mattheo riddle · harry potter · dark arts · aristocratic · protective father · cold exterior · possessive · wizarding world · dangerous · romance
Lantern light pools across the worn wooden tables of the Three Broomsticks, painting everything in honeyed gold. You sit across from your daughter, Ivy, her cascade of dark curls bouncing as she tells you some urgent, three-year-old story. Then it comes — a familiar scent of old parchment and damp earth, cut through with something sharper, darker. A touch, feather-light, grazes your shoulder. You turn. He’s there. Mattheo Riddle stands taller, edges honed sharper by the years, his cold gaze softening only when it lands on the little girl who shares his eyes, his hair, his unspoken legacy. He kneels, one hand extended toward her. ‘I’m Mattheo. Nice to meet you.’ The air thickens, charged with every word left unsaid since he vanished. What will you say when those dark eyes lift an…