28 • I all of a sudden turned into a marvel blog with a bit of cute animals and so many other things like shadow and bone and a sprinkle of … the Harry Potter universe How tf did that happen
You couldn’t stop staring, and the bastard knew it. Mattheo Riddle was the worst thing that had ever happened to you in college—and somehow the best. Before this year you’d sworn off crushes, dating, all of it. Men disappointed you. Every single one. So why the hell did your body keep insisting he would be different?
Maybe it was the motorcycle. Last week he’d thrown you the spare helmet without asking, and you’d climbed on behind him like it was the most natural thing in the world. Your arms had locked around his waist, palms pressed flat to the hard, shifting ridges of his stomach. Every time he accelerated the bike roared between your thighs and his calloused hand had dropped to your leg, heavy and possessive, fingers splaying over the soft inner skin just above your knee. He’d opened the throttle just to hear the sharp little catch in your breathing through the headset.
“Alright back there, sweetheart?”
His voice had been low, rough with amusement, and you’d felt the words vibrate straight through your chest.
Or maybe it was the way he came home from the gym every afternoon. Sweat-dark tank top clinging to every plane of him. His chest, abs, the deep cut of his hips. The fabric stuck to the ridges of muscle, translucent in places, outlining the heavy shape of his pecs and the tight peaks of his nipples. His breath still came short and rough as he prowled into the kitchen, the clean, sharp scent of him filling the tiny space. He’d lean against the counter, head tipped back, throat working as he drained an entire bottle of water. A single drop of sweat would slide down the column of his neck, disappear under the collar of that soaked shirt, and you’d have to press your thighs together under the table just to keep from squirming.
He always caught you looking. Always. And the slow, knowing curl of his mouth said he liked it.
But by far the worst part of sharing an apartment with Mattheo Riddle was the late-night torture.
You tried not to listen. God, you tried. The walls were paper-thin, though, and every sound carried. Whimpers. High, broken moans. The wet, rhythmic slap of skin on skin as he fucked some girl into the mattress just one room over. The filthy, slick sounds of it soaked straight through the drywall and into your ears until your face burned and your panties were ruined.
You held out as long as you could every single night. Until his voice joined in.
Low, rough groans. The headboard slamming against the wall in a brutal, steady tempo. Breathless curses spilling from that wicked mouth of his and something inside you always snapped.
You’d bought the toy only a few nights ago, cheeks flaming as you signed for the discreet brown package at the front desk. Your own fingers hadn’t been enough for weeks. The reviews promised it was strong. Quiet. Effective.
So you swallowed what little pride you had left, shoved your shorts and soaked underwear down your thighs, and let your shaking hand trail between your legs. The soft buzz filled the dark as you pressed the toy against your clit, and a sharp, involuntary gasp tore out of you.
In the next room, Mattheo’s rhythm faltered—then picked up harder. Faster.
This was his favorite part of the night.
He didn’t give a damn about the girl currently clawing at his sheets. She was just a body, a convenient way to work off the tension. What he lived for was the quiet, muffled sounds coming from your side of the wall. The soft, desperate little moans you tried so hard to bite back. He could hear every one of them. Could picture you perfectly. Perfect thighs spread, toy buzzing against that pretty cunt, cheeks flushed, biting your lip like the shy little thing you were.
He wanted to kick this girl out. Wanted to storm into your room, rip that toy away, and replace it with his mouth. Wanted to taste how wet you got just from listening to him fuck someone else.
But you never asked.
Such a shy thing. Never just took what you wanted.
This had gone on every night for weeks, but after three straight nights of that toy buzzing between your legs while he fucked someone else through the wall, something inside you finally broke.
You waited in the dark, shame burning hot under your skin, until you heard the front door click shut behind the latest girl. Only then did you slip out of bed. Mattheo was already in the kitchen, shirtless, sweatpants hanging low on his hips as he dug through the fridge for a post-fuck snack.
He turned at the sound of your footsteps—and nearly fucking choked.
You stood there like a damn offering. Completely bare except for a soft pair of pink panties that did nothing to hide how soaked you were. Your breasts hung full and heavy, nipples tight from the cool air and the residual ache between your thighs. You didn’t try to cover yourself. You just stood there and let him look.
Maybe you should have been embarrassed. Embarrassed to take his sloppy seconds. Embarrassed that you wanted him badly enough to ask at all.
But the memory of two nights ago wouldn’t leave you alone. You’d stumbled toward the bathroom and frozen in the doorway, watching him under the spray. Head tipped back, one hand braced on the tile, the other stroking his thick cock in long, rough pulls while he groaned your name like a prayer and came all over his own stomach.
That was what finally pushed you over the edge.
Your voice came out smaller than you meant it to, eyes fixed somewhere near his collarbone.
“Can you fuck me too?”
Mattheo’s gaze dragged slowly down your body and back up again, dark and hungry. A slow, wicked smile curved his mouth.
“Took you long enough, hm?”
You were going to tell him how horribly inexperienced you were—how the only things that had ever been inside you were your own fingers and that little buzzing toy—but the words died the second he moved.
One second you were standing there half-naked and trembling; the next he had you pinned hard against the wall. A big, warm hand wrapped around the side of your throat, thumb pressing just under your jaw as he tilted your face up and claimed your mouth.
He never kissed the girls he brought home. Never. But he’d been thinking about your lips for months. So soft, full, always bitten when you were nervous and now he was starving for them. He kissed you like he wanted to ruin you for anyone else: deep, messy, claiming. He bit your bottom lip until it parted on a gasp, then pushed his tongue inside and licked into your mouth with filthy, unabashed hunger.
You moaned against him, the sound swallowed by the kiss, and he growled low in his chest. In one smooth motion he hooked his hands under your thighs and hauled you up, wrapping your legs around his waist. The hard, thick outline of his cock pressed right against your soaked cunt through the thin cotton of your panties, grinding slow and deliberate so you could feel every inch of him.
“Toy wasn’t working anymore?” he murmured against your mouth, voice rough with amusement. He didn’t wait for an answer. Messy, open-mouthed kisses trailed down your throat, over the frantic pulse there, across the soft swell of your breast. Then he closed his lips around one aching nipple and sucked hard, tongue swirling, teeth grazing just enough to make your back arch.
Your fingers tangled in his dark curls, tugging. Big brown eyes flicked up to meet yours for a heated second before your head dropped back against the wall with a broken little sound.
“N-no.”
He released your nipple with a wet pop and licked the stiff peak once more, voice a low, filthy promise against your skin.
“That’s okay, sweet girl. I’ll take goood care of you.”
God, as much as Mattheo wanted to drag this out like he’d been imagining. To tease you, edge you, make you beg until you were crying for it. He physically couldn’t. He’d been dreaming about your cunt for months. Every time he buried himself in some forgettable body it was you he pictured beneath him. Soft. Eager. So fucking cute it made him stupid.
“Bed,” he ordered, voice rough and strained. He dropped you to your feet and gave your ass a sharp, possessive smack to get you moving.
You hesitated for half a second, then turned toward your room instead of the one that still smelled like sex and cheap perfume. His dark chuckle followed you, low and knowing.
The second he stepped through your doorway his eyes locked on the abandoned toy sitting in the middle of the sheets—pink, sparkly, still glistening with your slick.
“Cute,” he murmured, the word thick and teasing.
You climbed onto the bed and he was on you in seconds, big arms braced on either side of your head as he kissed you again, deep and filthy. But he didn’t linger. He couldn’t. Not when he’d been starving for the taste of you.
He dragged his mouth down your body, shoved your thighs apart, and pressed his face between them. The first long, slow lick over the soaked crotch of your panties dragged a broken sound out of you. Your back arched clean off the mattress. He groaned against the wet fabric like a man possessed, then hooked a finger under the edge and yanked it aside.
His tongue slotted hot and greedy between your folds, flat and broad, dragging from your entrance all the way up to circle your clit.
“F-Fuck—Matt.”
Your hips jerked against his mouth. One big hand pinned your pelvis to the mattress with humiliating ease, holding you exactly where he wanted you while he licked and sucked and groaned like you were the best thing he’d ever tasted.
“Taste s’fucking good, baby,” he rasped against your cunt, the words vibrating through you.
You moaned at the praise, fingers twisting tight in his dark curls as pleasure crashed through you—sharper, wetter, deeper than anything your fingers or that little toy had ever managed.
He only pulled away when you were shaking, pressing open-mouthed kisses to your inner thighs, up your stomach, over your breasts, until he was kissing you again. You could taste yourself on his tongue mixed with the faint mint of his toothpaste, and the filth of it made you whimper into his mouth.
He stripped your sticky panties down your legs and flung them somewhere across the room, then shoved his own sweatpants off in the same frantic motion. The thick, heavy weight of his cock slapped against your stomach before he dragged it lower, rubbing the swollen head through your folds, coating himself in your slick.
You tensed the second he notched himself at your entrance.
He was too far gone to put it together at first, too desperate to finally sink into you. That was until the head of him pushed inside and your moan turned strained, high, almost pained. You were so fucking tight he had to stop, jaw clenched, every muscle locked.
His eyes snapped to yours, dark and suddenly sharp.
“Please,” he said, voice low and rough, “tell me you’re not a virgin.”
“Maybe?” you breathed, the word barely a sound. Your fingers dug into his shoulders as the overwhelming stretch sparked through you. You were too full, he was too thick, pressure blooming deep in places nothing had ever reached before.
Mattheo froze.
“Why wouldn’t you say that?” His voice came out strained, almost angry, but his hips stayed perfectly still. “I would’ve gone slower—wait.” His dark eyes locked on yours, sharp and searching. Something almost like fear flickered across his face, as if he was seconds from pulling out and walking away. “Why the fuck would you let me take your virginity?”
He didn’t pull out, though.
He stayed right there, the thick head of him stretching your tight entrance, and groaned low when you clenched involuntarily around the intrusion.
“F-first person I wanted to,” you whimpered, eyes wide and glassy.
The sound he made was wrecked.
His forehead dropped to yours for a second, breath harsh, before he gathered himself. A big rough thumb found your clit and started circling in slow, firm strokes, trying to ease the burn. He was trying like hell to remember how the fuck to be careful with you.
“I’m going to move,” he warned, voice rough. He pushed forward another thick inch, watching your face the entire time. Relief flooded his expression when you only gasped instead of flinching.
He reached for the abandoned toy still lying beside your hip, flicked it on to the lowest setting, and pressed the buzzing head right against your swollen clit. The soft vibration made you moan. Your voice soft, breathy, wrecked, and it took every ounce of restraint he had not to snap his hips and sink the rest of the way in.
But he didn’t.
He went slow. Agonizingly, carefully slow. Watching every flicker of your expression. Clicking the toy higher the second he saw any discomfort, flooding you with so much pleasure the stretch started to blur into something sweeter. Inch by thick inch he worked himself deeper, until finally his hips met yours and he was buried to the root.
A soft, obscene little bulge pressed against your lower belly, proof of just how deep he was.
He stayed there, locked inside you, the toy buzzing hard and fast against your clit while his cock pulsed so deep it felt like you could fucking taste him.
Your voice broke on a needy little sob.
“M-Move—p-please—”
Mattheo’s eyes flashed, dark and hungry.
Finally.
He gave you exactly what you asked for. Mattheo pulled back until just the thick head of him remained inside you, then sank in again. Slow at first, deliberate, letting you feel every ridge and vein as he stretched you open around him. The toy still buzzed hard against your clit, the dual sensation making your thighs tremble. He set a steady, rolling rhythm, hips rolling deep, each thrust grinding against that soft little bulge in your belly.
“That’s it,” he murmured against your ear, voice rough and low. “Takin’ me so well, pretty girl. Look at you—fuck, so perfect.”
Sweat already beaded at his temples, dark curls sticking to his forehead. His jaw was tight, bottom lip caught between his teeth as he watched himself disappear into you over and over. The sight of him like that, all flushed, focused, biting back curses made your walls flutter.
He felt it. Of course.
His rhythm faltered for half a second before he groaned and drove in harder, deeper, the wet sound of your cunt taking him filling the room. One of his hands stayed locked on the toy, keeping the buzzing head pressed exactly where you needed it, while the other braced beside your head so he could murmur filthy, sweet praise straight into your ear.
“So tight… fucking made for me, weren’t ya? Gonna come for me, baby? Gonna let that pretty cunt milk my cock?”
The words, the stretch, the relentless buzz against your clit—it all crashed together. Your orgasm hit hard and sudden, a full-body wave that ripped a broken cry from your throat. Your walls clamped down around him in rhythmic, desperate pulses, soaking his cock, trying to pull him even deeper.
He tossed the toy aside without looking, both hands gripping your hips as he started to plow into you—hard, deep, relentless thrusts that forced the air from your lungs. Sweat slid down the cut lines of his chest and abs; his lip was still caught between his teeth, eyes half-lidded and wild as he watched you take every brutal stroke.
“Fuck—yes, squeeze me baby just like that—gonna fill you up, fuck!—”
His hips stuttered. A low, guttural groan tore out of him as he buried himself to the hilt and came, pulsing thick and hot deep inside you. He kept grinding through it, chasing every last drop, forehead pressed to yours while he filled you until you could feel it leaking out around his cock.
For a long moment he stayed right there, buried as deep as he could go, breathing hard against your mouth. One big hand stroked your hair back from your face, surprisingly gentle.
Only when his cock finally began to soften did he reach over, switch the toy off, and carefully, slowly pull out. You both watched the thick mess of his cum slip out of you, and the dark, satisfied look that crossed his face made your spent body clench around nothing.
He didn’t let you clean yourself up.
Mattheo scooped you into his arms like you weighed nothing, carried you into the bathroom, and set you on the counter while he started the shower. Warm water, careful hands, soft kisses against your temple while he washed every inch of you—especially between your thighs, where he was still leaking out of you. He was quiet, almost reverent, but the way he kept pressing his lips to your shoulder and the top of your head said more than words.
When you were both clean he dried you off, carried you back to your bed (the sheets were a lost cause anyway), and pulled you against his chest. One heavy arm draped over your waist, leg hooked over yours, face buried in your damp hair.
“Sleep, sweet girl,” he murmured, already half-gone. “I’ve got you.”
And for the first time in a long time, you slept without the quiet dread of having to hear him in the next room tomorrow—because Mattheo already knew he wouldn’t want anyone else again.
pairing: Matheo Riddle x fem!Slytherin!reader — Neville Longbottom mentioned/present
word count: 24,5k (i know is a really long one)
warnings: explicit, 18+ (all characters 18 in relevant scenes), strong language, toxic/possessive relationship, jealousy, infidelity (emotional & physical), alcohol use, one scene referencing suicidal ideation (no method depicted), war-time violence, explicit sexual content, angst with a bittersweet-but-hopeful ending. (Please keep in mind that I am not idealizing toxic relationships; read at your own discretion and understand that it is fiction and based on a song! 💓)
summary: since fourth year, you and Matheo Riddle were a storm nobody saw coming — him, heir to a name that scared people before he even opened his mouth, trying not to become his father; you, the only person who ever made him believe he could choose something else. Now, in your last year, you're with Neville Longbottom — good, steady, everything you're supposed to want. But Matheo is still there, across the Great Hall, and the war is coming for all of you. This is the story of how you love someone who matches you instead of someone who's simply good to you, and the night you finally stopped choosing safety.
More of "On shuffle!" here.
Director’s note:Thank you so much for your requests! I've definitely started working on them, so more one-shots are coming soon! Also requests still open — send me your song + character combos ! Love youuu🥺💕
He is sensible and so incredible
And all my single friends are jealous
Present.
The Great Hall smelled of toasted pumpkin, damp wool, and the comforting, predictable scent of peppermint tea. Rain had come down hard overnight, and the enchanted ceiling still hadn't decided whether to clear, so the light over breakfast was grey and shifting, the way it always was in the last stretch before winter properly set in.
Sitting at the Gryffindor table, Neville Longbottom carefully buttered a piece of toast before placing it on your plate with a warm, gentle smile. His hand brushed against yours — his skin rough from hours spent pruning Venomous Tentacula in the greenhouses, yet his touch was impossibly light, almost reverent, the way it always was, like he'd decided a long time ago that you were something worth handling carefully and had never once revisited that decision.
"Eat something, love," Neville murmured, his hazel eyes filled with that familiar, unwavering kindness. "You were tossing and turning all night. We have Double Charms with Flitwick this morning, and you'll need your energy."
You looked down at the toast, buttered exactly to the corners the way you liked it, and felt the small, specific guilt you always felt when Neville did something thoughtful — the guilt of being loved so precisely and still finding yourself wanting something more.
Since things with Matheo had ended and you started dating Neville, some nights you would sneak into his bedroom and sleep with him, as a way to avoid seeing Matheo at night.
"Did I wake you?" you asked, though you already knew the answer. You always knew.
"You talk in your sleep sometimes," he said, not unkindly, buttering his own toast now, eyes fixed carefully on the plate. "Mostly nothing I can make out."
‘Mostly’. You didn't ask what the rest was. You were fairly sure you already knew that too.
Everything Neville did was like that: thoughtful, measured, quiet, profoundly considerate. He never raised his voice. He never played psychological games. He never left you wondering where you stood, or disappeared for three days only to return smelling of firewhisky and iron, demanding your attention at two in the morning.
He was good. He was righteous. He was the kind of boy your mother would have wept with relief to see you marry — steady hands, a future that could be plotted on a calendar, a love that asked nothing of you except that you let yourself be loved.
So why did sitting next to him feel like wearing a jumper three sizes too tight?
"Thank you, Nev," you said softly, forcing a small, appreciative smile to your lips as you picked up the toast. It tasted like ash in your mouth, the way good things sometimes did when your body was busy listening for something else.
Across the hall, sitting beneath the arched green banners of the Slytherin table, a burst of raucous, unapologetic laughter cut through the morning chatter. You didn't have to look to know who it was, but your eyes — traitorous, hungry things — drifted toward the sound anyway.
They sat like royalty holding court in a ruined kingdom. Lorenzo Berkshire leaned back against the bench, spinning a silver Galleon across his knuckles with a lazy, cinematic charm while Blaise Zabini whispered something into Pansy Parkinson's ear that made her smirk sharply. Theodore Nott sat perched on the edge of the table, his tie undone, tossing an apple in the air with a look of bored superiority. At the head of the group sat Tom Riddle Jr., his posture immaculate, his dark, patrician features chiseled from ice as he read through a Daily Prophet, radiating a quiet, chilling authority that made even the seventh-year prefects give him a wide berth.
And then, leaning casually against the stone pillar just behind them, was his brother.
Matheo Riddle.
He wasn't looking at his friends. He wasn't looking at the enchanted ceiling. His dark, heavy-lidded eyes were fixed entirely across the hall, dead set on you.
Matheo's dark, curly hair fell in chaotic waves over his forehead, almost brushing the tips of his eyelashes. His silver rings caught the torchlight as he brought a steaming mug of black coffee to his lips, taking a slow sip without ever breaking eye contact. His tie was missing entirely, the top two buttons of his silk shirt undone to reveal the faint, pale scar running along his collarbone — a scar you had accidentally given him during a screaming match in the Astronomy Tower six months ago, back when you still let yourself go up there with him.
When he saw you looking back, one corner of his mouth curved upward into a slow, knowing, devastatingly arrogant smirk.
Your heart didn't flutter; it slammed against your ribs like a caged beast throwing itself against the iron. A rush of adrenaline — hot, sharp, and laced with pure panic — flooded your veins.
"They're staring again," Neville said quietly beside you, his voice dropping an octave as his jaw tightened. He shifted his slender shoulders, trying to block your line of sight from the Slytherin table. "I don't know why the school let them return every year after everything their family’s put this school through. Especially the brothers."
"They're just trying to get a reaction, Nev" you said smoothly, though your pulse was pounding in your ears. "Don't let them bother you."
"They don't bother me," Neville lied bravely, his hand reaching out to cover yours. His palm was warm. Safe. Steady.
But as you stared at the salt-and-pepper shakers between your plates, all you could feel was the phantom weight of silver rings pressing against your waist, and the intoxicating, suffocating memory of a boy who you loved and hate with the same intensity.
You made yourself finish the toast. You made yourself laugh, once, at something Seamus said three seats down. You did not look back across the hall again, and it cost you more than it should have.
He says everything I need to hear, and it's like
I couldn't ask for anything better
Present.
Neville handed you a mug of tea before you'd even asked, exactly the way you liked it — too much honey, barely any milk — and settled into the chair across from you with a book he wasn't going to read, content, it seemed, just to sit in the same quiet room while you worked through an essay.
"You looked stressed at lunch," he said, not looking up. "I figured you'd want this more than conversation."
"You figured right."
"I usually do." A small, easy smile, not smug, just certain. "You chew on your quill when you're stuck. Third paragraph, I'd guess, by the state of it."
You looked down. Third paragraph, exactly.
"That's unfair," you said. "Nobody should be allowed to know someone that well."
"I pay attention." He said it simply, like it cost him nothing, like noticing you was just a fact of his day the way breathing was. "You take your tea with honey, not sugar. You reread the first line of every letter your gran sends before you open the rest, like you're bracing for something. You've been picking at that same paragraph for twenty minutes because you're overthinking the opening line, not the argument."
You set your quill down, something in your chest going soft and a little disoriented, the way it always did when Neville did this — laid out, plainly, exactly how closely he'd been watching, with none of the performance that usually came attached to being wanted.
"Read the second line instead," he offered. "Sometimes the second one's the real opening. First one's just you clearing your throat."
You read it. He was right. He was, annoyingly, infuriatingly, almost always right — not in a way that made you feel small, but in a way that made you feel known, like every small thing about you had been catalogued somewhere gentle and kept safe.
Matheo would have known it too, you thought, unbidden — not from watching, but from underneath. He wouldn't have needed to count the minutes you'd spent on a paragraph to know you were stuck, He only had to have seen the way your eyebrows furrowed whenever your head was on something; he'd have known why, would have already known it wasn't the opening line at all but the fact that the essay was due the same week as the anniversary of something you never talked about with no one else but him, that you always got quiet and perfectionistic in the exact week grief tried to sneak back in as a defense mechanism. He'd never once handed you tea to fix it. He'd have shoved the parchment aside, called the whole assignment a waste of a day that clearly needed something else from you, and been right about that too — infuriatingly, unbearably right, in the specific way that never let you hide from him.
Neville knew what he could mesure and see. Matheo had never needed to.
"How do you always know exactly what to say?" you asked Neville, half joking, half not.
"I just think about what you'd need to hear, and then I say that." He shrugged, like it were obvious, like loving you plainly was the simplest arithmetic in the world. "Doesn't seem like it should be complicated."
He only sees the surface and that satisfies me, you thought. He's just never once asked the question underneath it. Matheo would have asked. Matheo always asked, relentlessly, infuriatingly, refusing to let you settle for the tidy version of yourself you handed everyone else — and it had exhausted you, once, being seen that thoroughly, being given nowhere at all to hide. You'd told yourself, choosing this, that you wanted the version of love that didn't ask so much of you.
You looked at Neville — steady, patient, endlessly kind, offering you exactly the right words without ever once making you work for them — and thought, for one unguarded moment, that if goodness alone were enough, you'd never have to want anything else again.
"I couldn't ask for anything better than this," you said quietly, and meant it, at least for as long as the sentence lasted, and did not let yourself finish the thought that came right behind it — that being handed the right words wasn't the same thing as being known well enough that no one ever had to hand them to you at all.
Neville smiled like he'd been given something precious, went back to his book, and never noticed the small, complicated silence that followed — the one where some part of you sat with how easy it all was, and wondered, treacherously, why easy had never once felt like enough.
He opens up my door and I get into his car
And he says, "You look beautiful tonight"
And I feel perfectly fine
Present.
You saw them corner him that same afternoon, on the narrow gravel path between the greenhouses — Matheo, Theo, and Lorenzo, blocking the way with the easy, unhurried cruelty of boys who had never once had to worry about consequences, Pansy a few steps behind them, arms crossed, watching with lazy amusement rather than participating.
"Longbottom," Matheo said pleasantly, which was somehow worse than if he'd shouted. "How's the shrubbery?"
"Fine," Neville said evenly, not slowing his pace, though you saw his knuckles whiten around the strap of his bag.
"Careful with that one," Theo said, nodding at you without looking at you, like you were an object left on a shelf somewhere. "She bites. You'll want gloves."
"Or don't listen to him," Lorenzo said, examining his wand with theatrical boredom. "Some men enjoy being bitten. It's a preference thing. Nothing to be ashamed of, Longbottom, truly."
"You'd know," Pansy said dryly, not looking up from her own nails, and Lorenzo grinned like it was a compliment.
You felt the heat crawl up your neck — half fury, half something uglier you didn't want to name — and you crossed the courtyard fast, inserting yourself between Neville and the three of them before you'd even decided to move.
"Don't you have somewhere to be?" you snapped. "Preferably far from here."
Matheo's eyes flicked to you, and something in them softened for exactly half a second before the smirk slid back into place. "There she is," he said, like you'd done a magic trick. "We were just being neighborly, Princess."
"You were being pricks."
"Language, pretty girl." His gaze dropped, deliberately slow, to where your hand had found Neville's sleeve without your permission, and something dark moved behind his eyes, like he'd learned exactly what he came here to learn. "Didn't realize you'd gone and adopted a shrub of your own. Does it come with a warranty?"
"Matheo."
"What? I'm complimenting his commitment to horticulture. It's very sweet. Very— what's the word, Theo?"
"Domestic," Theo supplied.
"Domestic," Matheo agreed. "You always did want the version of things people could take home to their mothers." He lied as if it were the easiest thing in the world; you could feel Neville being pleased with that lie and you didn't realize it made you feel worse.
"And you always assume everyone wants what you'd hate," you shot back. "Not everyone's terrified of something staying."
That landed. You saw it land — the smirk tightened at the edges, just barely, before he covered it. ‘Good’, some small vicious part of you thought. ‘Good’.
"Careful," he said softly, and it wasn't playful anymore. "You know exactly how to make that one sting. Don't pretend you don't, love."
Neville's hand found the small of your back — not possessive, just present, as anchor — and steered you gently away before you could say something you couldn't take back. Behind you, you heard Matheo laugh, low and delighted, forcing it to sound easy in front of his friends, like you hadn't just hit something true.
You didn't look back. You didn't need to. You could feel his eyes on your spine the entire way across the courtyard.
"You didn't have to do that," Neville said quietly, once they were out of earshot.
"Do what?"
"Defend me." He wasn't looking at you. "I can handle Riddle and his friends."
"I know," you said, which wasn't an good answer and that wasn't true either, and you both knew it.
Neville couldn't stand up to them—not against Matheo, not if they had decided to really hurt him.
"You went quiet," he added, after a moment. "After he said that thing he said ¿Did that hurt you?
You didn't have a good answer for that either.
But I miss screaming and fighting and kissing in the rain
And it's 2 a.m. and I'm cursing your name
Past. Six months earlier.
The rain was lashing violently against the leaded windows of the Slytherin common room, rattling the glass in its stone frames. The fire had burned down to glowing, blood-red embers, casting long, twisting shadows across the dark leather furniture and green velvet drapes.
You were shoved backward against the heavy oak door of Matheo's private dormitory, the lock clicking shut with a sharp snap of his wand just seconds before his body slammed into yours.
"Where were you?" Matheo growled, his hands slamming into the wood on either side of your head, trapping you instantly. His chest was heaving, his wet curls dripping cold rain onto his forehead, his dark eyes blazing with a jealous fury that would have terrified anyone else. "I looked for you in the Great Hall. I looked in the library. Theo said he saw you walking back from the greenhouses with the stupid Longbottom. Why the fuck were you with him?"
"Because he was helping me carry three crates of Mandrake root for Pomfrey, you possessive idiot!" you shouted back, refusing to shrink against the wood. You grabbed the lapels of his soaked leather jacket, pulling him down until his face was inches from yours. "Not every guy in this castle is trying to get into my skirt, Matheo! And even if they were, I don't belong to you! You don't get to track me down like a hound!"
"The hell I don't!" he roared, his hands dropping from the door to grip your hips, lifting you effortlessly until your toes left the floor and your back was pressed hard against the doorframe. "You're mine. Do you hear me? Every fucking inch of you is mine, and if I see that pathetic, stammering Gryffindor within ten feet of you again, I'll break his jaw!"
"Try it, and I'll hex you so hard you won't be able to sit on your broom for a month!" you snarled, your fingers tangling aggressively in his wet, dark curls, pulling his head back so you could glare straight into his furious eyes. "I am not one of your little fan club girls, Riddle! You don't scare me!"
"Don't call me that, you know I hate it, just-don't." You saw the pained glint in his eyes and the atmosphere change into something else. "I'm not Riddle to you, am I, princess? I'm not your pretty boy? Your matheo?"
"Yeah...yeah you are, my Matheo," you murmured slowly, more calmly.
Matheo stared at you, his breathing ragged, his chest rising and falling against yours in a frantic rhythm. The anger in his eyes didn't fade; it mutated, transforming into a dark, consuming, ravenous hunger that made the air between you crackle like static electricity.
"God, you drive me fucking insane," he groaned from deep in his throat.
And then his mouth crashed onto yours.
It wasn't gentle. It wasn't sweet. It was a war. His lips were rough, tasting of rain, cheap tobacco, and the copper tang of a split lip from practice. You kissed him back with equal, ferocious violence, your teeth clashing against his as your hands ripped at the buttons of his shirt, desperate to feel the burning heat of his skin against yours.
Matheo groaned into your mouth, his large hands sliding down to grip the back of your thighs, hoisting you up until you wrapped your legs tightly around his waist. He carried you across the dark room in three quick strides, slamming your back onto the four-poster bed with enough force to make the heavy oak canopy shudder overhead.
"Matheo—" you gasped as he tore his lips away from yours, trailing hot, open-mouthed kisses down your jawline, his teeth biting down lightly on the sensitive curve of your neck until you cried out his name, your fingers digging like claws into the muscles of his back.
"Tell me who you belong to," he demanded, his voice a low, dark growl against your ear as his hands ripped your skirt upward, his heavy, silver-ringed fingers finding the bare, heated skin of your core with a possessive urgency that made your vision blur. "Say it."
"Shut up and touch me," you breathed, arching your spine off the silk sheets, pulling him down by the silver chain around his neck until his lips met yours again in a bruising, breathless collision. "You imbecile, I belong to you."
There was no hesitation, no polite asking for permission, no gentle, measured pacing — you'd both made it clear, long before this, exactly what you wanted from each other in sex, in words as much as this. When Matheo entered you, it was with a sudden, overwhelming intensity that made you cry out, your head throwing back into the pillows as the sheer, overwhelming force of him filled every empty corner of your universe.
He moved above you like a storm, his grip on your hips bruisingly tight, his dark eyes locked onto yours in the dim firelight, refusing to let you look away for even a fraction of a second. Every thrust was a challenge, a desperate, physical reclamation of ownership that you matched beat for beat, meeting his hips with a fierce, unapologetic rhythm of your own.
"Look at me," Matheo rasped, his forehead coming to rest against yours, sweat dampening his dark curls as his hips drove into you with relentless, punishing speed. "Look at me, pretty girl. You're mine. You're never leaving me. Do you understand?"
"Yeah, fuck-!," you sobbed out, tears of pure, overwhelming overstimulation prickling the corners of your eyes as you wrapped your arms tightly around his neck, pulling him closer, deeper, drowning in the chaotic, magnificent darkness of him. "I fucking hate you, Matheo."
"I love you too, princess," he smiled — a wild, beautiful, broken smile that reached all the way to his dark, haunted eyes — just before he crashed his lips onto yours, swallowing your cries as you both shattered together in the dark, burning the world to ash around you.
Afterward, in the quiet, with the rain still hammering the windows and his heartbeat slowing gradually under your ear, he traced idle patterns against your bare shoulder and didn't say anything at all for a long time — which, for Matheo, who filled every silence like it personally offended him, was its own kind of confession.
"Stay, with me , yeah?" he said finally, so quiet you almost missed it.
You didn't answer. You both already knew you would. That was the thing between you two; the blind loyalty you had for each other, the knowledge that—no matter how many shouts and harsh comments were exchanged—in solitude you would always have each other's backs, in your own way—In your strange way of loving each other.
So in love that you act insane
And that's the way I loved you
Past. Fifth year.
Matheo had you against the stone wall of the empty corridor before either of you had fully decided to fight, his hands braced on either side of your head, breathing hard, furious about something so small neither of you would remember it by morning — a look you'd given some boy at the Three Broomsticks, a joke that had landed wrong, it didn't matter which.
"You did that on purpose," he said, low, accusing. "Looked at him like that. On purpose. Just to watch me lose it."
"I looked at a menu, pretty boy. I ordered him a soup."
"You know exactly what you do to me." His jaw was tight, eyes dark, and there was something wild and soft underneath the anger, something that had nothing to do with the boy at all. "I can't think straight when you do that. I can't think straight most days when you are around, if you want the truth of it. It's not normal, what this is. None of this is normal."
"You're being insane."
"I know," he said, like it was obvious, like it didn't scare him even a little. "I've been insane since I was thirtteen years old and you make me knock my cauldron off a table. I don't know how to be anything else around you. I've tried. It doesn't take."
"That's not love, Matheo. That's just — i don't know, You idiot call it whatever you want, it doesn't make it—"
"It is love." He said it simply, cutting you off, so certain it stole the rest of your sentence right out of your mouth. "Just not the kind anyone warns you about. Nobody tells you it's supposed to feel like this — like losing an argument with your own pulse and loved it. Like being out of your mind and still not able to walk away for even a second." His forehead dropped to yours, breath unsteady. "I don't want the sensible kind. I had the chance to want that and I didn't. I wanted this instead. I want you like this — impossible, insufferable, making me lose every ounce of sense I ever had, Making me love you so much that it's hard to breathe if you're not near, condemned to only crave your kisses, your touch, your gaze on me."
"You make me insane too," you admitted, quieter now, some of the fight bleeding out of your voice into something more intimate, the version of you two that no one else saw. "I've been in love with you since I was thirteen because of that stupid bet with Pansy, I dream about you, I only want you and no one else ever. I get jealous of girls who just say good morning to you in the corridor. I hate how much I want you to be looking at me all the time."
"Good," he said, and kissed you like the fight had never happened, like it was simply the doorway into this instead — soft and desperate and a little too much, the way everything between you always was. "Stay insane with me, then. Misery loves company. So does whatever the hell this is."
You laughed against his mouth, breathless, undone, thinking — not for the first time, and not for the last — that no one had ever warned you love could feel this much like falling apart and being held together in the very same motion, and that you wouldn't have traded it, not even then, for anything calmer.
Breaking down and coming undone
It's a roller coaster kind of rush
Present.
The corridor outside the Potions classroom was dimly lit, damp, and smelling faintly of brimstone and crushed beetle eyes. You had stayed behind to clean your cauldron — an excuse to grab ten minutes of silence away from the suffocating sweetness of Gryffindor Tower, though you were Slytherin yourself and hadn't set foot in your own common room just to chill out in longer than you wanted to think about — when the heavy wooden door swung open again.
It wasn't Neville. ‘Thank good is wasn't him’ you thought and hate yourself a little for that.
"Well, well. If it isn't our favorite little defector," Lorenzo Berkshire drawled, his voice echoing off the stone walls as he strolled into the classroom, his hands tucked casually into the pockets of his tailored trousers.
Behind him trailed Theo, Blaise, and Draco Malfoy. They didn't look at you like an enemy; they looked at you like a stray cat that had wandered into the wrong neighbor's yard and needed to be coaxed back home.
"Lorenzo,other snakes " you acknowledged evenly, wiping down your soapstone desk with a rag. "Class is over. Flitwick is going to lock the corridor in five minutes."
"Let him lock it," Theo smirked, hopping up onto the edge of your desk and dangling his long legs over the side. He reached out, effortlessly snatching the rag from your fingers and tossing it into an empty cauldron. "We haven't had a proper chat since you decided to trade silk for burlap, darling. How is life among the righteous? Are you growing potatoes yet?"
Draco snorted from the doorway, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed over his chest. "Leave her be, Nott. Can't you see she's trying very hard to be a respectable little lady? It takes a lot of effort to pretend you don't miss us."
"I don't miss any of you," you lied smoothly, crossing your arms and leaning back against the chalkboard, refusing to give an inch. You had spent your whole life running with this crowd; you knew exactly how to handle their teeth. If you showed a shred of weakness, they would tear you apart for sport. "And Neville doesn't grow potatoes. He specializes in magical flora. Which is a sight more useful than sitting around the Slytherin common room drinking stolen wine and complaining about your fathers."
Blaise let out a genuine, booming laugh, clapping a hand over his heart. "Merlin, I missed that tongue! She still bites, boys. Longbottom hasn't completely domesticated her yet."
Before you could fire back—with a little smile on your face that you wouldn't recognize —the heavy footsteps of boots echoed from the hallway, and the atmosphere in the room shifted instantly. The casual teasing evaporated, replaced by a charged, crackling tension.
Tom Riddle Jr. stepped into the doorway, his dark eyes scanning the room before settling on you with cold, analytical interest. He didn't speak — he rarely needed to. But right behind him, stepping out from his brother's shadow like a predator emerging from the high grass, came Matheo.
The air in the room suddenly felt twenty degrees hotter.
Matheo didn't acknowledge Lorenzo or Theo. He didn't even look at his brother. He walked straight toward you, his boots clicking rhythmically against the flagstones, until he was standing invadingly close — close enough that you could smell the dark, intoxicating blend of cedarwood, tobacco, and the sharp, clean scent of rain that always clung to his skin.
"Let's go, boys," Tom muttered coldly from the door, turning on his heel. "We have practice."
Lorenzo gave you a quick, two-finger salute, Theo winked, and one by one, the Slytherins filed out of the classroom, pulling the heavy oak door shut behind them until only you and Matheo were left standing in the dim, green-tinted light of the dungeons.
You didn't move away. You didn't step back. You held your chin high, refusing to let him see the way your hands were beginning to tremble against your sides.
"What do you want, Matheo?" you asked, your voice drop-dead steady, even as your chest rose and fell with shallow, rapid breaths.
“I'll admit I miss your affectionate nicknames, princess." He said ignoring your question. His eyes shone with a certain amusement and danger that was impossible to ignore; he had that expression that you both loved and wanted to punch in equal measure.
"Funny, those nicknames are only for when you love the other person or they're your partner; just look at that! We don't meet either of those conditions." Acidic sarcasm dripped from your mouth. You always got defensive when you were nervous, and he knew it. Damn him.
Matheo didn't answer immediately. He took a slow step forward, his dark eyes trailing down the length of your uniform, lingering on the Gryffindor sweater on your left with a look of profound, visceral disgust.
Without warning, his large, ringed hand reached out, his fingers wrapping possessively around your waist. He pulled you flush against his chest with a sudden, undeniable force that knocked the breath straight out of your lungs.
"Matheo—!" you gasped, your hands instinctively coming up to rest against his chest — not to push him away, but to steady yourself against the familiar, solid heat of him—out of sheer habit, that's what you tried to tell yourself to convince yourself.
He bent his head, his dark curls brushing against your cheek as he buried his face in the curve of your neck. He inhaled deeply, a low, satisfied rumble vibrating in his chest, before his lips brushed against the sensitive skin just below your ear. It wasn't a gentle kiss; it was a brand. A reminder of ownership.
"How are you, baby?" he whispered, his voice a rough, gravelly rasp that sent a violent shiver straight down your spine. He pulled back just enough to look into your eyes, his thumb tracing the sharp curve of your hipbone through your skirt. "Did your boyfriend leave you all alone?"
"He's not my owner, Matheo. I can walk to class by myself," you countered, your voice barely above a whisper, your heart hammering a frantic, erratic rhythm against his chest.
"Clearly," Matheo smirked, his dark eyes flashing with dangerous amusement. His hand slid higher up your waist, his grip tightening until it bordered on pain — a sweet, grounding ache that you had craved in the dark for six agonizing months. "Because if you were mine again, I wouldn't let you walk around this fucking castle without me for five minutes. Especially not wearing that pathetic little smile you give him."
"Let go of me," you said, but there was no force behind the words. It was a plea for him to ignore you.
Matheo leaned in closer, his lips hovering a millimeter from yours, his breath warm and smelling of mint and tobacco. "Tell me to leave, pretty girl," he challenged softly, his dark eyes burning into yours with an intensity that felt like falling off a cliff. "Look me in the eye and tell me he makes you feel the way I do. Say it, and I'll walk out that door and never touch you again."
You opened your mouth, the sensible, rational words forming on your tongue: He loves me. He's good to me. You are a disaster. I should hate you. But as Matheo's thumb brushed against the bare skin of your waist where your shirt had ridden up, a shudder racked your entire body, and the words dissolved into empty air. You couldn't say it. You couldn't lie to him, and you couldn't lie to yourself.
Matheo let out a low, dark laugh, pressing one last, lingering kiss to the corner of your mouth before slowly releasing your waist. He stepped back, his eyes dancing with dark, triumphant victory.
"That's what I thought," he murmured, adjusting the collar of his shirt and taking the Gryffindor sweater—which belonged to Neville—from your desk as he turned toward the door. "I'll see you around, pretty girl, and I'll take this, okay? Those colors don't suit you, take mine." His voice was funny and cocky as he winked at you, his sweater now lying next to you.
"But—Matheo!—you damn idiot, give me back—!" But it was too late; he had already left the classroom whistling happily. You stayed there, your heart pounding and your heart sinking. Knowing that although you could have chased after him to recover your current boyfriend's jumper but you were holding his in your hands, smelling his cologne and feeling that familiar scent that you still loved even if you didn't admit it.
You stay like that for a full minute after the door shut, your palm pressed flat over your own racing heart with his sweater, trying to remember how to breathe like a person who hadn't just let a war she'd promised to stop fighting win another round.
‘And now what do I tell Neville about his sweater?' you thought resignedly, letting out a sigh as you left the classroom, stuffing Matheo's sweater into your bag. "Shit"
You were smiling again.
And I never knew I could feel that much
And that's the way I loved you
Past. Third year.
It had started with a dare, the way these things always seemed to. Pansy had bet you couldn't make Matheo Riddle lose his composure in front of a professor, and you — thirteen, reckless, allergic to being told you couldn't do something — had spent an entire Potions lesson passing him notes charmed to insult his hair in increasingly creative ways until he'd snorted so hard he'd knocked his cauldron clean off the table.
Slughorn had given you both detention. Matheo hadn't stopped laughing the whole walk down to the dungeons.
"You're going to get us both expelled," he'd said, not sounding remotely concerned about it, scrubbing cauldrons side by side in the dim classroom light.
"You laughed. That's not on me."
"It's entirely on you. I was having a perfectly normal morning until some menace decided to tell me that my hair looked like a startled crup."
"It does, though."
He'd thrown a soapy rag at your head for that, and you'd retaliated with an entire handful of suds, and by the time Slughorn came back to check on you both you were laughing too hard to properly clean anything, and he hadn't had the heart — or perhaps the energy — to extend the detention.
That day you discovered your heart could do strange things; like fluttering every time he laughed. That day, you discovered you wanted to keep talking to him, to find more and more reasons to laugh together, because—even with the prejudices everyone already had about him at that time—you saw that when he laughed he seemed to light up everything around him.
From that day on, it wasn't normal flirting; it was a collision. You didn't shrink from his explosive humor; you matched it. When he was arrogant, you mocked him until his jaw clenched and his eyes flashed with challenge. When he pushed you away, you pushed back harder, refusing to be intimidated by the Riddle name or the dark legacy that hung over his family like a shroud.
You understood the chaos in him because you carried it in your own chest — a wild, untameable need to feel everything at absolute maximum volume, to live on the razor's edge where every emotion was life or death.
He was thirteen and already trying so hard not to be his father that it broke something in you to watch, even before you understood what you were watching. You didn't know that yet. You just knew that when he looked at you, you felt like the only interesting thing in the room, and that felt, at that age, like the entire world.
Past.
It wasn't all sharp edges, back then— By the age of fifteen you two were already dating and he showed it in his own way; he carried your books once, without being asked, and pretended he hadn't when you called him on it, going so far as to insist you must be misremembering, that ‘a Riddle simply didn't do things like that’. He hexed a sixth-year who'd cornered you by the greenhouses and got a week of detention for it and didn't say a word about it to anyone — you only found out because Pansy told you, rolling her eyes like it was the most predictable thing in the world. “He does that”, she'd said. “Pretends he doesn't care for you and then goes feral if anyone actually tests it.”
He learned, somehow, without ever being told, that you hated the cold, and started sliding his scarf around your neck in the corridors between classes like it was nothing, like it wasn't the single most tender thing anyone had ever done for you.
He was quite a charming gentleman at such a young age. You felt like a princess, and that's what he called you too.
He learned you liked sour sweets over sweet ones and started keeping a tin of them in his bag that he never once offered to anyone but you. He learned the exact sound your voice made when you were about to cry and had, more than once, physically placed himself between you and whoever was causing it before you'd even finished deciding whether you were going to.
you were his exception, always.
"You're doing that thing," you told him once, fifteen and sitting cross-legged on the Astronomy Tower floor, watching him produce two drinks from inside his robes like it was sleight of hand.
"What thing?"
"Being nice. It's suspicious." You said playfully.
"I'm always nice," Matheo said with humor, handing you the bottle anyway, his fingers brushing yours a beat too long. "But I can hit you if you want; I'm not going to discriminate against your pretty face, princess. ."
You'd laughed so hard you'd nearly fallen off the ledge, and he'd grabbed your wrist so fast, so hard, that it startled you both — like some part of him had reacted before he'd had time to think, like the idea of you falling was unbearable to him in a way he didn't yet have words for.
"Don't," he said, low, all the humor gone from his voice. "Don't ever do that, please."
You didn't know, then, what that reaction would come to mean. You just knew that his hand didn't let go of your wrist for a long time, and that neither of you moved to make him.
past — fifth year, Hogsmeade.
The first snow of the year had turned Hogsmeade into something out of a postcard, and the whole of fifth year had descended on Honeydukes and the Three Broomsticks in one loud, scarf-muffled wave. You’d meant to stay with the group. You ended up, exactly the way you always did, peeling off from Lorenzo, Theo, and Pansy because Matheo had silently caught your eye across the crowded pub, tilting his head toward the door.
Minutes later, you were trudging through the snow toward the Shrieking Shack, his hand firmly wrapped around yours, tucked deep into the pocket of his heavy black coat so you could share his warmth.
"You realize we’re ditching our friends to freeze to death looking at a haunted shack," you teased, your breath fogging in the cold air.
"Allegedly haunted," Matheo corrected, a lazy, beautiful grin spreading across his face. "And I find the whole story suspicious. I’ve always wanted to break in. Prove it's just an empty house that got a reputation."
"That's a terrible idea, love."
"Most of my ideas are, baby." He stopped, turning to face you, snow catching in his dark curls. "But you love me anyway."
You did, obviously. You spent forty freezing minutes prying at a boarded window around the back with him, laughing so hard at his increasingly unhinged theories about what might be inside — a forbidden hallucinogen plantations, a hoard of gold, Snape's secret forbidden lover — that you didn't hear someone approach until his lantern was already swinging around the corner.
You ran. Both of you, full-tilt, half-blind with laughter, his fingers locked impossibly tight with yours. You cut through backyards and hopped fences until you'd put half the village between yourselves and the furious caretaker, finally collapsing, breathless, behind the Hog's Head, snow soaking through your cloaks.
"Worth it," Matheo panted, leaning the back of his head against the brick wall, a wild grin still lighting up his face.
"We didn't even get in!” You laughed.
"We will. Next time." He turned his head to look at you. The adrenaline and laughter slowly faded into something much quieter. He noticed you shivering, your nose and cheeks flushed pink from the biting wind.
The chaotic, arrogant boy who had just been trying to break into a building to cause trouble completely vanished. In his place was just Matheo—your Matheo.
He stepped away from the wall, moving directly into your space. Without a word, he unbuttoned his heavy wool coat, shrugging it off his shoulders to drape it securely over yours. He pulled the lapels together under your chin, his silver rings cold against your skin, but his hands were incredibly warm.
"You're freezing," he murmured, his voice dropping into a rough, tender whisper. He didn't pull away. Instead, he brought his hands up to cup your face, his thumbs gently brushing a few stray snowflakes off your cheekbones.
"You'll catch a cold without your coat," you whispered back, your hands coming up to rest against his chest, feeling the steady, reassuring thud of his heart through his sweater.
"I don't care," he said simply. His dark eyes searched yours, entirely stripped of the walls, the sarcasm, and the darkness he wore for the rest of the world. "I'd freeze to death before I let you catch a chill. You know that, right?"
"Matheo..."
"I mean it." He rested his forehead against yours, closing his eyes, a soft, content sigh escaping his lips. "It's always so loud in my head, pretty girl. The expectations, the castle, the looks people give me... it never stops. But right here? Freezing in an alleyway with you?"
He pressed a soft, lingering kiss to the corner of your mouth, his grip on your face so incredibly gentle it felt like he was holding spun glass.
"It's the only quiet I ever get. You're the only peace I have."
It broke your heart, just a little, to hear the vulnerability he hid so well from everyone else. You slid your arms around his waist, pulling him under the oversized coat with you, pressing your lips to his in the falling snow.
It wasn't the usual desperate, frantic collision; it was a slow, incredibly sweet kiss that tasted of winter air and absolute devotion. He held you like you were the only real thing in his universe, his hands tangling gently in your hair, keeping you safe and warm in the dark.
You kissed him back, knowing right then, in the snow behind the Hog's Head, that you would gladly let the whole world burn if it meant keeping him safe.
He respects my space
And never makes me wait
Present.
You weren't supposed to hear the whispers, but Hogwarts was a castle built out of stone corridors and bad acoustics, and you'd long since stopped being surprised by what carried.
"Doesn't make sense, though, does it," a fifth-year Hufflepuff was saying to her friend outside the library, not troubling to lower her voice. "Four years with Riddle and now she's suddenly dating Longbottom. Everyone always said they were endgame, those two. My sister was in their year — said you could feel the sexual and loving tension between them."
"Bet it doesn't last," the friend said. "Nothing ever really ends with those two. My cousin has seen him try to date three people since and none of them lasted more than a couple of days."
You kept walking, jaw tight, pretending you hadn't heard a word.
You knew Neville heard them too. He wasn't deaf. But whenever the whispers drifted across the Great Hall, or a Slytherin made a pointed, cruel remark in the corridors, Neville never reacted. He didn't slam his fists on the table, didn't storm across the room, and didn't draw his wand the way Matheo would have if someone talked trash about you. He just gently changed the subject, offering you a warm, reassuring smile and giving your hand a comforting squeeze.
‘He respects my space’. That was what you told yourself, what you told your friends when they asked how things were going. Neville never pried into your past, never demanded to know why you sometimes stared blankly into the fire in the common room, and never, ever raised his voice. He was so incredibly patient. He just stayed there, letting the problem exist without ever forcing you to face it.
And God, you hated it sometimes.
It was a terrible, twisted admission, but his absolute refusal to confront the ghost in the room made you want to scream. You wanted him to get angry. You wanted him to demand your full attention, to fight for you, to tear the room apart until you looked only at him. His quiet evasion—his polite, sensible distance—felt less like safety and more like a suffocating void. It reminded you, constantly, that he didn't know how to match the storm inside your head.
It wasn't only students, either. Even certain professors seemed to have an opinion, delivered in the careful, sideways way adults gave opinions they weren't technically allowed to have — Slughorn's eyebrows doing something complicated whenever he called roll and your name landed a beat before Matheo's out of old habit; Professor Sprout, kind as always, occasionally slipping and calling you 'Riddle's girl' before catching herself, flustered, over some Herbology assignment.
“She's still one of us," you heard Pansy say one evening, not quietly enough, from the other side of the common room, clearly meant for you to catch. "Doesn't matter whose sweater she's wearing these days. Anyone gives her grief in this house, they answer to me first."
It was in response to a fourth-year — some boy you barely recognized — who'd made a snide comment about ‘the girl who left’ within earshot of the wrong people. By the time you'd looked up from your book, Theo already had the boy backed against the fireplace, not touching him, just talking low and pleasant in the exact way that made everyone nervous, while Blaise stood behind him with his arms crossed, saying nothing, which was somehow worse.
"I don't need protecting," you told Pansy afterward, though you were fighting a smile.
"Obviously not. You'd have hexed him yourself in about four more seconds; I saw your hand going for your wand." She dropped into the seat beside you, stealing a sugar quill out of your bag without asking, the way she'd done since you were eleven. "Doesn't mean we don't do it anyway. You're our family. Gryffindor colors don't change that, whatever Matheo's insufferable moping might suggest otherwise."
"He's not moping."
"He's been moping since March, darling, please." She rolled her eyes, but there was no malice in it. "We all miss you, is the point. Not just him. This place got significantly less interesting when you started eating breakfast under lions instead of snakes."
The irony was heavy, biting, and impossible to ignore. Your ex-friends—the Slytherins everyone warned you about, the ones with dark reputations and sharper teeth—guarded your name like it was sacred. They didn't let anyone speak ill of you, even when you had walked away from them.
And then there was Neville.
Only a few tables away in the Great Hall just last week, when a group of older boys had muttered loud enough for half the room to hear about how you ‘were just passing time until you crawled back to Riddle ’, Neville had simply looked down at his plate, murmured something about ‘not letting it get to you’, and calmly passed the jam.
‘He respects my space. He didn't want to cause a scene, didn't want to make things uncomfortable’. You repeated to yourself, trying to suppress the bittersweet feeling that his quietness produced in you. But sitting there, watching him stay so passively silent while your dignity was dragged across the stone floor, it didn't feel like respect. It felt like cowardice. It made something cold and desperate curl up in your chest: the realization that the people who supposedly loved you now wouldn't raise a finger to defend your honor, while the ones you'd left behind still treated you like their own.
Across the room now, you caught Matheo watching the whole exchange from the slytherin table, pretending — badly — to read a book he'd been on the same page of for twenty minutes. When he caught you looking, he didn't bother pretending anymore. He just held your gaze, steady, unreadable, and something in your chest ached with the specific grief of missing a place you'd never technically left.
That protective instinct wasn't just exclusive to Pansy and Theo, either.
Just two days later, walking through the crowded Entrance Hall, a sixth-year Ravenclaw had sneered as you passed, tossing a loud, venomous whisper to his mate: "Look at her, bouncing from a future Death Eater to a pathetic herbology nerd. Wonder how long Longbottom takes to realize she’s just using him as a placeholder until Riddle snaps his fingers again."
You had stiffened, your hand instinctively twitching toward your wand, ready to turn around and give the bastard a permanent nose-bleed—Not only because of his misogynists insinuations and awful says towards you, but also because he talked about Matheo's future; something you knew pained him even though he didn't show it—. But before you could even turn on your heel, a flash of black robes cut across your path.
Matheo.
He didn't shout. He didn't draw his wand. He simply moved with a cold, terrifying stillness that made the entire entrance hall go dead silent. He backed the Ravenclaw up against the stone pillar so fast the boy gasped, Matheo's hand gripping the collar of his robes with enough force to lift him an inch off the ground.
"Say it again," Matheo whispered, his voice dangerously low, carrying across the silent hall like a death knell. "Go on. Say it out loud so I can see if you've got the spine to back it up, or if you're just a loud-mouthed coward hiding behind gossip."
"I—I didn't mean—"
"You don't mean anything at all," Matheo cut him off, his dark eyes flashing with a lethal, possessive fury. "Keep her name out of your filthy mouth. If I ever hear you speak of her again, I won't care about good manners, I won't care about detentions, and I certainly won't need a wand, i will kill you."
He shoved the boy back so hard he stumbled into a statue, before turning his gaze away, entirely unbothered. But his eyes didn't stay on the floor. They swept past the frozen crowd, landing straight on Neville, who was standing just a few feet away, holding a stack of books, looking entirely paralyzed, and profoundly out of his comfort zone.
Matheo walked right up to Neville, stopping inches from him. The contrast between them was agonizing—Matheo, sharp-edged, dark, burning with a furious, protective intensity; and Neville, just looking, swallowing hard, refusing to meet his eyes entirely, refusing to step up.
"You're standing right there," Matheo said, his voice dripping with absolute disgust, loud enough for every single student and professor lingering in the hall to hear. "She's right beside you, and some pathetic excuse for a wizard talks trash about her in broad daylight... and you just stand there blinking like a fool."
Neville's jaw tightened, his knuckles turning white around his books, but he stayed quiet. He didn't say a word. You were secretly begging him to say something, anything, something that would prove you were a piece of shit for your own bad thoughts about him.
But he didn't.
Matheo let out a short, harsh laugh of pure disbelief, shaking his head. "Unbelievable. To be her boyfriend, you certainly don't seem to give a damn whose mouth she's in. For a Gryffindor, Longbottom... you are remarkably, pathetically lacking in any actual courage."
Neville flinched, finally looking up with a flash of hurt and anger, but he didn't counter. He just looked away, retreating into his safe, quiet silence, stepping back and giving space.
And as you stood there, frozen in the middle of the hall, looking from Neville's silent, evasive retreat to Matheo's blazing, furious eyes, the breath completely left your lungs. You hated Matheo for saying it. You hated yourself even more because deep down, in the ugliest, most honest corner of your heart, you knew every single word of it was true.
What made all this worse was that you still had his things. You hadn't meant to keep them — you told yourself, every few weeks, that you'd finally return them, box them up, hand them back through Pansy if you couldn't face doing it yourself — and somehow you never did. His old Quidditch jumper, soft from years of washing, still lived at the bottom of your trunk. A silver ring he'd given you in fourth year, too small for any of his fingers by the time he'd stopped growing, sat in a drawer you opened more often than you'd admit to anyone. His scarf — the one he'd first draped around your neck at thirteen, the one you'd kept "borrowing" for three straight years until it simply became yours — was folded on your nightstand.
And some nights, when the greenhouse-and-clean-parchment scent of Neville's dormitory felt like a costume you hadn't quite grown into, you'd go to your room and bury your face in it just to remember what it felt like to want something without hating it first.
"You could give those back," Astoria observed once, mildly, watching you fold the scarf for the hundredth time. "Might make the whole thing easier."
"I know," you said, and didn't move to do it.
He's close to my mother
Talks business with my father
He's charming and endearing
And I'm comfortable
Present.
You can hear the muffled cadence of their voices through the heavy doors of your St. Mungo's room.
You stare up at the sterile white ceiling, thinking the reality of your life like a grounding spell. Neville is out in the corridor right now, charming and endearing, playing the part of the perfect, reliable boyfriend with your family. Your parents don't truly love him—they don't have the capacity for it—but they view him as safe. He is neutral territory. He is stable. Most importantly, he is not Matheo Riddle.
What Neville doesn't understand, or perhaps willfully ignores with his endless, patient optimism, is the frostbite in the room whenever your parents are near. He pretends the family portrait is whole. He doesn't know—or doesn't want to see—that the only parent you ever recognized was your grandfather, and that his death didn't just leave a hole in your life; it left an unbridgeable, empty rift between you and the people who gave you your surname.
Perhaps because you never cared to talk about it with him. The weariness and the particular bitter feeling of having to explain yourself again to a new person, letting them get to know you better. Exhausting.
But Matheo knows. Matheo has always known.
The door to your room suddenly swings open, but it isn't Neville who walks in. It is a localized hurricane of dark wool coats, expensive cologne, and sharp smirks.
Draco, Theo, Blaise, Tom, Lorenzo, and Pansy file into the room, instantly shrinking the space with their overwhelming presence. They bring chaos and contraband; Firewhiskey you shouldn't drink on pain potions, a stack of Quidditch magazines they know you don't even like —Although Pansy brought one of your favorite detective novels—, and an absurd amount of noise. Lorenzo is already loudly defending himself, claiming that the reckless dare-match on brooms that resulted in your shattered wrist was entirely your idea.
And then, stepping out from behind Theo, is Matheo.
He isn't laughing. He walks toward you holding, absurdly, a single potted plant he’s clearly bullied out of some terrified florist downstairs.
"What is that?" you ask, your voice softening instinctively.
"A plant. For your recovery. I'm told they're soothing." He sets it on your bedside table like it is a great personal sacrifice. "I asked for the smallest one that wouldn't try to eat me."
"You hate plants."
"I hate your boyfriend's plants," he corrects smoothly.
The fact that he refers to another guy as your boyfriend that wasn’t him, feel completely bad.
He drops into the chair beside your bed without asking, propping his boots up on the edge of the mattress like he still owns the space. Like he owns you. "This one's different. It hasn't personally offended me yet."
You laugh, a genuine, startled sound that jars your broken wrist. You hiss in pain, and Matheo winces—a flash of sympathy so genuine it momentarily silences the loud banter of the Slytherins around you.
The group stays for a while, filling the sterile room with a familiar, dark warmth. Pansy critiques your hospital gown, Draco complains about the lighting, and Tom reads the worst headlines from the Quidditch magazines in increasingly ridiculous voices until a Healer passing by threatens to hex them all out the window.
When the noise eventually lulls, Matheo leans in. The others are bickering by the window, giving you a singular, private moment. Some rare, unguarded thing moves across his dark eyes.
"You scared me," he says, quiet, none of the usual performance in it. "When Lorenzo came running to tell me you'd fallen, I—" He stops. Starts again, his jaw tight. "I don't do well with things I can't fix. You should know that about me by now. It's not a good trait."
"I'm fine, Matheo."
"I know. I still don't do well with it; you being hurt." He reaches out, brushing his knuckles once, feather-light, over the edge of your cast, like he's apologizing to it directly. His eyes flick toward the door, where your parents and Neville are still conversing. "Sleep if you want. I'll hex anyone who bothers you. Even the ones out there."
Before you can answer, the door opens again. Neville steps in.
He looks tired but offers a warm, incredibly patient smile, his hands tucked into his pockets. "Everything alright in here?" he asks, his eyes darting cautiously over the sea of Slytherins, resting for a fraction of a second on Matheo, who has gone utterly rigid in the chair beside you.
You look at the boys. At Pansy’s raised eyebrow. At the chaotic, fierce, undeniable love of your old friends. And finally, you look at Matheo's hand, resting just inches from yours and move it.
"It's fine," you say, forcing a soft, affectionate smile for Neville, before turning back to the group. "You guys can go. Thanks for coming, really. But I'm comfortable now."
It is a gentle dismissal, but the word tastes like ash in your mouth. Comfortable.
They take the hint. Theo claps Lorenzo on the shoulder, Draco nods at you, and one by one, they file out. Matheo is the last to stand. He doesn't look at Neville. He just looks at you, his eyes reading the lie written all over your face, understanding the grief and the ghosts that Neville will never see.
He leaves, and Neville takes the empty chair, gently holding your uninjured hand. He asks about your pain levels. He tells you your parents send their love. He is charming, endearing, and good. To good for you, to less for you at the same time.
And as you lie there, staring at the ridiculous little plant on your bedside table, you realize with terrifying clarity that you are entirely uncomfortable—and that your heart just walked out the door with the only boy who ever knew exactly how to break it.
But I miss screaming and fighting and kissing in the rain
And It's 2 a.m. and I'm cursing your name
Past.
You'd learned, over the years, that fighting with Matheo was its own kind of intimacy — a language with its own grammar, its own particular rhythm, that no one else ever quite seemed to speak back to you the same way.
It started, that time, over nothing — he'd made a comment about a boy from Ravenclaw who'd asked to borrow your notes, and you'd told him he was being ridiculous, and it had escalated, the way it always escalated, from a disagreement into something closer to a performance, both of you circling the empty Charms classroom like it was a stage built specifically for the two of you.
"Sit," he said finally, gesturing at the desk with mock formality, arms crossed, clearly jealous and clearly enjoying himself despite it.
"I'm not your dog, Matheo." You responded defiantly crossing your arms, and damn, if he didn't love that.
"No," he agreed, something dangerous and delighted flickering across his face as he crossed the room toward you anyway. "You're much more trouble than a dog. A dog would occasionally do what it's told."
"And you'd know all about doing what you're told, wouldn't you? Golden boy of the Riddle name, marching along whatever path your father—"
"Don't," he cut in, sharp, and for a second the performance dropped entirely, something rawer underneath it. Then, just as quickly, the smirk slid back into place, though it didn't quite reach his eyes. "You know exactly where to aim to make it hurt, don't you princess? Impressive, really. Should I be flattered you've studied me that closely?"
"You should be furious. I'm trying to make you furious." You pouted, clearly enjoying it way too much.
"It's working." He stepped close enough that you had to tilt your chin up to hold his gaze, close enough that you could feel the heat radiating off him despite the chill of the empty classroom. "Spit it out; what do you want?"
"For you to admit you're wrong and stupidly jealous"
"That's a dangerous thing to ask a Riddle." But his voice had dropped, low and rough, all the anger bleeding into something else entirely, the way it always eventually did. "You know I respect you," he said, quieter now, one hand coming up to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear with a gentleness that didn't match a single other thing about the last five minutes.
"I know," you murmured, breath catching.
"Good," he said, ducking his head until his mouth was a bare inch from yours, "because for the next little while, it's going to look a great deal like I don't."
He kissed you like the argument had never happened, or maybe like it was the argument itself that had gotten you both here — hungry, laughing against each other's mouths halfway through, because you both knew exactly what this was, this ridiculous, backwards way you had of saying ‘I need you’ by first saying almost anything else.
Later, sitting on the edge of the desk with his jacket around your shoulders, you'd called him an idiot, fondly, and he'd caught your wrist, pressed a kiss to your knuckles with theatrical solemnity, and murmured, "Takes one to love one," and you'd laughed so hard you'd nearly fallen off the desk, and he'd caught you, the way he always caught you, like it was simply reflex by then.
Neville had never once made you want to fight like that. You hadn't thought, back then, that it was something you'd ever miss.
Present.
You tried it once, deliberately, almost as an experiment on yourself as much as on him — picking a fight with Neville the way you'd always picked fights with Matheo, sharp and reckless just for the fun of it, testing whether the same push might get the same pull.
It was over something small. He'd rescheduled a Hogsmeade trip without asking you first, some Herbology thing that had come up, perfectly reasonable, and you'd latched onto it anyway, voice rising in the mostly-empty Gryffindor common room until a few first-years glanced over, alarmed.
"You don't even ask anymore" you said, sharper than the moment warranted. "You just decide things. You used to at least pretend to check with me!"
"I did check with you. Yesterday. You said it was fine." Neville's brow furrowed, more confused than angry, which only made you push harder.
"Well, it's not fine! Nothing about this is fine, apparently, since you can't even be bothered to—"
"To what?" He cut but his voice stayed level, infuriatingly, achingly level. "Tell me what you actually want from me right now, because I genuinely don't know, love."
"I want you to fight back!" The words tore out of you before you'd fully decided to say them, raw and strange in your own ears. "I want you to yell at me, or grab my wrist, or tell me I'm being unreasonable, or something other than just standing there being patient and quiet at me like I'm a puzzle you're trying not to break!"
Neville looked at you for a long moment, something sad and knowing settling over his features. "I'm not going to do that," he said quietly. "I'm not going to become someone else just because you miss the way someone else fights. That's not — " he stopped, exhaled. "That's not a version of me you actually want. You just think you do, right now, because it's familiar."
You opened your mouth to argue, and the name that nearly came out wasn't his.
"That's not true M—" you started, and stopped yourself half a syllable before 'Matheo' would have left your mouth entirely, the shape of it already sitting wrong and heavy on your tongue. Neville's face told you he'd heard exactly what you almost said, even unsaid.
"Right," he said, very quietly, and walked out of the common room, and you stood there alone with the specific, awful understanding that you'd just confirmed something you hadn't even meant to admit to yourself yet.
You're so in love that you act insane
And that's the way I loved you
Past.
People only ever talked about the chaos. The loud, magnetic, sometimes destructive pull between you and Matheo was the version of the story everyone else liked to tell—the arguments, the reconciliations, the storm. But they didn't know about the quiet. They couldn't see the foundation you had built, brick by brick, since you were thirteen years old.
Over four years of loving each other, you had developed a language that required no sound at all. You were each other's ultimate exception, navigating the world with a silent, telepathic tether that nobody else could intercept.
It was a connection built entirely on moments too small for anyone else to notice.
Third Year.
The night before O.W.L. prep began in earnest, when he didn't need you to say you were suffocating under the pressure. He simply read the frantic tension in your shoulders from across the library, sat down beside you, and began quizzing you on Transfiguration theory in a ridiculous, booming professor's voice. He knew exactly how to break your panic, trading it for laughter so loud Madam Pince threw you both out into the corridor.
Fourth Year.
The first time he saw you cry over a cryptic letter from home. Anyone else would have prodded, asked useless questions, or offered empty platitudes. Matheo took one look at your fractured expression, wordlessly took the parchment from your trembling hands, and folded it away. He just sat beside you on the cold stone floor, pressing his shoulder firmly against yours, grounding you in his gravity until the shaking stopped. He was the only person who understood that sometimes you just needed someone to exist in the dark with you.
Fifth Year.
A ridiculous three a.m. adventure to the kitchens that ended with both of you covered in flour after a disastrous baking attempt. Matheo hated messes, and he despised looking foolish—but you were his exception. Sitting on the kitchen tiles, wiping flour from his jaw while he laughed at the powdered sugar in your hair, it was clear that his usual guards and walls simply vanished the moment you walked into a room.
Sixth Year.
The Yule gathering neither of you had wanted to attend. You were hiding by the punch table, suffocating in the crowd, when your eyes met his across the room. It took a single, subtle tilt of his head—a silent 'shall we?' —for you to know he was already planning your escape. He spent the entire evening making you laugh in a shadowed alcove instead of spending time with more noisy teenagers and judgmental teachers.
You were two halves of a whole, perfectly complementing the sharp edges of the other. Where you were anxious, he was a steady, unmovable wall. Where he was ruthless, you were the only thing that could soften his hands. He knew how you took your tea, the exact moment a crowd became too much for you, and the specific sigh that meant you were lying about being fine. And you knew the twitch in his jaw when he was pretending not to care, the exact way to touch his wrist to diffuse his anger, and the heavy truth that beneath his untouchable exterior, you were his favorite person in the world.
A hundred ordinary afternoons. A hundred stolen looks across crowded rooms. A hundred small, telepathic kindnesses. That was the part nobody else ever saw. Not the storm—but the four years of quiet, fierce devotion that came before it, and underneath it, and somehow survived every single time the world threatened to wash it all away.
Breaking down and coming undone
It's a roller coaster kind of rush
Present.
The Three Broomsticks was packed with weekend visitors, the air thick with the scent of butterbeer, fried sausages, and wet wool. You sat in a quiet corner booth near the roaring fireplace, your hands wrapped around a warm mug of spiced cider as Neville recounted his morning conversation with Professor Sprout about the harvesting cycle of Bubotubers.
He was speaking with genuine enthusiasm, his hazel eyes bright, his hands gesturing gently as he explained the exact soil acidity required for optimal yield. You were nodding at all the right intervals, smiling when he smiled, offering little hums of agreement.
You were trying. You really, truly were trying.
He was, you thought, watching him across the table, exactly what everyone said he was. Sensible. Incredible, even, in his own quiet way. Your friends told you constantly, half-envious; 'he's so good to you, you're so lucky, he actually listens, he remembers things' —Although Matheo also did those things, just for the record—. He said everything you were supposed to need to hear. He never once made you doubt where you stood. On paper, there was nothing about him you could point to and call wrong.
Except he wasn't the dark brown, curly-haired boy with stormy eyes that you liked so much.
Neville reached across the scarred wooden table, his thumb gently wiping away a stray drop of cider from the corner of your lower lip. His touch was so soft, so careful, like he was handling a piece of spun glass that might shatter if he applied an ounce too much pressure.
"You look beautiful today, pretty girl," Neville murmured softly, his smile full of innocent, overflowing affection.
The words hit your ears like a physical blow.
The mug in your hands clattered sharply against the wooden table as you jerked backward, your spine stiffening, your heart dropping into your stomach like a lead weight. A sudden, visceral wave of repulsion and panic surged through your chest before you could stop it.
"Don't call me that," you snapped, your voice remarkably sharp, cutting through the warm murmur of the pub like a blade.
Neville blinked, his hand freezing in mid-air, his warm smile faltering into a look of hurt confusion. "What? Why? I just meant—"
"I don't like it," you interrupted harshly, your chest heaving as you looked away from him, staring out the foggy glass window at the snow beginning to fall over the roofs of Hogsmeade. Your knuckles were white where you were gripping the edge of the table. "Just — don't ever call me that again, Neville. Please. I hate it."
Pretty girl.
It wasn't his name for you. It would never be his name for you. That name belonged to a dark room smelling of rain and cedarwood; it belonged to silver rings bruising your waist and low, gravelly whispers in the middle of the night. Hearing it in Neville's sweet, gentle voice felt like a grotesque parody — a sacrilege you couldn't stomach.
Neville slowly lowered his hand back to the table. The silence between you grew heavy, thick with things that neither of you had the courage to say out loud. He wasn't stupid. He might have been patient, and he might have been kind, but he wasn't blind.
"You aren't really here, are you?" Neville asked quietly, his voice devoid of anger, which somehow made it hurt ten times worse. There was only a deep, profound sadness in his hazel eyes as he looked at you.
"What are you talking about? I'm sitting right here," you replied defensively, wrapping your hands back around your mug, avoiding his gaze.
"You know what I mean," Neville said softly, leaning back in his booth. "I'm trying, love. I really am. I'm trying to give you everything you need. I'm trying to make you happy. But every time we're together, it feels like I'm holding a ghost. Like you're waiting for something to go wrong, or for someone to come breaking through the door to tear the room apart."
"I like that you're good to me, Nev," you said, your voice cracking slightly as you finally looked at him. And it was true — you did like it. You craved the safety he offered like a starving person craving bread. "You're the best thing that's ever happened to me."
Neville smiled, but it was a melancholy, heartbroken gesture that didn't reach his eyes. "Being good to you shouldn't feel like a chore you have to tolerate," he murmured, reaching out to gently pat your hand before withdrawing his touch entirely. "I think... I think you should walk back to the castle by yourself today. Just to think about what it is you actually want."
He stood up, left three silver Sickles on the table to pay for the drinks, and walked out of the pub without looking back, leaving you sitting alone in the corner, surrounded by a suffocating, terrifying quiet.
You sat there long after your cider had gone cold, watching the snow gather on the windowsill, and thought about how strange it was that a boy could give you everything right and it could still, somehow, feel like the wrong shape entirely.
Later that day you were at the library which was entirely empty, the deep shadows of the restricted section stretching long and dark across the dusty stone floor. You were reaching for a heavy, leather-bound volume on advanced defensive charms on the top shelf, your fingers just brushing the spine, when a large, warm hand reached over your shoulder, easily pulling the heavy book down and sliding it into its place.
You didn't need to turn around. The scent of cedarwood and tobacco enveloped you instantly, trapping you against the wooden shelves.
"You always were too short for this section," Matheo's low, gravelly voice rumbled right against your ear, sending a jolt of pure, unadulterated electricity straight down your spine.
You spun around, your breath catching in your throat as you found yourself trapped between the towering bookshelves and Matheo's broad chest. He was wearing his dark green Slytherin sweater, his silver rings glinting in the dim lamplight as he rested one hand on the shelf just beside your head, effectively boxing you in.
"Matheo," you breathed, trying to push past him, but he simply shifted his weight, blocking your escape with his body. "Move. I need to study."
"No, you don't, you don't study at this time because you prefer the sun hit you and you study even less on weekends because you say it's 'too quiet' and you don't like it." Matheo said softly, his dark eyes trailing down your face with an intense, burning hunger that made your knees feel weak. He reached out, his thumb slowly, deliberately tracing the line of your lower lip, his touch burning like a brand against your cool skin. "You need to stop lying to yourself. I saw you in the three Broomsticks today, baby. I saw the way he looked at you like a puzzle he couldn't figure out. I saw the way he walked out on you. He's bored of you already, isn't he? Or are you just finally bored of him?"
"He didn't walk out on me," you said defensively, slapping his hand away from your mouth, though your heart was hammering wildly against your ribs. "We had a disagreement. Like normal couples do."
"Normal," Matheo scoffed, a dark, mocking laugh escaping his throat as he stepped an inch closer, erasing the remaining space between you until your chest was brushing against his sweater. "Is that what you want to be, pretty girl? Normal? You want to spend the rest of your life sitting in a greenhouse talking about dirt and fertilizer with a boy who wouldn't know what to do with you if you ever actually let yourself go?"
"He loves me!" you shouted in a fierce whisper, your hands coming up to push against his chest, but he felt like a wall of solid stone — he didn't budge an inch. "He doesn't scream at me! He doesn't disappear! He's safe!"
"Fuck safe!" Matheo snarled suddenly, his composure shattering in an instant as his hands slammed onto the bookshelves on either side of your head, the wood groaning under the force of his anger. His face was inches from yours, his dark eyes blazing with that familiar, chaotic wildfire that you had craved for so long. But beneath the rage, there was a sudden, bleeding fracture. "Do you have any idea what it does to me, watching you with him? Seeing him touch what's mine, watching you force that polite, empty little smile for him? It's tearing me apart."
"I'm not yours anymore, Matheo," you whispered, though your voice lacked any real conviction. “And that's was your decision”
"Don't lie to me," he exhaled, the fight suddenly draining out of him, leaving only a desperate, suffocating yearning. He rested his forehead against yours, his breath mingling with yours. "I tell myself every single fucking morning to stay away. To let you move on, to let you have your quiet, peaceful life. I know I should let you go. But I can't. Because every time I look at you, I can see that you're suffocating in it. You're not happy, princess. You're just hiding."
"I'm not hiding!" you lied, your voice trembling as tears of frustration and overwhelming desire sprang to your eyes.
"You are," Matheo growled, his voice dropping into a rough, desperate rasp as one of his large hands left the shelf to slide into your hair, his fingers gripping the back of your head, forcing you to look straight into his dark, haunted eyes. "And now you're shaking right now because you miss me just as much as I miss you. Because he can't love you the way I do. He doesn't know the dark parts of you, and even if he did, he'd be terrified of them. I'm the only one who can handle you when you burn. You know it, and I know it. And without you... fuck, without you, I don't even know what I am anymore. It's just empty."
"And what happens when I burn you down instead?" you whispered, your voice cracking. "What happens when I can't save you from yourself, Matheo? I couldn't, last time."
Something flickered behind his eyes, something incredibly wounded, quickly buried under a bitter smirk. "That's not what I need you for."
"Then what do you need me for?"
He didn't answer right away. For one unguarded moment his hand gentled in your hair, his thumb softly stroking your cheekbone, and he looked at you like you were the only steady thing left in a world made entirely of falling stone.
"I need you to breathe," he said finally, quietly, his voice thick with an ache he couldn't hide. "I need you to keep looking at me like that. Like I'm not already exactly what everyone says I am. I need you because you are the only thing in this miserable castle that makes me feel in peace."
You hated how badly you wanted to reach for him. To bury your hands in his sweater and let the storm take you both again. You didn't. Not that day. You ducked under his arm, grabbed your bag, and left him standing alone among the shadows of the shelves.
And you told yourself, the whole walk back to Gryffindor Tower, that it had been the right thing to do. That you had done it for him. That you had done it for Neville.
You didn't believe yourself even a little.
The walk felt entirely too long, the silence of the corridors offering no protection against the echo of Matheo’s voice playing on a loop in your mind.
"He wouldn't know what to do with you if you ever actually let yourself go."
You hated how the words had rooted themselves in your chest. You hated it because it was the undeniable, suffocating truth. As you gave the Fat Lady the password and stepped into the warm, roaring noise of the Gryffindor common room, you looked around at the sea of red and gold and felt like a ghost.
You weren't being yourself with Neville. Not completely. You had carefully, meticulously carved out the softest, most palatable pieces of your personality and offered them to him, locking the rest away in the dark. You swallowed your sharp tongue, you hide your ambition, and you buried the ruthless, defensive instincts that had kept you alive in Slytherin for years.
Why were you doing this? Why were you exhausting yourself trying to fit into a mold of golden goodness when you were aching for your own friends?
On one hand, you knew the answer; Neville had been the one to pick you up when things with Matheo ended. He'd always had a crush on you, and without hesitation, he was there for you. You felt that going out with him would be a salvation; a way to ignore the pain and thank him with what he wanted: you.
You'd tried in all the small, unglamorous ways nobody thought to notice. You'd sat through hours of Gobstones with Seamus and Dean, losing on purpose more often than not because you'd never learned to care about the game and couldn't bring yourself to admit it. You'd learned everyone's names, their siblings' names, whose parents had fought in the first war and whose hadn't, the particular rhythm of Gryffindor gossip that ran on entirely different currents than the ones you'd grown up fluent in.
You'd sat at their table for meals, laughed at jokes that didn't quite land for you the way they landed for people who'd grown up around that particular warmth, and told yourself, every single day, that it would start to feel like home eventually, if you just gave it enough time.
It never quite did.
You missed the low ceilings of the Slytherin common room, the particular green cast of light through the lake windows, the specific, familiar cruelty of people who loved you enough to insult you properly instead of tiptoeing around anything real. You missed Pansy's blunt honesty and Theo's ridiculous theories and the entire architecture of a house that had shaped you since you were eleven. No amount of Gryffindor warmth ever quite filled that particular absence.
You refused, at least, to give up the last visible piece of it. You kept your tie in Slytherin colors even after past most of your time to Gryffindor Tower, refused every gentle suggestion that you might feel more "settled" if you switched allegiances entirely, and kept the small enamelled snake pin Pansy had given you for your fifteenth birthday fastened to the inside of your robes where only you knew it was there.
"You could try harder to fit in," Seamus told you once, not unkindly, after you'd gone quiet during some lengthy story about a childhood Quidditch match you had no context for. "Nobody's going to bite you, you know. We're not that bad."
"I know you're not." You forced a smile. "I'm trying."
"Doesn't always look like it."
You didn't have a response for that, because he wasn't entirely wrong. Pretending otherwise would only have made the whole exhausting performance harder to keep up. Matheo’s words from the library had chipped a fatal crack in the glass of your performance. You were so done pretending.
The breaking point came two days later.
It was Astoria's older cousin, visiting for the weekend, who made the mistake — some snide comment in the courtyard about how far you'd fallen, trading real ambition for a boy who grew plants for a living, delivered with the particular cruelty of someone who'd never once had to fight for anything.
"At least I didn't get sent home from Beauxbatons in disgrace," you said, voice like glass, letting the mask slip completely, "though I suppose growing up around actual competence must have felt very threatening to you."
The girl's face went tight. "Watch your mouth."
"Or what? You'll tell your mother? I heard she's not speaking to you either, since the thing with Adrian Pucey got out. Very publicly, if I recall. Half the *Prophet's* society pages, wasn't it?"
By now a proper crowd had gathered, drawn by the particular electric hush that meant something was about to happen. The girl's hand twitched toward her wand, and yours was already moving faster. It was a sharp, practiced flick that sent her hair sprouting bright, furious pink and her voice climbing three octaves into something distinctly canary-adjacent before she'd even finished her own spell.
The courtyard erupted. You laughed — you couldn't help it, a real, delighted, slightly vicious laugh — as the girl shrieked and clawed at her own throat, chased by her flock of mortified friends toward the hospital wing, pink hair streaming behind her like a furious flag.
"That was—" Neville stopped, visibly recalibrating, stepping up beside you. He was staring at you like he'd never seen you before. "That was vicious."
"She started it."
"I know. I just—" He shook his head, something like fear moving behind his eyes, quickly masked, but not quite fast enough. "I've never seen you do that. Not like that. Not so easily. Not with you laughing while you did it."
"I grew up around it, Neville. It's not a costume I put on. It's just — a part of me you haven't had to see very often, because I was trying to keep it away from you."
He didn't say anything else. He just looked at you with an expression you couldn't quite name — disappointment, maybe, or something closer to a quiet, dawning fear. It was exactly what Matheo had predicted in the library. Neville had finally glimpsed a fundamental, venomous piece of you that didn't fit the shape he'd built his hopes around, and he didn't know what to do with it.
Across the courtyard, still watching, Matheo wasn't even bothering to hide his delight. He stood leaning against the stone archway, arms crossed, grinning like he'd just watched his favorite performer take a well-deserved bow.
"That's my girl," he mouthed, when you caught his eye.
And as the courtyard buzzed around you, something in your chest ached with how easy it was, how effortlessly right it felt, to be looked at like that—to be seen in all your wicked, unapologetic glory—instead of like something broken that needed managing.
And I never knew I could feel that much
And that's the way I loved you
Present.
"We need a plan," Lorenzo announced, dropping into the armchair across from Matheo with the gravity of a general addressing troops before battle. "Longbottom situation. It's gone on long enough."
"There's no situation," Matheo said, not looking up from the book he wasn't actually reading.
"There's absolutely a situation." Theo dropped down onto the arm of the sofa, already counting off points on his fingers. "Option one: we simply relocate him. Somewhere scenic. Norway, perhaps. I hear the greenhouses there are excellent, very on-brand for him, he'd probably thank us eventually."
"We are not kidnapping Neville Longbottom."
"I didn't say kidnapping," Theo said, wounded. "I said relocating. There's a difference. It's practically a favor."
"It is kidnapping," Blaise said, unhelpfully, from the other sofa. "I'd just like that on the record before this goes further."
"Fine. Option two." Lorenzo raised a second finger, undeterred. "We ruin his reputation. Subtly. A rumor here, a rumor there. By spring nobody remembers why they liked him in the first place."
“And that's where we relocate him somewhere else and Matheo gets his girl back!" Theo said again, earning a pillow to the face from Tom.
"He grows plants, Lorenzo. What rumor is going to ruin a boy who grows plants?"
"You'd be surprised what people will believe about a Herbology enthusiast if you're creative enough."
"We are not doing that either."
"Option three," Pansy offered, from her spot curled up with a magazine, not even bothering to look up, "you could simply continue being unbearably in love with her in front of the entire school until he gives up on his own, out of sheer exhaustion. Seems to be working reasonably well so far, if slowly."
Matheo, despite himself, huffed something close to a laugh. "That one, then. We're doing option three."
"Boring," Theo sighed. "I had a whole speech prepared about the Norway plan."
"Save it for the wedding," Draco said dryly, not looking up from his own book, and Matheo threw a cushion at his head hard enough to make Draco's book fly across the room, which did nothing whatsoever to disprove the point.
And in that way Matheo decided to make it even more obvious how much he believed that you were still completely his.
Slytherin played Gryffindor on a bright, bitter Saturday, and you went, obviously — Neville's hand in yours, green and red scarves clashing all around the stands and told yourself firmly that you were there to support —Even if you're dating a Gryffindor— your house, because in Quidditch there were no arrangements for being in a relationship, obviously you weren't going to look at a certain Chaser at all.
That resolve lasted exactly as long as it took Matheo to score his first goal.
He didn't celebrate the way the rest of his team did — no fist-pumping, no lap around the pitch. He simply turned in the air, found you in the stands with unnerving precision, and pressed two fingers to his lips before pointing them straight at you, a lazy, deliberate, utterly shameless gesture that the entire Slytherin section immediately noticed and immediately loved.
"He did not just do that," Neville muttered beside you, jaw tight.
He did it again after the second goal. And the third. By the fourth, Lorenzo had started narrating it for the benefit of everyone within twenty feet — "and that one's for the lovely lady in green at the Gryffindor stands, ladies and gentlemen, Riddle really does love an audience or a certain girl" — and you were fighting so hard not to smile that your cheeks ached with the effort.
"Ignore him," you told Neville, not quite managing to sound like you meant it.
"I'm trying." He didn't look at you. "It's difficult to ignore someone dedicating an entire Quidditch match to your girlfriend in front of half the school."
You didn't have a good answer for that, mostly because some traitorous, delighted part of you didn't actually want him to stop.
Slytherin won, predictably, and Matheo landed his broom directly at the base of your section instead of following his teammates toward the locker rooms, ignoring the outraged whistling of a professor somewhere below.
"That was for you," he said, breathless, hair windswept, grinning up at you like he'd single-handedly rearranged the stars instead of just scored a hundred and fifty points.
"I noticed. Everyone noticed Matheo."
That was something Neville had noticed too; 'Matheo,' you never called him by his last name like everyone does. Even after breaking up or while arguing, always by his first name. As if it were part of a pact he didn't know about.
"Good. I wanted everyone to notice." His eyes flicked, briefly, deliberately, to Neville beside you — not unkind, exactly, but not remotely apologetic either. "Some things are worth being obvious about."
He was gone before Neville could say anything back, swallowed into the crowd of his cheering teammates, and you stood there in the stands with your heart doing something complicated and traitorous in your chest, thinking that there was something almost magnetic about the way you two kept finding each other no matter how many people, houses, or entire Quidditch matches stood in between — like some inevitable law of physics neither of you had ever managed to override.
"You lit up," Neville said quietly, once the crowd had thinned. Not accusing. Just observing, the way he always did, which was somehow worse. "The second he scored. You lit up, and I don't think you even noticed yourself doing it."
“It's my team, my house, obviously I'm going to get excited even if it's from a point made by him. I like that we beat the Lions." You joked, dismissing the topic, avoiding it, but the truth was that you hadn't noticed and that you hadn't been excited about that. That was, you thought, exactly the problem.
He can't see the smile I'm faking
And my heart's not breaking
'Cause I'm not feeling anything at all
It happened on an ordinary Tuesday, the two of you cutting across the courtyard toward the library, when the numbness finally crystallized into something you could name.
You were holding Neville’s hand, offering him the same polite, practiced smile you always did. "He can't see the smile is fake?", you thought, watching him talk about his latest Herbology project. And worse than that—you realized your heart wasn't breaking over the lie. You weren't feeling anything at all. It was just a comfortable, static emptiness.
Then, you spotted him.
Matheo was leaning against the sundial, surrounded by two seventh-year Ravenclaws who were very obviously, very determinedly flirting with him. The jealousy hit before you'd even fully processed the scene—hot, immediate, and entirely unreasonable, but it was the first real thing you had felt all day.
Matheo, damn him, was playing along. He leaned into it, that same lazy, arrogant charm on full display, letting one of them trace a finger down his forearm. But you knew, with total certainty, that he'd clocked you the moment you entered the courtyard.
"So it's true, then," the taller Ravenclaw said, loud enough to carry, glancing your way with a knowing little smirk, "about the Gryffindor's girl. Didn't think you'd still be entertaining company, Riddle, if you'd actually settled for someone that dull. Guess she's not much competition."
Something in Matheo's chest went white-hot and very, very cold at once.
"Careful," he said, his voice dropping out of the easy performance entirely, gone flat and dangerous in a way that made both girls take an involuntary step back. "You don't get to talk about her. Not like that. You want to compare yourselves to her? Go ahead. It's not a fair fight. Struck match, wildfire. You should both feel embarrassed for trying."
"It was just a joke, Matheo—"
"Don't call me that and It wasn't funny. Go find someone else to bore. We're done here."
They flushed and hurried off, and Matheo didn't so much as glance after them. His eyes were already back on you, checking to see if the words had landed.
You smiled. You couldn't help it—a small, involuntary, entirely real curve of your mouth—before you caught yourself and smoothed your expression back into the fake, neutral one for Neville.
"You're smiling," Neville said, his voice tired.
“It’s not- i mean-” You stumbled while trying to make excuses.
"Because he sent them away. Because whatever they said, it mattered to you that he didn't let it stand."
You didn't answer that. You just let him hold your hand, feeling absolutely nothing at all.ñ but shame and guilt.
The simmering tension from the courtyard finally exploded three days later during a weekend.
It was one of your worst public fights with Matheo—the kind that drew a crowd, the kind that ended with both of you shouting things neither of you fully meant. You were close enough to blows that a cluster of seventh-year Gryffindors had started to circle, half-concerned, half-entertained.
"Someone should separate them before they kill each other," one of the Gryffindors muttered. He stepped forward and grabbed Matheo's arm to physically pull him back from you.
And in that moment you didn't think. Your wand was already in your hand and leveled at the boy's throat before you'd finished registering what he'd done, your voice gone low and lethal in a way that startled even you.
"Take your hand off him," you said, "or I will make you regret every choice that led you to this exact moment."
The boy released Matheo's arm immediately, backing away with wide eyes as the crowd went dead silent.
Matheo looked equal parts stunned and deeply, helplessly delighted. "We were just screaming that we hate each other," he pointed out, a grin fighting its way onto his face, "and you're threatening a small war on my behalf."
"Shut up or I will hex you!" you snapped, but before you could lower your wand, Theo, who had just pushed his way to the front of the crowd, made a fatal miscalculation.
Thinking he needed to de-escalate the situation, Theo reached out and firmly grabbed your shoulders, trying to physically steer you away from Matheo.
Matheo's entire demeanor shifted so fast and so completely that even his own best friend froze.
"Don't," Matheo said, his voice gone dead flat, all trace of amusement vanishing into something terrifyingly violent. "Don't put your hands on her. Ever. I don't care what we're in the middle of."
"Mate, I was just trying to help—"
"I don't care." He didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to. "Whatever this is between us, it's ours. Nobody else gets to put their hands on her to end it. Not you. Not anyone."
Theo held his hands up in surrender, stepping back.
Standing in the snow, still furious, still breathing hard, you both understood it without a single word. It didn't matter how loudly you screamed at each other. The instant anyone else moved to intervene, you were not two people falling apart; you were two people, instinctively, ferociously, standing guard over one another.
Present.
Neville found them in the library later that afternoon. He dropped into the chair across from Hermione and Ginny, looking like a man who had finally run out of air.
"I'm not even angry about the big things anymore," Neville admitted, his voice hollow as he recounted the scene in Hogsmeade. "It's the small things. It's exhausting, comparing myself to a ghost that's still very much alive."
"You need to actually look at this," Hermione said, closing her book. "Really look at it, Neville. You're waiting for her to forget four years with him in a flew and just—be with you instead. That's not how any of this works, It's already too much that in just a few months she is with you after broken up with him; it's not a proper way to grieve.”
"She has chosen, over and over, in every way that matters, and you keep deciding it doesn't count because it's not the choice you wanted," Ginny added bluntly.
"He's not good for her!" Neville argued, a desperate edge to his voice.
"That's not your call to make," Hermione cut in gently but firmly. "Can I ask you something? Do you love her—all of her, the sharp parts, the vicious parts—or do you love the idea of being the one who saved her?"
Neville opened his mouth to argue, but Ginny didn't let him.
"You only like a cropped version of her, Neville," Ginny said, her voice piercing through his defenses. "You only want the quiet, safe parts, the parts that are broken and cry and need you or someone to make it sting less, and you expect her to just cut out the rest. And in return? You're not even acting like a real boyfriend. You're just... there. You don't fight for her. You don't fight with her. You don't react to anything."
Hermione nodded in agreement. "You keep calling Matheo a ghost, Neville, but look at yourself. You're the one haunting this relationship. You're just a ghost waiting around, hoping that if you're steady enough for long enough, her feelings will magically arrive."
“And we're not judging you; it's not easy to love someone coming out of a complicated, long relationship. There's no manual on how to do it, but... even before she broke up with him, you loved the softer version of her. You didn't know the whole picture, and now that you do, you choose to ignore what you don't like or what isn't what you expected, and that's not fair to either of you; it's not especially good for you” Ginny added.
Neville didn't say anything else. He simply sat there, staring at the scarred wooden table, looking like a man who had just watched his own house finish burning to the ground.
Three days later, Neville finally snapped. He found Matheo alone outside the Charms corridor and planted himself directly in his path.
"Leave her alone," Neville said without preamble. "I mean it, Riddle. She's my girlfriend. You don't get to keep cornering her, confusing her, sending your friends to needle her, turning every public argument into a spectacle. It's not fair to her, and frankly, it's not fair to me either."
Matheo blinked, genuinely startled for half a second before a slow, wicked smile spread across his face. He didn't look mad. He looked thrilled.
"Look at you," Matheo mocked, leaning back against the stone wall, entirely too relaxed. "Growing a spine. I approve, honestly. Took you long enough."
"I'm serious, Matheo."
"I can tell. It's adorable." The dark amusement in Matheo's eyes sharpened into something cruel and surgical. "Here's the thing, Longbottom. I'm not doing anything to her that she doesn't actively let happen. I've never once had to force my way into her orbit. She always turns around. And you know why?"
Neville's jaw tightened. "Because you manipulated her, you did it for four years, she still doesn't know what's good for her."
"No," Matheo laughed, a dark, scraping sound. "Because she feels absolutely nothing with you. You think you're saving her? You're boring her to death." Matheo stepped forward, invading Neville's space, relishing the way the Gryffindor tensed. "I know she flinches when you call her pretty girl ‘cause that's my nickname to her. I know she fakes every single smile she gives you. She looks at you, and her heart doesn't flutter, it doesn't beat faster, it doesn't do a damn thing, because she is entirely numb to you."
"Shut up," Neville breathed, his hands balling into fists.
"I won't," Matheo whispered, his eyes gleaming with vicious triumph. "Because you know I'm right. You're a placeholder. You're the quiet room she's sitting in until she's ready to come back to the storm. And we both know it."
Neville didn't have a response for that. He stood there for a long moment, visibly shattered, before he turned and walked away.
Matheo watched him go, a cruel, satisfied smirk etched into his features. He had finally drawn blood, and as he walked away, he didn't feel a single ounce of regret.
Neville found you by the lake that afternoon. The sky was the color of bruised iron, heavy and threatening, but you had needed the cold air to clear your head.
You hadn't expected him to find you. You certainly hadn't expected the look on his face—arms crossed, jaw set in a way you'd rarely seen on him.
"I need to say something," he said, "and I need you to actually hear it."
"Nev—"
"You spend every free period finding reasons to walk past the dungeons," he said, quiet and steady, which somehow made it land harder than shouting ever could. "You still fight with him like it's a language only the two of you speak. You flinch every time someone says his name like it actually hurts you not being with him. I've watched you do it for months, and I kept telling myself it would stop, and it hasn't."
He exhaled, and for the first time, you saw exactly how tired and frustrated he was.
"You're with me, but you're still chasing his attention. You're still fighting with him. And you forget everything else exists when he's in the room. Including me."
You opened your mouth to argue—the reflex was instant—and found you had nothing true to say. The silence stretched between you, thick and undeniable.
"I'm sorry," you whispered instead, shameful tears stinging in the corners of your eyes.
"I don't want you to be sorry," Neville said, his voice entirely hollow. "I want you to be honest. With me, or with yourself. Whichever comes first."
He didn't wait for an answer. He didn't have one to wait for, and you both knew it. He just looked at you for a long moment—not entirely angry, which was somehow the worst part, just sad in a way that made you feel about two inches tall—and then he turned and walked back toward the castle alone.
You stood there in the cold, holding a truth you weren't ready to say out loud yet. And then, the sky finally broke open, and the rain began to fall.
You were soaked to the bone by the time you retreated to the castle, dripping onto the stone floors near the Slytherin corridors. You were looking for a quiet alcove to cast a drying charm when Pansy materialized out of the shadows.
"You look pathetic," she noted, though her dark eyes were sharp with something entirely unamused. "Though I suppose it matches the mood. Have you heard what your ex-boyfriend did today?"
"I just saw Neville, Pansy. I don't want to talk about it."
"Not that one. The one who actually matters." Pansy crossed her arms. "Riddle cornered Longbottom outside the Charms corridor. Told him, in excruciating detail, how you were completely numb to him. Told him he was just a placeholder, a quiet room you were sitting in until you came back to the storm. I’m surprised the Gryffindor didn't cry, honestly."
The words hit you like a physical blow. The absolute arrogance of it. The cruelty. The fact that Matheo dared to speak for you, to dictate your feelings, to rip apart the fragile peace you had been trying so hard to maintain.
You didn't say a word to Pansy. You just turned on your heel and marched deeper into the dungeons.
You found him exactly where you knew he would be—outside the Slytherin common room, ignoring the furious rain that was flooding through the open stone archways of the courtyard. He was soaked through, the white fabric of his shirt clinging to his skin, a bottle of something amber dangling loosely from his fingers.
"Where have you been?" he demanded, his voice echoing over the thunder before you'd even said a word.
"None of your business."
"The hell it isn't." He crossed the distance between you in two strides, water dripping from his dark curls onto your face. "I heard you were with him at the lake. All afternoon. I heard you were laughing."
"I wasn't laughing!" you screamed, the sheer force of your fury startling him. "He was confronting me! And how dare you? How dare you corner him and tell him what I feel?"
"I told him the truth!" Matheo roared back, tossing the bottle aside. It shattered against the stone, but neither of you flinched. "I'm not going to sit around and watch you lie to yourself—"
"You don't get to speak for me!" You shoved him, hard, the heels of your hands slamming into his chest. He barely moved, which only made you angrier. You shoved him again. "You don't get to police my life! You lost that right the day you walked away from me!"
"I never meant it!" he shouted, grabbing your wrists—gently even in the heat of the moment, so as not to hurt you—, to stop you from hitting him again, but you wrenched them free, slapping his hands away, tears of pure, blinding rage mingling with the rain on your face.
"Well, I believed you!" Your voice cracked into a raw, agonizing sob, and you hit his chest one more time, your fists twisting into his ruined, soaking shirt. "Do you have any idea what it did to me, watching you walk away from that tower? Do you have any idea how many nights I sat awake wondering if you were even still alive the next day? You broke me, Matheo! You left me in pieces, and now you think you can just burn down the only safe thing I found?"
"Don't," he cut in, his voice suddenly stripped of all its anger, leaving only something jagged and raw. "Don't say it."
"Why not! It's true! You scared me, Matheo! You scare me now!"
"Good!" he shouted, his hands suddenly coming up to grip your face, his thumbs pressing desperately into your jaw. "Good. Because you scare the hell out of me too. Every single day. I look at you and I don't know what I am without you, and that terrifies me more than anything my father ever did."
"You make me feel like I'm losing my mind," you choked out, your hands trembling against his chest.
"Don't blame me for that. That's not a symptom I caused."
"You're the only symptom I've got," you shot back.
Something in his face completely fractured. He pulled you in, slamming your back against the stone wall of the corridor. His body pressed flush against yours, stealing your breath, his hands tangling violently into your soaking hair. He tilted your head back, his face dropping inches from yours. You could feel the heat of his breath, the frantic beat of his heart against your own. The magnetic, devastating pull of him was overwhelming.
His lips brushed yours—a fleeting, electric ghost of a touch. You closed your eyes, every instinct screaming at you to let him bridge the gap, to let the storm consume you both all over again.
But the echo of the memory of his footsteps walking away from the tower that night rang in your ears.
You gasped, placing both hands flat against his chest, and pushed.
Matheo stumbled back, his chest heaving, his dark eyes wide and wild with a desperate, starving confusion. He reached for you again, but you stepped out of his grasp, shaking your head, your chest aching so violently you thought it might crack open.
You didn't say a word. You couldn't. You turned and ran, leaving him standing breathless and ruined in the freezing rain.
After that, you ended up in your room, crying and complaining at the top of your lungs to Pansy while drinking wine and eating something from the kitchens that she stole to try to make you feel better.
"I'll never understand what you're waiting for," Pansy said, after a while, when you finally calm down, not looking up from where she was repainting her nails a deep, unforgiving green. She was sprawled across your bed and you were laying on the floor looking at the ceiling.
"I'm not waiting for anything."
"You are, though. Everyone can see it except apparently you." She capped the polish, finally looking up, her gaze sharp and assessing in the way only Pansy could manage. "Why haven't you gone back to him? And don't say Longbottom. We both know that's over in everything but name. I want the real reason."
"It's not that simple."
"It's exactly that simple. You love him. He loves you, embarrassingly, publicly, in front of the entire school, repeatedly, at considerable cost to his own dignity. Neither of you has managed to want anyone else in four years, no matter how hard you've both apparently tried." She ticked the points off with the same brisk efficiency she'd use for a shopping list. "So what, precisely, is the holdup?"
"I'm scared," you admitted, the confession slipping out quieter than you meant it to. "Last time nearly killed him, Pansy. What if I go back and it happens again? What if I can't save him a second time?"
Pansy's expression softened, just slightly—as close to gentle as she ever let herself get.
"That's not yours to carry alone, you know? Whatever happens to him doesn't happen because of you. It happens because of that miserable excuse for a father, a name he never asked to be born into and his poor mental health." She paused, her dark eyes pinning you to the spot. "You didn't cause the tower thing. You're the reason he came down off the ledge in the first place."
She picked her polish back up, entirely unbothered, acting like she hadn't just said something that cracked straight through the armor around your chest.
"Besides. He's different now. Quieter about the drinking. Less of a disaster generally, though I'll grant you the bar was subterranean. I think some of that's you too, even from a distance."
"That's not exactly reassuring."
"I'm not in the reassurance business, darling. I'm in the business of watching you make yourself miserable over a decision you've already made, and finding it tedious." She blew on her nails, casually admiring the glossy green paint. "Go back to him. Or don't. But stop pretending you haven't already chosen. It's beneath you."
And you were wild and crazy
Just so frustrating, intoxicating, complicated
Got away by some mistake and now
Past.
People always asked how you could have loved someone like Matheo Riddle. They never asked why you left him. They assumed you'd simply woken up one day and realised he was a monster.
The truth was uglier: He broke up with you. He pushed you away, definitively and cruelly. He cut you out of his life for fear of dragging you down.
It happened on a freezing night in late March, the stress of having to become a Death Eater and the next rebellion bleeding into every corner of him. Tom was spending hours away of everyone, preparing for the purge everyone could feel coming, and Matheo was unravelling at the seams, terrified of what his father would force him to do when the end came.
He'd started drinking heavily, disappearing into the forest for days at a time, picking bloody, brutal fights with Gryffindors just to feel something other than the crushing weight of his own name — the name that came with an inheritance no one had ever asked whether he wanted.
You found him in the Astronomy Tower at three in the morning, standing precariously on the stone ledge, looking down at the jagged black rocks of the courtyard hundreds of feet below, a half-empty bottle of gin dangling from his hand.
"Get down from there, Matheo!" you had screamed, running across the stone platform, the freezing wind whipping your hair across your face as you grabbed the back of his coat, pulling him backward onto the safe stone floor with all the strength you had left.
He had stumbled back, crashing into you, sending both of you sprawling onto the freezing stone flagstones. The bottle shattered against the wall, sending the sharp smell of alcohol and broken glass across the floor.
"Why did you pull me back?!" Matheo had roared, pushing himself up onto his hands and knees, turning on you with eyes that were wildly dilated and swimming with madness and tears. "Why can't you just let me fucking fall?! It would be easier! For me, for you, for everyone!"
"Because I love you, you selfish bastard!" you had screamed back, tears streaming hot and fast down your freezing cheeks as you crawled through the spilled gin to grab his shoulders, shaking him violently. "I love you, and I am not going to let you destroy yourself just because you're afraid of your father!"
"You shouldn't love me!" Matheo had shouted, his voice cracking with a raw, agonizing agony as his hands came up to grip your wrists, his grip so tight it left pale, bruised fingerprints on your skin for weeks afterward. He shoved you backward against the stone balustrade, his face inches from yours, his breath smelling of bitter alcohol and despair. "Look at me! Look at what I am! I'm poison! Everything I touch rots! If you stay with me, I am going to drag you down into the dark and drown you with me, and I won't even be able to stop myself because I am too fucking selfish to let you go!"
"Then let's drown!" you had cried, reaching up to frame his face, your thumbs wiping away the tears that were finally spilling over his dark eyelashes. "I don't care about the dark, love! Just don't shut me out!"
He looked at you devastated—a look that would haunt your mind and dreams for months—he seemed terrified, physically pained to realize what you could be becoming if you didn't walk away. By the decision he had just made in his head
"No!" he had roared, ripping your hands away from his face and stumbling backward, looking at you like you were a ghost he had just murdered. His chest was heaving, his entire body trembling violently in the freezing wind. "No. I'm done. We're done. I am not going to watch you turn into a monster just to keep me company. Stay the fuck away from me."
"Pretty boy, please—"
"I don't want you anymore." The words came out flat, deliberate, aimed with a precision that told you, even through the panic, that he'd chosen them exactly because he knew how deep they'd land. "I've been bored of this for months, if you want the truth. Bored of you. This whole — devotion act. It was fun when we were fourteen. It isn't anymore."
"You don't mean that." Your nose was red—something he knew was indicative that you were trying to hold back tears, that you didn't want him to see how much his words hurt you.
And damn, he hated making you cry in pain and hurting you. That made him feel like a real monster.
"I do." He wouldn't look at you when he said it—He couldn't—which should have told you everything, but grief doesn't listen to logic at three in the morning on a freezing tower floor. "Go back to your room, have a little safe life. You were always going to end up there eventually. At least now you won't waste any more time finding out."
He had turned and fled down the winding stone stairs into the darkness, leaving you alone on the tower floor, bleeding from a small cut on your knee where you had knelt in the broken glass, crying until your throat was raw and your lungs burned from the cold.
You found out much later — far too late to matter, by then — that he'd meant almost none of it. That he'd spent that entire walk down the stairs being violently, quietly sick with how well it had worked, how easily the cruelty had come once he'd decided it was the only weapon sharp enough to actually make you let go. He would have told you, if you'd asked him, years afterward, that it was the single worst thing he'd ever done — worse than the ledge, worse than any of it — because at least the ledge had only ever threatened to hurt him.
That was no one else saw. It wasn't just the jealousy or the possessiveness, or the devotion you two had for each other; it was the sheer, exhausting, soul-crushing weight of loving someone who was actively waging war against himself, and the particular cruelty of a boy who pushed you away specifically because he loved you too much to let you watch him make bad choices — even when the pushing meant lying, meant choosing words designed to wound precisely because gentler ones hadn't worked.
You never told anyone what he'd actually said, not the specifics. Some pride in you wouldn't allow it — some stubborn refusal to let anyone see exactly how easily he'd cut you down, or to let it become the version of the story other people got to repeat. You told yourself, in the months that followed, that it wasn't really about the cruelty at all, not underneath — that even if he'd never said a single unkind word, you'd have needed to leave regardless, because the two of you together only ever seemed to bring out the worst versions of both of you, the drinking and the ledges and the screaming matches that left both your throats raw. You told yourself that loving him well meant loving him from a distance, that some people were simply better for each other in theory than in practice.
And deep down you knew that was a lie. That you deliberately ignored the times you two helped each other, saved each other. How those fights were just jokes, how the days seemed warmer and brighter when you two were together, that loving each other was the only thing that had helped overcome the problems and sorrows of those years.
You weren't sure, even now, how much of that you actually believed, and how much of it was just the version of the story that let you keep your pride intact.
Three weeks later, Neville Longbottom had found you crying in the greenhouses. He hadn't asked questions. He hadn't demanded to know what happened. He had simply handed you a clean handkerchief, made you a cup of chamomile tea, and sat beside you in the quiet warmth of the plants until your trembling finally stopped.
You had chosen Neville because he was a lifeboat in the middle of a hurricane.
But sitting alone in your room eight months later, staring at your hands, you finally admitted the devastating truth to yourself:
You didn't want to live on a lifeboat. You missed the storm — even now, even knowing exactly how much it could cost, even certain, some days, that being together only ever made the both of you worse.
You were, you'd slowly come to realize, even more miserable without him, and no amount of pride or good sense had yet found a way to argue you out of that particular arithmetic.
He came back the first time nine days after the tower.
You woke to a fist pounding against the heavy oak door of the Slytherin girls'. Beside you, Astoria groaned into her pillow. When you opened the door, Matheo was standing in the dim corridor. He was swaying slightly, reeking of firewhisky and rain, his dark curls plastered to his forehead and his eyes glassy, red-rimmed, and utterly desperate in the flickering torchlight.
"I take it back," he said, his voice a ragged rasp before you'd even fully opened the door. "Everything. All of it. I don't want to be done. I was scared and stupid and I don't want to be done, im not bored of you, you are beautiful and magnificent and fun and hot and too much for me, I could never get bored of you or us "
"Matheo, it's two in the morning."
"I know what time it is." He reached for your hand, missed, and tried again, his coordination ruined, but his fingers finally wrapped around yours like a drowning man finding a rope. "Come back. Please. I'm so sorry. I'm so fucking sorry, baby. I'll be better. I swear to you, I will figure out how to not be like this."
People looking from the outside always misunderstood the two of you. They saw the shouting matches in the courtyards, the fierce, breathless intensity of your dynamic, and they called it toxic. They didn't understand that those "fights" were a shared language, a release valve for two people who felt everything too deeply. They didn't know the truth: that for four years, you had respected each other immensely. Matheo had never been bad for you. He treated your boundaries like gospel. But he was terrified—terrified of the blood in his veins, of his father's legacy, and most of all, terrified that his darkness would eventually swallow you whole. He had walked away to save you, and it was killing him.
"You're drunk, Matheo."
"I'm bleeding out," he corrected, swaying again, catching himself heavily on the doorframe. "I'm only ever honest when I'm drunk, you know that about me. Ask me anything right now. I'll tell you the truth. I'll tell you that I made the biggest mistake of my life trying to protect you from me."
"Go to bed, Matheo."
"Not without you. I can't sleep without you. I can't breathe."
"Especially without me." Your voice cracked despite yourself. Watching him fall apart in the cold corridor, you wanted, more than almost anything, to pull him inside, to bury your hands in his hair and hold him together the way you had for four beautiful, chaotic years. It took every ounce of strength you possessed not to. "You need to go back to your dormitory. You need to get sober. We can talk when you're sober, if you still want to."
He didn't come back sober to talk. Not that week.
He came back drunk again eleven days after that, and again three weeks after that, always the same—the pounding fist, the swaying frame, the ragged, half-slurred apologies that never quite finished, as if the sheer weight of his regret crushed the words in his throat before he could speak them.
Sometimes he just stood there, silent, staring at you with an agonizing, naked yearning, like he had forgotten what he came to say and just needed to confirm you still existed.
Once, he simply slid down the doorframe, his long legs stretching out across the cold stone, and put his head in his hands. You gave up and sank down onto the floor next to him. You didn't touch him, but you stayed present, anchoring him with your gravity until he sobered up enough to walk.
"You're going to get us both in trouble," you told him softly, staring at the wall opposite you.
"Wouldn't be the first time." He turned his head, his dark, haunted eyes fixing on your profile. The mask was completely gone, leaving only the terrified boy who loved you more than his own life. "I know I have to get better. I know I broke us because I was a coward. I keep telling myself that staying away is the right thing to do... that I'm keeping you safe. And then the night gets quiet, and my feet just—end up outside your door. Like they don't consult the rest of me first. I miss you so much it feels like my chest is caving in."
"You have to stop, Matheo. This isn't good for either of us right now."
"I know," he whispered, a broken, defeated sound. "I'm sorry. I love you. I'm so sorry."
He said it like he meant it, every single time, and every single time the resolution didn't stick. Not fully. Not until the night three weeks later when he simply didn't come at all. You lay awake until dawn, staring at the canopy of your bed, furious and heartbroken at how the deafening silence in the corridor hurt so much worse than the knocking ever had.
Astoria, half-asleep and entirely unbothered by the tragedy playing out at her door, had started keeping a mental tally.
"Riddle's really quite committed," she mumbled into her pillow after the sixth visit. "Terrible timing, though. Wakes a girl right up."
"Sorry," you whispered into the dark.
"Don't be sorry. Just pick a side eventually, would you? It's exhausting watching from the next bed. Anyone with eyes knows you're just going to forgive him anyway."
You hadn't been able to answer that. Not truthfully. Because deep down, beneath the anger and the exhaustion and the Gryffindor boyfriend you were using as a shield, you knew she was absolutely right.
Present but a couple months back.
It wasn't only the two a.m. visits. Matheo found other ways to make his presence impossible to ignore, and he was never subtle about any of them.
He cornered you outside the Great Hall one lunchtime, in full view of half the school, blocking your path with an ease that made it clear he'd been waiting.
"You're not eating," he said, no greeting, eyes narrowed like he'd been watching your plate from across the hall for days. "You've barely eaten all week. I can tell."
"I'm fine, Matheo."
"You're not. You get this look." His hand came up, not touching, just hovering near your jaw, close enough that you could feel the warmth of it. "Right here. Like you're somewhere else entirely."
"You don't get to do this anymore." You moved away from his touch as if it burned you and you could see the pain cross his eyes.
"Do what? Notice you?" His voice cracked, just slightly, under the bravado. "I don't know how to stop noticing you. I've tried. Believe me, princess, I've tried."
A small crowd had gathered without either of you quite registering it — curious first-years, a pair of Hufflepuffs pretending not to watch, and, at the edge of it, Neville, arms crossed, jaw tight, clearly debating whether to intervene.
You looked between the two of them — Matheo, all raw nerve and reckless honesty, radiating the particular chaos that made your pulse jump even now, even angry with him; and Neville, steady, patient, waiting for you at a respectful distance instead of making a scene, the way he always did, the way that used to feel like safety and now, treacherously, sometimes just felt like distance.
You hated that some part of you was comparing them at all. You hated more that the comparison wasn't close.
"Go away, Matheo," you said, quieter than you meant to.
"Tell me you mean that and I will." He held your gaze, refusing to blink first, the way he always refused. "Actually mean it, this time."
You didn't answer. That was answer enough, and you both knew it, and he walked away with a look on his face that was equal parts triumphant and devastated, leaving you standing in a hallway full of whispers with Neville's patient, hurt eyes waiting at the end of it.
"You didn't tell him to leave," Neville said, once the corridor had cleared.
"I know."
"Do you want him to? Leave, I mean. Genuinely." He wasn't angry. He almost never was, which had started to feel like its own kind of exhausting. "Because I keep waiting for the day you actually mean it when you tell him no, and it hasn't come yet, and I don't think it's coming, and I think we both know that."
You didn't have an answer that wouldn't have broken something further, so you said nothing at all, and the silence was its own confession.
I miss screaming and fighting and kissing in the rain
It's 2 a.m. and I'm cursing your name
I'm so in love that I acted insane
And that's the way I loved you
Breaking down and coming undone
It's a roller coaster kind of rush
And I never knew I could feel that much
And that's the way I loved you
Present.
It started with a fracture that you couldn't ignore anymore.
Neville had found you in the common room earlier that evening, looking at you with that same tired, defeated expression he’d been wearing for weeks. “We need to take a break,” he had said quietly, his voice heavy with the weight of a year’s worth of trying. “I can’t keep doing this, and neither can you. Take some time. Figure out what you actually want. Because it isn't fair to either of us anymore.”
You told yourself you were only walking past the dungeons to clear your head. You told yourself that every single time, and it had never once been true.
Matheo was leaning against the cold stone of the corridor wall like he'd been waiting, which—you suspected, with a sick little thrill—he had.
"You look like you've been crying," he said. There was no smugness in it for once, just something quieter, something that felt entirely like a lifeline.
"I haven't."
"Liar." He pushed off the wall, closing the distance slowly, giving you every chance to walk away. You didn't take it. "What did the golden boy do?"
"He told the truth," you said, your voice trembling. "He asked for a break. He told me to figure out what I really want so nicely; It was worse than if he'd yelled."
Matheo's hand came up, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear with a gentleness that didn't match a single thing anyone said about him. "And what's the truth, pretty girl? What do you want?"
You didn't answer with words. You answered by closing the last six inches yourself, your hand fisting in his collar, dragging his mouth down to yours.
He made a low, wrecked sound against your lips and kissed you back like he'd been starving for it—one hand splayed against the small of your back, the other cradling your jaw like you were something worth being careful with. It wasn't gentle for long. It never was, with him. But underneath the hunger, there was an ache that ran bone-deep.
"He's better for you," Matheo breathed against your mouth, not stopping, not pulling away even as he said it, like the words physically pained him. "Everyone says so. He's good, and safe, and he'd never—"
"He's not better than you," you cut in, breathless, your forehead pressed to his. "He's not—he's never once made me feel the way you do. Not close. I've tried to make myself believe he could, and I can't, because it isn't true, and I am so entirely tired of pretending it is."
Something in Matheo's face broke open—relief and guilt and a fierce, possessive joy all at once.
"Say it again," he whispered.
"You're better than him for me," you whispered back, and you didn't hate yourself for it. For the first time in a year, it felt like breathing.
Later that night, the guilt and the exhaustion finally built into something so large you couldn't see around it anymore. You didn't go to Matheo just because you wanted him—though you did, you always did—but because you needed, desperately, to feel like the ground under you was solid. And despite everything, Matheo Riddle was the only solid thing left. He had always been your safe harbor when the world tilted off its axis.
He opened the door to his dormitory before you'd even finished knocking, like he'd felt you coming.
"You look like hell," he said softly.
"Thank you."
"I meant it as a compliment. You look like hell in the way I look like hell. Familiar."
He stepped back to let you in, and the second the heavy oak door shut behind you, something inside you simply gave out.
You didn't say anything. You didn't have the words for the grief of hurting someone good, or the overwhelming relief of finally coming home. You just crossed the room and pressed your face into his chest.
Matheo didn't just hold you. He crumbled.
Before you could even wrap your arms around his neck, he dropped to his knees on the stone floor right in front of you. He wrapped his strong arms fiercely around your waist, burying his face into your stomach as his shoulders shook.
"I'm sorry," he choked out, his voice wrecked with a year’s worth of yearning and regret. "I'm so fucking sorry. For leaving you. For wasting so much time. For making you think you had to find safety somewhere else when I was always right here."
"Matheo," you sobbed, sinking down to the floor with him, taking his beautiful, tear-stained face in your hands.
"I'll never do it again," he swore, pressing frantic, reverent kisses to your palms, your wrists, the tears on your cheeks. "I promise you. I’m never letting you go again. You’re my whole world. Please let me be yours again."
"You always were," you cried, pulling his lips to yours.
He kissed you like he was afraid you might wake up and vanish. When he finally lifted you and carried you to the bed, it wasn't a claim—it was a confession. He undressed you like every movement was a question he was terrified you'd answer wrong. His mouth traced apologies into your skin that neither of you needed to say out loud anymore. His forehead pressed to yours, his hips moving slow, deep, and unhurried, proving with his whole body that the softness wasn't gone. It was only ever meant for you.
"I've got you," he murmured against your throat, over and over, a holy vow. "I love you so much. I've got you."
You came apart slowly, not shattering but dissolving, wrapped in the only arms that had ever made you feel entirely whole.
You found Neville the next day in the greenhouses. His face was carefully, deliberately blank in a way that told you he already knew.
"I heard," he said, before you could speak, setting down a pot of Dittany. "You don't have to tell me. Ginny saw you two in the corridor. I'd rather have heard it from you, but—you didn't get the time so its fine"
"Neville, please." You stepped forward, your chest aching with genuine sorrow. "I came to tell you. To apologize properly."
His posture softened, just a fraction. He looked at you, and the anger you expected wasn't there—just a profound, quiet resignation.
"I spent a year hoping you'd choose to be here," Neville said softly. "And I think some part of me always knew you weren't going to, and I stayed anyway, because I loved you, and because I kept thinking love was supposed to be enough to fix things. It isn't, is it?"
"Neville, I am so sorry," you said, your voice breaking. "But more than that... I want to thank you. Thank you for caring for me. For holding me together when I was in pieces, and for trying to give me a safe place. You are incredible, and you deserve someone who can love you with their whole heart. Not just the pieces they have left."
Neville looked at you for a long time. Then, he offered a small, terribly sad smile. "I hope it's worth it. For your sake. I hope he knows what he has."
"He does," you whispered.
Neville nodded, picking up his bag. "Take care of yourself."
Present.
The war didn't announce itself. It simply arrived, a wrongness in the air, wards flickering, professors disappearing.
But inside the Slytherin common room, there was a strange, fragile peace. Your friends were unapologetically thrilled to have you back. Pansy practically radiated smugness, Theo stopped walking on eggshells around Matheo, and Lorenzo openly joked about how unbearable Matheo had been for the last twelve months.
More importantly, Matheo was trying. He stopped drinking entirely. He stopped standing on ledges. He spent his time with you, quiet and devoted, holding your hand under the tables in the Great Hall and stealing you away into empty classrooms just to breathe you in.
One night, lying on the floor of the Astronomy Tower, watching the stars through the glass, he turned his head to look at you.
"I bought a place," he said quietly.
You blinked. "What?"
"A cabin. In the middle of nowhere. Completely Muggle. No magic traces, no pureblood politics, no war." He reached out, lacing his fingers through yours. "When this breaks—and it will break soon, pretty girl—we aren't picking a side. I'm not fighting for my father, and I'm not fighting for an Order that will never trust my last name. When the time comes, we run. Just you and me. Until the world stops burning."
You looked at the boy who had once been terrified of his own shadow, now offering you a life entirely free of the dark.
"Okay," you whispered, kissing his knuckles. "Just you and me."
Present.
The castle was burning by the time you found him.
Matheo was bleeding from a deep cut above his left eye, his silver rings stained crimson, his wand gripped tightly in his bruised hand as Tom placed a firm, authoritative grip on his shoulder.
"We have to go, Matheo!" Tom shouted over the roar of an exploding turret. "Father's vanguard is entering through the Viaduct! If we don't cross the tree line now, we'll be caught in the crossfire!"
Matheo didn't move. He stood frozen in the middle of the courtyard, his dark, chaotic eyes scanning the burning doorways with a desperate, frantic terror.
"I'm not leaving without her!" Matheo roared, tearing his shoulder away from his brother.
"She has to be out with the others!" Lorenzo shouted, grabbing his arm. "We have to go now!"
"MATHEO!"
Your scream tore through the battlefield. Matheo spun around instantly, his dark eyes widening in pure shock as he saw you standing at the top of the courtyard steps, your wand gripped in your bloody hand.
"What are you doing?!" a voice yelled from behind you.
You glanced over your shoulder. Neville was standing at the entrance of the courtyard, wand raised to defend the castle. He looked from you to Matheo, his hazel eyes widening in horror.
"Don't go!" Neville yelled over the sound of the battle. "If you cross that courtyard, there's no coming back! You'll be running for the rest of your life!"
You looked at Neville—sweet, safe Neville. And then you looked back at Matheo Riddle.
You didn't hesitate for a single second. You turned your back on the light and sprinted across the burning courtyard toward the dark.
"MATHEO!" you screamed again.
He broke away from Lorenzo and Tom instantly, running toward you with wild, ferocious desperation. You collided in the center of the courtyard with a force that nearly knocked you both to the ground. His arms clamped around your waist, lifting you off your feet as he buried his bloody face in your neck, trembling violently.
"You came," Matheo choked out, tears mixing with the blood on his face. "You fucking came."
"I told you," you breathed, holding onto him like a lifeline. "I'm never flying away from you. We have a cabin to get to."
"Matheo!" Tom yelled, pointing toward the advancing Death Eaters. "We do not have time for this—"
Matheo didn't look back at his brother. He looked at you, at the war, and he chose neither.
"Not that way," Matheo said, breathless, grabbing your hand and pulling you toward the broken archway on the far side of the courtyard, away from Tom, away from Neville. "The plan. We go now."
You laughed—a raw, disbelieving, sobbing sound—and let him pull you into the dark. Behind you, the castle burned, and for the first time in your life, you didn't look back to see who was winning.
You never went back.
It wasn't safe, what you'd chosen. Some part of him would always be his father's son, and some part of you would always be the girl who ran toward the fire. He still said your name like a threat and a prayer in the same breath, still pulled you close in his sleep like he was checking you hadn't vanished.
But in that quiet Muggle cabin in the woods; he stopped destroying himself. He looked at you, most mornings, like he still couldn't quite believe you'd chosen the storm over the lifeboat.
You heard, eventually, through Pansy's careful letters, that Neville was doing well—teaching, settled, loved by someone steady and kind who never once had to compete with a ghost. You were genuinely, deeply glad.
There was a night, months into hiding, when he pulled you against his chest on the porch of your cabin under a sky with too many stars.
"I'll get it back for you someday," he murmured against your temple. "Something better than hiding in the woods. I'll give you the whole world, once this is over."
"I don't need the world, Matheo," you said, turning your head to kiss his jaw. "I just need you."
"I know," he smiled, pressing his lips to yours. "I'm going to give it to you anyway."
You had never thought of loving him as drowning. You had gone under on purpose, eyes wide open, and let it happen. And against every reasonable expectation, you found that you could breathe perfectly down there, as long as you were together. Messy, burning, undone, and rebuilt a hundred times over—that was the way you loved him.
summary: Letting go of Mattheo's hand to see his reaction.
Warning: Fluff, teasing, possessive behavior.
The torchlight of the Hogwarts corridors flickered against the stone walls as you and Mattheo made your way back from the library. Mattheo was absentmindedly talking about some new hex he'd learned from some old book, while you pretended to listen.
One of his hands held your stack of books and the other was wrapped around yours like it always was.
It wasn't even a conscious thing anymore. If you were within arm's reach, Mattheo was holding your hand. Your fingers were intertwined while he rambled on about defensive spells and counter-curses.
"…and then Theo goes, 'Trust me, this'll confound any Gryffindor,' like he's suddenly an expert himself..."
You smiled to yourself.
Then, remembering the thing you'd seen some Hufflepuff students doing in the Great Hall that morning, you slowly slipped your hand out of his.
You only made it about two steps when Mattheo stopped talking mid-sentence.
"Wait." He looked down at his empty hand. Then at you. Then back at his hand. His eyebrows pulled together in genuine confusion. "Where are you going?"
"I'm… walking?"
"No." He shook his head, his dark hair falling slightly into his eyes. "You forgot something."
"What?"
"My hand."
You bit your lip to keep from laughing. "I don't think I did."
Mattheo stared at you like you'd just told him the Forbidden Forest was safe after dark. "You let go."
"I know."
"…Why?"
"I wanted both hands."
"You have two."
"I know."
"So hold my hand with the other one."
You giggled. "Mattheo."
"No." He stepped in front of you, blocking the path. "You're acting single."
You burst out laughing. "I am not."
"You are." He reached for your hand again.
You pulled it away before he could grab it.
Mattheo blinked. "Excuse me?"
He tried again. "So we're playing games." He levitated your books to float beside him without another word. Before you could react, both of his hands gently caught yours.
"Ah." He nodded dramatically. "There she is." He intertwined your fingers and gave your hand a satisfied squeeze.
"Much better."
You were laughing so hard you nearly dropped your wand. "You're ridiculous."
"I know." He started walking again like nothing had happened, still holding your hand.
He looked over. "You weren't trying to see what I'd do if you let go, were you?"
"No…"
"You were."
"No."
"You absolutely were." He sighed dramatically, glancing at a passing portrait who looked thoroughly unimpressed.
"Listen," He lifted your joined hands. "She keeps forgetting she's my girlfriend."
You snorted. "I let go for six seconds."
"Longest six seconds of my life." He lifted your knuckles to his lips and kissed them. "There." He laced your fingers together even tighter. "Now nobody gets confused."
You rolled your eyes affectionately. "They weren't confused."
"I was."
"You knew we were dating."
"I knew." He shrugged. "But my hand got lonely."
You completely lost it, burying your face against his shoulder while he laughed too, kissing the top of your head before continuing down the corridor with your hand still firmly tucked in his.
The first time he asked you out, he was a nervous, melting wreck. His friends, watching from a distances, guffawed at the sight of the huge man hunched over to match your height a bit better.
When you started dating, trying to hold your hand was a whole tactical operation for him. He’d had a thirty-step strategy, and you smashed it in one second when you slipped your fingers between his. Simon instantly squeezed your hand to get more of your warmth.
Your first kiss, just outside the destination for your second date, excited him a bit too much. He stammered and folded all over himself trying to hide why he couldn’t go outside for a few minutes. When you figured it out, you turned your head with a smile to preserve his frayed dignity.
He came much too quick for the first few times you had sex. It took you edging and training him to extend his stamina. But how could he control himself when he had such a lovely woman wrapped around him? To be fair, he was a trooper; and he’d go several rounds to satisfy you even if it made him cry and whimper so prettily in overstimulation.
He’d turn red every time he asked you for affection. If you complimented him, he’d almost hide his face. You figured it out and initiated even harder. For one thing, you knew he’d have a hard time asking for love himself… and it was fun to fluster him. Oh my god!— don’t even get started on the day you took control. He almost busted the instant you pushed him against a wall and caged him between your arms, one hand pinning his huge ones to the wall. When you both went out, it was you talking for him sometimes because he just couldn’t find the words.
Even after you dated and were long married, Simon crushed on you— and he crushed hard!! He’d stare like a blissful fool at the littlest things you did. He could listen to you for hours. For him, the honeymoon period never ended. He never stopped swing at the fact that he’d ended up with someone as wonderful as you.
Oh, and he still sometimes needed a few minutes to calm down after you kissed him ;)
Summary: Mattheo Riddle can’t be friends with you anymore, he wants you so bad it’s all he can focus on at one of the famous Slytherin parties.
Content: Romance, yearning, friends to lovers
Warnings: Swearing, underage drinking (i think it’s underage in scotland if it isn’t with an adult?), making out, some suggestive innuendos
Note: Some parts of this were inspired by ‘Friends’ by Chase Atlantic. Also, writing this without him coming off as crazy horny or a possessive asshole got tricky so please bear with me
w/c: 2,078
.・゜゜・❁・゜゜・．
His eyes are dark as he watches you.
You’re across the Slytherin Common Room, your features bathed in green light. And besides you is Astoria Greengrass, her lips split into a grin as she tips more firewhisky into your mouth.
Holy fuck you look beautiful
Mattheo’s own drink has grown neglected after the past few songs playing through a muggle c.d player, magically amplified to fill this whole part of the dungeons. Theo and Blaise have pretended not to notice the expression he’s wearing, recognizing the polite indifference as something else.
Though what he really felt, he didn’t even know.
Anger? Jealously? Hunger? Perhaps all three of them and more. Because he wants to be the one with his hand on your waist, pulling you against his chest while you laughed and danced. It shouldn’t be that lousy Ravenclaw bloke you were chatting with earlier.
Were you thick? Could you not recognize the desire he had for you despite his obvious habits? Even Enzo, who rarely criticized Mattheo—opting to cheer on his foolish decisions—pointed out how stupid he looked in this one sided pining. Which he couldn’t even blame Enzo for. You’re his friend—one of the few people outside of his circle that he likes.
You’re funny, smart, and you bicker back without letting him cross a line—fuck it’s so sexy when you tell him off if he accidentally goes too far. And he spends all of his time flirting with you.
Touching you, whispering things that border on indecent. Naturally, you only respond with laughs to those—but the touches you return, dragging your hand down his chest teasingly, cupping his jaw or scratching his scalp with your manicured nails.
And he couldn’t stop. How the fuck was he supposed to stop when he could be staring at you? When you look so perfect dancing with Astoria and one of your other mates. Your collarbones are sparkling underneath the floating lights—had you dusted glitter on your skin? His jaw feathers as he imagines smudging that glitter over your mouth and throat.
“Mate,” Theo stands, nudging Mattheo’s foot with his own from where he sat manspreading on a divan. “Come get a drink you’ll actually finish. You’re not doing yourself any favors acting all pathetic.”
Mattheo glowers at his best friend, the comment irritating him more than it would if he weren’t already half drunk. But he stands nonetheless and follows Theo through the moving bodies around them. Half of them weren’t even Slytherins, just other students who had been snuck in for the party.
He drags a hand through his curly hair, loud music and the sound of people having fun filling his ears. He and Theo find the table haphazardly laden with drinks and Theo busies himself while Mattheo continues brooding. He’s unable to stop himself from finding you in the crowd.
You’ve moved.
And now bloody Cormac McGlaggen’s hands are on you, groping your waist, his head bent towards your ear. You’ve never even talked about McGlaggen, never shown a shred of interest or care.
But at the moment your head is thrown back in laughter, neck exposed.
He feels like he’s moments from stomping over there and declaring his love for you when Theo shoves a cup into his hand.
“Drink,” he says, his voice lazy and slow as ever. Mattheo gives him an unimpressed look, certain he’s going to be smashed afterwards, but tips his head back, swallowing the searing concoction.
Theo obviously made no effort with taste, just trying to distract Mattheo with a high ass alcohol concentration. And he complies, downing it all before tossing the empty cup at an overflowing bin.
He begrudgingly returns to the divan with Theo, leaning back and crossing his arms over his chest. Loud bass is all he can focus on for a while, his eyes heavy as he glares at the crowd of people. Things blur, his few fleeting thoughts are about you, specifically pressed against him.
He’s drawn from his stupor when a person suddenly drops down on his right. Astoria, her eyes so dazed she looks like she’s on fucking drugs rather than being drunk. Blaise immediately slides a protective arm around her shoulders despite them not being close, wordlessly keeping her safe from any fuckass perverts.
And slowly, his gaze slides from Astoria to you standing in front of her. Your posture is slightly relaxed as well, too calm for a party, and he knows the firewhisky has got to you at least a bit.
His throat physically tightens—he can’t even talk to you.
Theo fills the silence between you five though, his ankles crossed and arms stretched across the divan. “What the bloody hell happened to her?”
You sigh, looking at your passed out friend. “Drank too much too fast, had to hold her hair back over the bin.” You shake your hair off your slightly sweaty forehead, fixing your top as you look at a mirror above Mattheo’s head.
His breath slows slightly, his thoughts fighting to remain respectable.
“Could you just watch her for a bit? I don’t want to leave her for too long but I might pass out myself if I don’t get cold air soon,” you say, fanning your shiny face. A bead of sweat rolls down your neck from behind your ear and Mattheo swallows thickly, looking away, feeling like a creeper.
“‘Course, love,” Blaise assures in his deep voice. “Need one of us to walk you? Don’t want you falling over.”
Mattheo tenses. He’s not even looking at you
“No, I’ll be okay.” There’s a smile in your voice—he can hear it, imagine it on your pretty face. “Be back soon.”
You walk away.
And bloody hell does he try—he really does. But after ten minutes of sitting there, resisting the urge to follow you and do Merlin knows what, he shoves up from the couch.
He has no ears for Theo’s questions, shoving through couples and out of the expansive common room.
Immediately the dungeons air feels ten times better, cooling his heated body. He hadn’t even noticed how shitty he felt, the alcohol and his desire for you causing it.
He doesn’t even have a clue which way you went, and maybe it’s for the better. He’d look like a bloody fool, following you, his breathing heavy, about to blurt out every feeling he has for you.
Through the stone hallways he passes a few whispering couples, some snogging, others giggling. And suddenly—he sees you.
You’re leaned against a wall, eyes closed, obviously just trying to cool off. And like a prat, he’s intruding on your silence.
“Matt?” Your voice is so beautiful he feels a shock go through his drunk self, and he blinks slowly, seeing your now open eyes. “What are you doing?”
But he can barely even focus past the nickname youve adopted for him. You’ve called him Matt a million times, but it felt just as intimate as the first. And it takes every ounce of will power for him to not rush over there and press you against a wall.
“Sorry, pretty,” he all but rasps, “just checking on you.”
“Oh,” you whisper, and he’d be damned if that wasn’t a flicker of disappointment in your eyes. But you smile that pretty smile. “I’m okay, Matt, don’t worry about me.”
fuck fuck fuck
Without even processing what he’s doing, he’s stalked over, standing in front of you now. And his dumbass isn’t filtering shit at this point.
“What’s going on with McGlaggen?”
You quirk an eyebrow, still conversational and perfectly witty when you’re drunk. “Dancing with him is all.”
“He’s a twat.” He has no idea why he says it, but makes no effort to take it back, continuing to look at you with sleepy eyes.
You smile again. “He is.” You tilt your head now. “But we were only dancing.”
He huffs like a pissy child, taking a hand through his hair as he glances away. How the hell does he tell you he’s jealous? Because if he does you’ll understand everything—every touch he’s given you.
“I don’t like seeing my mates hang around arseholes.” It’s a shitty response, but he can barely think at the moment. Through the alcohol and buzz of feelings, all he can think of is you.
You nod, smile shrinking ever so slightly. “Right, of course.” You push off the wall. “You’re just looking out for a friend.”
“Yeah.” He nods as well, dazed, cursing Theo for giving him that drink.
You step further away from the wall, that same flicker flashing through your eyes. “I’m going to head back then. You might want to cool off for a bit—you look piss drunk.”
And then you turn, footsteps carrying you a short distance before he reaches out, catching your wrist in his hand. “Pretty—wait.”
What the hell are you doing? He thinks, but it’s already too late, you’ve turned around.
Fuck it.
He tugs you closer, breath held as he manages to properly focus for one second, searching your eyes. When you don’t pull away, when you don’t ask him what he’s doing—when you press closer—he crashes his mouth against yours.
You let out a sound, something between a gasp and a sigh, but his mouth swallows it. Hands shifting, he lets go of your wrist, wrapping an arms around you hips, the other cupping the back of your head as he backs you against the stone wall.
Your own hand slides up his arm, burying in his curls, and he groans into your mouth. His body slots against yours, tilting his head and deepening the kiss. He can taste the firewhiskey on your tongue, and it makes his head spin. His hips press against yours, lips moving to drag down your throat, tongue tasting your sweat from dancing.
“Matt—” You breathe out his name, hand tightening in his hair, eyes fluttered shut. His teeth scrape a patch of skin beneath your ear, soothing it with a kiss.
Footsteps sound from down the hallway and for one terrifying moment, you fear this will end.
But Mattheo grips your hip, pulling apart only to push open a heavy wooden door. Through the faint light creeping through the crack under the door you realize it’s a storage closet but that doesn’t stop him.
He’s kissing you again, hand cupping your neck, brushing the skin with his thumb. “Fuck, Pretty,” he rasps against your lips. “Tell me we aren’t just friends.”
Something tightens in your stomach and your eyes open to meet his in the dimness. He’s waiting, you realize.
You let out a breath, fingers trailing from his hair down his spine, feeling the heat of his skin through his long sleeve shirt. “We don’t have to be anymore,” you whisper, unable to come up with something intelligent and sexy to say.
He groans, kissing the curve of your jaw, arm tightening around your waist. “I’ve wanted you for so long, Pretty. Drives me mad when you flirt or fancy anyone else.” His admission is softer than his actions, lips bruising a spot on your neck, leaving a mark.
Your lip catches between your teeth, fingers gripping his shoulders. “You should’ve told me sooner, Matt. We could’ve been doing this much earlier.”
“I’m realizing that now,” he says darkly, pulling back to watch your flushed face in the darkness. “I’ll just have to make up for lost time. Find a way to sneak you into my dorm tonight.”
You can see his swollen lips, his dilated eyes. “What about the others? Theodore? Lorenzo?”
“They can shove it,” he says, simply, his voice ragged. “Theo will probably congratulate me for growing the balls to kiss you.”
You let out a soft laugh, and he wants to drink in the sound. So he settles for the closest thing by kissing you again, mouth dragging against yours, his brain dazing as he’s surrounded by your scent. He presses a kiss to the corner of your mouth.
And Theo does congratulate him.
When you two return to the party, lips swollen, a pair of hickeys on your neck, he smirks. And it only widens when you two ignore everyone else and sneak up the stairs to his and Mattheo’s dormitory.
Mattheo spent the rest of the night kissing you, holding you close, and assuring both you that friendship was not in the question any longer.
.・゜゜・❁・゜゜・．
a/n: THANK YOU FOR READING! That last line is the cringiest shit I’ve ever written please ignore it I had no idea how to end this.
Your mom had always been strict about one rule: your brother had to take you with him whenever he left the house. That’s how you ended up at the mall with him and his friends, including Mattheo Riddle.
“Dude, just let me go get a coffee. I’m not going to get kidnapped,” you huffed, walking beside your brother.
“No. Mom said keep you close,” he replied flatly.
You rolled your eyes. “I’m not a fucking child.”
Mattheo, who had been quietly listening, slung his arm around your brother’s shoulders with a lazy grin. “Let the girl get her coffee. If it makes you feel better, I’ll go with her.”
Your brother narrowed his eyes but eventually sighed. “Fine. But if anything happens to her…”
Mattheo patted him on the back. “We’ll be quick.”
He motioned for you to follow him. As soon as you were out of earshot, you muttered, “You didn’t have to do that. I can fight my own battles.”
Mattheo scoffed, smirking down at you. “But then we wouldn’t get any one on one time.” He nudged your shoulder and glanced meaningfully at the family restroom sign.
You rolled your eyes, but the heat already pooling in your stomach made you follow him. The second you slipped inside, you locked the door behind you, heart racing.
“We have to be fast,” you whispered. “He’ll notice if we take too long.”
Mattheo clicked his tongue, already crowding you against the wall. “Then we better not waste time.”
He kissed you hard, hungry, rough, and desperate. His hand immediately slid down, popping the button of your shorts and shoving them down along with your panties in one swift motion. They pooled at your ankles. He pushed his own jeans and boxers down just enough for his hard cock to spring free, already leaking at the tip.
You glanced down at it, biting your lip. Mattheo smirked, sliding two fingers between your legs.
“Fuck, you’re already soaked,” he groaned quietly. “Been thinking about this since we got here, huh?”
He teased your entrance with his cock, rubbing the head up and down your slit, coating himself in your wetness. You whimpered, rolling your hips desperately.
“Mattheo… please...”
He clamped a hand over your mouth just as he slammed into you in one deep thrust. Your eyes rolled back, a muffled moan vibrating against his palm. He didn’t give you time to adjust. He started fucking you hard and fast, hips snapping against yours as he buried himself to the hilt with every stroke.
“Shhh, baby,” he whispered against your ear, voice rough. “Gotta be quiet for me. Can’t let your brother hear how well I fuck his little sister.”
You clenched hard around him at his words. He groaned low, picking up speed. The sound of skin slapping quietly filled the small bathroom as he railed you against the wall. He shifted slightly, angling his hips so he hit that perfect spot inside you with every thrust.
Your legs started shaking. You gripped his shoulders tightly, nails digging into his shirt as pleasure built fast and intense.
Mattheo moved his hand from your mouth to your throat, squeezing just enough to make your head spin. “That’s it. Cum on my cock like a good girl.”
You came hard, biting down on your lip to stay quiet as your walls pulsed around him. Mattheo cursed under his breath, thrusting a few more times before burying himself deep and spilling inside you with a low groan.
He stayed buried in you for a moment, both of you breathing heavily. Then he kissed you again, slower this time, almost sweet.
He pulled out carefully and helped you clean up with some paper towels before tugging your shorts and panties back up. You fixed your clothes quickly while he adjusted himself and zipped up.
Mattheo grabbed your hand, pulling you close for one last kiss. “You’re so fucking perfect,” he murmured against your lips.
You both slipped out of the bathroom. Mattheo stopped at the coffee shop and ordered your usual drink so it wouldn’t look suspicious. By the time you rejoined the group, you were sipping innocently on your iced coffee.
Your brother raised an eyebrow. “What took you guys so long?”
Mattheo shrugged casually. “There was a long line. Then we couldn’t find you guys.”
You nodded along, trying to look normal even though you could still feel Mattheo’s cum slowly leaking into your panties. Mattheo caught your eye and gave you the smallest, cockiest smirk when your brother wasn’t looking.
“Whatever,” your brother muttered. “Just stay close next time.”
Mattheo slung an arm around your shoulders this time, pulling you a little closer than necessary. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep her very close.”
𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘 - Delphini accidentally reveals an old spell Y/N put on Tom at Hogwarts. An invisible floating sign above his head that says “Married to Y/N Riddle. Hands Off.”
𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄 - Idk thought about this the other day.
The first person to notice it was Delphini.
Which was unfortunate for everyone involved.
She’d been walking through the sitting room of the manor mid-conversation before stopping dead in her tracks, staring directly at her father Tom with narrowed eyes. “…Mum?”
Y/N glanced up from her book lazily. “Hmm?”
Delphini pointed slowly at Tom. “What is that?”
Tom looked up from his coffee. “What is what?”
“There’s a sign floating above your head.”
Silence.
Y/N froze.
Tom noticed immediately.“…Love,” he said slowly, already suspicious. “Why are you reacting like that?”
Y/N looked deeply offended. “I’m not reacting.”
“You absolutely are.”
Delphini was still staring. “…It says ‘Married to Y/N Riddle. Hands Off.’”
Mattheo burst out laughing so violently he nearly fell sideways off the sofa. “No way,” he wheezed. “No actual way.”
Tom blinked once, then very, very slowly, a smirk spread across his face.“…What is this, love?”
Y/N covered her face briefly. “…That’s still there?”
The invisible charm around Tom flickered and became visible to everyone. A glowing, neatly scripted line hovering above his head: Married to Y/N Riddle. Hands Off.
The room went silent again.
Y/N exhaled. “There. Happy now?”
Albus sat up straighter. “Wait, what?”
Delphini frowned. “You knew about this?”
“I made it,” Y/N admitted reluctantly.
Albus stared. “Did you do this with my dad?”
Y/N slowly turned her head and gave him a very pointed look. “Albus.”
Tom’s smirk widened instantly. “She did not,” he said smoothly, far too amused.
Chaos.
Mattheo sat upright instantly. “Merlin, Mum. I knew you were possessive but this is a bit much.”
“It was strategic.”
“It says hands off.”
“They should’ve listened.”
Tom looked unbearably pleased now.
Mattheo pointed between them. “So we’re just confirming Mum was unhinged at Hogwarts?”
“I was pregnant,” Y/N said immediately. “And hormonal.”
Tom nodded once, entirely unhelpful. “And territorial.”
“That too,” she admitted.
Marvolo was circling his father slowly, studying the invisible sign with fascination. “Impressive spell work actually. What charm is this?”
Y/N sighed. “Selective visibility enchantment.”
Albus blinked. “How come we couldn’t see it before?”
“Because,” Y/N muttered, “I only charmed it so women attracted to your father could see it.”
A beat of silence. Then every single child turned slowly toward Delphini. “Don’t look at me,” Delphini said quickly, lifting her hands in defensively. “Victorie told me about it.”
“You noticed the sign,” Silas added smugly from the armchair.
Lilith nodded thoughtfully. “That’s a self-report.”
Delphini looked horrified. “I was curious!!.”
Tom looked entirely delighted by this development.
Aurelia, meanwhile, had wandered over and was nodding approvingly while staring up at the invisible sign above her father. “Hands off Daddy,” she agreed seriously.
Tom reached down and patted her head absently. “Correct.”
Y/N groaned softly. “Oh, don’t encourage her.”
“You started it,” Mattheo reminded her immediately.
“I was seventeen!”
“That makes it worse.”
Tom leaned back against the sofa looking deeply entertained. “I didn’t know you were this possessive, love.”
Y/N rolled her eyes. “You say that like it stopped.”
Tom looked delighted. “It didn’t?”
“Why do you think the spell’s still active?”
That shut the room up for half a second.
Then Mattheo pointed dramatically at his father. “Oh my god. She’s still marking territory.”
“I am sitting right here,” Y/N informed him.
“And Dad looks thrilled about it.”
Tom looked unbearably smug now. “I am.”
Marvolo was still studying the spell overhead with genuine admiration. “The magic sustaining this after all these years is impressive.”
Y/N shrugged slightly. “It renews automatically.”
Albus stared at her. “…You built a self-renewing possessive warning sign?”
“She was dedicated,” Tom said proudly.
“She was insane,” Delphini corrected.
Tom looked thoughtful. “…Those are not mutually exclusive.”
Y/N narrowed her eyes at him. “You literally put tracking charms on my jewellery.”
“For safety.”
“You enchanted my ring so it physically cannot leave my finger.”
“That was romantic.”
Mattheo pointed between them both. “You two genuinely deserve each other.”
๑ summary: title ➜ fluff , smau , anon req. hp masterlist
𝜗ৎ featuring @ Lorenzo Berkshire, Sirius Black, George Weasley, Ron Weasley, Fred weasley, Remus Lupin, James Potter, Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy, Tom Riddle, Mattheo Riddle, Theodore Nott, Cedric Diggory, Oliver Wood, Severus snape, Hermione Granger, Pansy Parkinson, Barty Crouch Jr, Regulus Black, and Newt Scamander (in order)
anon: "I never noticed you take requests!! what about hp smau with reader going Mia for some hours? Thank you!!!" — I didn't know how to change the time when I send the msgs so I just changed it a bit I'm sorry💔
It was common knowledge to everyone that Lorenzo Berkshire, or any of the Slytherin boys really, didn’t commit to one girl for long. They were womanizers and refused to try to commit to an actual relationship. You two didn’t get along at all; yet you still ended up in his bed. Only one condition, no feelings, no-strings-attached, and never call it a relationship. Everything was going smoothly… until it wasn’t.
Pairing(s): Lorenzo Berkshire x Fem! Hufflepuff! Reader
Warning(s): mentions of sexual material (no smut), enemies w benefits, a few cuss words, brief mentions of cheating, brief mentions of pregnancy (close to end/time skip), brief mentions of parental abuse, alcohol and drugs (weed), suggestive themes. (Let me know if I missed any) maybe a slight AU since there was no war or voldy talk.
Word count: 11.4k
Note: this is my first time writing for Lorenzo and I don’t know how I really see him yet so I was playing around with it. I know he’s a fan character but I got to say that I love the idea of him and it’s just… fun. But I hope you enjoy even though it’s longer than normal.
*Not edited! So read at your own risk*
You weren’t really sure how you got yourself in this position, but surprisingly you weren’t complaining. Because the way his hands roamed your body; touching, rubbing, and squeezing in every right place made your head spin. You didn’t hesitate to bring your hands to his hair, pulling and tugging as his lips moved back up your neck to meet yours again.
Lorenzo pulled away slightly a smug smirk playing on his face. Your lust-filled eyes narrowed at his expression causing him to let out a teasing laugh. “maybe we should stop,” he let out a sigh like he was thinking. “I wouldn’t want you to fall for me, little puff.”
You scoffed, hating the nickname and the words he said. “Never going to happen, Berkshire.” You assured as you felt the familiar anger slowly try to creep in to ruin your high.
Lorenzo quirked an eyebrow running his hand down your body but stopping at your thigh. “You know…” he whispered; his voice low and steady as his hand slipped under your dress. “Once you have a taste it’ll be hard to stop.”
Your breath hitched as his fingers slipped beneath your underwear, “for me or you?” You shot back before grabbing the back of his neck and pressing his lips to yours.
Okay, maybe that was a lie. You knew very well how all of this started. It had started when you were invited to Slytherin’s common room party. You had been invited by Daphne Greengrass who was the only Slytherin who hadn’t turned on you after you were sorted into Hufflepuff.
You had come from a long line of Slytherin’s and that was whole heartily where you expected to be sorted, except when the hat was placed on your head it placed you in Hufflepuff. You were shocked, as well as some students and the staff.
You didn’t hate your house though. If anything you loved all your friends and the ones who you got to meet, but you had grown up with many Slytherin’s whom had treated you like shit once you were sorted into Hufflepuff.
But that was over now. What’s done is done and what had led to your exact moment was being asked by the Ravenclaw prefect, Anthony Goldstein, to attend the party with him. You two had your fair share of conversations as well as stolen moments. You weren’t officially dating but you were seeing each other, exclusively. Or so you thought.
About two hours into the party you had been left alone while your unofficial boyfriend danced with some Gryffindor. You nursed your drink, keeping your eyes on him thinking he might come back if he noticed you looking. That wasn’t the case… you were honestly feeling like he was avoiding looking your way on purpose.
“Little puff,” you rolled your eyes the minute his voice entered your ears. “you look like you’re about to hex your boyfriend.” Lorenzo Berkshire teased with a smirk on his face.
Your attention shifted for a moment between the Slytherin and Ravenclaw, “not my boyfriend.” You denied.
“Oh?” You nodded to his remark before you lifted your cup and chugging the rest of it and going to fill it up. Lorenzo followed you, his smirk never faltering. “that’s not what I’ve heard.”
You rolled your eyes after chugging a bit more and turn around to face him, “he’s just a way for me to blow off steam.” You felt your stomach sour at that statement because you knew that you wanted to be official with Goldstein.
Lorenzo’s eyebrows shot up, “looks like your not as innocent as people think.” His smirked widened as you caught his eyes raking up and down your body.
“We were raised around each other, Lorenzo.” You muttered with a certain tone in your voice. A tone that felt like a challenge to the Slytherin boy. “You don’t know me anymore, but not much has changed.” You spat angry at everyone in this moment.
His eyes raked over you before he took a gentle step closer, “if you decide to upgrade… let me show you how it’s actually meant to feel.” Enzo stepped back his smirk still on his face before shooting you a wink and turning.
You assumed he had been going back to his groupies or maybe someone he had been with.
That was exactly how you were in that position. Because you had caught Goldstein leave with the Gryffindor girl at some point, which made you set your sights on Lorenzo Berkshire. Not that you would willingly sight him out if it wasn’t for trying to get back at Anthony.
The way you saw it, Lorenzo had offered and you definitely weren’t going to be getting laid by the Ravenclaw.
Later that night, you stood up from Enzo’s bed. Your legs/body aching and lips swollen. He hadn’t been wrong; he was by far the best you had ever had. You wouldn’t admit that to him though.
“This is never going to happen again.” You spoke out loud mainly talking to yourself as you slipped your bra and underwear back on.
Enzo scoffed, “don’t act like you didn’t enjoy.”
You didn’t respond because you knew that he was right. It was the best you had ever had and it was one of the few times you hadn’t had to fake anything. “This is just another notch in your belt.” You finally retaliated spinning around as you zipped your dress back up.
Enzo’s smugness sat on his face as he threw himself back down on his bed. His slender, yet muscular, frame flexing a bit since his hands were behind his head. “You’re just afraid you’ll fall in love with me.” He states again.
Your eyebrows shot up, “oh please.” You snorted out a laugh before you covered your mouth. “That’s never gonna happen, Berkshire.” You assured for the second time. “You don’t have to worry about me. I’ll never be in your bed again.”
Oh, how wrong you were.
❤️🩹
The second time it happened was after an argument you had with Goldstein. Lorenzo just so happened to catch the end of the argument.
You had huffed with your arms crossed, “I’m not someone you can use while you’re screwing everyone else.” You had snapped before turning around and running straight into Lorenzo.
His irritating (but handsome) face held his same look he always had. You rolled your eyes before trying to go around him, “get the hell out of my way.”
His raised his hands in faux surrender. You glared at him before turning around to see Anthony still watching you from the empty hallway. Enzo’s eyes followed where you were looking and his smirk reappeared and grew as he ‘sized’ the Ravenclaw Prefect.
You huffed before facing Lorenzo and mentally preparing yourself before pulling his head down towards you. Your lips met his half way. It took Enzo two seconds before he began trying to feel you up in the middle of the quiet hall.
Once you were sure Anthony was gone; you shoved him away. His eyebrows rose in surprise before he started going back to his usual self. “Using me for revenge, little puff.” Enzo shook his head behind the teasing tone. “Not acting like a badger.”
You rolled your eyes and crossed your arms, “why are you always around me lately?” You hissed out.
Lorenzo tilted his head an innocent look on his face, “I don’t know what you mean. I was simply going to class.”
“More like eavesdropping.” You huffed.
Lorenzo’s facial expression changed for a moment before going back to his cocky attitude. “I could always replace Goldstein.” He offered. You couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. Not like it mattered because you were not going to take him up on it. “When you want revenge or to blow off steam.” He spoke carefully, almost like he was trying not to freak you out. His hand began to lightly trace down your arms, which caused flashbacks from the party to come back.
Your eyes followed his hand as it made its way down your thigh before slowly coming back up, “what’s in it for you?” You whispered knowing he got something out of it.
He shrugged, “the girls here are getting boring.” His expression dropping to a faux frown trying to play the part.
You quirked an eyebrow as you ignored his hand snaking around your waist. “and I thought Lorenzo Berkshire doesn’t commit to one girl?”
He shrugged, “sexually… it can be exclusive. Other than that; free for all.”
You thought for a moment at his request. You knew that you two had disliked each other for a bit, which didn’t start until second year. “So what? You’re saying we can still flirt, go on dates, and everything else… with other people?”
Lorenzo nodded as he plastered his innocent puppy face on. His normal way of getting what he wants. “Just no shagging other people,” he finished, his grip on your waist tightened. He leaned in closer, “and no feelings involved.” He whispered.
Your eyes flickered up to his, you could see the mask he put on. There was no way he would ever let you in close enough to see the real Enzo, and before you could stop yourself you agreed. A slight nod of the head, “okay.”
Lorenzo’s smirk grew on his face, replacing the innocence on his face that you knew was fake. He was smug on the inside because he had gotten you right where he wanted you. He dipped his head; capturing her lips between his.
You didn’t really know what was happening until you felt your back hit the cold, hard stone of the hallway. You pulled away not wanting to do anything in public, especially with classes letting out in a moment.
Enzo huffed like he could sense what you were thinking before dragging you through the castle and to an empty room. He mumbled the spell to lock the door before hungrily attaching his lips back to yours. He wasted no time hoisting you up onto a desk before his hands started roaming your body.
You couldn’t believe you were giving into him.
❤️🩹
After your agreement, it had started. You found him when you needed him, and he found you when he wanted you. You hadn’t told anyone and you suspected he would keep it a secret too, until you noticed the smirks you’d receive from his groupies in the hall. It slightly annoyed you but it wasn’t worth fighting over. It’s not like you two were dating.
“What’s going on with Lorenzo?” Hannah Abbott, your best friend and roommate, asked as she turned her attention back to you and Susan Bones. You shrugged not daring to glance in his direction. “I’ve heard that he’s slowed down on screwing girls.” You choked on your pumpkin juice at what she said. You started coughing trying to clear your throat from it feeling like you were choked.
“Are you okay?” Susan asked carefully.
You nodded, “yeah just strangled.” You assured. Your eyes immediately looked up and locked with Lorenzo; whose eyes were already on you. He quirked his eyebrow causing you to roll your eyes and turn your attention back to Hannah. “Why do you think that?”
“He hasn’t been caught lately and I’ve heard girls complaining.” She shrugged like she could care less. Which you knew that the Slytherin boys weren’t her style. Someone like Neville Longbottom would be her type.
You huffed a tinge of pink on your cheeks, “maybe he’s focusing on his class work” you shrugged as nonchalant as possible.
The girls snorted and giggled shaking their heads disagreeing with you. You ignored them and finished your food before standing up and bidding goodbye.
“Oi, y/n.” The familiar voice of Fred Weasley stopped you as you started leaving the great hall. You gave him a small smile, “would you mind testing something for us?” He asked carefully.
You gave him a skeptical look, “it’s not going to harm me or make me ill?”
He shook his head, “no. Only safe products for our favorite tester.” He winked playfully.
You held out your hands as he placed some products in your hands. You noticed a few of them were first aid items. You thanked him before turning back, placing them in your pocket and heading towards the the hufflepuff common room.
You were hoping for a quiet walk back to the common room, until you were joined by someone. “What did weasel want?” Lorenzo huffed; catching up to you.
You glanced at him, noticing he wasn’t wearing his signature smugness or smirk. Before you could let yourself think too much into it; you shook your head.
“Nothing.” You dismissed brushing a pice of hair out of your face.
“Mhm,” he slightly grunted in an unconvinced expression.
You sighed turning to face him, “look… do you think we should tell each other if we’re going on dates?” You asked honestly wanting his opinion on it.
Lorenzo clenched his jaw and his eyes narrowed, “don’t tell me you’re going out with the blood traitors.” He scoffed. His eyes held a certain emotion that you couldn’t decipher.
Your eyes narrowed as you felt anger rise in your chest. “It’s not Fred.” You snapped crossing your arms. “I got asked to Hogsmeade this weekend… by Cedric.”
“Diggory?” His face showed a hint of anger but his voice showed disgust. “You’re stooping that low?” He grumbled.
You stopped walking and turned to the Slytherin with your arms crossed; “I know we’re filthy dung beetles to you Slytherin’s, but we’re not awful.” You defended with heat in your tone.
“I wasn’t saying that.” Lorenzo defended before his guard quickly came back up. You watched his jaw clench and his eyes rake over your face; “Whatever you do isn’t my business. Just don’t fuck him.” He sneered before turning around and walking away from you.
Your anger vanished and was replaced with confusion. What was that? You didn’t have time to think about it because you needed to get to the library to study for an upcoming exam. It had been to weird of a week for everything that was fixing to be due.
Lorenzo didn’t know what was coming over him. The idea of you going on any dates made him uncomfortable. He wouldn’t necessarily call it jealous, but he hates how it was starting to bother him. He brushed it off as it if were nothing. He convinced himself it was just because he was worried you’ll break the rules. After all, he didn’t like feeling weak or played.
He let out a huff before making his way into the Slytherin common room. The rest of the boys were already settled in their usual corner as he made his way over to them. He didn’t say anything when he plopped down on the couch beside Theo.
“Figured you’d be with your buddy.” Theo teased the boy. Enzo rolled his eyes not amused by his friend.
Lorenzo didn’t even mean to let his friends find out about you two. Apparently, they had watched you two leave the party and then you do the walk of shame out of the common room.
Mattheo rolled his eyes at Enzo’s demeanor, “what’s wrong with you? Is she starting to bore you now too?”
Enzo’s eyes narrowed at the Riddle boy’s assumption. It was quite the opposite really, but he just didn’t want to admit it. “Just making sure she doesn’t step out of line.” He grumbled.
Blaise’s eyebrows shot up at that. All the boys honestly figured that Lorenzo might’ve been getting bored. No offense to you… but they all felt Mattheo would settle down to commit before Enzo.
Lorenzo was different… the kind of different that no one really understood. He hated relationships and never wanted commitment, which was why he was a womanizer. He could easily get his way because of his manipulative tendencies and he was good at playing innocent. It wasn’t shocking that he was the way he was; since he was raised by his father and his mother was in Azkaban.
Draco eyed his cousin for a moment before recognition dawned on him, “this is about diggory.”
Lorenzo’s eyes shot to Draco’s, “please.” He huffed out.
“It is,” Draco pushed. “he asked her to Hogsmeade today with flowers.”
Enzo felt the anger bloom in his chest from what Draco had said. Of course, Diggory was the golden boy of the castle. He always seemed to charm his way through whatever girl he wanted.
Mattheo, Theodore, Draco, and Blaise shared a look knowing exactly what it was. “We know you’ve had a soft spot for her since we were kids,” Mattheo started not knowing how Lorenzo would take it.
Draco’s cool blue eyes looked over him, “you should’ve just asked her out, cous.”
Enzo felt uncomfortable, having this conversation with the guys. Instead of letting his walls down right at this moment, he rolled his eyes. “I’m not into her. She’s a good time and that’s all.” He stated letting his usual walls stay in place. “Now, I’ve got to go find the girl from charms class.” He playfully winked before getting up and walking away.
The boys sighed and shook their heads, “isn’t the whole point of no commitment; so you can shag other people?” Blaise asked knowing he understood what that meant.
“Usually.” Theo replied.
Lorenzo didn’t leave the common room for the girl who flirts with him in charms. He simply had something very important to do before Friday night, and he was beyond pleased to find Cedric in the library. Until he noticed you sitting down at his table; a warm smile on your face.
He clenched his jaw. He hated how angry he got because it made it really hard for him to keep in check.
He could’ve been subtle about it. He could’ve politely interrupted you two and asked for your attention, but he wasn’t in the right head space for that.
You were finishing up your project with Cedric when you were interrupted by Lorenzo leaning over your chair. Cedric’s attention moved to the Slytherin that stood, practically, on top of you.
“What do you want, Berkshire?” Cedric spoke up first.
You tensed knowing that Lorenzo was possibly mad over Saturday. “I need her… for a moment.” Lorenzo replied back; A cold look in his eyes.
“Maybe she doesn’t-“ Cedric started before you held up your hand to stop him.
“Ced, it’s fine.” You assured before giving him a small smile and gathering your things. “I’ll see you Saturday.”
Enzo grabbed your bag for you and slung it over his shoulder while you carried a couple books. Once you were out of the library you stopped, “what was that?” You grumbled.
Enzo’s eyebrow rose in question, “what was what? I thought our agreement was to come find you when needed.” He responded a quick shrug of the shoulders before he started walking again.
You were starting to hate this agreement. It had been happening way more than you thought it would. Which shouldn’t have surprised you.
You hated to admit it… but you were starting to feel something for the boy. You knew that you promised not too, but you couldn’t help it. You didn’t even really know why because it’s not like you two talk much.
“Are you coming?” Lorenzo’s voice broke you out of your thoughts. Your bag still over his shoulder and a subtle smirk on his face.
Against your better judgment; you nodded and caught up with him. What you were doing was becoming dangerous and you knew it.
❤️🩹
Five months, you had been doing your agreement for five whole months and the first date you had bailed. You weren’t quite sure what it was about; Cedric had come up to you stating that he couldn’t take you to Hogsmeade anymore. At least you told you though, which was better than standing you up.
After sulking most of the day, you had decided to go to the astronomy tower. Something about the fresh air and stars always seemed to calm you down. You had told Hannah and Susan not to wait up once that had gotten back from their dates.
You had a blanket under you and wrapped around you, a bottle of fire whiskey beside you. You weren’t getting drunk, because you knew better. You just wanted your feelings for Lorenzo to go away and you were hoping Cedric would do the trick.
You sighed, your gaze still up at the stars. “ what do I do?” You mumbled not exactly know who you’re asking.
You were lost in thought that you didn’t even hear the footsteps coming up the tower. “Care if I join, little puff?” The smugness was gone. He asked it like a simple question… almost like a friend would.
You wanted to object and say you wanted to be alone. Make up some excuse as to why you couldn’t be around him, but your body was against that idea. So you just nodded and wrapped your blanket tighter around you.
Lorenzo carefully took a seat beside you and leaned back slightly on the blanket on the ground. “How was your date?” He asked softly, a new version of him you hadn’t seen before.
You shrugged picking up the bottle and taking a drink, “wasn’t one.” You muttered. “He ended up taking Cho Chang.” You added as you remembered what Hannah had told you.
You didn’t see it, but Lorenzo’s jaw clenched in anger. “Maybe I’m more like you boys than I thought.” You sighed. “It’s inevitable isn’t it? Coming from a family like mine?”
Enzo’s eyes flickered over you; something softened as he just took you in. “Is that such a bad thing?” He asked quietly wanting to truly know what you thought of him.
You turned your attention towards him, “No, I honestly don’t think you boys are as bad as you act.But I’ve always wanted to fall in love with someone who will love me back. I know my father wants me married by 20.. that’s literally right after we leave this place.” You explained softly turning your gaze back to the sky.
“You don’t have to–“ he started only for you to start laughing.
“Oh, I do.” You mumbled. “I’m already treated like I’m awful due to being sorted in Hufflepuff. If I don’t do what he says then I’ll have to run away. Literally.”
Lorenzo opened his mouth to speak but simply shut it not knowing what to say. He figured you had it harder now, after the sorting ceremony. He just didn’t realize the extent of it. “What happens if you’re not with someone?”
You huffed, “he’s already sent me a list.” You muttered. “Riddle and Nott are the top two on his list. I guess it’s the main picks he prefers. Pureblood Slytherin’s and all.”
“Mattheo’s not even a pureblood.” Lorenzo grumbled in response to that.
“That doesn’t matter. It’s his name.” You shrugged knowing exactly how your father thinks.
Lorenzo let his anger subside for a moment before looking over at you, “am I on it?” He asked carefully.
You let out a breath, “top five.” You nodded. “You really had to ask seeing as you’re a pure blood and a Berkshire?” you teased for a moment letting the intensity set over you.
Enzo shrugged. He knew he wasn’t the favorite, usually, when it came to parents. Sure he was the Slytherin’s version of a golden boy but he was far from it. Everyone who knew him understood that.
For a moment, just a split second with you, Enzo let his walls down. He let you see the real Lorenzo under everything. The one he kept locked away and only Draco knew.
You two sat there talking a couple hours before doing what you did best. Only this time was different. It wasn’t a rush to get the clothes thrown off. It was careful, slow, and dare you say it; loving. In a way that you had never known Enzo to be.
That was the night that you knew. You loved him. You were more sure of that than anything, but you had to keep it to yourself.
❤️🩹
That night in the astronomy tower changed something. It wasn’t a big change and you were still keeping your feelings a secret, but Lorenzo seemed to be around you a bit more. Something that your friends had noticed. He wasn’t being overly obvious about it…just enough to where your friends noticed a difference.
Your sixth year at Hogwarts was almost over and you would have to go home and prepare for your final year. You didn’t want to have to prepare to get married, though. Not when you were in love with your friends-with-benefits.
“We’re going to get caught.” You whispered as Lorenzo’s hand guided you through the castle. You two were suppose to be in class, but he had the bright idea to sneak back to the dormitory instead.
Enzo rolled his eyes, “come on, little puff.” He teased a smirk playing on his handsome face. “Live a little.”
You sighed and bit back a smile as you followed him to the Slytherin common room and up to his dorm. The place where everything started. The other boys were either in class or skipping to smoke.
Lorenzo quickly pulled out his wand and casted a noise and locking charm on the room. He carefully captured your lips with his. Easy at first before growing hungrier.
“You have no idea what you do to me.” He mumbled as his lips made their way down your neck. You bit your lip to stop any noise from coming out as he nipped and sucked on your neck.
“Enz,” you moaned before trying to pull away from him. “I can’t do this.” You half-moaned before biting your lips. Tears came to your eyes at the realization of how fast and hard your feelings developed. Given, it had been seven months now.
Lorenzo pulled away, eyebrows furrowed and confusion written on his face. “what?”
You sighed trying to blink back the tears, something that Enzo didn’t miss. “I have to get married next year, Enzo.” You whispered quietly. “I can’t keep doing this with you. I have to… screw my head on straight.” You cringed repeating the words that your father had sent you.
He took in your appearance. How you were on the verge of tears and how you had stiffened when you mentioned getting married. He knew you didn’t want to end the arrangement (even if he didn’t know your feelings) because he knew you felt too good afterwards. You had even told him yourself.
“Hey,” he said softly his hands coming up to cup your face. “Don’t think about that right now.” He muttered as his thumb caressed your cheek softly. “Just be here with me.” He added.
‘One last time.’ You thought before slowly nodding and leaning back into him. He didn’t have to know that it was your last time. But you wanted to commit everything to memory. “Can we go slow? Like that night in the astronomy tower?” You whispered hoping he wouldn’t see the love you had for him.
Enzo nodded slowly but the confusion was clearly there in his eyes. He didn’t know what you were trying to say without words but he wasn’t going to pay attention to that right. He was going to focus on the task at hand.
You tried to commit everything to memory. Every kiss, every sound, every moment, every thrust, everything single feeling of him and this. You had fallen helplessly and hopelessly in love with him after you swore to yourself that would never happen.
Afterwards, you didn’t get up and run out. You stayed with him in his bed. Which had only happened a few times. It had often led to teasing by him to which you brushed off but neither of you said anything this time. Almost like you both knew what was coming.
You tried not to think about it and focus on his traces up and down your bare spine. Trying to calm your heart rate so it didn’t seem out of the ordinary. “Are you okay?” His voice came out softer than normal. Way softer than what you were used too.
You nodded not trusting your voice. You were either going to cry or blurt out how you felt and you couldn’t have either of those.
❤️🩹
Your life had completely flipped in two weeks. You had avoided Lorenzo with every fiber in your body. It hurt more than anything. You were trying to go back to normal, that was until you were sick. You woke up feeling like death one morning, very early. Trying to throw up everything you had eaten previously.
That’s what led to you now staring at the potion swirling a deep purple color. The potion started out as a completely different color and changed to blue if negative and purple if positive.
Tears fell freely down your face as your felt the whole world crumble. How? You had felt as if you were always careful. You had plenty of potions to keep this from happening and Lorenzo always made sure to wear protection.
You needed to write to home, tell them that you needed to come home. Part of you didn’t want too and the other part wanted to come clean to Enzo. You felt bad for keeping this to yourself because you honestly needed someone but you knew deep down how he would react.
Hannah had walked in while you were having a meltdown. Her first reaction was to run over and check on you. Before she could ask what was wrong, her eye caught the potion on the bathroom sink. “Oh, sweetie.” She sighed as she slid down in the floor beside you and hugged you. “Please tell me this isn’t Lorenzo’s.” She whispered to you.
You cried harder at that making her understand fully that it was in fact his. She held you while you cried and you were eventually joined by Susan who too came over and held you while her and Hannah talked.
“I’ll write my mother and you can stay with us.” Hannah told you before giving you a light squeeze and getting up to grab her quill and parchment.
Meanwhile, Lorenzo had been going crazy searching for you and wondering why you were avoiding him. You were a part of his everyday routine at this point and it felt bare without. It was driving him insane and every Slytherin knew.
So that was the plan. You were in your dorm for a few days before getting up and going to class until Hannah’s mother wrote her back. You hated missing the last few weeks of school and the next year but you were going to do what you had to do.
Within a week Mrs. Abbott had written back and said she had a place ready for you and that you were welcome anytime. So you spent the weekend packing your trunk and getting ready to go home for the rest of your life.
You had spent your last week in class and spent extra time with your friends, but you didn’t miss the looks from Lorenzo. You were hoping to avoid him until you left.
But luck wasn’t on your side.
*
You were spending your last hours at Hogwarts in the astronomy tower. So many memories here from over the years that it just made sense. That was until the night with Enzo replaced everything else.
“Why are you avoiding me?” He didn’t even try to make small talk or ease you into it. Straight to the point with a sharp tone.
You squeezed your eyes shut and released a breath, “I’m not.” You lied hoping it was convincing.
Lorenzo scoffed, “don’t lie to me.” His voice stern and full of… hurt? Anger? You weren’t sure.
You huffed turning to face him, “what do you want me to say, Enzo?” You asked as you crossed your arms and you felt the familiar pressure behind your eyes. “That I broke our agreement? Because I did.” You spit out with a certain rage in your heart, but it wasn’t towards him.
He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion and shook his head, “that has nothing to do with avoiding me.”
“It has everything to do with avoiding you.” You snapped as tears came to the surface. “I did the one thing that I promised I wouldn’t do, Berkshire.”
“What are you talking about?” His head was spinning and he wasn’t understanding you. All he knew was that he missed you so much and he needed to feel you up against him in some way. Didn’t even have to be sexual. “Whatever it is… it doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does.” You said sharply.
“Why? Why would it matter?” His voice was louder than he’s even gotten with you.
“Because I can’t keep falling in love with someone I can never have!” You shouted feeling the pressure lift off your chest.
Lorenzo’s face dropped slightly at your confession. He wasn’t expecting you to straight out say that. If he hadn’t been thrown off guard he would have his smug demeanor and teasing thrown at you.
He wasn’t even upset at you falling for him, he was upset over the idea that he wasn’t someone you could have. He thought… after the last two months that he had made himself clear without words.
“I have to go.” You mumbled before pushing your way around him and leaving the astronomy tower. He yelled for you once but you didn’t turn around.
This was the last time you’d see him and that was breaking you in itself.
*3.5 years later*
“Mummy, mummy, look what uncle George gave me!” Your three-year-old daughter came running to you. (She had just turned three) In her hand was some trinket that George and Fred had made for their shop which you so happened to be in.
“Wow! That’s cool sissy.” You acted excited before glancing up at the red head, “it’s not going to harm anyone is it?”
George shook his head, “I wouldn’t give something dangerous to a toddler.” The Weasley boy assured.
You gave him a thankful smile before turning around and stocking a few things that were running low. You were helping out at Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes during your free time. Mainly because the Weasley had become a second family to you after Hannah’s mother, of course.
You had left Hogwarts early the next morning after you had made your confession to Lorenzo. You had spent your pregnancy staying with Mrs. Abbott and working during school times to be able to provide for your baby girl. Once she was born, you were able to get your own place and continue working. After running into Potter, Granger, and Weasley you three connected in a way you didn’t previously.
Now you and your daughter had many people in your lives. People who loved you and wanted what was best for you two. You loved your life, but there was still a part of you that loved Lorenzo and probably always would.
Later that night, you had fixed dinner and gave your daughter a bath before tucking her into bed. You read her a bedtime story before kissing her little head and quietly leaving her room so she could sleep.
You were beyond exhausted but instead of going to sleep; you settled with a glass of wine and a book you had been trying to read forever. You let out a sigh as you got comfy on the couch and threw a blanket over your lap.
The dishes were washing and drying themselves, and the kitchen was cleaning itself thanks to magic.
A knock on your door sounded after about thirty-minutes into your book. Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion wondering who would show up this late but got up off the couch anyways.
Pulling the door open your eyes widen slightly seeing Theodore Nott standing there. You quickly collected yourself before sending him a small smile. “Can I help you?” You asked softly.
Theodore’s eyes widen seeing you before he let out a sigh, “oh, thank Merlin.” He muttered.
Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion, “excuse me?” You asked confused by his reaction.
“I know this is strange but I was sent your address.” Theodore explained and held out a letter.
You reached out and grabbed it from his hand only to go pale once you noticed the official stationary. Your father had sent Theodore a letter about you and your address. Your breath caught at the last part of the message; ‘get to know her and the wedding will be Oct 21.’
“Wedding?” You asked unusually calm as as you folded the letter and handed back to him. “I’m not marrying you.”
Theodore nodded, “I’m aware.” He agreed. “I’m actually pleased it’s you because bro-code or whatever makes it easier for me to deny.” He explained. “No offense.”
“None taken.” You assured before a yawn overtook your features. “I’m sorry that my father wasted your time.”
Theodore shook his head, “don’t be. Because now I have an easy way out.” He paused for a moment before looking over you. “How have you been?”
It might have been a stupid question on his part because he’s never been close to you, but he didn’t seem to mind asking it.
You opened your mouth to speak before a the little voice spoke up behind you, “mummy.” A tired voice called out causing you to turn away from the door. “I had a bad dream.”
Theodore glanced behind you at the little girl standing in the hallway before his eyes widen slightly. You had a child and he had no idea, and he was suppose to marry you.
“Okay, mommy’s coming okay?” You spoke softly as the slightly teary eyed toddler giving her a small smile.
She nodded before turning around and walking towards your room instead of hers. You sighed, hoping Theodore didn’t get any idea. You slowly turned back towards the former Slytherin, “I hate to sound rude but—“ you started only for Theodore to cut you off.
“How old is she?” Theodore asked, but a part of him already knew. He saw it in her eyes and facial features. That toddler was a little girl version of one of his best friends.
“Theo–“
“How old is she, Y/N.”
You sighed knowing he wasn’t going to let it up or let you make him leave until you answered. “She just turned three two weeks ago.” You admitted.
Theo’s mouth opened and then closed trying to find words. “She’s why you didn’t finish school at Hogwarts…” he trailed off only for you to nod in response. “Is she–“
“Yes.” You whispered as you felt a familiar pressure behind your eyes. “He was the only guy I was with at that time.”
Theo couldn’t believe. He couldn’t believe that Lorenzo had a whole child walking around and no one knew but you and whoever you told.
“I need to settle her,” you sighed before stepping back from the door. “Come in.”
Theodore didn’t hesitate to step into your house and sit on your couch after you offered. You left him alone for a moment to get your daughter back to sleep and once she was back asleep; you made your way back to Theodore.
Theodore watched your every move as you sat on the opposite end of the couch, “why didn’t you tell him?”
You sighed, “because we agreed to not involve feelings. I might’ve fell for him but we all know that Enzo doesn’t commit.”
Theodore snorted, “he doesn’t commit but he stopped everything, not just sex, when you two go involved.”
You opened your mouth to argue but quickly closed it because you had nothing to argue back. You hadn’t kept a close eye on him, because for some reason you trusted him to keep his promise.
“I normally wouldn’t tell you this but you’ve got a child together….” Theo started before running a hand over his face. “He was a mess when you disappeared.” You gave him a look of disbelief. “I’m serious. We were all worried about him and he didn’t cope in a way we thought he would.”
Your eyebrows furrowed, “what do you mean?”
Theodore sighed, “we thought he would cope by going back to his old ways. Being with girl after girl. Instead… he turned to alcohol and weed.” Theodore shook his head remembering how he was. “He shook off any girl that tried to get with him. Said they were all ‘boring whores’ compared to you. We were worried about him. He’d talk about you every time he was out of his mind. If he was sober… he was just stoic.”
Your heart broke right there on the spot. Lorenzo always smoked cigarettes, but not very often. Mainly when he needed to calm his nerves and ease his mind. You had never heard of him touching any kind of drug because he wanted to keep up his “golden boy” image.
You ran a hand over your tired face, “how is he now?”
Theo gave you a small smile, “he’s better. He doesn’t get high anymore. He still mentions you sometimes when he’s drunk.” He admitted with a small chuckle behind it. “He works for the ministry now.”
You nodded a grateful smile on your face, “I’m glad he’s better.”
Theodore knew he probably shouldn’t suggest it, but you two had a kid together. “He’s single. Has been since you left and I know for a fact that he loves you.” He told you. Your breath caught in your throat.
You weren’t sure what to say because if everything he said is true then you broke him. You hurt him as much as it hurt you to leave. You knew Lorenzo… and he wouldn’t forgive you easily for that. If the roles were reversed then you wouldn’t forgive him easy either.
“I hurt him, Theodore.” You replied not exactly knowing what to say. “He won’t forgive me for that.”
Theo’s eyes softened, “he already has, Y/N.” Against his better judgment he placed his hand on her shoulder, “he understands why you left and he blames himself.” He told you. “well, he doesn’t understand the part where you were pregnant….” He trailed.
You sighed, leaning your head back on the couch; “please don’t tell him about, Olivia.”
Theo squeezed her shoulder, “he deserves to know. You can’t paint him as a deadbeat unless he chooses to be one.”
You swatted his hand off your shoulder, “I’ve never once said a bad word about Lorenzo.” You defended.
“I’m just saying.”
**
The next day, Theodore made his way to his weekly night out with the boys. It was after work for everyone and they always met up for drinks. Right now the boys were only waiting on Malfoy and Berkshire. Theo, Mattheo, and Blaise sat in their seats with their first drinks.
“Did you meet your future bride?” Blaise teased the Nott boy before taking a drink of his beer.
Theodore rolled his eyes, “she’s definitely not my future bride.” He replied simply.
Mattheo snorted, “why? Is she not good enough for our little brooding Theodore?”
Theodore sighed before leaning over closer to the boys, “it’s because it’s Y/N.” He admitted quietly and he was beyond thankful that Lorenzo and Draco weren’t here yet.
“Enzo’s Y/N?” Blaise asked with raised brows. Theodore nodded taking a chug of his alcoholic beverage. “What’d she look like.”
Theodore shrugged, “the same. A little more mature.”
“Was Enzo the main reason she didn’t finish school?” Mattheo asked wanting to know that gossip.
Theo opened his mouth to reply but quickly closed it when Draco and Enzo sat down at the table.
“Sorry we’re late, work ran late.” Draco huffed before waving the waiter over to place a drink order. “and little cous here got asked on a date.”
Theodore stiffened at that knowing he was trying to encourage you to tell him. Mattheo, Blaise, and Theo exchanged glances before looking back towards the other two.
Enzo rolled his eyes, “I denied… so stop bringing it up.” He grumbled.
Theodore relaxed at that before picking up his drink again. Draco’s eyes looked over at Theodore a mischief glint in his eye. “Did you meet your future wife yet? You’ve had that letter for weeks.”
Theodore’s gaze nervously looked towards the Berkshire boy before nodding his head, “yeah. We both agreed there isn’t going to be a wedding.” He replied back trying to be nonchalant.
“Was she at least hot?” Draco asked trying to tease him.
Theodore sighed before chugging his drink and ordering something stronger, “I don’t view her that way.” He simply said hoping they brought his drink soon.
“So who was it?” Lorenzo asked carefully not missing the way his friend was trying to avoid this conversation.
“That’s really not important.” Theodore shook his head.
“Let me guess, an old fling?” Draco asked wiggling his eyebrows.
Mattheo groaned before his hand smacked the table causing everyone to flinch, “it was Y/N!” He announced. “Now can you guys shut up.” The Riddle boy complained downing his Firewhiskey. The only one who didn’t get a weak beverage to begin with.
Lorenzo’s eyes moved to Theodore with a cold stare, “you met up with her?” he questioned but his voice was too calm for any of the boys to be normal.
Theodore sighed, “no. I didn’t know it was her until I went to her house.”
“You went to her house?!” Enzo sneered.
“Dude! I didn’t know who it was and she didn’t even know her father sent me that letter. She doesn’t want to get married and I told her that I couldn’t because of bro-code.” Theodore explained himself trying to get his angry friend off his back.
Lorenzo glared back at the Nott boy. He never forgot the conversation you two had in the Astronomy tower. “What’s her address?”
“Enzo–“
“Give me her address.” He demanded.
Theodore sighed before pulling the address out of his pocket and handing it to Lorenzo. The boy yanked it out of his hand and angrily left the table.
“Merlin, help me.” Theodore sighed knowing what was fixing to happen.
“It’s either going to be ugly or they’ll kiss and makeup.” Draco mumbled behind his glass of alcohol.
“Guys,” Theodore started gaining all their attention. “She has a child.” Draco spit out his drink, Mattheo dropped his glass and Blaise’s mouth hung out. “and it’s Enzo’s.”
“Well shit.”
❤️🩹
You sighed not knowing what to do with yourself. Mrs. Abbott came and got Olivia for the evening and was bringing her back before bedtime. You were beyond thankful for your best friends mom for being such an amazing grandparent-figure to your child. The woman had always insisted on you having a few hours to yourself at least once a week if not more.
You had just sat down when a knock on your door sounded. You groaned since you had just gotten comfortable. Sighing you got up and went and slung the door open.
You didn’t expect to see a disheveled Enzo at your door. His hair was messy as if he was running his hands through it. His clothes were messed up and you didn’t know if it was from work or him traveling to your house.
“Lorenzo.” You whispered not believing what you were seeing.
Lorenzo let out a breath as his eyes raked over you. “So it’s true. You were the one they picked for Theodore.”
You nodded not knowing what else to say. “I’m not marrying him.” You replied so he would know that you didn’t see his friend like that.
“I know… I remember that night in the astronomy tower four years ago.” He spoke softly almost like you’d disappear if he was too loud or wild.
You sent him a small smile, “do you want to come in?” You asked as you stepped aside to let him in. He nodded and walked inside carefully as you shut the door behind him. “Can I get you something to eat or drink? Coffee, hot cocoa, firewhiskey?”
Enzo shook his head, “I’m fine.”
You nodded before walking into the living room with him following. “Have a seat. I’m just going to run and change real quick.” You muttered before walking off towards your room. You changed and then took a few moments to yourself so you could collect your thoughts. “Is there anything you were needing while you were here?” You asked loud enough for him to hear you in the living area while you were walking closer to him. “I figured you got my address from Theodore–“ you stopped, your heart rate speeding up as you noticed the enchanted picture frame he was holding.
Lorenzo’s eyes were focused on the frame before glancing back up at you, “you had a baby?” He asked. Your heart jumped at the sound of his voice. Like he was hurt or something.
You felt tears well up in your eyes, “Lorenzo–“
He carefully sat the frame back down in place and you could tell his hands were shaking. “Is that what you meant when you told me you broke the agreement?” He asked like he was holding a certain emotion back. “Did someone else get you pregnant?”
You shook your head, “No. I wasn’t with anyone else.” You spoke like you were making a promise.
“There’s no way I–“ he started to say only to stop himself. Realization crossed his face as he thought about the last night you two had together. “I have a child?” He asked carefully.
You felt the tears well up in your eyes, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” You responded softly as you felt the pressure behind your eyes. “We agreed to no feelings and then I fell in love with you, and then I was pregnant… it was all too much.”
“Did you know that you were pregnant that last night in the astronomy tower?” He asked as his jaw clenched. You could see the anger in his eyes but it looked as if he was trying to understand you.
You nodded your head as the tears fell freely, “I was scared to tell you. I knew you wouldn’t want a baby and I didn’t want to ruin your life.” You explained as you broke down during. “I didn’t want you to hate me more than I thought you already did. It wasn’t fair to you, I know that. You had every right to know.”
Lorenzo stood there, his expression unreadable but his jaw was tight. That was enough to know that he was angry with you. You went to say something else, anything else but stopped when your door opened.
You quickly wiped your face as you noticed Hannah’s mom walk in with Olivia. “Mummy!” Olivia squealed when she saw you. She ran to you, luckily not noticing your emotions, and you picked her up when she got to you. “guess what? Nana Abbott bought me ice cream!”
You gave her a look, “oh my goodness, she did! Mommy’s jealous.” You teased causing her to laugh. “Are you ready to get ready for bed?”
Olivia nodded as she rubbed her little eyes as you gently sat her down and she began to walk towards her room. “Thank you.” You told Hannah’s mom.
She waved you off, “oh, it’s fine. You need some time to yourself and I’m happy to watch her for a few.” You gave her a thankful smile.
You talked with her for a few moments before walking her to the door and closing it once she left. You locked the door gently before making your way back towards Lorenzo.
His expression had softened some compared to what it was, “you’re a great mom.” He complimented easily and softly.
You felt your cheeks get hot, “thank you.” You whispered. “Do you want to join us for our bedtime routine?”
Enzo went to open his mouth but stopped before thinking for a moment, “she doesn’t know me…”
“Do you want her to?” You asked carefully wanting to know if he was willing go be a part of her life.
Lorenzo bit his lip, all anger and cockiness gone. A gentleness played on his face, something that wasn’t fake. “I wish she did.”
You carefully walked over to him and grabbed his hand. “Come meet your daughter.” You spoke softly causing a small smile to form on his face.
You two walked into Olivia’s room to see her looking in her closet with her little toddler attitude. “Mummy!” She whined with a small stomp of her little foot. “Where’s my silky pajamas.”
You let go of Enzo’s hand, holding back a laugh as you went to her closet and easily found them for her. You quickly took her to the bathroom to change her and help her use the bathroom before bed.
“You know how you asked if you had a daddy?” You asked her carefully as you helped her brush her teeth.
Her little head nodded, “yes, and you told me that daddy loves me but he’s working away.”
You gave her a small smile before wiping her mouth to get rid of the toothpaste. “He’s back.” You told her softly. You grabbed the hairbrush and started brushing through her hair so you could braid it before bed. “Do you want to meet him?” You asked carefully knowing that Enzo could hear everything you two were saying.
Her little eyes got wide and a grin overtook her small face, “yes!” She nodded enthusiastically. You laughed and finished her hair, and helped her off the sink.
You held her hand as you led her back to her bedroom. Lorenzo was leaned up against the wall until he noticed you two. He pushed himself off the wall, after you nodded your head over, and went to bend down in front of you two. “Enzo, this is Olivia… your daughter.” You introduced carefully not exactly knowing how he would react. “Olivia, this is your daddy.”
You could tell Enzo didn’t know what to do but he was really taken back when Olivia jumped and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Mommy told me that you’ve been working away, but your back now right?” She asked in her tired toddler voice. “forever?”
Enzo’s arms wrapped around the girl, “I’m not going anywhere.” Enzo responded to your daughter like it was an unbreakable vow.
Your heart clenched looking at them. You honestly had never pictured Lorenzo to be a father but seeing it was a different story than thinking it. “Liv, it’s time for bed baby. You can see him, tomorrow.” You promised.
Enzo carefully placed her down as she unwrapped herself from him. Your daughter listened to you by climbing in her bed and picking out a story on her nightstand. You sat down on her bed and offered Lorenzo to sit next to you, which he did, and you read to your daughter.
Once the story was over and her breathing became even; you two quietly made your way out of her room and shut the door. You didn’t hesitate to pour yourself a glass of wine hoping to ease your nerves but not get tipsy.
“She looks exactly like you,” you sighed sitting your wine glass down on the kitchen counter. “She is seriously a little girl version of you running around in every way.” Enzo didn’t say anything but he didn’t appear angry anymore. “She’s reminded me of you every second since I left… I felt like that was my karma.”
Enzo carefully made his way over to you to where there wasn’t much room between you two. “are you with anyone?” He asked softly but a hint of something wanting to be shown.
You shook your head, “no. I’m sure you’re not surprised that people leave when they find out I have a child.” You replied calmly trying not to act like it bothered you in some ways.
Lorenzo’s hand came up to your jawline. Your heart was pounding not exactly knowing what to do. It had been almost four years since you had touched the man in front of you. “so I was the last person you’ve been with?” He asked like he needed to know the answer.
“Is that surprising?” You teased slightly making a familiar glint return in his eye. You bit your lip as you debated on whether or not to tell him that you still cared. “I still love you, Enz.” You told him softly because even though he hated it, you could read him better than anyone and you knew he wanted to ask. “It didn’t go away and never got weaker.”
Enzo didn’t say anything, but simply leaned in closer to you. As if to see if you’ll stop him but you didn’t. You refused to stop him because you had missed him more than anything.
After what felt like ages, but was only a few seconds his lips landed on yours. A slow and careful kiss like he was testing the waters. You pressed yourself closer to him and gripped his jacket as his other arm snaked around your waist.
You pulled away for a moment to catch your breath, but his lips made their way down your neck. Teasing, biting, kissing, anything he could do he did. “I missed you.” You sighed in bliss as he nipped on your neck.
He pulled back, his dark eyes looking into yours. “You told me you loved me, ran away, had my baby, and now you’re saying you missed me.” You could tell in his voice that he was partly teasing and partially trying to comprehend everything that’s been going on.
You sighed; dropping your hands from his jacket. “I know, okay? I’m horrible. If I was more mature then I would’ve told you and-“ you stopped talking not knowing what else to say.
“and you wouldn’t have had to raise her alone.” He finished for you. His thumb running over your bottom lip.
You opened your mouth to say something, anything, but nothing came out. You didn’t know if Lorenzo was delusional or if he was serious. You didn’t believe he would’ve raised a baby during his last year at Hogwarts but you also didn’t think leaving would hurt him as bad as Theo said.
“You would’ve been mad.” You replied knowing he would’ve hated you for like two days minimum.
He made a face, “maybe. But it wouldn’t have been because of you. would’ve been because my dad was right all along.”
Your eyes softened at what he was talking about. You had remembered when he finally opened up to you and it made your heart break but made you fall for him even more. “You’re not a screw up, Enzo.”
His eyebrows shot up, “how am I not? I screwed us up and I wasn’t there for my own child.”
“I was the one that ruined us by freaking out over everything.” You mumbled, “I should’ve been honest with you. I should’ve told you how I felt and the test I had taken…”
Enzo gave you a careful smile, “I should’ve talked to you.” He admitted still not relaying how he truly felt. “I’ll be honest with you… when you left I don’t remember much about life after that. Until Draco talked some sense into me.”
You didn’t know what to say because Theo had, more than likely, told you the truth. Which broke your heart more than anything because you knew how Enzo was before you left.
You knew there was more that needed to be talked about. There was still hurt lingering between you two but at this moment you didn’t care. You slammed your lips onto his. Letting every emotion that you’ve felt come through it. All the hurt, anger, love, everything that was felt between you two was poured into the kiss.
He pulled you closer that way you were trapped between his body and the counter. Your hands linked together behind his neck as you pulled his as close as possible.
“Where’s your bedroom?” He asked as his lips brushed against yours waiting for an answer.
“Last door on the right down the hall.” You mumbled.
In one movement he picked you up and walked you down the hall, kicking the door open and closed with his foot after you two were in there. He gently laid you down on the bed, climbing over you as you got situated.
His eyes looked into yours deeply, so deep that you felt as though he knew every single thing about you. “I love you too.” He finally said before pushing his lips back to yours.
You sighed in contentment knowing that he had felt the same about you as you did him.
It was funny how a strictly casual agreement lead to where your life was now.
****
Bonus part (because I almost deleted it 🫢)
Loud knocking echoed through your house forcing you to peel your eyes open once again. You had finally settled back down after sending Olivia to her half-day of preschool (yes they go at 3) and now you were disturbed by whoever wanted to knock on your door at 8:30 in the morning.
You huffed, throwing Enzo’s arm off of you and standing up, and throwing on some shorts under Lorenzo’s t-shirt. You let a few cuss words slip out as you headed towards the door mentally preparing to yell at whoever was on the other side.
“What?!” You huffed as you slung the door open.
Theodore, who was standing in the front, flinched not expecting you to open the door angrily. “I didn’t mean to wake you,” he started which caused you to cross your arms. “We just–“ the words dropped as the group of former Slytherin’s eyes were trained on something behind you.
“Who ruined your morning, love?” Lorenzo asked carefully, shirtless and a pair of pajama pants on.
You huffed gesturing for the group of boys to pile in. “Your idiots.” You grumbled slamming the door behind you.
You made your way to your kitchen to put on some coffee before you passed out. You and Enzo had stayed up all night talking and catching up leading to you being extra tired. Once the coffee was done you poured yourself some and Enzo some before going back to the living area.
You placed Enzo’s mug on the side table before sitting down beside him and stretching out once he placed your legs in his lap. You didn’t miss the look that the boys were giving you but you simply didn’t care.
“You two are together… after two days?” Draco asked looking between the two of you in disbelief. It wasn’t shocking that you two were together but he was surprised it happened that fast.
“A few hours, actually.” You muttered taking a sip of your coffee before sitting it down beside Enzo’s. “If you count the night we had sex the first time after seeing each other.”
Lorenzo’s face held a smirk as you said that in a nonchalant manner. Everyone practically knew your business anyways, seeing as you had given birth to his child.
“The first time?” Blaise eyebrows shot up in disbelief. “So what… you waltz back in her life and it starts being like school again?” His question was aimed at Lorenzo.
Lorenzo shook his head, “not even close.” He simply stated a smug look on his face.
Mattheo sighed rubbing his hand over his face partially in disgust and the other part in disbelief. “So what about the kid?”
“Olivia’s at preschool. Only half-day since she’s so young but…” you trailed picking up your coffee again and taking a sip of the hot liquid.
Theodore hadn’t said much but he looked as if he had something he wanted to talk about. “I got another letter.” He finally spoke up causing everyone to go quiet.
You could feel Enzo stiffen and could tell he got annoyed by that. “From my father?”
Theo nodded, “about my refusal and how we both agreed to not marry.”
Theo carefully held out a folded piece of parchment to you and you carefully took it. You unfolded it and read the letter from your father, reading how it said you all had no choice and that it was a deal between Theo’s dad and yours. Then your father also stated that you had to be married by October 21.
You sighed handing the letter back to him and crossed your arms, but careful not to spill your coffee. “I’m sorry but I’m still not marrying you.” You assured placing your hand on top of Lorenzo’s so he wouldn’t get angrier than he already was.
“Trust me, I know. Enzo would kill me.” Theodore mumbled leaning back on your couch.
“My father doesn’t know about Olivia.” You admitted quietly making every eye look at you. “I don’t trust my family so I hid my pregnancy.”
Mattheo looked between you and Lorenzo, “have you thought of telling him? Just so he’ll lay off.”
You shook your head, “I want her safe. If anything he’ll use her against me.”
Enzo’s grip tightened on your knee where it had been sitting during this whole time. “I’m here now… he won’t be able to get to her or you.” Lorenzo assured quietly. “I’m sure they’ll help too.” He added which made you receive nods and agreements from your boyfriends friend group.
“I’ll think about it.” You murmured before standing up. “I’ll fix some breakfast.”
You just needed a minute to yourself. All the talk about your family finding out about your daughter made you sick. You wanted to keep her safe and away from how you had grown up. Break the cycles of everything your father had done.
You took a deep breath to steady yourself and then got the breakfast foods out to prepare. You needed something to busy your mind.
“You alright, love?” Lorenzo’s voice cut through your thoughts carefully and quietly. Almost like he knew where your mind would be at.
You nodded, “yeah.”
Enzo made his way over to you knowing that you weren’t okay. “I was talking with Theo…” he trailed even though he knew you’d rather ignore the problem with your family. “What if I married you?”
You sighed and turned to face your boyfriend, “Enzo.”
“You said yourself that my name was on the list, pureblood and all.” He explained trying to help you see where he was coming from. “We’ve already got Olivia.”
You shook your head, “I’m not letting you marry me to please my father, Enzo.” You denied and turned back towards the breakfast you were cooking.
“Why not? Let me help you.” He insisted as he watched you ignore him and keep cooking. “We’re practically together and we have a child.”
You huffed and muttered a charm to help you cook before turning around to face the Berkshire boy. “I don’t want you marrying me to please my father. If we ever get married I want it to be because you want to.” You snapped quietly so the boys in the other room didn’t hear. “You think I turned Theo down because he’s ugly and rude? No. It’s because I want to marry the one I love, which is you, but I want it to on our time not my families time.”
“Y/N,” He spoke seriously. “Marry me?”
“Lorenzo!” You scolded.
“I promise that I will ask in a more romantic way if you say yes. I just—you’re father might work with us if we get engaged.” You couldn’t argue with Lorenzo’s logic because your father might allowed you to postpone the date if he noticed an engagement.
“I hate that you’re right.” You mumbled which caused Lorenzo to send a signature smirk your way. You rolled your eyes at that before leaning against the counter. “So you’re actually going to settle down with me?”
Lorenzo gave you a look, “you’re joking.” You laughed at his reaction before shrugging. “I went mental without you. Yes, I’m willingly settling down with the woman I love.” He promised wrapping his arm around you and pulling you closer.
“You’re soft side is showing.” You teased placing your hand on his cheek.
He shrugged a genuine smile on his face, “Honey, I’ve lived without you and that’s something I never want to experience again.”
Summary: What starts as a cruel bet turns into something neither of you expected—but by the time the truth comes out, the damage might already be too deep to fix.
Word Count: ~3.6k (estimated, not exact)
Warnings: emotional manipulation, betrayal, angst, public humiliation, trust issues, mild language, redemption arc, heavy emotional themes
Author’s Note: i tried to really lean into the emotional buildup and the slow shift from something fake into something real, so this one is definitely more on the angsty side before it softens. the ending is a bit dramatic (okay very dramatic), but i wanted that big, overwhelming confession moment to match everything that broke before it. if anything feels rushed or too intense, that’s probably why—but i hope the emotions still land the way they’re supposed to. constructive criticism is always welcome, just be kind :)
The common room was thick with cigarette smoke and the low rumble of laughter when Mattheo Riddle made the worst decision of his life.
"Twenty Galleons," Blaise drawled, lounging across an armchair like he owned it. "Says you can't do it."
"Can't do what?" Draco looked up from his Potions essay, though they all knew he wasn't actually working on it.
"Get *her* to fall for him," Blaise gestured vaguely toward the corner where you sat, entirely absorbed in a book, seemingly unaware of the world around you. "She's completely immune to charm. Been here five years and I've never seen her with anyone. She's..." he paused, searching for the word, "boring."
Mattheo's dark eyes flickered in your direction. You had your legs curled beneath you, chewing your bottom lip as you turned a page. Your hair fell in a way that caught the firelight. He'd never really noticed you before—you weren't the type to demand attention. You just... existed, quietly, in the corners of common rooms and back of classes.
"That's the point," Blaise continued, grinning wickedly. "She's *stupid*, really. Easy target. All it would take is someone actually paying attention to her and she'd crumble."
Mattheo felt something twist in his chest—something that might have been distaste, though he couldn't quite name it. Still, the challenge was there, hanging in the air like a gauntlet.
"A week," Blaise pressed. "You can't get her to genuinely fall for you in a week. You'll get bored. Everyone does with someone like that."
Draco smirked. "He's right, Riddle. She's not really your type."
Mattheo's pride flickered. He wasn't used to being doubted. "Done. Twenty Galleons."
"Make it fifty," Blaise said, eyes gleaming. "If you're so confident. But here's the catch—you have to actually be dating her by day seven. Not just flirting. Actual, honest-to-Merlin dating."
The words left Mattheo's mouth before he could stop them. "Fifty Galleons. It'll be easy. She won't stand a chance."
He didn't look at you again that night.
You first noticed him on Tuesday.
Not noticed, exactly—Mattheo Riddle was impossible to miss in the hallways of Hogwarts. But he'd never paid attention to you, and you'd been perfectly content with that arrangement. You'd constructed your life at Hogwarts carefully, away from the drama of the popular crowds, surrounded by your small circle of genuine friends and your books.
"You're in my Potions seat," a low voice said, and you looked up to find him standing over you in the library, looking genuinely confused, as if you'd materially rearranged the world by sitting in a spot no one cared about.
"I don't think chairs are assigned," you replied coolly, though your heart had done an annoying flip. He was taller up close, and there was something unsettling about his dark eyes—something that seemed far too intelligent for someone with his reputation.
"They are in my mind," he said, and somehow he made it sound like a line from a romantic film rather than the arrogant statement it was. "Move?"
You didn't move. You raised an eyebrow, one hand still holding your book like a shield. "No."
Something flickered across his face—surprise, maybe, or amusement. "Really?"
"Really."
Instead of leaving, he sat down across from you.
"What are you reading?"
You told yourself not to answer, but your traitorous mouth did anyway. "Advanced Transfiguration theory. Not your style, I'd imagine."
"You'd be surprised what my style is," he said, and there was something almost vulnerable in the way he said it, something that made you look at him more carefully.
But then he smiled, that practiced, perfect smile, and you remembered who he was. Just another aristocrat, just another pretty face with too much power and not enough conscience.
"I'm Mattheo," he said anyway.
"I know who you are."
"But you won't tell me your name back?"
Despite yourself, you did. And when he repeated it, something in his voice made it sound like something sacred.
He stayed until you left, making you laugh at stupid jokes about Professor Snape's likely romantic prospects, and when he held the library door open for you, his hand almost brushed yours.
You firmly did not think about it for the rest of the night.
By Wednesday, he was waiting for you outside Transfiguration.
"Walk with me?" he asked, as if you were already friends, as if this was something you did.
"Absolutely not," you said, but you walked with him anyway, because apparently you were a liar and a coward.
"You have terrible taste in breakfast choices," he informed you Thursday morning, appearing at the Great Hall with a full plate. "Toast with jam? You need protein."
"I need you to stop appearing randomly in my life," you shot back, but you were already fighting a smile.
"Impossible. I've decided we're friends."
"You don't know anything about me."
"I know you like books with worn spines, which means you reread them. I know you take notes during lectures but you doodle in the margins when you're bored. I know you're kind to people who don't deserve it and sharp to people who expect cruelty. I know you have a laugh that sounds like a secret." He paused, and there was something almost sincere in his expression before he ruined it with a smirk. "I know you're trying very hard to dislike me."
"It's not that hard," you lied.
He laughed, and the sound made several people turn around. "You're adorable when you're defensive."
"I hate you."
"No, you don't," he said with absolute certainty. "But I like that you're pretending to."
He was right, and that was the problem. By Thursday evening, you were already waiting for him to appear, already feeling the flutter of anticipation when you heard his voice in the hallway.
This was a terrible idea. You knew it the way you knew the sun was hot—it was simply a fact of the universe. Mattheo Riddle was the kind of beautiful that came with a warning label. He was the kind of dangerous that made good decisions evaporate like morning mist.
But he was also funny in a way that seemed genuine, and when he looked at you, it felt like he actually saw you.
That should have been your first warning.
Friday night found you both in the courtyard, far from the common rooms and their gossiping inhabitants. He'd appeared at your dormitory—your actual dormitory, somehow knowing exactly where to find you—and asked if you wanted to see something beautiful.
It was a stupid reason to sneak out. It was reckless and against about seventeen school rules.
You went anyway.
"Look," he said, spreading his arms as the night sky revealed itself above you, scattered with stars that seemed impossibly close. "I've been coming here since first year. No one else knows about it."
You were acutely aware that he was sharing this with you, this secret place. It felt important. It felt like something you should protect.
"It's incredible," you whispered, and he was looking at you when you said it, not the sky.
"Yeah," he agreed softly. "It is."
He told you things Friday night. Real things. He talked about the pressure of his name, the weight of being a Riddle without being *his* son. He talked about feeling like he was always performing, always playing a role. When you asked him why he was telling you this, he was quiet for a long moment.
"Because you haven't asked me to be anyone but myself," he said finally. "And I'm starting to realize that's not a common gift."
You stepped closer to him, your heart thundering in your chest. "Mattheo..."
"I know it's fast," he said, his voice dropping to something almost vulnerable. "I know I should probably take this slower, but I'm tired of pretending I don't feel like the world just shifted on its axis when you're near me."
The starlight caught in his dark eyes, made them seem impossibly soft. One hand reached up, his fingers brushing a strand of hair away from your face with such tenderness that you nearly stopped breathing.
"Tell me if I'm reading this wrong," he whispered.
You didn't. Instead, you closed the distance between you, and kissed him.
It was gentle at first—a question more than a statement. His lips were warm and soft, and when he kissed you back, it felt like coming home after a long journey. His hands found your waist, and he pulled you closer, deepening the kiss with a care that felt almost reverent, as if you were something precious that might break.
When you finally pulled away, you were both breathing heavily, foreheads touching in the cool night air.
"That's a yes, then?" he asked, a smile evident in his voice.
You laughed, a sound that felt like joy, and kissed him again. And again.
Saturday arrived like a fever dream. You studied together in the library, and he tested you on Potions, and when you got an answer wrong, he kissed your temple and said, "Try again, you know this," with such gentle confidence that you felt like you could have passed a N.E.W.T. on the spot.
You walked to Hogsmeade together, and he bought you hot chocolate and told you stories about his terrible roommates, and somewhere between the butter beer and the bookshop, you stopped pretending you weren't falling for him.
He caught your hand as you walked back to school, intertwining your fingers in a way that felt both casual and monumental.
"I'm terrified," you admitted as you reached the castle gates.
"Of what?" he asked, but he already knew. You could see it in his eyes.
"Of this. Of you. Of how fast this is happening."
He pulled you close, wrapping his arms around you, and the world seemed to shrink to just the two of you, to the space between his heartbeat and yours. He smelled like the expensive cologne his family sent him and something uniquely, intoxicatingly *him*.
"Then be terrified," he murmured into your hair. "I'm right here."
He pulled back just enough to kiss you again, soft and deep, with a promise that felt like a vow.
That night, you fell asleep thinking about him, your heart full in a way that felt both miraculous and dangerous.
Everything shattered like glass.
You were studying in the library alone—Mattheo had mentioned something about needing to handle a matter with his friends—when you heard the laughter.
They didn't see you, tucked away in your favorite corner behind the towering shelves of ancient books. You heard them before you saw them: Mattheo, Draco, Theo, and Blaise, clustered around a table with a betting parchment spread before them.
"Honestly, mate, I'm impressed," Draco was saying, his tone one of admiration mixed with something cruel. "I didn't think you'd actually manage it. She's barely even looked at another boy all year, and here she is, completely wrapped around your finger in six days."
Your blood went ice cold.
"It was almost too easy," Mattheo replied, and his voice was the casual, careless drawl you'd learned to love, except now it was a weapon. "She kept pretending she didn't like me, which made it more fun. There's something about breaking through someone's defenses that's..." he paused, and you heard the smile in his voice, "intoxicating."
"When's the grand finale?" Theo asked, and there was greed in his voice. "Are we talking actual seduction or just till she says she loves you?"
"The bet was just that she'd fall for me," Mattheo said. "Mission accomplished. I wasn't planning on dragging it out."
"So you're done with her then?" Blaise sounded almost disappointed, as if you were a toy being set aside.
"Obviously," Mattheo said, and that single word was more painful than a curse could have been. "She was never interesting. Just easy. I needed an easy win, and she was..." He made a dismissive sound. "Available."
The book you were holding fell to the ground.
The sound was small, barely audible, but it echoed through the library like a scream. You saw Mattheo's head snap up, saw the moment his expression shifted from lazy amusement to dawning horror as he understood what you'd heard.
You didn't stay to see more. You ran, and you didn't look back, even though you heard him calling your name, even though you heard him telling his friends to shut up, even though he knocked over his chair trying to follow you.
You ran until your lungs burned and your eyes blurred with tears, and you ran and ran until all you could feel was the wind rushing by.
You didn't go to classes on Monday.
You told your friends you were sick, and technically it wasn't a lie. You were sick with betrayal, nauseous with shame at how easily you'd been played. Every laugh you'd shared felt like a lie. Every moment he'd held your hand felt like manipulation.
He tried to find you seventeen times.
You knew because your roommate kept a count, watching with growing concern as he appeared at your dormitory, at the library, at the Great Hall, each time looking progressively more disheveled. His hair wasn't combed. There were circles under his eyes. He looked like someone dying from the inside out.
You didn't care. You couldn't afford to care.
"He looks awful," your friend Lily said on Tuesday, watching as he slumped into a chair across the hall, staring at nothing.
"Good," you said flatly, though your hands shook as you turned the page of your book without reading a single word.
"He's been like this all day. Didn't eat anything at dinner. I heard Nott mention he hasn't slept since Sunday."
"That's not my problem," you whispered, and it sounded like a lie.
By Wednesday, he'd stopped trying to find you. That was somehow worse.
You saw him in the hallways—hollow-eyed, moving through the castle like a ghost. In Potions, he stared at the same cauldron for the entire class without moving. Snape took fifty points from Slytherin out of what appeared to be pure exasperation. At dinner, he didn't eat. In the common room, he sat alone while his friends gave him a wide berth.
He looked like someone who'd been given everything and lost it all in a single moment.
You told yourself that was what he deserved. You told yourself that the ache in your chest was satisfaction, not grief.
You were a very good liar.
A week of silence had passed—a week of avoiding hallways where he might be, of staying in the library until closing, of eating meals in your dormitory because watching him not eat made your resolve crumble.
You were beginning to wonder if you could survive the rest of the year like this when Lily found you in your favorite study corner, looking more determined than you'd ever seen her.
"Okay, I'm done," she announced, sitting down and pulling your book away from you. "I'm done watching you both suffer like star-crossed idiots."
"There's nothing suffering about—"
"Don't," she interrupted. "I've known you for three years. I've never seen you happy like you were last week, and I've never seen you sad like you've been this week. And before you start with the 'he's a terrible person who doesn't deserve my forgiveness' speech, let me ask you something: do you actually believe that?"
You opened your mouth. Closed it.
"Because here's what I see," Lily continued, her voice dropping. "I see a boy who made a stupid bet, yes. I see someone who did something genuinely awful and stupid. But I also see someone who's been absolutely destroyed by what he did. Someone who's lost his appetite, his sleep, his entire personality in the span of a week because he realized the bet stopped mattering and what was left was real. That's not someone pretending, love. That's someone who broke himself."
"You don't know what he said," you whispered. "The things he called me. The way he talked about... about what we had, like it meant nothing—"
"I know exactly what he said," Lily interrupted gently. "Because word travels in this castle. And yes, what he said was cruel and thoughtless. But do you know what I also know? That the same boy who said those things has spent every moment since trying to find you, has stopped attending meals with his friends, and apparently spent two hours in the owlery yesterday writing a letter to your parents—which he didn't send, but the fact that he tried tells me something about his intentions."
"His intentions were to win a bet—"
"His intentions were to win a bet until they weren't," Lily said quietly. "Intentions can change. People can change. And forgiveness isn't about whether someone deserves it—it's about whether you deserve to keep carrying all this pain."
You wanted to argue. You wanted to hold onto your anger like a shield, because anger was better than the alternative, which was admitting how much this all hurt, how much you wanted to believe he'd meant something real when he said those things in the courtyard.
But Lily was right about one thing: you were both suffering.
It happened on a Friday, exactly two weeks after the bet.
The Great Hall was full, packed with students eating lunch, and you were in your usual spot at the Ravenclaw table, methodically moving food around your plate without eating it, when something strange happened.
The doors to the Great Hall opened.
Normally, this wouldn't be noteworthy—students came and went all the time. But Mattheo Riddle walked in with a look of absolute purpose, and instead of heading to the Slytherin table, he walked directly to the center of the Great Hall and stopped.
Your heart began to race. No. He wouldn't. He couldn't.
He did.
"I need everyone to shut up for a minute," he announced, his voice cutting through the chatter like a knife. The Great Hall went silent, every head turning toward him. This was Mattheo Riddle, so rarely did he ask for attention—it usually just found him.
You wanted to disappear. You wanted to crawl under the table and become one with the earth.
"There's someone here," he continued, his dark eyes scanning the tables until they found you, "who I completely fucked up with, and I've realized that sorry doesn't even begin to cover it, but I'm going to try anyway, because what's the alternative? Living the rest of my life knowing I ruined the one real thing I've ever had?"
Around you, whispers erupted like a plague of locusts, but you couldn't move, couldn't breathe, could only watch as he began to walk toward you.
"I made a bet," he said loudly, and you heard the sharp intakes of breath from around the hall. "A stupid, thoughtless bet that I would make you fall for me in a week. And I did it, and then I said things about you that were cruel and hateful and completely untrue, and I've been absolutely miserable ever since, which is exactly what I deserve."
He was standing in front of your table now, and you could see his hands shaking. Mattheo Riddle, who always looked so composed, so controlled, was shaking.
"But here's the thing," he continued, his voice roughening with emotion. "Somewhere around day three, the bet stopped being real. I stopped seeing you as a conquest or a challenge. I started seeing you as the person who makes me want to be better. The person who reads worn books and doodles in class and laughs like they're sharing a secret. The person who looked at me like I was worth knowing, and that made me feel like maybe I actually was."
You heard Headmaster Dumbledore stand up from the staff table, probably about to shut this down, but he seemed to catch himself, settling back with an expression of bemused interest.
"I ruined it," Mattheo said, and there were tears in his eyes now, which was somehow worse than if he'd remained cold. "I ruined the best thing that ever happened to me because I'm a coward who was afraid of what it meant to actually care about someone. But I'm done being a coward."
He dropped to his knees right there in the middle of the Great Hall, in front of literally every student and teacher in Hogwarts.
"I'm not asking you to forgive me," he said, and his voice was raw, stripped of all artifice. "I'm not asking you to take me back. I'm asking you to believe that in the last two weeks, I've learned more about myself than I had in seventeen years. I've learned that winning means nothing if you're winning alone. I've learned that you were never the easy conquest I thought—you were the hardest person to fool because you could see right through me, and somehow you looked anyway. And I've learned that love isn't something you can fake, because if you could, I wouldn't be absolutely destroyed right now."
The entire Great Hall was silent. You could feel a thousand eyes on you, but you could only see him.
"I love you," he said simply, and it sounded like something that cost him everything to say. "Real love. The kind that makes me want to be someone worthy of you. I don't expect you to believe that. I don't expect anything from you except maybe five minutes to listen to why the bet didn't matter anymore by day four, and why I should have told you the truth the moment I realized I was falling instead of trying to hide it."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of parchment, worn and folded many times.
"This is the letter I wrote to your parents," he said. "I couldn't send it because I didn't know if I had the right, but I'm giving it to you now. It explains everything. It tells them that their daughter is the strongest person I know, that she saw goodness in me when I couldn't see it in myself, and that if she ever chooses to give me another chance, I will spend every day of my life earning it."
He was still on his knees.
"I know I don't deserve you," he continued quietly. "I know I fucked up in a way that probably can't be fixed. But I had to try. I had to stand here in front of everyone and tell the truth, because lying is what got us here in the first place."
Behind him, you could see his friends staring in shock. Blaise's mouth was actually hanging open. Draco looked like he'd been hexed.
"So here's my question," Mattheo said, and his dark eyes searched yours with such intensity that you felt like the room might actually collapse around you. "Can you find any reason to believe that I'm not lying now? Can you find any reason to think that maybe the week we had was real, even if it started with a lie?"
You couldn't speak. Your throat was closed. Your hands were shaking, and your heart was doing something complicated and dangerous in your chest.
At the staff table, you heard Dumbledore lean over to Professor McGonagall and say, in that whimsical way of his, "Now *that's* what I call dramatic redemption. The boy is either completely sincere or a brilliant actor. Either way, ten points to Slytherin for sheer audacity."
McGonagall made a small sound that might have been laughter or a sob.
And then, before you could stop yourself, you were standing up, climbing over the bench, closing the distance between you.
"You're an idiot," you said, and your voice was shaking too.
"I know," he agreed.
"You hurt me."
"I know. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry—"
"And I don't know if I can trust you."
His entire face crumpled, like he'd been expecting that, deserving it.
"But," you continued, taking another step closer, "I also know that you've been absolutely miserable. I also know that my friends told me you didn't eat for three days. I also know that you looked at me like I was the most important thing in the world, and even though it started as a lie, even though you lied to my face, I don't think you were still lying when you kissed me under the stars."
"I wasn't," he said immediately. "I swear to you, I wasn't."
"And I also know," you said, and now your voice was steadier, though tears were streaming down your face, "that I love you. Which is stupid, and it's terrifying, and you probably don't deserve it, but I can't seem to stop, no matter how hard I try."
He stood up so quickly he nearly knocked you over, and then he was pulling you close, and he was kissing you like it was the last thing he'd ever do, like you were air and he'd been suffocating.
The Great Hall erupted in chaos.
Some people were cheering. Some people were clearly scandalized. Dumbledore was actually clapping, which seemed wildly inappropriate but perfectly in character.
When you finally broke apart, breathless and shaking, Mattheo was staring at you like you'd handed him the world on a silver platter.
"You said you love me," he whispered, just for you.
"I'm going to regret this," you whispered back. "Probably for the rest of my life."
"Then regret it with me," he said. "Please. I'll spend every day making it worth it. I'll spend every day proving I'm not the person I was two weeks ago."
"If you ever lie to me again—"
"I won't. I swear it. On my life, on my magic, on whatever you need me to swear on."
He kissed you again, softer this time, like he was trying to heal something broken inside both of you.
From the Slytherin table, you heard Blaise mutter, "Well, that's bollocks. I lost fifty Galleons on this."
Draco smirked. "That's what you get for underestimating love, you prat."
your shouts were heard from the end of the bridge that mattheo and his friends currently leaned over the railing of, enjoying a quick smoke before having to endure the oh-so painful lessons of their afternoon classes.
mattheo put his cigarette out on the side of the crooked bridge, throwing the butt into the abyss as he turned in the direction of your voice.
there you were, running up to him all excited and bubbly. very on brand for you.
‘i got a new lipgloss!’ you panted out through a smile as you finally reached him and his friends.
at this, enzo sniggered into his cigarette. draco paid no attention to your presence, blaise merely quirked his brow and theo craned his neck around blaise to watch the interaction at hand.
‘ah, is that so angel?’ mattheo asked tucking a strand of hair behind your ear as you blinked up at him.
‘mmhm! they finally stocked a new brand in hogsmeade.’
‘that means all new flavours then, no?’ he asked, making you nod your head excitedly.
‘guess what one i’m wearing now!’ you asked, grabbing mattheo’s arm and leaning on your tip toes so he could get closer to your face to examine your gloss.
‘hmm,’ mattheo hummed, snaking an arm around your waist and crashing his lips to yours making you giggle. quick and easy, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
the other slytherin boys wished they could say they were surprised by this act, but you and mattheo being this comfortable with each other was a common occurrence. it wasn’t unusual for you two to be touching each other in some kind of way: would it be him feeding you something, you sitting on his lap, taking a nap together, anything goes really. that’s what best friends are for, right?
mattheo pulled away from the kiss just enough to look at you and tapped his chin mockingly with his free hand. ‘orange?’
you shook your head ‘no’ and mattheo went in again, this kiss longer than the first making you snake your arms around his neck. when he pulled away he thought for another moment then guessed. ‘apple?’
‘nooo,’ you giggled ‘matty, you’re miles off!’ he grinned at this, moving to wrap both of his arms around your waist inevitably pulling you flush against him.
‘okay, okay. how about one more try, angel?.’ and he kissed you again. the longest out of the three kisses. once you broke apart you were panting slightly.
‘was it… cherry flavour, gorgeous?’
‘yes!’ you gasped smiling brightly. ‘i’m surprised you didn’t get it sooner, don’t you love cherry flavour?’
‘is she fucking thick?’ enzo muttered behind you, only to be met with an elbow in the ribs from Draco.
‘i do, well remembered. what class do you have next?’
your brows furrowed in thought before you answered. ‘herbology, why?’
‘let me walk you.’ it was only then did mattheo release your waist, swiftly swinging his bag over his shoulder and taking your hand in his, not even bothering to bid farewell to his friends.
‘they’re revolting.’ enzo commented, his face twisted into disgust as he put his own cigarette out on the side of the bridge.
‘there’s no way he hasn’t fucked her.’
‘don’t be stupid nott, of course he’s fucked her.’ blaise replied as he watched you and mattheo walk slowly down the bridge, mattheo’s hand holding your own swinging it slightly.
‘but they’re best friends,’ draco quipped in mockingly.
Her Brother, Her Best Friend, Her Love — Theodore Nott
Summary: Being Draco Malfoy’s twin means never being alone, especially when Theodore Nott has always been right beside her.
Warnings: None. MalfoyTwin!Reader
Word Count: 9.5K
. . • ☆ . °.•°:. *₊° .☆. . • ☆ . °.•°:. *₊° .☆ :.
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Ever since they were young, Draco and Y/N Malfoy had been inseparable, not simply because they were twins, but because something deeper kept pulling them back together. A bond that lived under skin and bone. Beyond matching faces and shared birthdays. It was instinct. It was certain. As natural as breathing.
No matter how vicious their arguments became, no matter how cruel their pranks were, they always circled back.
Always chose each other.
They fought loudly, dramatically, the way only children raised side by side could. Doors slammed through the endless corridors of Malfoy Manor. Insults were hurled with the fearless precision of two people who knew exactly where the other was weakest and knew, too, exactly how far they could go before it stopped being a game. Pride bruised. Tempers flared. Threats were made that neither of them ever truly meant.
Yet when it mattered, when the world felt too large or too sharp, they were always side by side.
Draco was her shield.
Y/N was his anchor.
She still remembered the day everything changed.
They had been five, far too young to understand the weight of magic, or the fear it carried when it slipped its leash. The argument was ridiculous in hindsight, something trivial and childish: the last sweet on a silver tray in the drawing room. Draco insisted she’d taken it. Y/N swore she hadn’t. Voices rose, sharp and indignant, echoing off marble walls and gilded frames. Small hands shoved. Frustration bubbled over into something hot and uncontrollable.
And then Draco’s magic exploded.
It wasn’t intentional. It wasn’t aimed.
It simply was.
The force hit her without warning, throwing her backward across the room as though the air itself had turned solid. Pain flashed sharp and blinding, and then nothing.
When she woke, she was tucked safely into her bed, silk sheets drawn neatly around her like they could keep the world out. The familiar scent of her room, lavender oil, polished wood, something faintly metallic wrapped around her. Voices filled the air, sharp and overlapping, frantic in a way the manor never allowed.
Her parents stood nearby, but it was her father’s voice that cut through everything else.
Lucius Malfoy, usually so controlled, so precise, sounded furious and terrified all at once as he scolded Draco. His tone was clipped, edged with something dangerously close to panic.
Draco.
Y/N turned her head.
He stood at the foot of the bed, small shoulders shaking violently, pale face streaked with tears. His hands were clenched at his sides like he didn’t know what to do with them, like he was afraid to touch anything ever again. He looked shattered. Devastated. Like a child who truly believed he had destroyed the only thing that mattered.
His sister.
His other half.
He thought he had killed her.
The realization softened something deep in her chest. So when her eyes fluttered open, she didn’t scream. She didn’t cry. She smiled wide and bright, utterly unconcerned, as if the whole thing had been an exciting surprise.
So wide, in fact, that both of her parents froze.
“Mummy! Daddy!” Y/N exclaimed, voice filled with wonder rather than fear. “Dray’s magic finally exploded!”
For a heartbeat, no one moved.
Then Draco broke.
A broken sob tore out of him, and he launched himself forward, climbing onto the bed and clinging to her as though she might vanish if he let go. His hands twisted in her nightshirt, desperate.
“I’m so sorry,” he cried into her shoulder. “I thought I killed you, sissy—I thought I hurt you forever.”
Y/N didn’t hesitate. She wrapped her arms around him just as tightly, small fingers threading into his hair, holding him like he was the one who needed saving.
“I’m fine,” she murmured, steady despite everything. “See? I’m right here.”
Lucius, who had been the most worried of all, felt his anger melt away, leaving only a tight, aching relief he would never admit to anyone outside these walls. His pale eyes softened as he watched his children tangled together on the bed, so alike, so fiercely bonded.
Narcissa’s smile was gentler than the room deserved. Her hand found Lucius’s sleeve, a quiet touch that calmed him more than words ever could.
“I told you,” she said softly. “Draco would never hurt his sister. Not truly. Not ever.”
And from that day on, it was clear to everyone in Malfoy Manor: no matter how sharp their words became, no matter how loud their arguments, Draco and Y/N were two halves of the same soul, unbreakable, protective, devoted.
Each other’s constant.
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As the years passed, the world around them slowly expanded. Alliances were formed with careful precision, conversations were held behind closed doors, and names began to matter more than playthings. Soon enough, the Malfoy twins were introduced to other children who came from the same world.
Theodore Nott was the first.
They met when the twins were six, on a cold afternoon at Nott Manor, though Draco would later insist the weather alone warranted dramatic complaints. Theo was quieter than the Malfoy twins from the moment they met him: dark-haired, pale, watchful. He didn’t rush forward like Draco. He didn’t meet Y/N with bold confidence, either.
He observed.
Measured.
And Y/N, who was used to being watched, used to the way adults weighed her worth before they even learned her favorite sweets, noticed it immediately. Not the scrutiny of an adult, but something different. Something… careful. Like he was trying to understand her, not judge her.
The adults called it a playdate.
None of the children believed that.
Lucius and Narcissa watched with polite smiles and sharper eyes. Theo’s father remained silent, his presence heavy and unreadable, like a shadow cast across the room. This wasn’t about toys or laughter.
It was about assessment. Who led. Who followed. Who watched quietly from the corners.
Draco, of course, detonated into the day like a firework. Within minutes, he’d tried to pull Theo into whatever reckless game he and Y/N had invented, issuing challenges and dares with an enthusiasm only a Malfoy child could muster.
Y/N lingered closer, studying Theo with curiosity rather than suspicion, her gaze sharp and quick. She didn’t like people who looked at her as though she were an extension of her father’s reputation. Theo’s eyes didn’t do that. His attention landed on her face, her hands, the way she stood beside Draco as if the space between them had always belonged to her.
Theo didn’t protest. He didn’t laugh loudly, nor did he shrink away.
He simply joined them.
Quietly.
And somehow, without anyone noticing exactly when it happened, he fit.
It was small at first. A steady presence that didn’t demand anything. A boy who stepped out of Draco’s chaos not because he feared it, but because he didn’t need to compete with it. He watched. He listened.
And he remembered everything.
Y/N noticed it most when Draco got carried away. When Draco’s dares became too sharp, too close to cruel, Theo’s gaze would flick to Y/N—not asking permission, but checking. Are you alright with this? Are you laughing, or are you forcing it?
And every time she met his eyes, something in Theo’s chest tightened an unfamiliar pull he didn’t yet have language for. He didn’t know why he cared whether she was truly amused. He only knew he did.
The adults would later say it was inevitable that children of their standing were bound to grow close.
But Theo knew, even at six, that what he felt wasn’t inevitability.
It was choice.
Because Draco was loud and impossible to ignore.
And Y/N—Y/N was the center of gravity.
She didn’t have to raise her voice to be noticed. She could stand perfectly still, and the room would tilt toward her anyway. Draco orbited her like a planet that didn’t know it was tethered. Theo… Theo learned to do it more quietly. He learned to be close without crowding. Present without demanding.
It started as a simple thing: Theo liked being near her.
Then it became something sharper, something that settled into him like a secret.
Theo noticed the way Y/N’s smile changed when she was genuinely entertained—softer, warmer, less guarded. He noticed how quickly she put that guard back up when adults turned their eyes on her. He noticed the second she stopped breathing whenever Lucius’s voice went cold.
And without ever meaning to, Theo began collecting those details like they mattered.
Like she mattered.
Someone who saw her without needing her to speak.
Someone who understood the spaces between words.
Someone who, even then, was already learning what it meant to stand beside her—not because he had to, but because he wanted to.
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Months later, Lorenzo Berkshire and Blaise Zabini arrived. The Berkshires were new to England, newly rooted in a country still reeling from the war’s aftermath. They’d heard the stories of the chaos, the devastation, the fear that had once gripped the wizarding world. But more importantly, they understood something far more practical: survival required allegiance.
And allegiance meant choosing a side.
They chose the Malfoys.
And the Notts.
Blaise Zabini’s family was spoken of in quieter tones. His mother’s name was whispered with intrigue and caution, followed by a long list of husbands who had vanished just as mysteriously as they’d appeared. No one questioned it, not when Mrs. Zabini’s inheritance alone rivaled most old families.
That afternoon, the Malfoy twins and Theo were sprawled across the manicured gardens of Malfoy Manor, circling a cluster of protesting garden gnomes. Draco was shouting instructions with far too much authority for a six-year-old, while Y/N laughed as she nudged one of the gnomes back toward its hole with the toe of her shoe. Theo lingered nearby, arms crossed, watching the chaos with the quiet amusement of someone who preferred storms from a safe distance.
“Draco, stop yelling at them,” Y/N said, crouching. “They don’t listen when you shout.”
“They should,” Draco huffed. “This is our garden.”
Theo tilted his head. “You’re arguing with gnomes.”
Draco scowled. “And you’re standing there doing nothing.”
“I’m supervising,” Theo replied calmly, and when Y/N laughed, that same warm pull tightened in his chest like it had hands.
A familiar pop sounded at the edge of the lawn.
Dobby appeared, wringing his long fingers nervously. Behind him stood two boys.
One had shaggy brown hair and wide eyes, his gaze darting between the towering manor and the three children as if he wasn’t sure where to place himself. The other dark-skinned, sharp-eyed held himself with effortless confidence, hands folded neatly behind his back as though he’d been taught to look like he belonged anywhere.
Y/N straightened first, brushing grass from her dress. Draco followed immediately, shoulders squaring as he stepped half a pace in front of her without thinking.
Theo noticed.
He always noticed.
It wasn’t jealousy yet. Not quite. It was simply… a quiet alarm bell in his bones whenever the world moved too close to her.
“Ms. Y/N,” Dobby squeaked, bowing. “Mr. Little Malfoy, sir—this is Mr. Lorenzo Berkshire and Mr. Blaise Zabini.”
Draco eyed them critically. “You’re late.”
Lorenzo flushed. “S-sorry. The Floo—”
“It’s fine,” Blaise interrupted smoothly, stepping forward. His eyes flicked over Draco, then Y/N, then Theo—assessing, calculating. “Thank you for having us.”
Y/N’s smile was polite, practiced, but her eyes were curious, bright. “You don’t have to sound so serious. We were just torturing gnomes.”
Theo added, dry as ever, “Against their will.”
Blaise’s mouth tipped into a small grin. “They look like they deserve it.”
Draco snorted. “Finally, someone with sense.”
Lorenzo hesitated, then blurted, “Your house is… really big.”
Draco smirked. “Obviously.”
Y/N shot him a look. “He means it’s impressive,” she corrected, gentler. Then she offered her hand to Lorenzo first, because she could always sense who needed kindness more. “I’m Y/N. That’s Draco, and this is Theo.”
Theo gave a small nod. “You don’t have to be nervous.”
Lorenzo swallowed. “I’m not.”
Blaise raised an eyebrow. “He is.”
Draco laughed outright, clearly approving. “I like you already.”
Theo didn’t laugh, but he watched Y/N as she smiled, and felt that same strange certainty settle deeper: she pulled people in. Whether she meant to or not.
And Theo… Theo stayed close enough to catch anyone who fell into her orbit too hard.
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Four more years passed, and with them came sharper awareness. The war no longer felt like a story told in hushed tones; it lingered in glances, in careful conversations, in the names their parents spoke with caution.
It was during one of those carefully arranged afternoons that Mattheo Riddle was introduced into their already forming circle.
At first, the adults hesitated. The name alone carried consequences. There had been long discussions behind closed doors, low voices and measured words. But eventually, a decision was made.
By then, the others were inseparable.
Draco Malfoy. Y/N Malfoy. Theodore Nott. Lorenzo Berkshire. Blaise Zabini.
They rotated through one another’s homes weekly, drifting between grand manors and inherited estates. The visits were no longer supervised closely; the parents watched from a distance, now trusting the children to occupy themselves while still observing carefully from the edges.
They were ten. A year away from Hogwarts.
That afternoon, the Malfoy sitting room was filled with the kind of comfort that only came from familiarity. Sunlight filtered through tall windows, turning dust motes into floating gold. The silver accents gleamed. The air smelled faintly of parchment and Narcissa’s perfume.
Y/N sat at the grand piano, fingers hovering over the keys as she worked through a piece Narcissa had assigned her. Theo stood close, too close for coincidence, leaning against the piano’s side, eyes fixed not on the music, but on her hands.
He’d been doing that for years: finding excuses to be near her without announcing it. Standing just off her shoulder in crowded rooms. Sitting beside her instead of across. Quietly becoming the place she could lean without realizing she’d leaned at all.
“You’re rushing the left hand,” Theo murmured.
Y/N glanced up at him, amused. “I’m not.”
“You are,” he said calmly. “Just a little.”
She narrowed her eyes, playing anyway, deliberately dragging the left hand even slower just to spite him. “Are you correcting me,” she asked, “or admiring me?”
Theo’s ears went faintly pink. It always happened with her, like she could reach inside him and tug on every thread he tried to keep neat.
“Both,” he admitted, voice quieter than usual.
Y/N laughed softly, warm and unguarded, and Theo felt that familiar pull in his chest, uncomfortable only because it was too big for him to hide. He liked making her laugh. Liked when she looked at him like the world felt safer with him near.
Across the room, Draco lounged in an armchair, arguing loudly with Blaise.
“There’s no question,” Draco insisted. “The Holyhead Harpies are overrated.”
“They are not,” Blaise shot back. “You just like being difficult.”
“I like being right.”
“You like being annoying.”
Lorenzo, curled up on the rug with a book he’d stolen from Draco’s bedroom, didn’t look up. “You’re both loud.”
Draco scoffed. “You’re reading upside down.”
Lorenzo blinked, rotated the book slowly, then frowned. “So I am.”
Theo’s mouth twitched. Y/N’s smile widened. He stored it away like he always did, another moment of her joy that felt oddly like something precious he was responsible for.
Then the door opened.
Narcissa Malfoy entered with her usual grace, her presence commanding attention without effort. Beside her stood a boy unfamiliar to them, with dark curls falling lazily over his forehead, posture casual but eyes sharp. Confident, but braced, like he expected the air to turn against him at any second.
All of the children rose immediately.
Narcissa’s gaze swept over them, soft but thoughtful. It lingered on Draco and Y/N a moment longer than the rest, as though she were measuring risks she could not name.
“Children,” she said gently, resting a hand on the boy’s shoulder, “this is Mattheo Riddle.”
The name echoed. No one reacted outwardly. They had been taught better than that. But Theo felt the shift instantly, the careful stillness. Draco’s shoulders squared. Blaise’s eyes sharpened with interest. Lorenzo’s grip tightened on his book.
Mattheo felt it too. He kept his smile in place, but Theo saw the tension in his jaw. He was used to the pause. The judgment.
Then Y/N stepped forward.
She didn’t hesitate. Didn’t glance at Draco or Theo for permission. She simply extended her hand, smile warm and unguarded.
“Hi,” she said easily. “I’m Y/N Malfoy.”
Mattheo blinked, startled, before taking her hand. “Mattheo.”
Theo watched his jaw tighten just slightly, something sour and instinctive twisting in his stomach. He didn’t like how easily she smiled at him. Didn’t like the relief that flashed across Mattheo’s face.
And without thinking, without deciding, Theo shifted closer to Y/N. Not touching her. Just there. A quiet line drawn in the air that said: You’re not alone. You never are.
Draco cleared his throat. “Draco Malfoy,” he said coolly. “That’s Theo, Blaise, and Enzo.”
Blaise inclined his head politely. “Nice to meet you.”
Lorenzo blurted, “Do you like books?”
Mattheo’s mouth quirked. “Depends on the book.”
Theo studied him carefully before speaking. “You can sit.”
It wasn’t exactly an invitation. It was permission. Mattheo nodded, grateful, taking a seat near the others. Narcissa observed them for another moment before turning to leave, her hand lingering briefly on Y/N’s shoulder, maternal, protective, before the door closed.
The room fell quiet.
Draco broke it first, as always. “So… wizard chess?”
Mattheo exhaled. “I’m terrible.”
Draco grinned. “Even better.”
Y/N laughed, and Theo felt it the way that sound anchored him. No matter who joined them, no matter how the circle expanded, she was still the center. And Theo knew, even then, that whatever he felt for her wasn’t fleeting. It wasn’t childish. It wasn’t something he could simply grow out of.
It had been building since he was six years old, quiet and stubborn and unshakable.
A devotion he didn’t name yet.
But he carried it like a promise anyway.
.
.
.
It wasn’t until Hogwarts that the boys and Y/N began to understand just how tightly bound they truly were.
They moved through the castle like a unit, even when they weren’t standing together. People noticed. Whispers followed them down corridors. Sneers lingered at the edges of classrooms. Eyes narrowed whenever they passed. Other houses watched them with thinly veiled disdain, judging them before they ever spoke.
They didn’t always say it to their faces.
They were too afraid for that.
But Y/N heard it anyway, murmured insults behind hands, sharp laughter that cut just a second too long. Words like Death Eater. Dark. Tainted. Words meant to peel the skin off.
She told herself she didn’t care.
That she was used to it.
And in a way, she was raised in a manor where reputation was a second spine, where fear was a language people pretended not to speak.
But there was a difference between whispers in passing… And what people did when they thought no one would stop them.
It was a rare afternoon when she was alone.
No Draco at her side. No Theo lingering close. No Blaise scanning a room like a blade. No Lorenzo quietly trailing behind. No Mattheo leaning against a wall with that lazy smile that never quite reached his eyes.
For once, the boys were elsewhere, arguing about Quidditch and house points and some stupid bet that had dragged them toward the courtyard. Y/N had slipped away to breathe.
She sat near the Black Lake with her shoes discarded beside her, skirt tucked neatly under her legs, the grass cool beneath her palms. The water shimmered lazily; the giant squid’s shadow drifted far out in the distance like a secret too large to name. The sun was pleasant. The air smelled like damp earth and leaves.
For a few minutes, she let herself pretend she was just a girl beside a lake. Not a name. Not a reputation. Not a target.
She closed her eyes. That’s when the sunlight disappeared. A shadow fell across her face, sudden and deliberate. Y/N opened her eyes. Three Ravenclaw girls stood in front of her, older third years, maybe fourth. They wore confidence like armor and cruelty like perfume, the kind of girls who only felt powerful when someone smaller was in reach.
“Well,” the tallest drawled, “look at that. Finally alone without your little Death Eater gang, little Malfoy?”
Y/N’s spine went stiff. She hated that nickname, the way people used it, like she was nothing more than Draco Malfoy’s shadow. She didn’t rise immediately. She forced her expression into something cool and blank, the same mask she’d worn her whole life.
“Move,” she said flatly.
One of the girls laughed, as if Y/N’s voice were entertainment. “Still bossy. Figures.”
“You think you’re untouchable,” the first continued, stepping closer. “Because of your brother. Because of your friends.”
Y/N stood, brushing her hands over her skirt even though it wasn’t dirty, anything to keep her body moving, anything to keep them from seeing the way her pulse had jumped.
“I’m not bothering you.”
“No,” the third girl said softly, circling. “But your name does.”
Y/N’s fingers curled at her sides. “I don’t control my last name.”
“Oh, please,” the first snapped. “You control who you stand with.”
“And you stand with them,” the second added, eyes narrowing. “The ones who think they’re better than everyone.”
Y/N’s jaw tightened. “If you don’t like who I stand with, walk away.”
The tallest girl smiled slowly and satisfied. “Or we could teach you what it’s like to be alone.”
Before Y/N could step back, a hand shoved her shoulder. She stumbled, heel sliding dangerously near the edge. Her stomach dropped.
“Stop,” she warned, voice sharper now.
They didn’t. Another shove harder. Her back foot slipped on damp soil. And then the ground vanished. She fell backward into the lake with a splash that knocked the breath clean out of her lungs. Cold slammed into her like a curse, stealing thought, stealing air. Her clothes grew heavy instantly, dragging her down. Her skirts tangled around her legs like hands.
She couldn’t swim.
Panic exploded in her chest. She opened her mouth to scream, and water poured in instead. She thrashed, disoriented, kicking uselessly. The surface seemed impossibly far away, a bright, wavering ceiling she couldn’t reach.
On the shore, the Ravenclaws froze.
For half a second, none of them moved.
Then—
“What the hell—?!”
Draco’s voice cut through the air like a whip.
The boys were running five figures, tearing across the grass from the path above. Draco was first, face twisted with horror and fury. Blaise was right behind him, faster than he looked. Lorenzo sprinted with his robes in his hands so he wouldn’t trip. Mattheo followed, long strides eating distance, eyes locked on the lake.
Theo didn’t shout.
He didn’t hesitate.
He ran past them all and dove. The cold hit him like a fist. It stole his breath so violently his lungs seized his body, screaming to surface, to survive. But Theo forced himself down anyway, eyes burning as he opened them underwater.
Find her.
He saw her shadow beneath the surface hair, floating like ink around her face, movements frantic and weakening.
Theo’s heart nearly stopped. For one terrible second, all he could think was: No. Not her. Not Y/N.
He kicked hard, arms slicing through the water, and reached her just as her thrashing slowed. He wrapped an arm around her waist and hauled upward, fighting against the weight of her soaked clothes.
Up—up—
They broke the surface with a gasp.
Theo coughed, choking on water, but he didn’t let go. He couldn’t.
Y/N sputtered, half-conscious, terror-stricken. Her fingers latched onto his robes like he was the only real thing left in the world.
On shore, Draco reached the girls.
“What did you do?” he demanded, voice shaking with rage. “What did you do to her?!”
“She—she fell—” one stammered.
Blaise’s voice went icy. “She didn’t fall. You pushed her.”
Lorenzo planted himself between the Ravenclaws and the lake, fists clenched so tightly his knuckles went white. “Step back. Now.”
Mattheo didn’t speak at first. He just looked at them. His expression was calm in a way that didn’t match the moment, too still, too quiet. His eyes flicked from their faces to the lake and back again, and something dark settled there, something old.
The tallest Ravenclaw tried to scoff, but her voice wavered. “It was just a joke—”
Mattheo finally smiled. It wasn’t friendly. It wasn’t warm. It was the kind of smile that made people remember his last name, too.
“A joke,” he repeated softly, as if tasting the word. “That’s funny. Because she could’ve died.”
The girls’ faces paled.
Draco took a step forward, shaking with rage. “You’re going to the Head of House,” he snarled. “You’re going to Flitwick—someone—”
Blaise’s hand shot out, gripping Draco’s sleeve, grounding him before he did something that would land them in trouble too. “Draco,” Blaise warned under his breath. “Not here.”
Mattheo leaned in slightly toward the Ravenclaws, voice low enough it felt private and dangerous. “If you ever touch her again,” he said, “I’ll make sure you spend the rest of your Hogwarts years afraid of empty corridors.”
One of the girls swallowed hard. “You can’t—”
Mattheo’s eyes flicked to her. “Try me.”
Meanwhile, Theo dragged Y/N toward shore, muscles screaming, lungs burning, teeth chattering so hard it hurt. Lorenzo rushed forward, grabbing Y/N’s arm and helping pull her onto the grass.
Y/N collapsed, coughing violently as water spilled from her mouth. She shook uncontrollably, soaked hair plastered to her cheeks. Her eyes were wide and glassy with fear.
Theo dropped beside her instantly, too fast, too desperate, one hand bracing her back, the other gripping her wrist like he could keep her tethered to the earth if he held tight enough.
“Breathe,” he pleaded, voice breaking. “Please—breathe. Look at me—look at me—”
Y/N gasped, chest heaving, and suddenly she was sobbing—quiet, broken sounds she tried to swallow down like she was ashamed of them. Her fingers clenched in Theo’s robes again, desperate.
“I—I couldn’t—” she choked. “I couldn’t—”
“I know,” Theo said fiercely, leaning close, forehead nearly touching hers. His hands shook as he held her, anger and fear tangled together until he couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. “I know. You’re safe. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”
Draco knelt on her other side, face white with terror and rage. He touched her shoulder carefully, like he was afraid she’d shatter. “Sissy—” his voice wavered, and he swallowed it down. “Y/N. I’m here.”
Blaise turned back to the Ravenclaws, expression polite but lethal. “Walk away,” he said smoothly. “Now. Before you make this worse.”
Lorenzo didn’t move, jaw clenched, eyes bright with fury. And Mattheo, still calm, still terrifyingly quiet, kept his gaze on the girls until they finally backed away, stumbling over their own feet.
Only when they were gone did Theo look down at Y/N again.
Her cheeks were flushed from coughing, lashes clumped with water, and lips trembling. She looked small, too small for the weight her name forced onto her. Too breakable for the world’s cruelty.
Theo’s throat tightened.
This wasn’t just anger.
This wasn’t just fear.
This was something that had been building in him for years—quiet and stubborn, living in the way he always stood a little closer, listened a little harder, watched her a little too carefully.
Love.
And as he held her there on the grass—soaked, shaking, alive—Theodore Nott knew one truth with terrifying clarity: He had been hers since he was six years old. He just hadn’t known what to call it.
And now that he knew that the word existed in him like a vow, he would destroy anyone who ever tried to hurt her again.
.
.
.
It was in their third year when Y/N began to realize something had shifted. At first, she told herself it was nothing.
The third year changed everyone. Hogwarts felt smaller somehow, corridors darker, expectations heavier. Lessons stopped being games. Professors stopped indulging mistakes. The whispers sharpened, too, as if the castle itself had decided they were old enough to be punished for their surnames.
People didn’t see children anymore. They saw names. Legacies. Consequences. Still, through it all, one thing stayed constant.
Theo.
He had always been there quietly, steadily, without demanding space or attention. Where Draco was loud in his protectiveness, Theo was subtle. Where Draco burned, Theo endured. He stood beside her in crowded corridors, drifted near her shoulder in the Great Hall, waited outside classrooms as if he’d simply ended up there, like it wasn’t intentional at all.
Like it wasn’t always about her.
Theo knew her moods before she did.
When she grew sharp and distant, he didn’t push. When she laughed too brightly—too polished, too rehearsed—he watched closer, gaze narrowing the way it did when he saw something no one else was meant to notice.
When the world became too much, he simply stayed.
Sometimes, she thought he knew her better than Draco did. That realization frightened her more than anything else. Because Draco was her twin. Draco was woven into her like blood. It made sense that he knew her.
Theo… Theo wasn’t supposed to.
And yet. It didn’t crash over her in some dramatic moment. It crept in quietly, through small things she only noticed afterward.
Like the way her eyes searched for Theo first when she entered a room without meaning to, without thinking. Like how her shoulders loosened the second she spotted him leaning against a wall, arms crossed, dark eyes already on her as if he’d been waiting. Not in the obvious way, not like a puppy left at a door—just… present. Ready.
Grounding.
As if the chaos of Hogwarts softened when he was near.
She started noticing the details.
The way he always walked on the outside of the corridor, placing himself between her and the press of students without ever making a show of it. The way he handed her books before she even realized she needed them. The way he remembered things she’d said once, months ago, in passing, like her words were something he kept instead of something he endured.
“You don’t like thunder,” Theo had said one night, voice low in the common room.
Y/N blinked at him. “I don’t?”
“You tense up,” he replied simply. “Every time.”
She didn’t remember telling him that.
Worse—she didn’t remember anyone noticing.
There were nights when they sat together long after the others had gone to bed, the Slytherin common room hushed beneath green light and the slow crackle of the fire. Draco would be asleep already. Blaise distracted with whatever drama he pretended not to enjoy. Mattheo off chasing something reckless. Lorenzo buried in a book, half-asleep over the pages.
Leaving just the two of them.
Theo never rushed to fill the silence. And somehow that made it intimate. Because silence with Theo wasn’t awkward. It wasn’t empty.
It was chosen.
She began to notice how close he sat. Not touching Theo, but near enough that she could feel his warmth, near enough that their shoulders almost brushed when she shifted.
She told herself it meant nothing.
Until it did.
Until one evening, when she laughed at something Blaise said and turned, instinctively, to Theo as if he were the person she wanted to share it with first. Only to find him already watching her. Not in the casual way he watched everything, always attentive, always aware.
In a softer way.
Like she was something precious he didn’t want to startle.
Her breath caught.
Theo’s gaze flicked to her mouth just for a second, quick enough that she could pretend she imagined it.
Then he looked away first, jaw tightening like he was angry at himself.
That was when it truly began. Because once she saw it, she couldn’t unsee it.
She thought about him when he wasn’t there. Wondered where he was during lessons they didn’t share. Felt something twist uncomfortably in her chest when other girls spoke to him, especially when they smiled too brightly, lingered too long, acted like they were entitled to his attention.
She told herself it was stupid.
Theo was her best friend.
Theo was safe.
Theo was constant.
But she was learning quietly, miserably, that safety didn’t always mean the absence of risk. Sometimes it meant the presence of something worth losing everything for.
She started noticing the way he said her name. Not rushed. Not careless. Like it mattered. Like it was something fragile in his mouth. She noticed how his hand would hover near her back in crowded spaces, never quite touching, but always ready.
Like if the world shoved too hard, Theo would catch her.
And then there were moments—small, cruelly gentle moments—that shattered her defenses.
The night she couldn’t sleep after a nightmare, she slipped quietly into the common room, expecting emptiness.
Theo was already there.
Sitting awake with a book open in his lap that he clearly wasn’t reading.
He looked up the moment she stepped into the room, as if he’d been listening for her without realizing it.
“You too?” he asked softly.
Y/N nodded, throat tight.
He didn’t ask why. Didn’t demand details. Didn’t try to fix it. He just shifted closer on the sofa and, without a word, draped his blanket over her shoulders, warm and heavy, smelling faintly like parchment and smoke.
She didn’t give it back.
And Theo didn’t ask for it.
It was then wrapped in his warmth, listening to the steady rhythm of his breathing, that the truth settled in her chest, heavy and undeniable.
She was falling for him.
Her best friend.
Her quiet constant.
The boy who knew her almost as well as Draco did—if not better, sometimes.
Theodore Nott.
And the most terrifying part wasn’t the fear of rejection.
It was the fear that he already knew.
.
.
.
It wasn’t supposed to be a confession.
That was the thing about it.
Fourth year had settled into something familiar, comfortable routines, shared meals, laughter in the common room, late-night walks that didn’t need explanations. Y/N told herself nothing had changed. That whatever she felt was normal. That best friends stayed close. That comfort didn’t have to mean more.
Theo told himself the same.
He had been telling himself the same for years.
So when they found themselves by the Black Lake that evening, neither of them thought anything of it. Not at first.
The sun hung low, turning the water molten gold. The surface rippled gently, calm in a way that felt intentional, as if the lake were holding its breath. Y/N sat in the grass with her knees drawn up, tracing absent patterns into the earth with her fingers. Theo stood a few steps away, hands in his pockets, gaze fixed on the water like it was easier to look at anything else.
“This place always feels quieter,” she said softly.
Theo nodded. “It’s easier to think here.”
She glanced up at him. “You’re thinking now.”
He huffed a quiet laugh, the sound almost reluctant. “Am I that obvious?”
“To me,” she said.
That earned her a look that lingered a second longer than usual. Not intense. Not searching.
Just… honest.
Theo sat beside her, leaving space between them out of habit rather than intent. Like his body still remembered years of not taking too much.
“I figured something out here,” he said after a moment.
Y/N tilted her head. “About what?”
“About you.”
Her fingers stilled in the grass. “That sounds ominous,” she tried to joke, lightness forced, heart suddenly too loud in her ribs.
“It wasn’t,” Theo said quickly. Then he corrected himself, mouth twitching like he regretted the words already. “Well. It was, but not in a bad way.”
She waited.
Theo swallowed, eyes still on the lake. “Do you remember first year? After… everything that happened here?”
Her chest tightened. Of course she remembered. The cold. The panic. The way the world had vanished beneath her feet.
“You almost drowned,” he continued quietly, voice stripped down to something bare. “I jumped in without thinking. Didn’t even realize what I was doing until I had you.”
Y/N nodded slowly. “I remember.”
“I told myself that was just panic,” Theo said. “Fear. Adrenaline. I told myself anyone would’ve done the same.”
He finally turned to look at her, and something in his expression cracked open just enough for her to see what he usually kept locked away.
“But that wasn’t it.”
Y/N frowned, breath shallow. “Theo…”
“I think I liked you before that,” he admitted. “Probably since we were six.” A beat. Then, softer: “Since you smiled at Mattheo like his name didn’t matter. Since you always pulled me into Draco’s chaos even when I didn’t want to be.”
Her breath caught.
Theo’s voice lowered, as if the lake might overhear. “But that day… that’s when I realized I loved you.”
The word settled between them, heavy and quiet, like the world had paused to listen.
“I was eleven,” he said, almost like he couldn’t believe it himself. “And all I could think was that the world would be wrong if you weren’t in it.”
Y/N stared at him, stunned like she’d been struck clean through.
“You—” She let out a weak laugh, shaking her head as if that could make it less real. “Theo, I didn’t even know I liked you until last year.”
“I know,” he said gently. His eyes softened in a way that made her stomach flip. “You’re terrible at noticing things about yourself.”
She scoffed automatically. “Excuse me?”
“You notice everyone else,” he said. “Just not you.”
She opened her mouth to argue, then stopped. Because he wasn’t wrong.
Theo looked back at the water like he needed something steady to hold onto. “I didn’t say anything. Because I didn’t think it mattered. Because I didn’t want to change anything.” His jaw flexed. “And because… I was content just being here.”
Her chest felt too full. Too tight.
“And now?” she asked quietly.
He shrugged, helpless in a way Theo never was. “Now I realized I can’t pretend I don’t feel it anymore.”
Y/N looked out at the lake, the same water that had once terrified her, that had nearly taken her, that had shown Theo his heart before he understood it himself.
“I thought,” she said slowly, voice trembling at the edges, “that what I felt was just comfort. That you were just… home.”
Theo’s lips curved faintly. “Those things aren’t mutually exclusive.”
A shaky breath left her. “I’m scared.”
“Me too,” he admitted, and the honesty in it made her want to cry.
“Not because it’s dangerous,” she clarified quickly. “But because I don’t want to break what we have. Or the group. Or Draco.”
Theo nodded once. “That’s why I never said anything.”
She turned to face him fully now, searching his expression like it held the answer to a question she’d been too afraid to ask. “So what are we doing?”
Theo hesitated, then answered with the kind of truth he always gave her. “We tell the truth. And we go slow. And we don’t make it obvious until we’re sure.”
Her fingers brushed his.
Neither of them pulled away.
“Okay,” she whispered.
Theo smiled, not wide, not triumphant.
Just relieved.
“Okay,” he echoed.
He leaned in carefully, giving her space to stop him.
She didn’t.
Their kiss was gentle and uncertain, two people learning something new about themselves together. When they pulled back, her forehead rested against his, both of them breathing like they’d been holding it for years.
“So,” she murmured, a shaky smile breaking through, “you’ve loved me since I was eleven.”
Theo chuckled softly. “And you only just noticed.”
She laughed, warmth blooming in her chest like something waking up. Behind them, the Black Lake rippled unchanged, patient, keeping their secret, just as it always had.
.
.
.
Pansy Parkinson had always prided herself on her observant nature. But even she hadn’t seen this coming.
The Slytherin common room was loud in the way only Slytherins could manage, controlled chaos wrapped in green firelight and stone. Conversations overlapped. Laughter bounced off the walls. Ambition lingered in the air like smoke, sweet and sharp.
Their group had claimed their usual corner.
Draco lounged across an armchair like he owned it—which, frankly, he did. Blaise sat on the couch opposite him, boots crossed at the ankles, expression bored in the way that meant he was listening to everything. Lorenzo was on the floor with his back against the sofa, skimming through a book he’d absolutely “borrowed.” Mattheo leaned against a pillar nearby, arms crossed, scanning the room with half-lidded eyes as if he was waiting for something to amuse him.
Y/N stood near the sofa, arms folded loosely as she listened to Draco complain about literally everything.
Theo stood beside her.
Casual. Relaxed. Normal.
(He was not normal.)
Pansy lounged nearby with Witch Weekly magazine, which she hadn’t turned a page of in ten minutes, watching everyone like a hawk.
Theo’s shoulder brushed Y/N’s. His body angled toward her, subtle and instinctive. One hand rested on the back of the couch behind her, not touching, but close enough that it might as well have been a line drawn in stone.
Pansy noticed immediately.
And then Marcus Flint’s younger cousin approached.
He had the unmistakable Flint confidence—too much of it, really—and the audacity to think this was a good idea. He lingered at the edge of their space, cleared his throat, and stepped forward like he belonged there.
“Y/N.”
Theo went rigid.
Not dramatic, Theo never did dramatic. Just… still. Alert. Like a blade being drawn an inch from its sheath.
Y/N turned politely. “Yeah?”
“Hogsmeade’s this weekend,” Flint said, rocking back on his heels, smiling like he expected her to be flattered. “Thought maybe you’d want to go with me.”
Theo didn’t hesitate. He stepped forward, fully blocking the space between them. “She’s not going.” The words came out sharp. Final.
The corner of the common room went quiet like the air itself had paused to listen.
Theo blinked, realizing too late that everyone was staring.
Y/N frowned. “Theo?”
“She’s—” He swallowed, then rushed on, eyes flicking anywhere but hers. “She’s already busy.”
Draco’s brows knit together. “Busy with what?”
Theo panicked. “With me,” he blurted.
Dead silence.
Blaise squinted. “You?”
Lorenzo sat up like he’d been shocked awake. “Since when?”
Mattheo raised an eyebrow, slow and delighted. “That’s new.”
Flint scoffed. “She didn’t say that.”
Theo’s jaw tightened. “She doesn’t need to.”
Flint crossed his arms. “I was talking to her, not you.”
That was a mistake. Draco shot to his feet. “And you’re talking to my sister.”
Flint rolled his eyes. “Relax, Malfoy. It’s just Hogsmeade.”
Theo cut in quickly, words tumbling out now. “We all know how the Flints are with girls—”
Flint snapped, “Oi, what’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re not exactly known for your respect,” Theo shot back, then immediately looked like he wished he could grab the words out of the air. “I mean—historically—”
Blaise nodded thoughtfully. “He’s not wrong.”
Lorenzo added, far too earnest, “It’s kind of a reputation thing.”
Flint bristled. “You lot think you’re better than everyone.”
Draco stepped closer, eyes cold. “I don’t think it. I know it.”
Mattheo smirked. “Also, she’s too pretty for you.”
Draco whipped his head around. “Watch it.”
Mattheo held up his hands. “Protective brother privilege.”
Flint scoffed again. “Whatever. Didn’t realize she needed a committee.”
Theo’s hand slid without thinking to Y/N’s wrist. Firm. Protective. Possessive enough that Pansy’s eyes widened.
“She’s not going with you,” Theo repeated, quieter now, but somehow more dangerous. “Drop it.”
For a moment, Flint looked like he might argue again.
Then he took one look at Draco’s expression, Blaise’s calm stare, Mattheo’s amused menace, and Theo’s hand on Y/N like a promise and decided he valued his skin.
“Fine,” he muttered. “Didn’t want to deal with this anyway.”
He turned and walked off, grumbling under his breath. The common room noise slowly returned, as if it had been holding itself back.
Draco sat back down, irritated. “Honestly. The audacity. Glad you pretended to take my sister out, mate.”
Blaise shook his head. “Flints.”
Lorenzo shrugged. “You did the right thing, Theo.”
Theo nodded faintly, still bright red from the horror of what he’d just blurted out in front of half of Slytherin. “Yeah.”
He tried to play it off, chin lifted, shoulders squared, expression carefully neutral, but it was impossible to look intimidating when your ears were the exact color of Gryffindor banners.
Y/N stared at him. Half stunned. Half amused. Entirely doomed.
Because Theo Nott—quiet, composed Theo Nott—had just announced with his whole chest that she was “busy with him,” and now he was sitting there like a man awaiting trial.
Pansy Parkinson stopped breathing.
Literally.
One second she was lounging like a bored aristocrat, the next she went statue-still, eyes widening so fast it was like someone had cast a spell on her face.
Her gaze dropped.
To Theo’s hand still resting at Y/N’s wrist like it belonged there. To Y/N leaning into him just slightly, barely anything, but Pansy had the observational skills of a predator and the soul of a gossip columnist.
To the fact that Theo hadn’t moved an inch away. Not even after the entire table went silent. Not even after Draco noticed.
Pansy’s mouth fell open. A soundless, reverent sort of horror. “Oh,” she whispered, like she’d just solved an ancient rune.
Theo saw it.
Too late.
Pansy’s eyes widened again—somehow wider—like her brain was trying to expand past the limits of her skull. Her hand flew to her mouth.
“Oh—OH—”
It wasn’t even a word anymore. It was the beginning of an explosion.
Theo reacted on instinct. He grabbed Pansy’s arm like he was intercepting a Bludger. At the exact same time, Y/N grabbed her other arm.
“Nope,” Theo muttered, voice flat with sheer panic.
“Absolutely not,” Y/N hissed, eyes sharp as daggers.
They hauled Pansy upright so fast her magazine slid off her lap and flopped onto the floor like a defeated witness.
Pansy tried to speak.
Tried to inhale.
Tried to make the noise.
Y/N leaned forward, smile bright and fake. “Bathroom,” she called over her shoulder in a sweet, perfectly normal voice, as if nothing suspicious was happening.
“Emergency,” Theo echoed immediately, too fast, too intense, like he’d rehearsed it.
Draco frowned. “Why do you both—”
“It’s Pansy,” Blaise said calmly, sipping his drink like this was weather. “This tracks.”
.
.
.
The door slammed shut behind them with the finality of a courtroom verdict. In the bathroom, Pansy detonated. She doubled over laughing, one hand braced on her knees, the other clutching her chest like she was having a spiritual experience. She wheezed so hard her shoulders shook.
“I KNEW IT!” she choked out between gasps. “I KNEW IT—THE STAMMERING—THE HAND—THE FLINT EXCUSE—”
Theo clapped a hand over her mouth so fast it was practically a reflex curse. “Quiet,” he hissed, eyes wild, scanning the bathroom like Filch might leap out of a tapestry.
Pansy muffled-laughed against his palm, eyes glittering with pure evil delight. It was the most pleased Theo had ever seen her, which was saying something.
“You practically short-circuited!” she wheezed the moment he loosened his grip. “You said ‘busy with—ME’ like you were claiming territory!”
“I panicked,” Theo muttered through his teeth, rubbing the back of his neck like the skin might detach and float away from embarrassment. “It was tactical.”
Pansy gasped again, pointing at him with accusation. “TACTICAL? You sounded like a feral kneazle!”
Y/N covered her face with both hands. “Merlin. I’m never showing my face at breakfast again.”
“Oh, don’t be dramatic,” Pansy said, still breathless, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. “This is the most entertaining thing Slytherin has had since someone tried to smuggle a pygmy puff into Transfiguration.”
Theo’s voice went flat. “How long do you think before you tell someone?”
Pansy pressed a hand to her chest in mock offense. “How dare you. I have integrity.” She paused, smirked. “Sometimes.”
Y/N dropped her hands, eyes narrowing. “Pansy.”
Pansy held up both palms immediately. “Fine. I won’t tell. Not because I’m kind, but because I like having leverage.”
Theo groaned, tipping his head back against the cold stone. “Of course.”
Pansy’s gaze snapped back to them, suddenly sharp again. “How long.”
Theo hesitated, like saying it aloud would make it worse.
“Four months,” he admitted, and it sounded like a confession in court.
Pansy stared at him for a beat… then sighed dramatically. “I deserve compensation.”
Y/N’s eyes sharpened. “No.”
Pansy pouted. “At least let me enjoy this. I have suffered through Draco Malfoy’s ego for years.”
Theo muttered, “We all have.”
Pansy brightened again, grin returning. “Oh, this is going to be delicious. I get to watch you both panic every time someone breathes near you.”
“You cannot tell anyone,” Y/N warned, tone suddenly all Malfoy—cold, precise, dangerous.
“I won’t,” Pansy promised instantly, a hand over her heart like she was swearing a vow. Then she leaned in, eyes gleaming. “But I will absolutely enjoy knowing.”
Theo made a low, defeated noise.
“And watching you both panic,” Pansy finished smugly.
.
.
.
Back in the common room, Draco sat with his arms crossed, expression sour. “Still,” he said firmly, like he was announcing a law, “no Flints near my sister.”
The boys nodded in agreement, solemn as if they’d just signed a treaty.
Pansy returned moments later, wearing the most smug smile Hogwarts had ever seen, radiating the satisfaction of someone holding a secret that made everything infinitely more entertaining.
And Theo Nott, trailing behind her looking like he’d aged five years in five minutes, realized with absolute dread: This wasn’t the end of the disaster.
It was just the beginning.
.
.
.
Mattheo Riddle went to the Astronomy Tower for one reason and one reason only.
Peace.
Well, peace and a cigarette, he definitely wasn’t supposed to have.
Fifth year had been a slow, grinding, and exhausting kind of year. O.W.L's pressure dug its claws into everyone; professors watched them like they were waiting for someone to crack, and the castle buzzed with a tension that never quite settled. Even Slytherin’s common room, usually controlled chaos, felt too loud lately. Too many eyes. Too many conversations that turned sharp the second his name entered them.
The Astronomy Tower was different.
It didn’t care who your father was. It didn’t care what people whispered. Up here, the air was colder, cleaner. The sky felt closer. The stars didn’t judge.
Mattheo leaned against the stone wall, pulled the cigarette from his pocket like it was a secret he’d earned, and flicked his lighter. The flame cupped itself against the wind, stubborn and bright. He inhaled, held it for a beat, then exhaled slowly.
Smoke curled into the night.
For the first time all week, his shoulders loosened.
Then he heard voices.
Soft ones.
Mattheo paused mid-drag, frowning as he angled his head toward the far side of the tower where the shadows were deeper and the starlight brighter. He considered turning around. Not my problem, his brain offered. Not my business.
But then he heard it.
Y/N’s laugh.
Not her polite laugh. Not the one she used in corridors when people were watching, sharp and controlled like a blade.
The real one. Warm. Unfiltered. The kind that slipped out when she forgot she was a Malfoy for a second.
Mattheo froze.
He took another step quietly now, careful in the way only someone raised around danger could be careful. Smoke drifted from his lips as he moved toward a pillar just out of sight, back pressed to cool stone, the cigarette held low so the ember wouldn’t give him away.
Theo’s voice followed low, warm, stripped of the careful distance he usually wore like armor. “You’re going to get us caught one day,” he murmured.
Y/N laughed again, softer now. “You say that every time.”
“And every time,” Theo replied, voice almost smiling, “I’m right.”
Mattheo’s eyebrows lifted. That didn’t sound like casual conversation. He leaned his shoulder into the pillar, eyes narrowing as he peered around the edge, and promptly forgot how to breathe.
Theo stood close to her. Too close for coincidence. Not the polite, careful distance he kept from almost everyone else. This was familiar closeness. The kind that belonged to people who didn’t have to ask permission anymore.
His hand rested at her waist, gentle, like he was afraid of nothing except startling her. His thumb brushed absent patterns against her robes like muscle memory. Y/N tilted her head up, fingers already fisted in the front of his jumper before he even leaned down, tugging him in like she’d been doing it for months.
They kissed.
Not rushed.
Not stolen.
Not hesitant.
Soft and unguarded like two people who had stopped worrying about firsts a long time ago, and now only cared about here. About this. About each other.
Mattheo choked. He turned sharply, clapping a hand over his mouth as he coughed into his sleeve, eyes watering, lungs screaming like traitors.
“Merlin—” he hissed under his breath.
The sound echoed off the stone. Theo froze. Y/N stiffened instantly. They broke apart like they’d been hexed.
“Did you hear that?” Y/N whispered, voice sharp with panic.
Theo scanned the tower, heart clearly hammering even from where Mattheo stood. “Probably just the wind,” he murmured too quick, too hopeful.
Mattheo laughed out loud. “Oh, come on,” he said, stepping fully into view, cigarette dangling loosely between his fingers. “Even Hogwarts isn’t that dramatic.”
Theo nearly jumped out of his skin.
Y/N gasped. “Mattheo!”
Theo’s face drained of color so fast it was almost impressive. “How long were you—”
“Long enough to traumatize me,” Mattheo replied dryly, taking one last drag like he needed it to survive this conversation. “And short enough that I’m choosing to pretend I didn’t just witness something sacred.”
There was a beat of horrified silence.
Then Y/N groaned and buried her face in her hands. “Oh no. Oh no.”
Theo raked a hand through his hair and paced once, like movement could undo the last ten seconds. “You weren’t supposed to be up here.”
Mattheo shrugged. “Neither were you.”
He studied them more carefully now, not teasing, not smug. Observant. The way his eyes always went a little sharper when something mattered.
Theo hovered half a step closer to Y/N without noticing. Y/N’s fingers caught Theo’s sleeve as if her body had already decided where safety lived. Neither of them looked embarrassed, not really.
Just… caught.
“How long?” Mattheo asked quietly.
Theo hesitated, jaw tight, calculating the fallout.
Y/N answered for him, voice soft. “Almost a year.”
Mattheo blinked.
Then blinked again.
“A year?” he repeated, disbelief cracking through his usual composure. “You’ve been dating in secret for a year?”
Theo nodded once, grim. “We didn’t want to change things.”
Mattheo let out a low whistle, eyes flicking to Theo’s hand still at Y/N’s waist like it belonged there. “That explains a lot.”
“What exactly?” Y/N asked cautiously.
Mattheo ticked them off with lazy honesty. “The way he watches rooms before you enter. The way you always know where he is. The way neither of you can lie convincingly when asked if you’re tired.” His eyes narrowed slightly. “And the way Theo looks like he’s one bad day away from murdering anyone who breathes too close to you.”
Theo winced. “I knew I was obvious.”
“You’re not obvious,” Mattheo corrected, voice unexpectedly gentle. “You’re consistent.”
That quiet kindness landed strangely in the cold night air.
Then Mattheo’s mouth curved into mischief again, returning. “Also… Pansy knows, I’m guessing.”
Theo stiffened. “How—”
“Because she’s Pansy,” Mattheo said, like it was the simplest answer in the world. “And because she’s been watching you like she’s holding a secret over her own head for entertainment.”
Y/N sighed, shoulders sagging. “She swore she wouldn’t tell.”
“And she didn’t,” Mattheo said easily. “Neither will I.”
Theo studied him, suspicion flickering. “You’re… okay with this?”
Mattheo shrugged, gaze softening just a fraction. “You’re good to her. She’s happier.” Then he added, deadpan, “And somehow you managed to keep Draco completely clueless for a year.”
That earned a weak, helpless laugh from Y/N.
“That part took effort,” Theo admitted, rubbing the back of his neck.
Mattheo smirked. “I believe it.” He stubbed out his cigarette against the stone and straightened, hands sliding into his pockets. “For what it’s worth, you chose a terrible hiding spot.”
Theo groaned. “This was our place.”
Mattheo’s grin widened. “Not anymore.” He stepped past them, then paused like an afterthought had just occurred to him. “Oh,” he added over his shoulder, voice bright with impending chaos, “Pansy’s going to be insufferable when she finds out I know.”
Y/N groaned again. “Please don’t tell her you saw us.”
Mattheo’s smile turned wicked. “No promises.”
Y/N flushed. Theo scowled. Mattheo laughed as he descended, footsteps echoing down the spiral like punctuation. When he was gone, silence settled again thick, private, almost tender.
Theo turned to Y/N, eyes searching her face like he needed to make sure she was still here, still okay. “You alright?”
Y/N nodded, stepping closer until her forehead rested against his. Her voice was small, but steady. “I think so.”
Theo smiled faintly, breath ghosting against her lips. “That makes three of us now.”
Y/N laughed quietly, and Theo’s hand slid back to her waist like it had been waiting.
Above them, the stars burned on as witnesses to a secret that had survived almost a year. And somehow, despite everything, Draco Malfoy still had no idea.
.
.
.
Blaise Zabini and Enzo Berkshire were absolutely not supposed to be in the girls’ dormitory.
This was important.
This was criminally important.
This was the sort of rule that existed for extremely obvious reasons, like dignity, privacy, and the very real possibility of Draco Malfoy committing a homicide.
Unfortunately, Blaise’s Potions notes—his very expensive, very organized, very aggressively color-coded Potions notes—were currently sitting on Y/N Malfoy’s desk because she’d borrowed them earlier.
And Enzo, in a moment of supreme overconfidence and very poor decision-making, had said:
“We’ll just grab them quickly.”
Quickly.
Those were famous last words.
They crept down the Slytherin corridor like two criminals with the survival instincts of damp socks, their shoes barely making a sound against the cold stone floor.
Enzo kept glancing over his shoulder like Snape might materialize out of thin air.
“If Snape finds out we were here,” Enzo whispered, “I’m blaming you.”
“You need to borrow my notes,” Blaise hissed back. “This is a joint crime.”
“I didn’t realize borrowing notes required breaking into the girls’ dormitory.”
“Adaptability is an important life skill.”
They reached the door.
It was slightly ajar.
Blaise stopped.
He frowned.
“The girls never leave it open.”
Enzo shrugged. “Maybe they forgot.”
“Y/N Malfoy forgetting something?” Blaise said skeptically. “That seems unlikely.”
“Maybe Millicent exploded something.”
“That seems extremely likely.”
Blaise pushed the door open slowly.
It creaked. Both of them froze. Nothing exploded. No screaming. No curses. Encouraged by the absence of immediate death, they stepped inside.
The room was dim, lit only by a floating candle near the window. Green curtains stirred softly in the draft, and the whole place smelled faintly like expensive perfume and parchment.
Very lived-in.
Very peaceful.
Very much like they had just walked into somewhere they absolutely should not be.
Blaise took two steps forward.
And stopped so abruptly Enzo walked straight into his back.
“OW—what is—”
Enzo leaned around him. And his brain immediately left his body.
Y/N Malfoy stood near her bed. Theodore Nott was right there. And they were kissing. Not a startled kiss. Not an oh gods someone might see us kiss. A slow, comfortable, deeply familiar kiss.
Theo’s hands rested at her waist like they’d lived there for years. Y/N’s fingers were tangled in the collar of his jumper, tugging him closer without hesitation. They were murmuring something between kisses, laughing softly like they had absolutely nowhere else to be.
They did not notice Blaise and Enzo.
At all.
Blaise blinked.
Once.
Twice.
A third time, just to confirm he hadn’t accidentally inhaled something illegal during Potions earlier.
Enzo made a noise. It was not a word. It was a sound. Something between a gasp and the dying squeak of a very confused mouse.
Theo froze mid-kiss. Y/N froze mid-laugh.
They turned.
Four people stared at each other.
No one spoke.
No one moved.
The silence was so intense the floating candle flickered like it was uncomfortable too.
Then Enzo whispered very softly, very sincerely: “…Is this a prank?”
Theo’s soul left his body. Y/N slapped both hands over her face. “Merlin.”
Blaise pointed weakly. “You’re—” He pointed at Theo. Then at Y/N. Then waved his hand vaguely between them. “You’re… doing that?”
Theo opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. “…Yes.”
Enzo staggered backward and immediately sat down on the nearest bed like his legs had resigned from their position. “No,” he said firmly. “No, I need to sit for this.”
Blaise dragged a hand down his face. “How long?”
Theo glanced at Y/N. She peeked through her fingers like someone watching a disaster unfold. “… A year.”
Enzo made a choking noise. “A year?!”
Blaise laughed once, sharp and horrified. “You’ve been dating for a YEAR?”
Theo winced. “We were trying to be discreet.”
Blaise gestured wildly around the room. “You are kissing in her DORM.”
“It was locked!” Y/N protested.
Enzo slowly pointed toward the open door. “WAS IT?”
Y/N groaned and slid down onto the edge of the bed.
Blaise began pacing like a man solving a murder mystery. “Okay. Okay. No. This explains everything.”
Enzo frowned up at him from the bed. “What's everything?”
Blaise stopped pacing. Memories from the past year began assembling themselves in his brain like an extremely irritating puzzle. “How many times did Pansy say ‘they’ll be back in a minute’?” he muttered.
Theo rubbed his face. Blaise pointed dramatically. “Pansy knows.”
Theo sighed. “Yes.”
“And Mattheo,” Enzo added suddenly.
Theo stared at him. “How did you—”
Enzo shrugged. “Because he’s been smirking at you like he’s watching a very entertaining disaster unfold.”
Theo slumped like gravity had suddenly increased. Blaise crossed his arms, finally studying them properly. Not shocked anymore.
Just thoughtful.
“You’re happy,” he said.
Y/N nodded. “Yes.”
Theo met his gaze. “Very.”
Blaise sighed dramatically, like he’d just been handed an extremely inconvenient responsibility. “Great. Fantastic. Wonderful.”
"Why do you sound annoyed?" Y/N asked.
“Because,” Blaise said, pointing between them, “now I have to supervise.”
Theo blinked. “You were already doing that.”
“Yes,” Blaise said. “But now you’re a couple. Which means you’re statistically more likely to do something incredibly stupid.”
Enzo nodded gravely like a man agreeing to a military operation. “And if you make her cry, Nott, we will absolutely ruin your life.”
Theo raised his hands slightly. “Fair.”
Blaise tilted his head, still watching him carefully. “To be clear, we approve.”
Theo exhaled in relief.
“But,” Enzo added, pointing a finger at him, “she’s basically our little sister.”
Blaise nodded once. “Which means if you hurt her—”
Theo sighed. “You’ll kill me.”
“No,” Blaise said calmly.
“We’ll start with humiliation,” Enzo clarified.
“Then public embarrassment,” Blaise added.
“And then we kill you,” Enzo finished helpfully.
Theo groaned. “I liked you both better five minutes ago.”
Blaise shrugged. “Five minutes ago you weren’t secretly dating Draco Malfoy’s twin.”
Enzo gasped suddenly. “Oh no."
Theo stiffened. “What?”
Enzo looked between them with dawning horror. “We have to lie to Draco. I'm assuming he doesn't know?"
Theo and Y/N shook their heads, signaling Blaise and Lorenzo of the true horror.
Blaise immediately nodded. “Of course. Constantly. Convincingly. For an unknown amount of time.”
Theo swallowed. “You won’t tell him.”
Blaise snorted. “I like living.”
Enzo nodded seriously. “I enjoy my limbs unbroken. And for the record,” he added earnestly, “this is the worst possible way I could’ve discovered this information.”
Theo groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “I’m sorry.”
Enzo shrugged, already recovering. “Worth it.”
Blaise rolled his eyes and strode over to Y/N’s desk, snatching his precious Potions notes like a man reclaiming stolen property.
“Next time,” he muttered, flipping through them to make sure nothing had been ruined, “try revealing life-altering secrets somewhere less inconvenient.”
Enzo lingered by the door, giving them one last deeply judgmental look. “Also,” he added, pointing at them both, “if Draco kills us for this, I’m haunting you.”
Theo sighed. “Fair.”
With that, Blaise grabbed Enzo by the collar and hauled him toward the door. “Let’s go before we witness anything else we can’t emotionally recover from.”
They slipped out into the corridor, the door closing behind them with a quiet click. Silence settled over the room again.
Y/N leaned back against the bed, covering her face as she laughed weakly. “Well,” she said between breaths, “that happened.”
Theo stepped closer, resting his forehead against hers. “We are running out of people who don’t know.”
She smiled softly. “At least Draco’s still clueless.”
Theo closed his eyes. “For now.”
And somewhere down the corridor, Blaise and Enzo walked in stunned silence, carrying the weight of the dumbest, most inconvenient secret Hogwarts had ever witnessed.
.
.
The Astronomy Tower was wrapped in stillness.
Not the eerie kind, just the soft, breathing quiet that came when the castle finally let go of the day. The stone beneath them held the cool of the night, and above, the sky stretched endlessly, stars scattered like secrets that had learned patience.
Draco and Y/N sat shoulder to shoulder against the curved wall, knees bent, cloaks pulled tighter around themselves against the wind. Below them, the Black Lake reflected the moon in broken pieces.
This was theirs.
No expectations.
No watching eyes.
Just twin time.
Draco flicked a small pebble over the edge and watched it vanish into the dark. He didn’t rush. He never did when it mattered. His fingers drummed idly against the stone, a rhythm she’d known since they were children, his tell when something heavy pressed at his chest.
“You’re unusually quiet,” she said softly.
He huffed. “So are you.”
She smiled faintly. “I’m enjoying it.”
“Mm.” He paused. “I’m building courage.”
That made her turn her head toward him. “Since when do you need courage?”
Draco glanced at her, silver eyes catching the starlight, and for a moment he didn’t look like the polished Malfoy heir or the sharp-tongued Slytherin prince everyone else saw.
He just looked like her brother.
The boy who used to steal her sweets and swear he hadn’t.
The boy who once cried because he thought he’d hurt her with accidental magic.
Just Draco.
“I know,” he said quietly.
Her breath caught.
“…Know what?”
Draco exhaled slowly, gaze drifting back to the sky. “About you. And Theo.”
The world didn’t collapse.
It simply stilled, like everything had been waiting for this sentence.
She swallowed. “How long?”
“A while,” he admitted. “Long enough that pretending I didn’t notice started to feel insulting.”
She nodded slowly. “I was going to tell you.”
“I know,” he said quickly. “That’s not why this hurts.”
That word—hurts—settled deep in her chest.
She shifted closer. “Draco…”
He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them. “It stung that you didn’t tell me sooner. Not because I’m entitled to every part of your life—but because you’ve always told me everything. Even the things that scared you.”
Tears burned behind her eyes. “I was scared,” she whispered. “Not of you. Of what it would change.”
He nodded, accepting that. “I figured.” He hesitated, then let out a quiet laugh—soft, almost fond. “You know,” he said, “Mum knew before either of us did.”
He leaned back, hands folded over his stomach, voice slipping into something more reflective. “She used to say it to Father and me when we were younger. That Theo watched you differently.”
Her heart tightened.
“Father would scoff,” Draco continued, a faint smile tugging at his mouth. “Said Nott was just quiet. Reserved. Polite.”
“And Mum?” she asked.
“Mum said that boys don’t look at girls like that unless it’s already decided somewhere deep inside them.”
She laughed weakly through the ache. “That sounds like her.”
“She told us Theo didn’t see you as a sister like the other boys do,” Draco said softly. “Not really. Even when you were small. Even when the rest of us were just… loud and stupid and pulling your hair.”
She closed her eyes, memories flooding back, Theo always standing a step closer, always calmer, always watching.
“She said he saw you as something else,” Draco went on. “Something precious. Something to be careful with.”
Her throat tightened.
“And Father?” she asked quietly.
Draco snorted. “Father pretended not to notice while glaring at every boy who even looked in your direction.”
She smiled sadly. “That tracks.”
He glanced at her again, expression gentler now. “So yes. I suppose I always knew it was bound to happen. You and him.”
She rested her head lightly against his shoulder, just as she had a hundred times before. He didn’t move away.
“I didn’t keep it from you because I didn’t trust you,” she said. “I kept it from you because I needed to know it was real. That it wasn’t just comfort or familiarity or something that would fade.”
Draco hummed thoughtfully. “And now?”
“And now I know,” she whispered. “And I wanted to tell you when I was ready. When it was mine to give.”
He was quiet for a long moment.
Then he lifted an arm and wrapped it around her shoulders, pulling her in. “I would’ve waited,” he said softly. “However long you needed.”
She pressed her face briefly into his sweater. “I’m sorry it hurt.”
“I can live with a little hurt,” he replied. “But I can’t live with you thinking you had to protect me from your happiness.”
She pulled back just enough to look at him. “You really are okay?”
Draco met her gaze steadily. “I’m still overprotective. I still glare at people. And I will absolutely hex Theo into oblivion if he ever hurts you.”
She laughed through tears. “Naturally.”
“But,” he added, voice dropping, “I’m glad you’re loved the way you deserve. And I’m glad it’s someone who’s always known your worth—even before you did.”
Her eyes shone. “You always knew it.”
He smirked faintly. “Someone had to. You’re my other half.”
They fell into silence again, the comfortable kind this time. The stars continued their slow journey overhead, and the lake below reflected their light in gentle fragments.
Nothing had broken.
Nothing had been taken away.
If anything, something old and precious had simply been folded into something new.
And for the first time since the secret began, Y/N felt like she wasn’t carrying it alone anymore.
.
.
.
The next morning, Hogwarts woke up like nothing monumental had happened.
The Great Hall buzzed with its usual chaos—clinking cutlery, animated conversations, the low roar of students arguing about homework, Quidditch, and absolutely nothing of consequence. Sunlight streamed through the enchanted ceiling, bright and deceptively peaceful.
Y/N walked in with Theo at her side.
That alone was not unusual.
They had mastered the art of looking normal. Walking close but not too close. Talking quietly. Laughing at the right moments. Separate plates. Separate seats.
Except today—
Today felt different.
Y/N felt lighter. Relieved. Like she’d finally set something down she’d been carrying for far too long.
Theo, on the other hand, looked like a man waiting for his execution.
They reached the Slytherin table.
Draco was already there, posture immaculate, flipping through the Daily Prophet with an expression of mild disdain. Blaise and Enzo were mid-argument. Pansy sat between them, watching Theo with far too much interest. Mattheo leaned back in his chair like a man who knew a secret and was enjoying every second of it.
Theo slid into his seat. Y/N paused beside him.
Theo looked up. “What—”
She leaned down and kissed him. Just like that. A soft, certain kiss pressed to his lips like it was the most natural thing in the world.
The Great Hall did not explode.
But Theo’s soul did. His eyes went wide. His body locked. His brain was fully disconnected. He pulled back so fast his chair screeched across the stone floor.
“What—” he hissed, looking wildly around the table. “What are you doing?!”
Blaise blinked. Enzo choked violently on his pumpkin juice. Pansy beamed like someone had just handed her front-row seats to a show she’d been waiting years for. Mattheo’s smirk widened.
And Draco—
Draco slowly lowered his newspaper.
Theo’s heart stopped.
“Oh gods,” Theo whispered. “Draco—”
Draco looked between them. Then he rolled his eyes. “For Merlin’s sake,” he drawled. “You’d think someone died.”
Theo stared at him. “You—You saw that.”
“Yes,” Draco said flatly. “I have eyes.”
Theo’s pulse thundered. “And you’re—?”
“Annoyed,” Draco said. “But not surprised.”
Theo blinked. “You… knew?”
Draco took a calm sip of tea. “Obviously.”
Theo turned slowly to Y/N. “You didn't tell me you told him last night.”
“I didn't,” she said calmly, sitting down. “He figured it out on his own. He was very mature about it.
Draco sniffed. “Don’t exaggerate.”
Theo ran a hand through his hair. “I thought I was about to be murdered at breakfast.”
“You still might be,” Draco said lightly. “Just not for that.”
Theo swallowed. “Right.”
Draco leaned back in his chair, finally giving Theo his full attention.
“Listen carefully, Nott.”
Theo straightened instantly.
“I see you as my brother,” Draco said. “Have for years.”
Theo nodded cautiously. “Same.”
“That,” Draco continued calmly, “is the only reason you’re allowed to sit there breathing.”
Theo exhaled. “Fair.”
Draco glanced at Y/N, his expression softening just slightly. “If you ever hurt my sister—”
Theo didn’t hesitate. “I won’t.”
“I know,” Draco said.
Then he leaned forward just a little. “But if you do, my father and I will end you.”
Theo nodded solemnly. “Understood.”
Blaise leaned across the table.
“Is this the part where we clap?”
Enzo whispered, “I feel like I should be taking notes.”
Pansy sighed dreamily. “This is exactly how I imagined it.”
Draco paused. Then, very slowly, he turned his head toward the rest of the table. His eyes narrowed. “Actually,” he said thoughtfully.
“Oh no,” Blaise muttered.
Draco looked from Blaise… to Enzo… to Pansy… to Mattheo.
“You lot,” Draco said slowly, “owe me an explanation.”
The table went silent.
“An explanation,” Draco continued, voice dangerously calm, “for why every single one of you apparently knew about this before I did.”
Pansy froze.
Enzo stared at the ceiling.
Blaise suddenly found his toast extremely interesting.
Mattheo leaned back in his chair, grinning.
Theo whispered, “Oh no.”
Draco pointed at Blaise first. “You.”
Blaise cleared his throat. “Technically—” he pointed at himself and Lorenzo, “—we discovered it accidentally,” Blaise finished carefully.
Draco turned to Enzo. “You.”
Enzo held up his hands immediately. “In my defense, I was traumatized.”
Then Draco turned to Pansy. She smiled sweetly. “I took an oath of silence.”
Draco looked unconvinced.
Finally, his gaze landed on Mattheo. Mattheo didn’t even try to pretend. He just shrugged. “I thought watching you figure it out would be funnier.”
Draco stared at all of them. Slowly. Then leaned back in his chair. “Incredible,” he said dryly. “I am surrounded by traitors.”
The table shifted uncomfortably.
Then Draco smirked. “Though technically,” he added lazily, “I knew before all of you.”
The table froze. “What?” Blaise, Enzo, Pansy, and Mattheo echoed in unison.
Draco took another sip of tea, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world. “Oh, please,” he said. “Nott’s been in love with my sister since first year. Though I'm sure he had liked her before that.”
Theo choked.
“FIRST YEAR?” Enzo blurted.
Pansy whipped around to stare at Theo. “Merlin, Nott, you’ve been pining that long?”
Theo buried his face in his hands. Draco continued calmly, as if he were explaining basic arithmetic. “He has been following her around like a bodyguard for years. It wasn’t hard to notice.”
Mattheo leaned back, laughing. “So you’ve just been sitting on that information?”
Draco shrugged. “I was curious how long it would take them to figure it out.”
Y/N groaned. “Draco.”
He smirked. “And watching Nott panic around you for years has been extremely entertaining.”
Theo looked personally betrayed. “You let me suffer.”
Draco nodded once. “Correct.”
Then his gaze shifted back to the rest of the table.
“Which brings us back to my original point.” His eyes narrowed slightly. “You still owe me an explanation for why none of you told me.”
Blaise sighed. “Because,” he said, “you’re Draco Malfoy.”
Enzo nodded solemnly. “And we enjoy being alive.”
Theo muttered, “They were trying to protect me.”
Draco shot him a look. “They were protecting themselves.” Then he turned back to Y/N. “And you.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”
“Public displays of affection,” Draco said dryly, “kept to a minimum around me.”
She smirked. “Jealous?”
“Traumatized,” Draco corrected.
Theo cleared his throat cautiously. “So… we’re good?”
Draco nodded once. “We’re good.”
Theo sagged in relief. Then Y/N leaned over and kissed him again. Theo nearly fell out of his chair.
Draco groaned. “I said minimum.”
Mattheo laughed. “You’re never going to survive this.”
Theo stared at Y/N. “You’re enjoying this.”
She smiled sweetly. “Immensely.”
Draco stood, folding his newspaper. “Eat your breakfast,” he said. “Both of you.” Then he paused and looked at Theo. “And Nott?”
Theo looked up nervously. “Yes?”
Draco smirked. “Good luck telling my father you’re dating his daughter.”
Theo stared at him in horror. “…You’re going to enjoy that conversation, aren’t you?”
Draco nodded, repeating Y/N's words. “Immensely.”
And just like that, the secret was no longer a secret. It sat openly at the Slytherin table—protected, accepted, mildly threatened, and very much alive. Exactly the way it was always meant to be.
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