Chapter 90 Quiet Hours, Loud Thoughts
The week ended not with a bang, but with a hush—one that settled deep into the stones of Hogwarts and, more insistently, into Mattheo Riddle’s mind.
Friday night arrived wrapped in fog, the kind that clung to the windows and blurred the edges of the world beyond them. The Slytherin common room was subdued, its usual murmurs softened by the weight of exhaustion after a long stretch of classes, whispers, and watchful tension. A few students lingered near the fire, others disappeared into the dormitories early, but Mattheo remained apart from all of it.
He sat in the farthest corner, where the greenish light from the lake filtered dimly through the glass, casting slow-moving shadows across the walls. His book lay open in his hands, unread. He had turned the same page three times without realizing it.
Liora.
The thought came unbidden, unwelcome—and yet, impossibly familiar.
He closed the book with a quiet snap and leaned back, resting his head against the cool stone. For once, there was no immediate threat to calculate, no spell to practice, no lineage to outrun. Just silence. And her.
It unsettled him how easily she filled the quiet.
Mattheo prided himself on control. It was the one thing he had cultivated relentlessly, the shield that kept him intact in a world that expected too much and trusted too little. Control over his magic. Control over his temper. Control over the darker instincts that pulsed beneath his ribs like a second heartbeat.
But when it came to her, control frayed.
He saw her everywhere—in the corner of his vision as students passed, in the echo of laughter drifting down corridors, in the spaces beside him that felt inexplicably empty. He could still picture the way she had looked at him earlier that week, eyes searching, uncertain, but unwavering. Not afraid. Not retreating.
Trusting.
That was the problem.
Mattheo exhaled slowly, fingers curling against his knee. Trust was a dangerous thing. It invited weakness. It tempted honesty. And honesty—real honesty—had never been safe for him.
He thought of their last conversation, the way she had spoken his name as if it weren’t a burden, as if it didn’t carry the weight of a legacy soaked in fear and expectation. As if “Mattheo” were simply a boy sitting across from her, conflicted and human.
She had seen him hesitate.
She had seen the shadows flicker.
And she hadn’t stepped away.
The memory stirred something sharp in his chest—longing, yes, but also confusion. A restless question he couldn’t quite silence.
What did she really see when she looked at him?
Mattheo tilted his head, watching the faint shapes moving beyond the glass. A shadow of a squid’s tentacle slid past, slow and ancient, unconcerned with the thoughts of boys and girls above. He envied that simplicity.
He could still feel it—her presence beside him, the almost-touch of her hand, the warmth that had lingered far longer than it should have. It had taken everything in him not to close the distance. Not to give in to the instinct that urged him closer, urged him to claim something gentle in a world that had given him so little of it.
That instinct frightened him more than the darker one’s ever had.
Because darkness was familiar. Darkness could be managed.
Hope could not.
He stood abruptly, the movement sharp in the stillness, and began to pace the length of the common room. His footsteps were soundless against the stone, his mind anything but. Every rational thought told him to pull back—to put space between himself and the one person who made him forget to be careful.
And yet.
He stopped near the window, resting one hand against the glass. Somewhere in the castle, Liora was likely curled up with a book, or laughing quietly with her friends, unaware of the storm she had stirred simply by existing.
Did she think of him now, as the week closed?
The question slipped in before he could stop it.
He scoffed quietly at himself. Of course she did. Not in the way he did—surely not—but he had seen the signs. The pauses. The glances held a second too long. The way her voice softened when she spoke to him, as if instinctively attuned to the parts of him no one else bothered to acknowledge.
That awareness both steadied and unravelled him.
Mattheo pressed his forehead lightly to the glass, eyes closing. His thoughts drifted, unspooling memories he hadn’t meant to revisit: whispered warnings from professors, sidelong looks from students, the unspoken expectations tied to his blood. He had grown up learning that affection was conditional, that interest always came with an agenda.
But Liora hadn’t asked for anything.
She hadn’t demanded explanations or loyalty or proof.
She had simply stayed.
The realization tightened his throat.
“I don’t know what to do with you,” he murmured under his breath, the words barely audible even to himself.
For the first time in a long while, the future felt indistinct. Not the grand, ominous uncertainty he was used to—but something smaller, more personal. A question of choices. Of proximity. Of whether wanting someone could coexist with the person he was becoming.
He straightened, forcing himself to breathe evenly. Wanting her didn’t make him weak. It made him… aware. Of what he stood to lose. Of what he could destroy if he wasn’t careful.
And that was why confusion gnawed at him.
Because part of him—the part shaped by caution and consequence—knew he should let this fade. Let the week end, let the tension cool, let her drift back into the safer orbit of her own world.
But another part—quieter, stubborn—rejected the idea outright.
That part remembered the way she listened.
The way she didn’t flinch.
The way she had looked at him, not as a Riddle, not as a warning, but as a choice.
Mattheo returned to his seat slowly, sinking back into the shadows. The common room had emptied further now, the fire reduced to glowing embers. He welcomed the solitude.
This was what end-of-week reflections were supposed to be, he told himself. A reckoning. An inventory of mistakes and strategies. A moment to reset.
Instead, all he could think about was the next time he might see her.
The next conversation.
The next almost-touch.
It was absurd—and undeniable.
As the clock chimed softly somewhere above, Mattheo allowed himself one final, dangerous thought before retreating behind his carefully constructed walls.
If she reached for him again—truly reached—he wasn’t entirely sure he would step away.
The realization lingered, heavy and unresolved, as he finally stood and made his way toward the dormitories. The week was over. The castle slept.
But his mind did not.
And neither, he suspected, did whatever was quietly, relentlessly drawing him closer to her.