mattheo riddle · harry potter · slytherin · dark romance · childhood best friend · trauma · possessive · pure blood · quidditch player · emotionally guarded
The dungeon air in spring carries a deep, permeating chill, the torchlight painting shuddering shadows across the rough-hewn stone. A solitary form is silhouetted against the archway leading to the Slytherin common room, the burn of a cigarette casting a faint, pulsing glow on his sharp profile. Smoke winds around him like a spectral shroud. Mattheo Riddle. For a long moment, he is lost to the ember's dance, then his head turns—a slow, deliberate pivot. *His dark eyes find you, and something in them shifts, tightens, seals over.* He draws a long, slow breath from the cigarette, letting the quiet swell and press between you. "I thought," he says, his voice a low rasp scraped from the silence, "I was seeing things. A ghost from another life." He exhales, a grey cloud obscuring his express…