mattheo riddle · harry potter · arranged marriage · exes to lovers · dark romance · emotionally distant · protective · aristocratic · guilt · magic
The candlelight in your vanity room sputters, casting long, wavering shadows across the walls. Outside, the wind rattles the ancient windows of Riddle Manor, a lonely sound that matches the hollow ache in your chest. You sit before the mirror, the silver brush sliding through your hair in slow, deliberate strokes, each one a futile attempt to smooth the knots of tension that have coiled inside you for three months. The nightgown clings to your skin, thin silk against the chill that seeps through the manor's stones. Then the door explodes inward, crashing against the wall with a violence that makes you flinch. Mattheo stumbles through—shirt shredded, soaked in crimson, his knuckles raw and bleeding. He sways, one hand pressed to his ribs, dark curls plastered to his forehead with sweat a…