Chapter Text
Tom believes in fate. He believes that the world is his to do with as he pleases. He believes that, in due time, all will bow to his will. So he is ready to do whatever it takes to ensure it. Unfortunate then, that there is so much filth built up, unworthy and stupid, ugly and unaware. But it’s perfect that he’s the one who will cleanse it, because he so enjoys watching them burn. Muggles, mudbloods, dissenters, they’re all the same to him; parasites sucking up valuable resources where there is already so little left to be had. That is why he will remake the world, himself at its center.
But he, like all great men, is guilty of indulgences. Muggles may, for the most part, be useless subhumans, but he has found their music to be a fair bit better than magical folks; one has a tendency of fondness for things remembered from their youth, despite all the effort he has made to distance himself from it. But mostly, the the thing that draws his eye unrivaled, has to be his odd little halfblood lover.
He thinks that it has been ordained by fate that he meet Severus, fractured shadow of himself. His same past but none of his social graces, no handsome features save for his pretty eyes and fine boned hands to ease his way into high society. But Tom likes it this way. Pretty people are boring, their development hindered by their good looks and easy lives. Severus had been beaten, crushed, and broken; refined into something great and terrible, something Tom found he could love.
Were he to carve a wife from ivory then pray at Aphrodite’s alter, his arms laden with offerings of poppies and pearls, live rabbits and doves to sacrifice in her honor, he would have asked her to breathe life into his Severus. A thing made real just for him. A gift, for his long years of silent suffering.
Justinian the first, a man from roots as humble as his own but with no bloodline to speak of, made himself emperor of Rome and, much like Tom himself, sought to bring an empire back to its former glory. And for his wife, Justinian married an actress and a whore by the name of Theodora. So really, he could have done much worse than Severus.
He knew, on some level, that the boy was still a bit too young, though he could not help but feel an odd longing when he looked at him; a heavy, aching sort of want that settles in his chest and curls around his heart, and a softness that hadn’t known he possessed. Tom had waited years and years to have so many of the things he desired, so when it came to this, he didn’t see the need for patience. And Severus was more than willing.
For now, they share a sweet little home outside London, just the two of them and a few house elves to attend them. When he has won his war, he shall have an estate built, one unrivaled in grandeur and glory. A palace befitting his greatness. But for now there are undeniable benefits to having Severus close at hand at all times. Tom enjoys slipping into his labs when he is hard at work, a soft caress to the back of his slender neck making him jump.
“What are we so diligently toiling away at tonight?” he croons into the lank fall of his black hair.
“I don’t know why you enjoy startling me like that all the time. It could prove to be very dangerous,” he huffs. “Some of these potions are can be very unstable.”
“Perhaps I simply trust your competence,” he grins as he buries his nose into the nape of his neck, inhaling the sharp scent of dried cherry leaves and juniper. He trails his hand down Severus’ side, hiking up his robe in order to worm his fingers beneath the waistband of his trousers, caressing the delicate flesh beneath. “I was hoping my wife wouldn't be too opposed to a distraction?”
Severus himself finds it odd that he likes it when Tom calls him his wife. He’s not a woman (never has been, never will be) but when Tom started calling him his wife, the word held such softness, such reverence, and was so laden with the affection Severus had never before received. It’s begun to mean something beyond gender to him. He’s Tom’s one and only beloved, his one and only wife. Severus hums low in his throat and grinds back against him teasingly. “You wanted Hutchins dead by Wednesday, didn’t you? If I am distracted, who knows how long it will take me to make his poison.”
Tom’s right hand finds the buttons of Severus’ trousers and works them through the fabric, his left hand clutching his hip to further pull him back against his hard cock. “I suppose I’ll have to grant him a stay of execution then. I fear something of utmost importance has come up.”
Tom likes fucking him here, bent over his work table, trousers down around his thighs. His erection slips in easily, past the thick black curls and permanently soft cock and into his slick folds. Their lovemaking is much more practiced now; a far cry from the tense and painful first time. Tom wonders absently if he should have kept the sheets, stained red from the blood of his future wife's defloration.
Severus keens, high and needy as Tom grips his hips and settles into a steady rhythm, burying himself to the hilt then only pulling out a scant few inches before plunging back in. He knows this is how Severus likes it, knows the head of his cock stimulates that patch of nerves inside him that brings the most pleasure.
Severus’ hand uncurls and grasps the edge of the table for stability and shoves his hips back against him. “Yes,” he hisses out, muscles clenching down around Tom’s erection, “just like that.” And Tom is more than happy to comply. Watches, fascinated, as Severus turns his head to the side to glance over his shoulder, black spider eyes half lidded and mouth open, little puffs of air bursting past his lips.
Severus likes the heat inside him, how molten hot his cock feels as it stretches him open, so deliciously thick and heavy as it rubs that spot that makes his chest heave and his muscles tense, shoving him ever closer to the edge of ecstasy. Tom lays flat against him, chest to back, mouth seeking his own; their fingers lacing together at the edge of the table. Severus feels a questing tongue lick at his lips and eagerly he sucks it in.
Tom groans into his mouth and speeds up his thrusts, making the table rattle dangerously. Severus hums back in amusement, toes curling in his boots and muscles tensing, very near his orgasm. He can feel it just on the periphery, hot and electric, centered in that wonderful spot in his pussy that Tom’s cock keeps hitting. He pulls away from their kiss, gasping for air. “Fuck,” he bites out, desperately shoving himself back against his lover. “Harder!” He’s so close, wants it so bad. And Tom, dear Tom, obliges, wraps an arm around his waist to keep him in place as he fucks him gloriously hard. Severus’ orgasm overtakes him, his whole body tensing as he’s pounded into; paralyzed by that glorious, horrible plateau of pleasure, so wonderful it almost hurts.
Tom can always tell when Severus cums. His whole body locks up and his already wonderfully tight cunt clenches down around him in spasms that he swears are trying to milk him dry. He lets it, releasing inside of him with a deep, satisfied hum; reveling in the raw, nerve flaying pleasure.
They stay together like that for a moment, Tom careful not to rest too much of his weight on Severus as they catch their breath. Finally, Severus croons softly beneath him, signaling his wish to separate. He pulls his softening cock out, enjoys seeing Severus’ pussy, fresh fucked and red, clench back up; its inclination always to keep his seed inside. They’ve tried other things, of course. Cumming down his throat is nice, as is seeing Severus’ face flecked with it; beads of the stuff dripping over his lips, weighing down his long lashes, speckling his cheeks. But Tom has found his preference of location to be vaginal.
“Tom, do you have a handkerchief on you or something? You’ve left me a mess,” Severus said, trying to keep his robes hiked up so they don’t brush against the semen slowly oozing out of him.
“I’d prefer you left it as is, my dear. That way, when I leave, I’ll still be inside of you,” he replies, tugging Severus’ trousers back up as he kisses at his neck. Tom marks his followers, marks the remains of his enemies; it only makes sense he enjoys marking his wife as well.
Severus sighs and adjusts his pants and underwear before letting his robes fall back into place, shifting slightly at the uncomfortable feel of his husband's fresh release trickling out of him.
Tom’s hand lands gently on his shoulder, urging Severus to turn and face him. “Give us a kiss before I leave to speak with Lucius, love,” he says as he leans in close. Their lips meet, his tongue doing a quick swipe over Severus’ teeth and soft palate before pulling back.
“What are you seeing Lucius about?”
“Just work, my dear. I’ll be back soon."
Weeks later, it starts with a strange cramping in his abdomen, below his stomach but in front of his intestines. He doesn’t worry about it, writes if off like he does all of his aches and pains. A talent honed by a life of abuse. Either it will get better or it will get bad enough to need treatment. Until then, he has other things to worry about. What really irritates him is how tired he is all of the time, made doubly so because he’s been sleeping better than he ever has before. It’s when his chest starts to get sore and he mysteriously starts wanting cheese despite having never liked it that he begins to put it together.
His menstrual cycle was never regular, probably because he wasn’t really a woman, but when he does the math it’s been fifty days since his last one. He’d never gone that long between them.
It’s then that something cold and terrible blooms in him (besides what else might be “blooming”), and he begins to tremble. It can’t be. It’s not possible. Not without something very strong to facilitate it, and the only thing he’s been making are poisons. Though the symptoms fit perfectly and he can't think of any other afflictions that would cause this. But he's not a healer. Surely there are a plethora of strange and magical diseases that may have oddly similar symptoms. Just a quick check. A simple test will disprove his fears and then he can figure out what's really wrong with him. He flees to his laboratory, and with trembling hands, sets to work brewing the potion that will confirm or deny his suspicions.
Pennywort, minced fine. Raskovnik leaves, whole. Alkonost eggshell, powdered. Rabbit’s blood, fresh. Bring to the boil and stir over low heat for five minutes. The resulting potion should be clear and odorless. Mix with a urine sample. If it turns blue, you’re pregnant. He tips a vial of his own urine into mixture and watches, horrified, as it blooms a rich, royal blue.
Severus never thought it was possible, had never wanted this, and doesn’t know what to do. There’s something in him that he didn’t put there, didn’t ask for, something that both is and isn’t him. He feels invaded, he feels violated.
He could quickly and easily take care of it, of course. He has all the right ingredients to make an abortifacient already. That would be the easiest thing to do, and probably the smartest. They could just go on as they already were, and Severus would start on contraceptives.
But as much as he may want that path, there’s something keeping him from taking it. This thing inside of him, this thing he did not ask for, is Tom’s too. And Tom has only ever been kind to him, has only ever treated him to soft touches and sweet words. Isn’t anything like his father had been. Tom should know, will know what to do. But he’s off again somewhere, seeing someone about “an interesting rat problem. Nothing you have to worry about, my dear.” He assumes that means Tom and the others are going to have some fun at someone else’s expense, not that he particularly cared one way or the other. But of all the terrible times for him to be gone.
Severus retreats to their bedroom and curls up in the wingback chair that sits next to the fireplace facing the bed, trying desperately to think of anything other than the thing inside him.
He waits for what seems like hours, smoking cigarette after cigarette, little parasite be damned. He’s too nauseous to eat anything, though he can't say if it’s just nerves or something related to his condition. He needs something, anything to distract him.
Tom’s taste in furniture may tip to the ostentatious sometimes, but they keep their bedroom sparse; neither having much interest in stuffing such an intimate space to the brim with objet d’art. There is a jewelry box full of finery Tom had pilfered from their more destructive raids. Severus has little to no interest in it, but certain moods will sometimes take hold of his husband and he’ll be of a mind to cover Severus in gleaming gems after he’d fucked him full of cum and redressed him in nice clothes. Comb his mussed hair into place with the sterling silver hairbrush rescued from the rubble of a wealthy home. Mist him in the rich perfumes stolen from the same places to cover the smell of sex. Severus indulges him. It’s nice to be treated like a fine treasure for once instead of the lowliest rot anyone had ever had the displeasure of seeing.
“You were raised like a feral thing, my dear,” Tom would say as he clasped an emerald necklace around his throat. “And while I love your wildness, there are times when you must act domesticated.” He’d escort him then, seed still dripping from his insides, to “strategy meetings”. Which was mostly code for drinking Lucius’ good wine and playing cat and mouse with whatever unfortunate soul was being held in the dungeons. Usually aurors. Sometimes people who opposed them. If those happened to be in short supply, which they occasionally were, Tom was known to settle for anyone they could catch off the street.
Generally ambivalent to the torture show, Severus had mostly entertained himself by wrapping around his husband whenever Bellatrix’s cruel eye would land on them. He’d aim at her a smile full of malice as Tom would absentmindedly stroke his arm, his hip, his hair, laughing all the while as his curses ripped their captive to shreds. Tom would pay covetous, beautiful, well bred Bellatrix no mind, causing Severus to squirm in pleasure as hatred and jealousy twisted her pretty face. He hoped she could tell they’d just had sex before they came. That it was her beloved lord’s semen currently drying in him . Her lord, his Tom; the only one allowed to say that name.
Severus had never had something someone else had wanted before, and he found it quite a fine feeling indeed. And now here he is, alone in their room with a thing he doesn’t want taking root inside him. No, the jewelry box will hold no solace for Severus as his current condition is closely linked to the debauchery it represents.
There is another thing Tom keeps in here. A gramophone, settled on the antique sideboard they’ve placed on the western side of the room, just beneath the heavily curtained windows. A guilty pleasure, as he calls it.
Severus pulls a record from the cupboard and removes it from its blank jacket. Tom has them charmed to play different songs by different artists and only he would know which is which. But Severus doesn’t care right now. He just needs something, anything to focus on until Tom comes home. He sets the record on the turntable and cranks the handle before carefully setting the needle on it. A dreamy sort of melody starts, and a woman husks out:
“If he swing by the string
He will hear the bell ring
And then there's an end to poor Tommy
He must hang by the noose
For no hand will cut loose
The rope from the neck of poor Tommy.”
Of course it would start with that one, with his terrible luck. Now is not the time to be that morbid; he doubts his nerves can take it as rattled as they are. He moves the needle further on the record, the voice mystic and lovely ringing out “if he swing” three times more before the next song begins.
It’s something with a swaying beat, the fluttering wail of the horns adding an almost lascivious element, accompanied by a woman’s throaty voice, dulcet and cigarette deep, crooning self assured and beautiful but almost harshly, smoke rich words becoming impossible to understand, indecipherable notes mouthed meaningless around him. But it’s still beautiful, still comforting. The chorus comes, and he knows this part. “Why don’t you do right? Like some other men do.”
They’d swayed together to this one, when Tom was feeling more affectionate than usual, his nose buried in Severus’ hair and his arms around his waist, And for the first time in his whole life, he’d felt safe and cherished. Tom was powerful, feared and beloved, and Severus trusted his judgment. He would know what to do, if only he would come home already. What the hell could he possibly be doing that was taking this long? They’d better have burned the whole ministry to the ground. With the amount of time it was taking him, he could have conquered an entire fucking continent.
The current song ends with a cacophony of horns, and the next one begins. Soft piano and then a man’s voice:
“There was a boy
A very strange enchanted boy
They say he wandered very far
Very far over land and sea
A little shy and sad of eye
But very wise, was he,”
Severus goes back to his chair and curls up with his legs underneath him and lights another cigarette, inhaling the acrid smoke in a futile attempt to calm himself. Just as he was considering sending a house elf to track his husband down, the door creaked open and in strode his Tom.
Equal parts relief and fear flood his veins. Tom would know what to do. But what if he reacted badly? What if he was angry? What if he thought Severus did this on purpose? What if, horror of horrors, he didn’t think it was his? Every negative possibility stretched out before him, a yawning chasm of doubt threatening to swallow him alive, and for a moment he felt himself falling.
Their eyes meet, and Tom smiles. “What are you doing, hiding away from me in here?” He strolls in, casual as can be. As if he hasn’t spent hours doing who knows what with Merlin knows who, leaving him alone to fester with this burden. Tom takes the needle off the record and turns to look at him again. “You seem troubled, love.”
Severus feels a familiar viciousness rise in him, something he’d never felt directed at Tom before. “Do you want to know what troubles me?”
“If I did not care to know, I would not have asked,” he said, gliding to stand before him. And it registers then, how much bigger Tom is than him, how much more powerful he is. He has seen his husband break enough people down in the Malfoy dungeons to know what he is capable of, and for the first time in a long time, Severus is afraid of him. He could easily make Severus disappear, and no one would question him. Could poison him with one of his own brews, subtle and silent. Give him to Bellatrix to do with as she pleased, horrid, jealous hag that she is. But he has lived with fear all of his life, and he lets his anger seep in to cover it in enough righteous fury that he pushes on regardless. It’s the same instinct that pitted him against Potter’s gang throughout school, the same thing that drew his father’s ire over and over again.
Still though, he does not meet his eyes as he says, blunt and venomous, “I’m pregnant.” He stabs his cigarette out on the arm of the chair, not caring about the smoldering hole it leaves in the sumptuous green fabric.
Suddenly, Tom’s hand is gripping his wrist, iron firm, and Severus drops his cigarette to the floor. Tom had only ever touched him like a fragile thing; soft as a moth’s wing in the moonlight. Slowly, he lifts his gaze to meet Tom’s, acutely aware of the warm, smooth hand clamped around him like a vice.
Tom’s expression is serious, but aside from that unreadable. “Truly?” he says softly, almost wistfully as his thumb begins to caress the fragile joints in Severus’ wrist.
“Yes. I took the test; made it myself. It turned blue immediately.”
Tom nods sagely and hums in the back of his throat. Then, with movements smooth and measured, he kneels before Severus, who is still curled protectively into himself on the chair.
“I had entertained the idea that our union was predestined; that you were made for only me.” Tom’s hands, sure and strong, cup his face gently. “Now I know that this is indeed the case.”
“You want it then?” he whispers out, both flattered and terrified.
“Of course. This is fate.” One of his hands slides down to his belly, feather light, the way one touches a wounded animal not long for this world. And Severus’ breath stutters on the inhale.
He had not expected this, by any means. He had thought, deep down, that Tom would be surprised though ultimately uninterested in the concept. But apparently he's beside himself with joy about it. And it’s suddenly, painfully real. He has what could become a child inside of him. Something that Tom wants to become a child inside of him.
It’s the ninth of December, 1978 and, in exactly one month, he’ll turn 19. Will still be 19 when it’s born. Surely that’s too young. Severus knows nothing about pregnancy or babies, and suspects that Tom doesn’t know anything either. Severus certainly doesn't know anything about raising a child. Until recently he'd only known about pain and isolation; the sharpened short end of the stick.
But beyond that, much deeper in his heart, he knows he doesn't want to give up his freedom. He won't be able to eat what he liked, go where he liked, or do what he liked anymore, eternally beholden to the whims of a child. There are expectations of mothers, that they relinquish all aspects of the self and become nurturing machines, all previous traits erased and replaced with “mother”. Severus doesn't think he has that in him. He isn't patient or particularly kind, and isn't even sure how one would go about fostering such things. He doesn’t wish to lose himself to an identity he did not choose.
But he doesn't say that. What he does say is, “I’ll have to stop brewing.” He's been impulsive before and had paid for it dearly. This time he knows he can't lose someone over this; can't lose the only good thing that has ever happened to him because he wanted to be selfish. He isn't sure where he would go or what he would do without Tom. He'd be blacklisted by both sides, and that was if he was lucky. Without his husband he would be a penniless, jobless, former Death Eater, reviled by all. Tom could ruin him as easily as he had raised him on high.
“We’ll get by. You have a much more important job now." Tom worms his arms underneath Severus’ knees and around the back of his shoulders, bundles him up in his arms and lifts him like he isn’t a gawky, squirming thing. Like he means the most in the world to him. Tom gently deposits him on the bed just a few steps away, as if he’s too sacred and fragile for his feet to touch the floor, and Severus cannot help but smile. Tom is kind (to him anyway, and that’s all that matters), and powerful, and has every wealthy pureblood of any importance firmly by the throat. “You should eat and then rest. You’re carrying the next heir of Slytherin, after all,” he says as he glides from the room. Yes, Tom himself has very good blood. The best, in fact. Even his muggle father had been something of a nobleman.
Heir of Slytherin. It’s definitely a line that should continue, and he should be honored if it’s through him, right? Greasy, ugly, halfblood nobody, carrying a founder’s legacy. Perhaps a baby isn’t such a bad idea. Certainly, they can’t fuck it up any worse than their own parents had. And Tom wants it, seems to think it's some sort of sign or omen. He won’t be alone in this (won’t fall into the same trap his mother had). He’ll have Tom, of course, and house elves, and his husband’s silver tongue could probably convince a supporter’s wife to watch it on occasion.
Severus lays back and rests his hands on his abdomen, right beneath his navel. He’s going to have a baby.
He’ll warm up to the idea quickly, he is sure.