Author's note: I wrote this to answer the prompt that I've listed in the description but after I finished, I found out that there was a 10,000 character limit. You'd think that I would remember that, but noooo...
For reference, the Reddit prompt, by u/crownjewel82 was:
The day was fast approaching when Severus would have to watch carefully for Lucius and Narcissa's son and for Potter's but this year he could still afford to ignore most of the process. He'd noted the few children from prominent families, including Ethelred Mulciber's grandchild, but had otherwise spent his time thinking about his first few lessons of the school year.
But then Minerva called out a name and Severus felt as though he was looking into a pensive. He was a skinny child with black hair, a hooked nose, and second hand robes. The resemblance was so uncanny that Severus looked for a red headed girl among the other children.
Anyway... here it is. For now, it's just a one-shot, but I may revisit it if I get bored with my other stuff. Enjoy.
A Mirror's Reflection
The Great Hall seemed to pause a moment before McGonagall called the next name, but the little firsties hadn't noticed. The others seemed to, if only for a moment, but most of the attention was more upon wondering when the food was going to appear. Severus Snape had been the Potions Master for almost half a decade and had been recently made the Head of Slytherin House. If he'd known what it meant, he wouldn't have accepted the Headship but he was stuck with it now. Even when he'd attended classes here, he'd never heard such puerile plotting and wishy-washy whining from the snakes as he had now. It made him want to share a wee dram with McGonagall, who'd had her own issues where she didn't think he could hear.
Damn Albus Dumbledore. Damn him and his crooked nose, questionable fashion sense, and especially those lemon drop to Hades, getting him into this mess.
He could get himself into trouble well enough by making questionable choices. Severus had finally put a stop to that much, after realizing what stupid decisions he'd made as a younger man, but those impulses and his temper made it harder to do. Thankfully, the Occlumency helped in that regard. Usually. There were times when the old man tested the limits of his patience, and he wasn't the only one. Professor Sprout sometimes looked like she was ticking off plants on some mental list that would have certain effects that he was aware of, due to the shared knowledge domains for both Potions and Herbology. It was taking all he had not to make some casual suggestions to her.
Now, however, he was here in the Great Hall to see the latest dunderheads. He prayed - although to whom or Whom what the question - that something had happened and there was a few of them that knew how to tie their shoes properly, at least. From the looks of the first ten or so, it wasn't looking good to him. Not for the first time, he wondered if he was being too judgmental about what he could see. There had been several intimations to that effect, but he'd shrugged them off. So far, he hadn't seen a lot of evidence to support that and plenty to indicate that these children were indeed... dunderheads.
Ethelred Mulciber's grandchild was there. Eindridi? Olaf? Skamkel? There were so many that he couldn't remember, and every one of them looked like each other. It made identification difficult, to say the least. He wondered why more wasn't here. There were other scions of prominent families here, but he ignored as many of them as he could. Dunderheads. All dunderheads. There hadn't been anything in the way of evidence there to change his mind one bit.
Plus, it was indisputable that Ethelred herself was either a harpy or a shrew, or quite possibly an unholy combination of the two with a terrible temper, to boot. Maybe that was why there weren't more Mulcibers here. It made more sense than he was loath to admit, since he enjoyed loathing Mulciber himself.
Severus sighed to himself, the outward unsmiling mask of his face not revealing anything that he didn't want it to. Maybe he would get lucky and something interesting would happen that would take his mind off the boredom. He should be in a Potions laboratory, researching this or that. That was his strength and desire, not this... teaching... runny-nosed brats what end of the stirring rod to hold. He'd much, much rather be winkling out the mysteries of new substances, finding out the properties of suspensions in various mixes, and noting down the reactions of things when they had heat applied to them.
He looked at Dumbledore again, who was watching the little firsties stumble in, some trying not to trip over their robes. Again, not for the first time, he wondered if he applied heat to the old man's feet, would the reaction be ashes, crackling of burning wood, or a satisfying scream of pain?
He sighed again. If only.
The Sorting Hat had gotten past of the middle of the group, signifying that the Sorting was approaching the end. The Song had been interesting, at least, and the old Hat had thrown in a couple of chemistry jokes that flew over mostly everyone's head. Severus appreciated them, though, and had anyone looked at him they would have seen that the corners of his lips had risen a millimeter or two and had reduced the perpetual frown slightly.
"Philetus Stump!"
The far smaller crowd shuffled around to make room for the called hopeful, who apparently had taken up a position at the very back of the group. The little ones had been looking around as well to see who it was and was rewarded with a thin boy that shambled to the stool.
The moment the torches in the Great Hall cast light on him, there was a stir at the Head Table. Everyone was staring at the boy.
He had long black hair that was gathered up in a ponytail by an old rubber band that looked like it was two infinitesimal stretches from snapping and crumbling into gristly dust. The ponytail hung to the middle of his back, which kept it out his face but invited attention to it. The eyes flicked around, searching for who knew what and it didn't go unnoticed that the other kids seemed a bit wary around him. Those eyes were black as night and twice as dark, but even the intelligence in them couldn't distract from the nose.
It perched on the face, swooping from between the thick eyebrows and assailed the air around it with no apologies to the sensitivities of the impugned atmosphere. The commanding position of that nose led the rest of the boy's face wherever it was pointed, the hook in the cartilage proclaiming its presence without shame or regrets whatsoever. Wherever it swung, it prevented one eye from seeing anything to the opposite lower sweep of vision merely by its presence, but made it seem to anyone unlucky enough to be nearby to feel as they were being hunted by a raptor.
A particularly ill-tempered appearing raptor.
He was dressed in robes that looked to Severus as they were well-used. Quite well-used, meaning 'been through several previous owners.' They were skillfully patched, the matching cloth blending in to the fabric but unable to hide the stitchery that held them fast. No one was really able to see if the boy was malnourished, aside from the thinness of the face, and frankly no one wanted to ask him.
Severus had plenty of questions that took the whole of his not-slight mental capabilities to answer. Who was this boy? Was he wearing a glamour? Where did he come from? Who was his mother? Who was...
His mind cut off the questions at that point, perhaps mercifully.
It was like looking back in time to his own Sorting. The boy looked like he was a mirror to his own memories and Severus had question upon question that he ruthlessly quashed. There was questions coming from his side that he answered with a helpless shrug, signifying that he knew about as much as they did. His mind took advantage of the slight inattention thanks to the question that Professor Babbling asked him, and opened up another front to assault his sensitivities with.
Severus didn't know what was going on. If he didn't know that Minerva was wearing a new tartan that he'd gifted her with from his summer break travels, the Potions professor would have sworn that time had turned back two decades.
He didn't want to. There was not a clue how he would react if what his mind was suggesting came true. If history had repeated itself, there there would be another.
He ignored the other questions, for a moment, as the boy sat on the stool and the hat dropped down on his head. Everyone at the Staff Table could see the end of the ponytail twitch as the boy answered the Hat's questions with a nod or a shake of his head. Severus' eyes roamed the Great Hall, first at the remaining firsties, then at the already-Sorted firsties. He had to know. Finding out details later could be done, but he had to look for himself and find out what information he could observe without disrupting the rest of the Sorting.
There were a few little girls with red hair. Not many, just a few. Thankfully there were no more Weasleys waiting to be Sorted in the middle of the Great Hall, although with his luck there would be at least one next year. Merlin help him if that happened.
From what little he could see, there were none that had green eyes that he lovingly remembered. That didn't mean that the little redheads didn't have them, since he simply couldn't see all of them from the greater height of the Staff Table. They were all so little and tended to hide up against the larger members of their respective houses. Nor did they all sit at the same distance, either.
A couple had been Sorted into Slytherin, he noticed with a wince.
He looked back to the boy under the Hat with a small start. He apparently hadn't been Sorted yet, and was nearly a Hatstall. What was going on with the conversation? Everyone could hear the indistinct grumps of the Hat and Severus risked a quick glance at the other Professors. They looked as mystified as he and the speaking glance that he got from Minerva, still down there with the lad, promised that there would most likely be an uncomfortable conversation later. If he was lucky, she would bring something fortifying and liquid.
From the glances he was getting from her, it didn't look likely.
There was a HMMM sound from the Hat, which to his ears sounded more contemplative that anything else. Although, he was sure that that ragged example of sorry haberdashery was highly amused as well, if the aborted coughs coming from it meant anything. That made him get a trenchant feeling that something was about to happen that he was going to regret.
"Well, if you're sure, young Stump!"
The boy nodded his head firmly, which set the tip of the old Hat weaving patterns in the air. The Hat proclaimed his verdict once the brim was still again.
"Better be... GRYFFINDOR!"
