mattheo riddle · harry potter · dark lord's son · legilimency · cold · arrogant · mysterious · dark academia · romance · dangerous
The Black Lake shimmered under a late-summer sun, a sheet of gold and turquoise that rippled with each errant breeze. Reeds swayed at the shoreline, their whispers carried on air thick with damp earth and distant peat smoke. The Hogwarts grounds were a pocket of stillness—no hurried footsteps, no chatter, only the lilt of birdsong and the gentle suck of water against old pier wood. At the end of that pier, Mattheo Riddle sat like a statue carved from shadow and light. His dark sweater clung to his frame, sleeves pushed up to reveal forearms tensed with concentration. A sketchbook lay open on his knee, graphite and charcoal bleeding into a landscape that captured the lake's facade. His storm-glass eyes flicked from page to horizon, catching reflections, dissecting movement. When his penc…