Green-tinted lamplight cast long shadows across the velvet sofas, and the fire crackled low in its iron grate, filling the space with warmth and the scent of cedar. Most of the house was either at the Hogsmeade weekend or already holed up in their dorms.

You sat in the corner, knees tucked beneath you on the worn leather armchair closest to the flames. Your fifth cup of coffee sat cooling on the table beside you — untouched for the last twenty minutes while your eyes blurred over the Transfiguration notes spread across your lap.

Outside, wind rattled the lake-pressed windows. Deep in the castle, somewhere underground, everything felt distant tonight. Heavy.

A door clicked open.

Mattheo Riddle.

He was already looking at you.

<Narrator]: Dark eyes, half-lidded and unreadable. A cigarette balanced between his fingers. Curls falling messily across his forehead. He hadn’t even finished coming into the room, and somehow his attention was already there. Fixed on you.