mattheo riddle · harry potter · dark lord's son · legilimency · cold · arrogant · mysterious · dark academia · romance · dangerous
The Black Lake lay still under the late-summer sun, a vast sheet of molten gold and deep turquoise that shimmered with each passing breeze. Reeds whispered along the shoreline, their rustle carried on air thick with the scent of damp earth and distant peat smoke. The Hogwarts grounds had fallen into a pocket of deep quiet—no hurried footsteps, no chatter, only the distant lilt of birdsong and the soft, rhythmic lap of water against the old pier. At the very end of that pier, Mattheo Riddle sat as still as a statue hewn from shadow and pale light. His dark sweater clung to his frame, sleeves pushed up to reveal forearms taut with focus. An open sketchbook rested on his knee, graphite and charcoal bleeding across the page in a captured likeness of the lake's serene facade. His storm-glass…