AN: I don't own the Harry Potter franchise, not any part of it. Although I'm currently working on making a wand...
No one ever said it, the thought that was always there, lurking in the back of their minds when they looked at the boy.
He doesn't look like his father. Not really.
But if he didn't look like his father, then who did he look like? Certainly not his mother. None of her traits could be seen in the boy, except for those eyes.
Most of them didn't know the answer to that question. The few who could answer it refused to. They told themselves they were being silly. Of course he looked like his dad, that dark brown hair. The noble-looking facial structure that spoke of generations of upper-class breeding. Maybe he was a bit more quiet, a bit more reserved than his father, but that could be explained by his upbringing. His dad had been spoiled, after all, and his son most definitely wasn't spoiled.
Only a few people who met the boy could remember another boy, one they had known years and years ago. A boy who looked so much like the boy-who-didn't-quite-look-like-his-father that the two could be siblings, twins even. And when they, rarely, reminisced about that boy who had lived decades ago they pondered on how similar the boys upbringing was. How they even had similar mannerisms.
In fact, resemblance between the two boys was much, much greater than the resemblance between the boy of the present and his father. If any of them realized this, they never spoke of it.
When Dumbledore came with the new boy, the boy from the present, to talk to Slughorn, the potions master momentarily thought he was dreaming of the past. A name almost slipped out of his lips. A question, a desperate, wondering, terrified, question was on the tip of his tongue.
"Tom? What are you doing here, Tom?"
But the old teacher caught himself. He carefully hid his shock, and acted as he was expected to.
Later, he rationalized that there was no way the wizarding world's savior was related to Tom Riddle. He had almost managed to convince himself, until he remembered a conversation he'd had with the former student.
A conversation about magic, darker than any other magic he knew.