જ⁀➴ 𝑾𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒂 𝑹𝒊𝒅𝒅𝒍𝒆 𝒇𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒔 𝒊𝒏 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 ᥫ᭡
hii! this will probably feel more complete if you read mattheo riddle & love first ˙ᵕ˙ tw: just mature language
Although there are countless of ways of how this could unfold, this is the one that feels the truest to me.
Falling in love for Mattheo Riddle is not a gentle process.
It’s confusing, uncomfortable, and more than anything, it’s painful. Like a slow, creeping tension in his chest that he doesn’t understand and doesn’t want to. He spent years avoiding this type of vulnerability, no matter how tempting it could feel.
But the most fascinating thing about falling in love, is that, more often than not, you can’t even see it coming. It has a way of hitting you when you least expect it, and sometimes, when you less want it to.
For a guy like Mattheo, who made a habit out of shoving every emotion he can’t process — or simply refuses to deal with — into a locked mental drawer, pretending it doesn’t exist while hiding behind whatever coping mechanism best fits his day, the process is even more complicated.
And when Mattheo Riddle falls in love, it's like a tragedy.
Mattheo is not really the type to notice people. Most of the time, he just stays with his tight-knit friend group, rarely bothering to glance at anyone outside of it. For him, other people are usually either a temporary distraction, an annoyance, or just mere background noise. He doesn’t allow people in very easily, or usually, at all. He has that type of guarded edge that comes with being the son of the most dangerous Dark Wizard in history.
That’s one of the reasons why I’m a strong believer that one of the best love tropes for Mattheo is forced proximity.
If he were ever to fall in love, it would probably be with someone he has to be around, or at least someone he can’t easily avoid, for long enough to get past his initial barriers.
Maybe it’s a transfer student who befriends Pansy and gets dragged into their hangouts. Maybe it’s Lorenzo’s cousin who newly arrived at Hogwarts and blended into their group. Or maybe, just a random classmate he’s stuck with for a tiring, weeks-long Potions project. The specifics don’t really matter. What matters is that this person becomes part of his life without him having much control over it.
Mattheo takes a good while to warm up to new people, especially if they’re suddenly woven into his routine. In the beginning, he’s cold, reserved —his default mode with anyone new, really. It’s not that he is rude, he just isn’t exactly “Mr. Congeniality” either.
But of course, being the most opinionated person to ever exist, once he does notice someone, it doesn’t take him too long to form his indisputable opinions about them.
Well, to be completely honest, Mattheo feels utterly indifferent about most people. Sometimes not even caring enough to remember their names.
Seriously, this man is absolutely terrible with names.
But when it comes to someone he is obligated to deal with for whatever reason, he decides pretty fast what he thinks about them.
And if he has a problem with you, I guarantee you’ll know. It goes from childish, petty comments, to eye rolls that he won’t even slightly bother hiding.
And as much as an enemies-to-lovers might sound exciting, Mattheo is too ridiculously stubborn for that. He is an observer —a really great one actually. So if he doesn’t like someone, odds are that he saw something he deeply dispites in their personality and it would be extremely difficult to change his mind.
However, I could definitely see it playing out in a scenario where you are not exactly enemies, just have more of a… fun rivalry. Something that incites Mattheo’s adrenaline.
On the other hand, if he does happen to like you —or at least don’t actually dislike— it will still take some time for him to start getting comfortable, but when he finally does, that’s when you’ll start to unlock small glimpses of who is the real Mattheo behind the infamous reputation.
And for Mattheo Riddle to fall in love, I believe that’s the most likely scenario.
It starts innocently enough, or as innocently as anything can be in Mattheo Riddle’s world.
A conversation here and there. A glance that lingers too long. At first, he is quieter. He doesn’t even register it as anything significant. But there’s this pull, this tiny tug in his chest that he can’t seem to shake. It’s just… curiosity. Yeah, that’s it.
As time passes, the occasional conversations start happening more and more often and he starts becoming less guarded over time. You’re funny, smart, sharp, and Merlin, you are gorgeous. He notices it, obviously.
Eventually, just like that, you become friends. And that’s totally fine, isn’t it? He already has friends. It’s not that big of a deal.
But the tiny differences begin sneaking up on him in the smallest ways possible.
It’s in the way he starts talking to you too much. More than he ever meant to. Sure, once he’s comfortable, Mattheo is naturally a pretty chatty guy. But with you? It’s just different.
With you, he suddenly feels the urge to share everything. From the interesting to the most stupid stuff:
What he ate for breakfast;
The absolutely ridiculous gossip he overheard two Ravenclaws whispering in the corridor;
How he hates the way the History of Magic professor pronounces the word “Goblin”;
How Adrian Pucey completely humiliated himself by falling off his broom during quidditch practice;
Well, to be fair, he told everybody this one. He just really hates that guy.
But literally, anything. Everything becomes an excuse for him to talk to you.
He just… likes being around you. It’s easy.
Maybe it’s because you’ve never looked at him like you were afraid. Not even in the beginning, when his armor was still on. You didn’t flinch. You never did. You never walked on eggs around him, but didn’t treat him like some broken thing in need of fixing either.
And more importantly, you didn’t ask the same nosy, uncomfortable questions people always throw at him the second they delude themselves into thinking they earned a silver of intimacy with him.
It’s almost like you just didn’t care about any of that.
You looked at him like he was worth knowing. Not out of curiosity about his family, not out of a ridiculous fantasy, but just because. So much so that, for a brief moment, he felt like he could almost forget who he was and the weight his last name carried.
But the most surprising part for him was how you engaged back, like you wanted him to know you too. The reason why you’d want such a thing is far from Mattheo’s understanding, of course. But whether he could understand it or not, he couldn’t help but attentively listen to every single word that came out of your mouth like it was the most fascinating thing he had ever heard in his entire life.
Conversations with you didn’t feel forced. They just flowed. And before either of you even noticed it, hours had passed.
You might be thinking that this makes absolutely no sense. Because, after all, Mattheo Riddle is terrified of vulnerability, shouldn’t he already be miles away by now? And yes… but also, no.
You see, as much as Mattheo wants to believe that he has fully mastered the art of how to control himself over the years, that’s not 100% true in practice.
Sure, he is absolutely the best at avoiding proximity and scaring people away, but at this point, you have already broken through the hardest part: getting close to him in the first place. And now, being around you feels good.
And Mattheo doesn’t feel good very often. He is not used to it. So when he finally does, it’s an extremely easy sensation to get addicted to.
And being as impulsive as he is, in his mind, it was a simple math: It felt really good, so he kept doing it.
It’s another reason why I believe forced proximity is the easiest way for Mattheo Riddle to fall in love. Not only does it force him to truly get close to someone new, but it also gives his self-gaslighting the perfect excuse: sure, you’re getting close, but it’s not his fault, is it? He didn’t choose this. It’s just… circumstance. That’s it. “Not a big deal”, as he’d say.
So with an unhealthy dose of denial, an addiction to the feeling it gave him, and the confidence of a guy who’s never had his heart beat faster for anyone before, he convinces himself there’s nothing to worry about! In the worst case scenario, it’s just physical attraction. Nothing new! He’s felt it before, plenty of times, actually.
So there really isn’t anything to worry about.
The thing about Mattheo’s carefully constructed walls, is that they are as tall as they are fragile. And they are already starting to tremble.
The shift happens subtly.
He starts observing you when you’re not looking, noticing every single detail about you. How you laugh, how you toss your hair behind your ears…
Sometimes he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.
He catches himself thinking about you for the fourth or fifth time that day and how his heart stubbornly races whenever you enter the room.
And Mattheo Riddle, who spent his life dodging emotional attachment, doesn’t even realize what’s happening until he’s knee-deep in it.
But of course, his friends do. They realize what is happening way before Mattheo even gathers the courage to begin accepting it himself.
He could pretend all he wanted, but to his friend who’ve seen all the extremes of Mattheo Riddle’s carousel of emotions over the years, this? This was definitely new.
They start noticing the way his regular, almost scheduled, brooding days began to diminish.
How the guy who couldn’t focus for his life on any long story now sat through every. single. word. that came out of your mouth. So caught up in it he’d almost forget to blink.
And of course, being the loving assholes best friends they are, they never let him hear the end of it:
“At this point, just bark when she walks in. It’ll probably be more subtle.” — Draco Malfoy, aka Hogwarts’ personal blonde mean-girl himself.
“Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised to catch him carving their names into his desk with little hearts around it.” — Pansy Parkinson, absolutely gleeful, especially if you happen to be her friend.
“I caught him staring at her while she was just reading for a full thirty seconds. Very smooth… I think he was drooling and everything.” - Lorenzo Berkshire, who’s always insisted Mattheo had a soft side.
Come on! They’ve waited their whole lives for this!And watching it unfold right in front of their eyes? It’s absolutely delicious.
Except for Mattheo, who doesn’t seem to find the situation half as funny as his friends do:
“You lot talk any more and I swear I’ll Avada Kedavra your asses.” — Mattheo Riddle, after hearing what felt like the fiftieth ‘joke’ that day.
He won’t actually do it, though. It’d take way too much effort to find five other misfits to be his friends. But still… don’t tempt him.
But unfortunately for him, his rage didn’t inspire much change:
“Easy, Romeo. No need to take your pent-up frustration out on us. Go on, tell us again how you don’t care, while you fix your hair because she walked past you.” — Blaise Zabini, who’s having the best time of his life.
“Speaking of… Posture check, lover boy. She’s here.” – Theodore Nott, every single time you enter the room.
However, as ridiculous it might sound, Mattheo truly feels extremely irritated by it.
Maybe, it’s because as innocent as his friends’ teasing could be, the second they start pointing fingers, poking at the idea of him having feelings, it’s like something he had buried long ago just splits open inside of him.
Suddenly, he’s not there anymore. He’s that little boy again, in the cold hallways of the Lestrange Manor; Eyes burning, throat tight. Fighting with everything he has to not feel. Trying so hard to lock it all in. Because showing a single hint of vulnerability in front of his family would surely cost him a very traumatic night.
And now, even the thought of being seen in a vulnerable state like that again makes his chest tighten in a way that makes even the most innocent mockery feel more like an accusation than an actual joke.
Still, for better or worse, the moment his friends start teasing him about it, is when the first seeds of self-awareness began to sprout inside of him. And the more those seeds grew, the more intensely the panic started to set in.
So he does what’s the most comfortable usual of Mattheo Riddle: he doubles down on denial.
Come on, him? Developing feelings? Falling in love? Be serious. He’s Mattheo Riddle, for fuck’s sake, not some lovesick puppy!
It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t. After everything, he doesn’t even believe he’s capable of feeling that way. Not really.
At least… that’s what he keeps telling himself over and over, like it would eventually stick.
And whatever it is that he may or may not be feeling, he pushes it down, locks it away, and throws away the key.
After all, what other choice did he have? What was he supposed to do? Cut you off out of nowhere? Please.
That would be practically admitting that everyone was right. It’d be like gluing a neon sign to his forehead saying:
“You were all right. I do care too much and now I’m panicking because I can’t deal with it.”
Well, to be fair, it wouldn’t be much of a lie. But Mattheo Riddle, being the literal embodiment of stubbornness and with the emotional maturity of a five-year-old, obviously, had to prove to himself to them, they couldn’t be more wrong!
He is fully convinced that if he ignores it long enough, eventually they’d see that it was, in fact, nothing. They’d all look stupid for ever suggesting otherwise and Mattheo would finally be able to take these ridiculous ideas out of his head.
Unfortunately for him, ignoring your feelings doesn’t make them go away, and denial can only work for so long.
Life goes on, and eventually, your already long conversations become even longer, deeper. What used to be casual chats become habits. Group hangouts slowly turn into just the two of you. And the smoke breaks you used to share with the whole group slowly shift into nighttime escapes together to the Astronomy Tower, huddled under the stars and the thick air of cigarette smoke where you two talk about everything. From the most futile subjects to things you never thought you’d be able to share with someone else.
Suddenly, without either of you noticing, it’s 2 a.m and the world outside feels asleep, distant, quiet.
You’re still sitting together in what could now be called “your spot”, judging by how many nights you two have spent like this.
And on a particular cold night, as what feels like the most natural thing ever, you trust him enough to share something truly personal, vulnerable, even. And in that moment, Mattheo Riddle freezes.
Because this, whatever it is you two are doing, felt intimate.
More intimate than anything he has ever experienced before.
But as frightening as that moment felt, what really terrified him wasn’t the intimacy itself. But how badly he wanted it.
How every part of him ached to surrender to it. How, for the first time in his life, he wanted to let go. The way he had to physically bite down on his tongue just to stop himself from opening up in return was absolutely terrifying.
Because Mattheo Riddle, the Dark Lord’s son, doesn’t open up.
Vulnerability doesn’t feel safe to him. It never has. He’s spent his entire life perfecting the art of shutting everything down to the point where the thought of letting go, even if just for a little, makes his chest tighten and his stomach knot.
Mattheo is terrified that if he ever does open up, it won’t be soft or pretty, it’d be an avalanche. Violent. Messy. With years and years of deeply buried pain and trauma, pouring out all at once.
He’s convinced that if that happens… he’ll ruin everything. That’s what he learned, that’s what his life taught him.
And if in that vulnerable moment, you notice his struggle and reach out, if he feels your fingers gently brushing his face, running through his hair like it was the most natural thing in the world;
Before he can process it, before his mind catches up to his body,
Like he’s pouring every suffocated feeling into it.
And it’s in that exact moment — lips against yours, hands trembling, breath unsteady — that it hits him:
He’s in love with you. And there is no way to deny it anymore.
The realization hits him like a punch directly to his stomach. The feeling is not sweet or poetic. It’s overwhelming.
And he feels physically sick.
And as someone who has no idea how to deal with this wave of emotions suddenly rushing through his entire body, he does the only thing his panicked mind can think of in that moment: He pulls away. And he leaves.
That night, he doesn’t sleep.
He just lays there, staring at the ceiling, scrubbing at his face like he could wipe the feelings off. But it doesn’t work.
He can still feel that kiss on his lips, and every time it replays in his mind, it drags a flutter through his stomach he never believed himself capable of:
The Dark Lord’s son, feeling butterflies in his stomach. Absolutely pathetic.
But they don’t last long. Almost immediately, they’re replaced by a suffocating wave of anxiety.
Up until now, he thought he had it under control. Or at least he told himself he did.
But the truth is he knew. He always fucking knew.
He knew it the moment he felt something burn in his chest every time another guy so much as looked at you for too long.
He knew it when he kept lingering, always finding some ridiculous excuse — any excuse — to be near you.
He knew it when his stare alone was enough to make anyone trying to steal your attention back off.
He knew it every time he deliberately got into fights just to get your attention.
And especially, he knew it every time he had to force himself to light a cigarette just to suffocate the thoughts growing inside his head whenever you were together.
He always knew it was only a matter of time before everything blew up.
He knew. But he ignored it.
Because denial was easier. Because it felt good.
And he knew, deep down, that the moment he let those thoughts linger, even for a second, he’d be fucked.
That’s when his mind, never one to miss an opportunity to catastrophically overthink, starts doing its favorite thing: torturing him.
First, comes the questionings: Could he even do it?
If he tried, genuinely tried, could he ever be someone’s boyfriend?
But Merlin, he feels dizzy just to think about it.
Relationships come with expectations and Mattheo has always been a bloody expert at failing those.
And even if, by some miracle, he could manage it… How the hell would he ever convince you to put up with his bullshit for long enough for it to actually develop into something real?
Sure, you might be attracted to him. Having someone lust after him has never been an issue.
That’s an entirely different deal. And someone would have to be absolutely insane to look at someone with the last name Riddle and think it’s “boyfriend material”.
Seriously, imagine going home for the holidays and telling your family you’re bringing your new boyfriend over, only to show up with Voldemort’s unhinged son! I bet that’s every young witch’s parents’ dream, right?
Or, better yet, maybe he could take you home to meet his charming family! That would be a real treat, wouldn’t it? Lovely.
Soon, reality crashes in: Even if, you were somehow deranged enough to stay, he’d probably ruin it anyway.
Hell, maybe he already has, running away like a bloody coward.
Because that’s what he does. Mattheo Riddle destroys. Himself, things, others…
At this point, it doesn’t matter anymore if you meant well, if you cared about him or if you felt the same. Mattheo’s spiraling mind has already chosen its own version of the truth, the one he has believed since the very beginning:
He doesn’t stand a fucking chance. Love was never meant for someone like him, and if anything, he’d ruin you if he ever dared trying.
So he copes the only way he knows how: He fights it.
Of course he does. Mattheo’s first instinct is always to fight: himself, the world, whatever’s trying to get too close.
He completely shuts himself off, like he always does when things inside his head become too much.
The next day, he avoids you like you had dragon pox.
What the fuck was he even supposed to say to you? “Sorry for kissing you and running away. I’m in love with you, by the way. That’s why.” ? Yeah… absolutely not going to happen.
When he sees you approaching him, your eyes full of concern, asking what’s wrong, he gathers every last bit of strength he has left just to give you the coldest, most dismissive lie he can manage:
“Nothing. I was just tired.”
It’s ridiculous, he knows it. But before you can even try to press any further, he’s already gone. He rushes away before you could see the obvious cracks in his armor.
Sadly, even if you try talking to him again, attempt to pull some truth out of him, you probably won’t get the chance. You’ll barely catch a glimpse of him after that. He’ ll avoid every place he knows he could run into you as much as he possibly can. He’ll leave rooms when you enter them. Pretend not to notice you in the corridors. Look away when you cross paths.
Because maybe — just maybe — if he distances himself fast enough, if he pretends hard enough, the feelings will just go away.
Yes. That’s Mattheo’s grand solution.
Wait for it to disappear.
But it doesn’t work. Of course it doesn’t.
Even then, he’s thinking about you. Wondering if you’re okay, if you’re thinking about him, if you hate him yet.
And every time he sees you across the castle, something twists in his chest like a blade.
He absolutely hates being away from you, and pretending otherwise only makes it worse.
No matter how hard he tries, he can’t stop feeling.
And although this might sound very romantic to others, for Mattheo Riddle, this was absolutely terrifying. His usual defense mechanisms of ignoring and burying it all suddenly aren’t working anymore. He’s stuck with all these feelings and thoughts he doesn’t even know how to process.
So naturally, he turns them into the only emotion he’s ever felt safe inside: Anger.
Because anger, he knows how to deal with.
He’s angry at the situation, for spiraling out of his control.
He’s angry at the universe, because this has to be some sadistic joke, right?
But mostly, he’s angry at himself, for letting this happen. For allowing it to get this far.
He had spent his whole life being taught that love was just another weakness, a leverage to be used against him.
Logically, self-sabotage comes following next. And oh, Mattheo is terrifyingly good at this one. It’s familiar. And in a fucked up way, that’s what he knew. What he has always done.
Behind his cocky persona, Mattheo has a terrible self image, and now he will make sure that you see him just as terribly as he sees himself.
He’s even more on edge than usual. Snapping at everyone. Getting into even more fights and for no reason at all. He skips classes and drowns himself in Firewhisky or whatever is strong enough to shut his brain up.
He flirts with people he doesn’t even want, right in front of you. He even sleeps around like the world is ending tomorrow, desperate for any hollow distractions he can get. Anything to keep you out of his head.
Doesn’t sound that romantic anymore, does it?
One thing you need to know about Mattheo is that the more you try to reach out to him, the harder he’ll try to prove he’s not worth the effort.
It’s not because he actually wants you to give up on him, he doesn’t. Merlin, he definitely doesn’t. But because it’s what he expects you to do. In his mind, he’s merely “rushing the inevitable”. If he ruins it first, maybe it won’t hurt as much when you finally walk away.
And when his friends, who are already very familiar with this side of Mattheo, corner him to ask what the fuck happened, and how you two went from almost something to absolutely nothing overnight, he’ll shrug and hiss that “He just got bored.”
But it’s easier than having to admit the truth.
It’s pathetic, really. Childish. And completely unfair.
But that’s what Mattheo does when he feels threatened: he destroys things before they have the chance to destroy him.
And as he sees the anger, or worse yet, the hurt, in your eyes, it’s like the final confirmation that you’ll be in fact, better off without him. Another reassurance of what he already knew: that he doesn’t deserve you, and he’d ruin you if he even tried.
It hits him like a wave of guilt so heavy it almost knocks him over.
But if — for some unexplainable reason — you don’t give up… If after everything, after every stupid decision, every cruel attempt to push you away and make you see how messed up and wrong he is for you, you still refuse to give up on him, he’s left completely stunned. Helpless.
He can feel the vulnerability clawing up his throat the longer he stares at you.
And Merlin, he miss you. He doesn’t care if you’re yelling at him. He doesn’t care if you’re calling him out. Just being near you again feels like air after drowning.
It’s a completely selfish feeling considering he’s the one who fucked everything up. He knows that. But he can’t help it.
He doesn’t understand why you’re still here. but the fact that you are… Feels extremely good.
It’s a contradiction. He desperately keeps trying to push you away, but even the thought of you finally giving up terrifies him more than anything else.
Still, I believe that to truly snap Mattheo out of his spiral of guilt and self-sabotage, something intense has to happen.
Something he can’t control. Something that hits him hard enough to break through the chaos in his head.
Maybe it’s one of his darkest nights. When he’s drunk and alone, again, and it’s his own fault… Again. The weight of his own choices crushing him as he realizes he doesn’t want to keep running from this anymore.
Or maybe, it’s jealousy eating him alive when he sees you with someone else.
Maybe it’s something that awakens his protective instinct.
Maybe it’s all of it at once.
Or Maybe… it’s as simple as seeing you cry. Because the moment he sees you suffering, doesn’t matter the reason, he realizes he would do anything, literally anything, just to make it stop.
Whatever it is, it has to hit him hard enough to bring him out of his cycle of self destruction and force him to face what he’s feeling. That makes him realize he can’t keep pretending. He can’t. Not anymore.
And for the first time in his tortured existence, Mattheo Riddle stops suffocating every ounce of vulnerability inside of him and is honest. With himself, first.
He loves you. And it’s the realest thing he’s ever felt. And although this terrifies him, it also gives him some clarity. Some strange sort of peace, if you dared to call it that.
And if you let him back into your life, even if slowly, if you still want him, he’ll try. He’ll actually try his best not to ruin everything this time.
But loving Mattheo Riddle is like standing in the eye of a storm. Even after he accepts his feelings, It’s never easy. It’s never simple.
For you, it means understanding that you can’t have Mattheo Riddle without taking the whole package with the years of traumas he hasn’t even begun to unpack.
For him, it’s countless sleepless nights with a twisting stomach. That dizzy, disoriented feeling whenever things get too intimate. It’s fighting with every instincts that tells him to shut down and run away.
And after finally accepting his friends’ help — after endless, exhausting conversations that took everything in him to just open up even slightly — he is finally convinced, that maybe, just maybe, he can do this. That perhaps, he’s allowed to want this. To take an actual shot.
So he stays. Even when almost every single part of his body is screaming for him to run.
He finally, finally, lets himself try.
And suddenly, Mattheo Riddle — the boy who always claimed he wasn’t scared of anything, who’s done unspeakable things with countless girls at Hogwarts — feels nervous. He feels like he doesn’t know how to act around you anymore and everything that comes out of his mouth feels like literally the dumbest thing he has ever said in his entire existence.
He doesn’t know where to start. In fact, he has absolutely no idea how to even do this.
But in his own messy, complicated, storm-ridden way…
Because for you? It’s worth it.
→ i do not own any of these characters.
→ i do not own any of the medias used above, they were all saved from google or pinterest.
with the only exception of: the smith’s song gif and the png of John Steinbeck's quote. i created them myself. feel free to use them if you want!
➜ all the characters i write about are portrayed as over 18. even if they’re sometimes mentioned as still being at hogwarts, i portray hogwarts as having more years since there’s no college in the wizarding world.
→ links for the dividers i used (all credits for the creators):
divider 1 @enchanthings-a
divider 2 @enchanthings-a
divider 3 @lobster-graphics
phrase divider on the top @uzmacchiato
