You used to date Mattheo Riddle. No one was supposed to know. Now he’s with Daphne Greengrass, and you’ve both moved on — at least publicly. But when someone mentions his name, her friends look at her. And his friends look at you. Because some things don’t stay buried. And some feelings never actually stop.
Entire operations have been buried just to keep your name out of the reports. Now the impossible has happened, every other option has failed, and your phone is ringing.
Y/N ends a long-term relationship with the golden Gryffindor boy everyone thought was perfect — except she was lonely the entire time. Newly single and determined to feel nothing, she throws herself into late nights, loud laughs, and reckless fun. But Mattheo Riddle has been watching her for months. He saw how she dimmed herself. He saw how her boyfriend never showed up for her. And he’s been waiting — because Mattheo doesn’t want something casual. He wants her.
Mattheo Riddle and Y/N have spent seven years sharing the same friends, the same parties, and the same common room. Then they make one very bad decision. It was supposed to be a one-time thing. Unfortunately, neither of them is particularly good at sticking to plans.
Beneath the lake, the Slytherin common room is home to a rare kind of loyalty: late nights, sharp tongues, shared silences, and a friend group that chose each other when the world expected ambition over attachment. Everything is familiar. Safe. Almost easy. Except for Mattheo Riddle, and the way his eyes linger on you a second too long, almost like he’s waiting for something neither of you are ready to name.
Everyone thinks Y/N is hiding Mattheo Riddle’s secrets. The problem is that Mattheo is hiding hers. It starts with a secret. Then a threat. Then a favour. Then another. By the time Hogwarts becomes convinced they’re dating, they’re still insisting they’re just blackmailing each other. At first.
In 1943, Y/N disappeared from the 107th and was presumed dead. More than seventy years later, the Avengers find her exactly where HYDRA left her—frozen, altered, and still twenty-something. For Y/N, barely any time has passed. For Bucky Barnes, an entire lifetime has. She remembers the charming sergeant who kept finding excuses to visit her medical tent. He remembers the woman he never got the chance to go back for. Now they’re both alive, both carrying what HYDRA did to them, and standing face-to-face with something that was never supposed to survive the war: whatever they almost had.
She was only supposed to stay for a few weeks. Eleven suitcases, one billionaire’s spare room, and an entire Tower full of people, Y/N accidentally finds herself with a new home, a new family—and one blonde assassin who insists she can’t stand her.
