LUNACY ll Mattheo Riddle x Reader

12. ɴᴏɴᴇxɪꜱᴛᴇɴᴛ

Halfway through October comes our first Hogsmeade trip of the term. Pansy makes all the plans for me, insisting that I follow her directions exactly so that I can get the most out of my first visit there. We're joined by Blaise, Daphne, and Theo, all three of whom also have their own favorite places in the Wizarding Village that they want to show to me.

After a long day of darting in and out of shops like Zonko's, the Magical Menagerie, and a beautifully furnished building where they sell all sorts of expensive school supplies like peacock feather quills and authentic squid ink, we make our way to the Three Broomsticks, which appears to be the most popular establishment around.

By my third butterbeer, all thoughts of my detention with Mattheo from the previous week have been shoved out of my mind- Mostly to make room for the sight of Blaise shoveling a fistful of Whistling Peppermint into his mouth, then drowning all the mints in a ninety nine percent firewhisky cocktail that Pansy made.

"OUT!" Madam Rosmerta shrieks at us when the smoke coming out of Blaise's ears sets off her Fire-Detection Charm and douses the whole tavern in water. Fully drunk and cackling like mad, the five of us scramble for the door as a swarm of angry patrons send a bunch of hexes flying our way.

We decide to head back to the castle, and have just started down the snowy road when an ear-splitting scream pierces through the air.

"That's one of the Gryffindor Chasers!" Blaise shouts, and the rest of us follow in his example of staring in horror as the Gryffindor girl is tossed into the sky, right into the center of a snowstorm that billows up around her.

"Hagrid!" Harry suddenly rushes past us, nearly falling down on his way to reach the Hogwarts gamekeeper. "Hagrid, someone's been hurt back there, or cursed, or something-"

"Cursed? Who's bin cursed- Not Ron? Hermione?"

"No, it's not them, it's Katie Bell- This way..."

Us Slytherins just stand there and gawk as Hagrid and the Gryffindors try to get the situation under control.

"Should we follow them, do you think?" I suggest. They all agree, though for Blaise and Pansy, it's more out of a thirst for gossip than anything- And we tear after the group of red and gold.

By breakfast the next morning, the whole school knows. Katie Bell was given a necklace cursed with a death spell, and though she narrowly avoided getting a direct hit, she still needed to be taken to St. Mungo's.

It's all anyone can talk about, not just in between the corridors, but directly in front of where professors are present, too. For instance, it's that very evening that Professor Slughorn hands out another one of his invitations to his dinner parties- Though the past three of them have been quite uneventful, this one is filled with all sorts of speculations and gossip behind the story with Katie Bell.

Slughorn appears rather put off by this, but us students do take a moment to put a pause in our whispering when he presents a special guest- Gwenog Jones, Captain of the Holyhead Harpies herself. Both Blaise and Ginny rush up to the famous Quidditch player at the same time, nearly collide into each other in the process- Upon reflex, Blaise's arms shoot forward to steady the youngest Weasley, which Ginny responds to by appearing mildly surprised. Then she scowls, slaps his hand off of her, and Blaise responds in kind with another blood traitor comment in her direction.

"Harry's schedule, sir?" Hermione frowns from beside me.

"Yes, Miss Granger- Unfortunate that he hasn't been able to make it to any of my parties thus far, but coming to this Christmas party is a must! You'll have to tell me when he's going to be free, that way I'll be able to plan things accordingly."

"Harry will definitely be pleased to hear that," I mutter into my glass, only loud enough for Hermione to hear.

Talk of the necklace incident begins to die down as the days grow closer to the first Quidditch match of the year. Slytherin versus Gryffindor, which means extra morning practices for those of us on the Slytherin team. Our dear captain hasn't done so much as look at me since our very first detention together, and for the one we had after that, he requested that we be placed in separate classrooms, to which Snape reluctantly obliged.

Daily Quidditch practices, and yet Mattheo still manages to pull off not acknowledging my presence for any of them. He always talks to us as a group, and on the occasions he needs to give an order to me, he addresses the other Beater instead, and I mostly end up pathetically trailing after him.

Breakfast is an excitable affair that Saturday morning- The usual hisses and jeers from the Slytherin table, met by the feral stomping and screaming from the Gryffindors. I focus on my food, mostly, but manage to look up in time to catch an argument between Harry and Hermione from the Gryffindor table- Hermione is furiously pointing at the goblet in Ron's hand, whose contents the Weasley swallows in a single gulp.

The sky is clear today, paired with a light wind- The ideal conditions for a good match. We walk out onto the pitch to face a deafening crowd, and briefly, I'm reminded of the one and only time that my parents ever took me to see a real Quidditch match. At nine years old, on the Top Box beside the Minister's family...

That was the last time my parents ever took me anywhere, I think. Because in the month following that, murder number two occurred, and that was enough to have them wiping away my existence from the public entirely. It was only ever Draco, their precious son, their only son, and if anyone ever did so much as ask questions about that delightful little girl they remembered seeing, Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy made sure to send them spiraling down the cliffs of the social hierarchy.

It wasn't their actions that I minded. I'd always known they loved Draco more than me, and it wasn't like I'd ever given them reason to think otherwise. It was more the frightening speed at which they pulled it off that unnerved me. To be able to erase their daughter from the eyes of the Wizarding Community so quickly... Exactly how long had they been planning that for?"

"Captains, shake hands," says Madam Hooch, looking a bit stunned to be the only thing standing between the famous Harry Potter and the son of the Dark Lord himself. This is the first year that either of them have been made captains, which also makes it the first time that the school has ever seen the two boys at such close proximity to each other.

"Mount your brooms," Hooch calls. "On my mark. Three... Two... One..."