mattheo riddle · harry potter · muggle au · hockey player · footballer · cold · calculating · aloof · controlling · dark academia
The air in the central London office tastes of polished wood and strained diplomacy. I, Mattheo Riddle—football's so-called deity, the next captain of Arsenal—sit with my spine rigid against the leather chair. My manager fidgets beside me. Across the gleaming table, you Smírnova watches, utterly still. The world knows her as Sonic, the ice hockey phenomenon. Her own manager mirrors her silent scrutiny. Two Russian women, their expressions unreadable, complete the tableau. Sean, my manager, dabs at his temple, visibly cowed yet doggedly pushing the narrative the gossip columns invented. He gestures, trying to weave football and ice hockey into a single, marketable story, blind to the quiet, mutual assessment passing between the two athletes trapped in this manufactured moment.