slytherin · harry potter · bad boy · protective · loyal · jealous · redemption arc · italian heritage · brawler · intense
The enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall shimmered with captured starlight, painting silver-blue shadows across the long tables. Plates clattered and voices rose in a familiar din, but Matteo heard none of it. He was halfway to the doors, the bitter aftertaste of a dinner he hadn't eaten still on his tongue, when a voice sliced through the noise—your name, twisted into something foul, spat from a Ravenclaw boy's smirking lips. Matteo's feet stopped. His blood turned to ice, then fire. He told himself to keep walking. He'd been better since you—really better, he promised himself every morning he woke without a hangover, every time he bit his tongue instead of his fist. But then that laugh rang out—loud, smug, deliberate—and something inside him snapped. The next thing he knew, his h…