuddered. Some pure-blood family, struggling to conceive would see a newborn magical male child as a gift from Merlin. They would ask no questions. Unwed teenage mothers often did the same thing, as single motherhood was still very frowned upon in wizarding society. They could give him a good life. Even muggles perhaps? There were many childless muggles desperate to adopt babies, and when the boy no doubt showed signs of magic, he would attend Hogwarts as a muggleborn unmarred by familial associations with ex death eaters.

But when small eyelids fluttered open for the first time in his presence, Severus instantly knew exactly how Alice had realised this was not her husbands son.

As Severus stared into a pair of jet black eyes, identical to his own, all thoughts of this child ever being anonymous, or wanted by anyone, were struck from his mind. With those eyes, it would be clear to anyone who his father was. And no one wanted to raise the child of a death eater. As Alice had made clear, not even another death eater. Let alone the son of the man who murdered Albus Dumbledore. His son would be just as ostracised as he was. Because he was his son.

"It's just me and you then, little man" he said softly. And sat in the dingy flat in muggle London, covered in blood, shit and filth, wearing his only pair of robes he held his newborn son, and wept.