The Boy

Summary: The boy's face is not all Potter's. /AU/

Fandom: Harry Potter… and since there are so many sub-fandoms within that one, the Slytherin!Harry variant.

Date written: Sometime before September 20, 2011.

Rating: PG for use of "damned".

Word Count: 737

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all related characters belong to J.K. Rowling, who has much better things to do than write fanfiction. I am not her, and only own this fanfiction… Well, this particular rendition of this fanfiction… In HP fandom, everything has been done at least thrice before…

Author's Note: This is intended to be set in the AU corresponding to The Right Sort, but could really be hammered in to any Slytherin!Harry AU with post-Deathly Hallows knowledge in which Snape decides that Harry isn't half as bad as he thought. I'm flexible.

The stamp of her features were upon the boy's face, even despite the resemblance to Potter; no one else saw it, because no one else had cared to look. Oh, wasn't Potter wonderful, died too young, such a brave and charming young man, Quidditch hero, ever so dashingly reckless with Black by his side – oh, no one was supposed to mention Black any more, weren't they, after he betrayed his best friend to the Dark Lord? But enough of Potter.

No one could claim those vivid green eyes were Potter's, not when they had seen them first in someone else's face; not even those hideous glasses could disguise them. The rest, though, looked most like Potter's – and so no one looked further.

But the shape of his jaw was shorter and stronger than Potter's had been, and his mouth had a more stubborn set than Potter's easy smile. The nose turned up at the end, looking almost snobbish – he could not call it snobbish, for her nose had been even more so, and saying the boy looked snobbish would be insulting her, too. The forehead and eyebrows were all Potter – unfortunate boy. He couldn't say about the ears, since he hadn't gone about gazing longingly at ears, and he wasn't about to start.

However, even the hair – the damned, wind-blown, "just-shagged" (what mad witch had come up with that expression?) Potter hair – had some of her in it: in the bright sunlight, it gleamed not brown or off-black, but dark red. Potter's hair had never done that. He was sure he would have noticed during one of the times that he had lain in wait for Potter's little band behind a tree, aiming a hex right at the insufferable wretch; a pity they had turned it back after he had turned it into a clown's wig, he had been rather hoping they would have to shave it all off… but enough of that. Potter was dead, and the boy's main resemblance to him was physical, and that only if one didn't care to look for signs of her in the boy's face.

Draco… now that was a different matter. He would have to keep an eye on him; he was an intelligent enough boy, to be sure, but his parents had spoiled him greatly, and he had grown up always knowing that adoration was his birthright, and that any who denied him it were insolent commoners who had earned their fair share of torment and a little more to boot. Very much like Potter, unfortunately. Rather more intelligent and well-raised, in his terribly objective opinion, so he would never be quite as bad as Potter… but then, it took a great deal of focused effort to equal Potter.

He would have to monitor both the boy and Draco, at any rate, and make sure they went down proper paths; he was not about to allow the boy to stumble into the same mistakes that she had made (or that he himself had made, for that matter – but enough of that), and he would rather consume an entire cupboard full of raw potion ingredients than let a boy whom he had watched grow from infancy become a Slytherin James Potter. The mere thought made him feel as if he had already started on the cupboard.

But enough of musings; it was time to cease this drifting-along he had sustained ever since receiving the positions of Potions Professor and Head of Slytherin House – a drifting-along that had, amongst its other successes, led Slytherin House to the House Cup for seven years in a row, to be sure – and start taking an active interest in the world as Severus Snape, alumnus of Slytherin House, once more. He had something to do other than make sure James Potter's brat didn't fall off his broom on a joyride and smash his fool head open on the Hogwarts battlements, after all.

That "something" happened to involve one of the newest and most controversial members of Slytherin House, who was, at the moment, bent over his Potions textbook – like many first-years, terrified of his exacting (some nincompoops would say harsh) Potions Professor – unlike them, determined to prove himself worthy. Ignoring the glares and whispers that had not let up since the Hat called out his House, the boy turned the page, biting his lower lip as his eyes scanned the text…

…Lily Evans' eyes.