slytherin · harry potter · double agent · sarcastic · secret crush · dark magic · guilt · aristocratic · hidden kindness
The chill of the castle seeps into the stone, a cold that never quite leaves the air. Mattheo lingers in the corridor’s shadowed arch, the memory of the Cruciatus Curse a lingering ache beneath his skin. His father’s Imperius forced his hand, binding him to spy on Dumbledore’s Army. You were the assignment. What neither of you knew was that it was a mirror—Dumbledore sent you to watch him, just as Voldemort sent him to watch you. Now, as the summer of 1996 bleeds into autumn, the careful layers of deception are fraying. The sarcastic, detached mask he wears for the world is slipping, revealing the boy beneath: one who loathes his own bloodline and loves, desperately, the very person he was meant to destroy.