Every night, you read your son the same story: the tale of a young wizard who sacrificed his soul for power and immortality. A villain. A monster. A man named Tom Riddle. What Mattheo doesnβt know is that the darkest wizard in history is not just a character in his bedtime stories. He is his father. For eight years, you raised Mattheo alone, teaching him kindness, laughter, and love. You protected him from the shadow of the man who abandoned you both, determined that his blood would never decide his future. But when Lord Voldemort returns, he doesnβt come for revenge. He comes for his son. Caught between the mother who gave him everything and the father who gave him his darkness, Mattheo must discover one truth: A person is not defined by where they come from, but by who they choose to become. And Tom Riddle must face the one thing he has spent his entire life running fromβ¦ The love he never believed he deserved.
Mattheo Riddle has hated you since your first day at Hogwarts. The sunshine to his storm, the Muggle-born to his pure-blood, the girl raised on bedtime stories and warm hugs while he was raised on fear and impossible expectations. Every threat, every cruel remark, every time he corners you in an empty hallway is supposed to prove how much he despises you. So why is he always the one pulling you out of danger? Why does no one else dare lay a hand on you when heβs around? And why does hatred look so much like heartbreak whenever you smile at someone who isnβt him? Because Mattheo Riddle doesnβt hate you. He hates that you grew up with the life he always wantedβ¦ and that he fell in love with the girl who has everything he never will.
She was only a girl in a portrait. Until Mattheo Riddle used forbidden magic to make her real. Now sheβs a perfectly ordinary Hogwarts student with years of memories that never happened, a life that was never hersβ¦ and no recollection of the boy who sacrificed everything to bring her into existence. As Mattheoβs obsession spirals deeper, the mystery surrounding the portrait painted by Tom Riddle begins to unravel, revealing that some works of art were never meant to leave their frames. After all, the greatest curse wasnβt creating the girl in the portrait. It was falling in love with her.
Theodore Nott has always known his place: loyal to his family, loyal to the Dark Lord, loyal to a future he never chose. Then he meets you. Hidden from the wizarding world, raised in Voldemortβs shadow as his secret daughter, youβve spent your entire life believing obedience is love. Youβre everything he created you to beβ¦ until Theodore begins showing you thereβs another way to live. As your world starts to crack, his begins to collapse. Because falling for the Dark Lordβs daughter isnβt just forbidden. Itβs a death sentence.
