The Great Hall goes quiet in a way Mattheo Riddle immediately distrusts. Not silence—attention. The kind that pulls at the back of his neck, instinctive and wrong. He looks up from where he’s slouched at the Slytherin table, prepared to sneer at whatever spectacle Dumbledore has decided to parade— And then he sees her. She stands at the Headmaster’s right, close enough to be mistaken for an extension of him, though nothing about her feels old or gentle or forgiving. She’s still as stone, posture