Falling Without Permission
Pairing: Mattheo Riddle x Reader
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?"
Instead of leaving, he sat down across from you.
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.
"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."
"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.
"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.
"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. 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."
