chapter 2 mattheo riddle fic - half of him
listen while u read playlist recommendations:
hate that i made you love me - ariana grande
when im small - phantogram
say yes to heaven - lana del rey
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your eyes flutter, eyelashes filtering a ray of sun coming from your right side, you smell... licorice...fresh sheets and....yep..hermionie. it smells like book pages and cinnamon tea. very specific but god does it bother your pounding hangover.
voices started increasing in volume slowly, like waking up from a dream. "for merlin's sake ronald! will you just go get me another plate of crackers without eating them" you heard her sharp demand whisper to him as harry laughed quietly behind her, both leaning down looking at you.
you eyes opened slowly, "hey" she smiled softly, masking her concern terribly, "are you okay?" hermionie reached her hand to brush some hair out of your face, "we're getting you some food" her hair was in a braid, insinuating, if you knew anything about her, that she's been either cleaning her dorm, studying or doing something that requires a lot of patience or attendance, you were assuming this thing was you today.
"you were out cold" harry added, earning a shoulder nudge from hermionie.
"am i in..?" you began, slowly raising your head to look around as the sheets slipped off of your body.
"yes" she nodded, looking straight at you as if she was anticipating your vomit any second, "you're in my room" she saw the confused look on your face, how did she find you after a slytherin party? "your boyfriend well... he started a fight and the party got caught by filch.." your memory was creeping in as she continued, but only a few bells were faintly ringing, "everyone ran and harry and i saw pansy running, trying to carry you down the hall- completely limp, she stopped and asked us to hide you somewhere before she kept running" suddenly it all made sense. you remembered someone's cold hands dragging you, you remember the smell of the smoke, but what you remember the most was seeing noah's fist going for mattheo's face.
your heart sank, wondering if mattheo was hurt, because of you. or, of course, if noah was hurt... of course. hermionie placed her cold hands over your forehead, harry laughed, "she's hungover, not fatally ill hermionie" he snickered.
"you never know" she frowned, "you should probably get ready for lunch y/n, you need some food, water- something" as she crossed her arms ron presented you a plate of plain crackers, you pressed your fingers into your eyebrows, realizing you had slept though two of your classes AND breakfast. and it was going to be pancakes today. fucking great.
you eventually got out of that warm bed and slipped on your uniform, wiping off old makeup from last night. you'd never really not worn any makeup to classes, sometimes you would just wear mascara and concealer, but today, you were way too lazy to even touch your tired face.
you made your way down to the great hall with a few others who were on their way to lunch which had barley started. you could already smell the food, your stomach growled with a mix of anticipation and nausea, terrible combination. inside, you found your way to your friends, sitting in between harry and ron, with hermionie and luna facing you. "feeling better?" luna asked softly towards you, almost whispering, she didn't seem to understand what a hangover was, all she knew was that noise hurt your head.
"we heard that party was mad" fred chimed in from the side, "oh yeah" george added "but don't you worry, you didn't get so bad", fred finished his brothers sentence, "we've been seeing people vomit all morning" he laughed turning to his brother who had the same exact laugh on his face.
"not me, not yet anyway...thank merlin" you rub the side of your neck, "listen, did any of you hear any details about the fight between noah and..?" again, the name guilt. it's riddle, riddle isn't so hard to just say.
"and his..son?" harry finished, face blank with expression, but still saying everything, fear and worrisome.
"yeah" you swallowed that guilt from before, sending it straight down to your stomach, "riddle"
hermionie cringed a bit at the name, "well" she began, choking on a few words, "i heard that...he got a bit..messed up, but noah got it much worse" phew?
"he did?" you sat up, "how bad?", she widened her eyes and looked ahead, pointing with her head while clearing her throat to the table behind you. your neck turned slowly, as casually as possible.
thats when you saw him. riddle.
his eyes were avoidant and he looked like his normal, intimidating, angry-eyebrowed self. but his lip had a bold bloody cut and a scar along his nose where blood had already dried and scarred over. you tried not to let your eyes linger too long, but before you could realize how long you were staring, his eyes moved to yours, catching them at perfect timing.
he blinked hard and you quickly whipped your head around to look away. fuck. had noah really done that to him? over you? and had riddle defended you? now you really wanted to know what noah looked like, was his eye completely black? how much worse could those injuries really get?
you looked back over to hermionie and luna to say something before both of their eyes widened looking directly behind you, hermionie's mouth parted open momentarily. "y/n" his voice said. noah. you turned around, and holy fuck.
his eye was in fact, completely black, his nose looked inflamed, like it had been broken. and oh. my. god. he was missing a back tooth. you could faintly see it, but you knew it was gone by the way his mouth was slightly bruised. so he really was worse.
"noah" you put your hand over your mouth, it was impossible to hide this shock, "are you okay??" your entire body tensed up just seeing him like this.
you got up ou of your seat and dragged noah to your common room to get a good look at him away from everyone else. he looked terrible, to put it lightly. "tell me what happened" you crossed your arms in frustration, eyebrows furrowing so deeply you felt like they were going to leave a mark there.
"why are you mad at me?" he scoffed "that little shit face was flirting with you, you must have done something to start it" his ugly bruised nose twitched, for a moment you hoped it hurt.
"we weren't flirting you idiot" you usually never use words like that towards him, but you were so upset that he blamed his own fight HE started on you, that you didn't care, "he was just making sure I was okay you didn't have to go all west side story on his ass" you flung your hands up in anger before placing them on your waist.
he shook his head in disbelief, a part of him didn't know wether to get angrier and risk moving his painful face more, or just shut up and leave you to your 'delusions'. "you know who he is y/n" he tilted his dark eyes down to yours, his assumptions of riddle were bored, sure, he wasn't the nicest boy, but why was that your fault?
"yeah, i do, and you think you do too" you got closer to him, closer to the door, "he's not you know who noah, YOU left me last night, YOU promised you were going to hangout with me, he was the only one standing there watching me drag my drunk self through the party and offered me a hand" you knew that last part was a lie, you weren't drunk the whole time, but you didn't feel guilty. the whole time you spent it with riddle, truthfully was because noah left you, the lie was that you being drunk was the only reason riddle was with you. but defending your honor was more important than that right now. and maybe you were defending riddle's too.
"fine" noah raised his eyebrows, "i'm sorry i left you okay?" he put his hands on your shoulders, momentarily bringing you back to that moment at the party when riddle put his warm sweater on you. you snapped back to reality when he kissed you, suddenly and slowly.
you kissed back barley, still annoyed at his mediocre apology, "lets just get back, I have to go to my last classes" you shrugged pulling away from the kiss, forcing a smile. he smiled back, as if he has done his job of getting you to forgive him.
he opens the door just wide enough to make you stop to say, "but i did wanna ask you something" you pause in the door way, looking up at him, "i know this is really bad timing" he admits, you can see this weird 'begging' look in his eyes you cannot stand. it's usually most prominent when he asks to go out with his friends to parties alone to spend 'time' with them, "but i promise i was thinking about it all day yesterday" he hesitated, you nodded for him to continue, "and was wondering if you maybe wanted to meet me in my dorm tonight?"
your stomach dropped. a sickening, fast drop. was he seriously asking this right now?
"leo is not gonna be there tonight, he's staying in his girlfriends dorm so we'll have it all to ourselves" he tries out an unsettling comforting tone as he watches your smile completely wipe from your face, your eyes move around the floor, "hey" he lifts your chin with his finger, "let me make up for everything i've done" him touching you feels wrong, you wanna slap his hand away from your face.
you don't know what to say. he's asking to have sex, for the first time, ever. right. after. an arugment. "i don't know" you reply quietly, you reprimand yourself internally for not having the courage to say no to his face.
"come on, please?" he frowns, moving his hands to the sides of your waist, "i just wanna make it up to you" he pulls you in close enough to where you can almost see right through his stupidity.
"so you wanna have sex to say sorry for leaving me at a party?" this guy is unbelievable, you furrow your brows so deep it might become permanent.
"no it's not just that babe" he laughs unsucessfully trying to ease your suspicion, finally with enough courage, you push him off of you, his face reacts before his body does, defensive. "it's not just what?" you cross your arms
"just come tonight okay?" he sighs, letting his mouth do this stupid pout, "we can talk more about it before we do it" he says as if it's already a plan, which made your stomach do another acrobatic style flip.
after he leaves you with a kiss, the walk to class your brain is quiet. there's nothing to think, nothing to say. how? how could he ask of such a thing? you knew that almost every couple at this point has had sex at this point, but why couldn't he understand you just weren't ready yet?
after a long flight of downwards stairs behind a couple students, you finally got to potions, setting your things down in the dark classroom on your usual desk.
you usually sit with pansy, who was probably skipping as she does every so often, leaving you all alone to... "alone once again ms. y/l/n" snape noted, looking down at you, tilting his head ever so slightly as if to observe you. you nodded. he turned around to the opening of the door, "mr. riddle" he echoed, you had almost forgotten that riddle was in this class. he almost always sits in the way back and never talks to anyone.
"you can have a seat right here, next to ms. y/l/n" he gestures to the seat next to you. mattheo batted his eyes at you avoidantly., the lighting in the room catching his fight scars almost perfectly as if to exentuate them.
"hey" you mumble as he shuffles next to you, setting his things down, he dosen't look at you. "hey" he replies clearing his throat, still avoiding eye contact. and god he still smelled good, like the other night, nothing weird just... an observation.
"riddle, i'm sorry abut last night" you whispered, leaning in close to him, examining his stoic face, "i didn't mean for any of that to happen to you it was all my fault" you tucked a piece of hair behind your ear.
"no" he replied, finally looking at you, closer than you anticipated, his eyes staring deeply into your own, bringing you back again to that moment at the party, "it wasn't though, you did nothing wrong" his words were so simple but his face was hard to read.
you didn't know what to say, it had never been that easy for you to feel so relieved after feeling so guilty. with noah, he would've made you list the reasons you were wrong and say sorry for each one.
"thanks" was all you could muster "does it hurt?" you raised your finger to the scar on his lip, touching it lightly, you really don't know why you did that. he didn't wince, just lightly closed his eyes for a second as if to avoid doing so.
"not really" he replied as you slowly lower your finger from his scar, the absence of your finger on his lip made him wish you hadn't touched it in the first place, "no offense but your boyfriend fights like an alley cat" he reveals a small smirk which makes you laugh quietly. finally, expression.
"class" snape's voice booms through whispers, both of your head's whip towards him, following the syncronized movement of your hands to open your books. "open to page 195" his voice pauses through words, "write notes on the similarities between the ingredients in front of you and the devil's snare description in your books."
you didn't even realize there was a black wilted flower on your desk, with thick stems and a faint red color around its center. "you may work together, do so quietly. for your own sake." always a joy and thrill to be in snape's presence.
you picked up your quill from inside your bag and tied up your hair into a perfect ponytail to be able to focus more. from the side of your eye, riddle suddenly handed you a side of his wired headphone, you look him up and down with wide eyes, "are you crazy?" you whisper, "snape'll see" you gestured your head toward the pacing teacher
he smiled, this time wider, "he won't care" he shook his head and tried bringing the headphone closer to your hand, which you hesitently raised to take it. "if he catches us i'll kill you after he kills me" you take it and put it in your ear, the music suddenly rushing to your ears.
"deal" he laughs quietly. you had never heard this song before, you loved the smiths but usually only listened to their basic stuff. you looked at him and smiled, nodding lightly in approval to the song, he smiled back softly and turned back to his book, pointing at a bit of text 'the stem is thick, black, and rough' you nodded, copying it down in the similarities box.
you worked silently through ocassional whispers of details about the plant. it was peacful, you worked together in this perfect flow. he would raise the plant to his eyes to inspect, and then raise them to yours so you could see. he never moved too quick or too slow, you both understood this plant so well it seemed like everyone else had no idea what to do except for you too.
at one point, snape walked by and looked both of you intensely, you could tell he could see the black wire coming from both of your ears but he just turned his nose up, glanced at riddle and slowly walked away. you looked at riddle astonished, who raised his eyebrows like 'i told you so'
an hour passed by in what felt like ten minutes. snape's voice echoed through the room and broke through the sounds of lana del rey in your ear
(you had requested the song by writing it on riddle's notebook;
and of course, hesitant to inturrupt his own playlist, he did)
"put your things away and turn in your papers in. the. front." he drawled slowly while moving at a glacial pace towards the center of the room where he whipped his cape around to the desks.
it was the end of class, you hadn't even realized it was over.
you looked over at him, he had these sort of puppy dog eyes that made you want too....stop. you have a boyfriend for merlins sake. you slipped the headphone out of your ear, "thanks" you shrugged, pulling a piece of hair back behind your ear.
"anytime" his eyes reverting back to their unbothered stare. he began to pack up his writing things slowly, stalling. "can i talk to you later? the astronomy tower?" he got closer as he whispered the location close enough for no one else to hear and to send a small cast of chills down your spine.
you nod, "after dinner?" you press your lips together anticipating his answer.
"yeah" he nods back, "see you at dinner y/n" mattheo grabs his books in his bag and heads for the door, he glances back as he leaves the room, you give him a small wave and he supressed a smirk.
"what was that?" you hear a voice behind you that makes you practically jump in the quiet room, snape whips his head around from your noise, annoyed you haven't left yet.
"harry!" you clutched your heart, "you can't just- do that, why does everyone keep doing that?" you hit him upside the head, ruffling his hair as he reaches for it in defense, "when did you get here anyways?? you were never in this class" you tuck your things in your bag and toss it over your shoulder.
"i transferred from herbology, they said someone needed my spot and were offering me to just get this one done full credit halfway through the semester " he laughed at your panic, "i came in when you and riddle were working" he lifted air quotes as he said 'working' while you both headed for the door
"we were working harry" you rolled your eyes, "and who the hell wants herbology that bad?" you snickered opening the door, escaping snape's torture chamber.
"beats me" he fixed his glasses, "listen, I only want to tell you to be-"
"careful" you cut him off "i know" your eyes physically tried not to roll to the back of your head
"safe" he finished, you pursed your lips and blinked slowly, "same thing" you sighed starting up the stairs, harry following quickly behind you. "i just say that because you think you know someone, a-and then you find out you really don't" he rambled
"did ron steal your last clean pair of boxers or something?" you turned back at the worried boy's face and continued pacing up the stairs.
"y/n" he said firmly, making you stop and turn to him,
"look, I understand your concerns, you especially." you stepped down once to look at him face to face, to see his scar, remind yourself that his father isn't a concept or a legend. he was real, and this was his real son, who knew what he was capable of or why riddle was even here in the first place "I promise i'm careful, he's not his father."
he swallowed and nodded, blue eyes piercing into yours, "good...good, and you know y/n.. I'm not just talking about riddle." he continued to walk up, leaving you with his words. you took a moment to think before following behind his trail.
