less romantic
mattheo riddle x reader
the night sky was your mirror. in your childhood years before hogwarts, you had never seen anything as tranquil and rare. you missed the never sleeping city and the endless stream of cars outside your apartment living room window.
the wizard world was bone chillingly cold and suffocating. from years 1-5, you were slumped in advanced school work and sealing away all your feelings.
you were shy, that was obvious to see. while peers around you were being picked for their outwardness and interests, you kept all your thoughts in a journal. you made each journal yourself with every seasonal color change. it wasn’t a big deal, nobody noticed you—let alone the pages you scribbled in.
until someone did notice. everything changed the moment mattheo riddle ears perked up hearing your cartridge pen smoothly move across your crispy pages in that faithful potions class.
six months ago, may of 6th year, mattheo began to pay special attention to you. you didn’t write in the precious journal every class, you were a good student writing notes in a school officiated leather binder and nervously answering the professor’s cold call questions. your potions were always a little off color because you didn’t bother to pour less than 10 milliliters of an ingredient back into the bottles your lab partner hogged. the only person you looked for validation from was the professor, who hated his guts.
before and after class you would meet up with your friends, who consistently repped the colors of your house. when you excused yourself, they’d plan matching outfits to wear to quidditch games. you apparently didn’t watch the sport, which was disappointing.
his close slytherin friends that he asked about you knew nothing. he scratched his head every time your eyes met his for a split second. he was fazed and you were very unfazed grabbing the basil seeds on the shelves next to his cauldron. it was the annoyed eyebrow furrow and resting mouth frown that surprised him after you moved away.
merlin, what if you had already had a boyfriend? he took a deep breath to focus on the undizzy potion.
”are you sure we need these?” you asked your friend, melodia.
”yes, just grind one up and sprinkle it into yours. it is not supposed to smell like that.” she explained in her nasally informative voice.
“dude, it doesn’t smell any different than yours.” you said.
mattheo smiled, stirring his bubbling pale green potion hearing the unique way you spoke.
”and it’s not in the recipe.” you continued.
you grunted and the grinding of a basil seed took a split second.
”here, whiny baby.” melodia quipped before the sprinkling sounds of small fireworks came from your cauldron.
mattheo peaked behind himself and saw yellow fumes erupting from your potion. your hands were crossed looking at melodia, who bit her lips forming into a trying smile. he could only imagine the annoyed expression you wore everyday more intense, but hardly.
your potion swirled and turned a translucent white. your shoulders sagged looking at it and the students spinning to dizzy themselves in order to sip their potion. melodia’s potion didn’t turn out right, as usual.
that day mattheo imagined you wrote about never partnering with melodia again since at the beginning of 7th year, he saw you enter the potions n.e.w.t. course alone.
summer was vacation after vacation after countryside vacation and you soaked in all the sun. your skin glowed darker and drunk up the moon on your stargazing nights. it was tiring being a lonely star, that fact only settled in in the middle of a muggle romantic comedy movie your neighbors hid between stacks of hay.
you bawled your eyes out to 10 things i hate about you and tucked the disk back where you found it. in your journal, you wrote that you needed a crush like ones your friends had. a real crush at that, not a morally gray novel character or famous quidditch player.
on your return train ride to school, your friends teased and gossiped with each other. the cotton and chocolate smell in the air made you uneasy but when the conversation landed on you and any updates you wanted to share, you spoke something unexpected.
”i have a crush.”
they all looked at each other with wide gazes and unlocked jaws.
“who?”
”who is it?”
”i never thought i’d see the day.”
you had a plan, there was no crush yet. you just needed to choose someone and work from there to get out in the dating pool, this is how it normally worked from your observations. you could go for easy bait like lorenzo berkshire who would chew you up and spit you out like an edible sex toy, or a social outcast like neville longbottom and his buddies. that would certainly not go well, you would feel bad. who do you actually want to be friends with?
your friends called your name after your long silence.
”i’ll tell you guys later.” you smiled, “i’ve got to see how he looks after summer, you know.”
melodia narrowed her eyes. “so, you haven’t seen him yet and he’s not on this train cart.”
she stood and started to scan her surroundings. your other friends joined her laughing.
”no, no, not at all! stop it.” you laughed, patting their thighs.
they began to sit down and shrugged. you rolled your eyes and shook your head as their eyes stared at yours. gratefully after a minute, the subject was changed.
your 4th class of the day, 2nd year n.e.w.t. potions was a pain in the ass. you had to find a new lab partner or become a throuple with someone else if melodia was the only student that dropped the course. with the 500 page heavy annotated textbook pressed against your stomach, you stood next to the professor’s desk watching counting every head.
your head was tilted up as you watched the long clock hand reach 1. there was hope, you counted an even number of students. chatters in the class quieted hearing the professor’s cranky shoes across the hall.
”what mate?” the distinct snob of draco malfoy’s voice wrung through the class.
mattheo whispered, but very poorly, “just find another partner draco, we’ll talk later.”
his fluffy waves flopped over to the right as he tilted his head over to lavender brown at her lone table. draco held a confused irritated expression walking over to her. the brunette bowed, a grin on his face as he turned around meeting your gaze.
you quickly looked away to face the professor.
”you should all be at stations by now,” he announced, shooting you a stern look.
he pointed at mattheo, who stood at the front right table and you scurried over.
“as you should already know, the boy or girl you are beside will be your lab partner for the year. no switches, no excuses unless they plot to kill you or something heinous happens, alright?”
glancing over, you see a satisfied smile on mattheo’s face as if he was laughing at a joke inside his head. his head dropped and he nodded at you once. oh, you didn’t like this. one of the most popular boys in the school was laughing at the thought of partnering with you, it must’ve been some elaborate prank.
behind you, draco continued to scowl attempting to burn mattheo’s curly mullet into ashes with his gaze as lavender awkwardly doodled in her notebook.
”alright.” the professor ended his introduction.
your partnership with mattheo would be the investigative topic of your friend group and school for the next several weeks.