How Did it End? | Mattheo Riddle

Chapter Three

Seraphina sat at one of the tables by herself in the common room, right by the fire. She had three different books in front of her as she was feverishly writing about the different variations of the Confundus charm for the essay that Professor Flitwick had already assigned to them. She wanted to get a head start before the rest of their classes began pilling on the coursework. Her other friends didn't share this sentiment with her and were busy talking on the other side of the common room about their first day of classes. All of them, except Mattheo who had been missing since dinner. They figured he had needed space after Defense Against the Dark Arts. He was the first one out of the classroom, he was gone before the rest of the could even register the class was over.

Seraphina sighed and she flipped through a book looking for a passage. She was so caught up in looking for it that she didn't even realize that someone was standing at the open seat across from her until she heard them clear her throat. She looked up and to her surprise saw Mattheo standing there with his own charms book, scrolls, and quill.

"Are you working on the charms paper for Flitwick?" He asked her in a calm, soft-spoken voice that wasn't sure she'd ever heard him use, at least not with her anyway.

Seraphina looked at him for a moment and then just nodded as she dipped her quill in her ink. "I am." She waited for him to make a stupid comment about how she was already doing homework, but it never came and he instead sat down across from her and set up his things before looking over at her as she was writing.

"Confundus charm?" He asked and she nodded again to him glancing at him briefly but looked back down at her paper.

"Yes, you can borrow my book if you need it." She said looking back at him. Mattheo nodded a little as he opened his own textbook.

Mattheo and Seraphina never apologized to each other, ever. They were both too stubborn to admit that they were wrong, even when they most definitely were. Instead, the two of them opted for a mutual understanding that they were putting their fight behind them. They would just go back to pretending that it never happened. Never having to mention it or even suggest that they talk about it. It had always been that way, even when they were younger. They would fight, cool off, and go back to whatever game they were playing.

"If you find a passage on the use of it on inanimate objects and how it does that can you let me know?" Seraphina asked him after a moment.

Mattheo smirked cockily as she started writing on his parchment. "It only works on a magical object that has already been bewitched." He explained.

"Right, but I'm struggling to come up with a decent example to talk about how that works." She said not looking up from her parchment.

"Last year. When Potter's name was put in the Goblet of Fire. They used the Confundus charm on it to accept his name." Mattheo said with a shrug like it was obvious and she should have known that.

"But the age line that Dumbledore put around it. Wouldn't that have added extra protection?" She questioned as she wrote.

Mattheo shook his head as he dipped his quill into her pot of ink. "Not if the person stepping over it was above the age of seventeen. Crouch is over the age of seventeen." He reminded her.

"So that's all the brilliant Albus Dumbledore could come up with?" She asked, rolling her eyes a little.

"He probably didn't think he had people infiltrating the school. He was just worried about underage students putting her name in." Mattheo said with a shrug, he did find her comment about Dumbledore amusing.

Seraphina didn't say anything for a long moment as she wrote two lines of her essay, thinking over what he was telling her. She would never understand how Dumbledore didn't think about that. Even though they had heard the whispers of what was happening, no matter how much their parents had tried to keep in from them they caught on pretty quickly that they were forming ranks again.