There had been a fire, a mysterious fire, that had reduced the dormitories to a smouldering pile of ash and wreckage. In the Slytherin boys' dormitories. Yes, mysterious, indeed.
There was, in reality, no mystery to it. One of those idiot boys had started a fire. Even Y/N new that, and she, thanks to her great efforts, was not normally one in on the loop with the latest tea.
Luckily, they had Snape to cover it up.
So now, with no other house willing to accommodate the boys of slytherin, they turned to the only other option, ill advised as it was. They really had no other choice.
And so on the Friday morning, bright and early, each boy from Slytherin brought his respective necessities, those which had survived the aforementioned 'mysterious' fire, and themselves, to their years' Slytherin girls' dorms. After spending the night, the one following the accident, in the hall, they were all too glad to return to the warmth of a more sheltered Hogwarts, airy as the hall was, especially in the depths of winter.
Y/N was not glad. She barely tolerated the girls in her dorm, now some rowdy lads were going to join the mix. She cursed her rotten luck.
She dreaded returning that evening, packing up her stuff early that morning and slinking off before the dorms filled, beyond the already borderline uncomfortable capacity. She hoped she had everything she needed for the day, and wouldn't have to return to her now under-siege dormitory.
——————
Seven classes down, two to go.
She took in a deep breath. Phew.
Just maybe this day wouldn't be too bad. She quashed down the reminder surfacing of her unavoidable nightmare of an evening; maybe she could camp out in the bathrooms for the night?
Fuck. Her hands scrambled hurriedly through her bag, throwing lipglosses and concealers to the side and crumpling loose sheets of paper to the bottom.
Shit. She cursed again. It's not here.
Her charms textbook was missing.
She wouldn't usually care, but today the professor had explicitly said to have your text books in class, as they contained an equivalence test they would be doing today.
You idiot. She reprimanded herself.
Fuck sake. She'd have to go back to the dorms now.
She breathed deeply through her nose.
Ok. No one should be there. I'll run in, grab the book - probably from my bedside table - and run out. No problem; shouldn't even be late to class.
With that she rushed (with elegance and grace, as always) back to her dorm, jogging lightly - when there was no one around to see her - through the labyrinth of corridors, hallways and staircases that made up Hogwarts.
She jogged up the stairs, reaching the solid, dark oak door, pausing briefly to catch her breath, before commencing her plan. She reached out tentatively, but gripped the gold doorknob surely. Twisting and then pushing hard at the stiff, old door.
She walking in, soles of her raggedy converse shuffling across the worn wooden floor, squeaking as she stepping the loose boards.
There it was.
On the table next to her pillow as predicted. She quickened her pace, confidence increased, and anxiety quelled. She reached a black-nail-painted hand out. Taking the book into her arms, she breathed a sigh of relief.
She turned on her heel, and began to walk back.
What the Fuck?!
She dropped the book.
It fell and landed with a thud, raising dust from the chipped, once varnished, wooden floorboards.
"Hey," his deep, confident voice spoke, as he sat up a bit from his position with his back against the wall and legs stretch out on his mattress on the floor between two beds. She hadn't seen him on the way in, he'd probably been lying on the sad-looking mattress on the floor, not visible from its spot, between her and another girl's bed.
Now, she doesn't now how she didn't see the rising smoke from the lit cigarette between his lips.
"Whattcha doin'?" He spoke around the cigarette. He was still in his uniform she noticed, shredded ends of his sleeves in danger of catching fire as he lifted the cigarette from his mouth with two fingers, blowing out more smoke in her direction.
She found her voice, "Nothing.”
She bent down to pick up her heavy textbook, "Just, yeah, getting this," She finished, mumbling and holding up her book lamely. He was looking at her intently. She didn't like that.
She avoided eye contact, looking at the wall just behind his head instead.
"Anyway, yeah," she left.
Walking out before he could respond, not that he was going to. Pulling the door closed by the cold knob, she shut the door hard behind her. She let her hand rest against the cool surface, as she stayed at the top of the stairs for a minute, taking in a deep breath and steady her nerves before descending the steps carefully. Falling would be embarrassing.
Her mind was racing as she tried to focus on the task at hand, not shattering her bones falling on the marble steps. What the fuck had Mattheo Riddle been doing, just silently sitting in the dorm, in the middle of the day, smoking in his strewn about uniform? And why had he stayed quiet when I entered?
She was mortified.
She finished out the day, trying her very best not to think too much on the embarrassing interaction.
When she returned to the dorms late that night, staying away for as long as possible, she did so well past curfew. She had been hiding out, at the astronomy tower, of course, before sneaking back to her bed at midnight.
The dorm was silent, except from the soft snores and occasional incoherent sleep muttering.
She thanked the gods, and got into her bed, still dressed but not caring- checking and checking again that this was certainly her bed, she can't afford another embarrassing incident today. She couldn't help the wander of her eyes to the floor beside her, more specifically the boy lying on the mattress on the floor, right next to her.
He was asleep, his even breaths revealing so. He looked soft and peaceful.
She adverted her eyes, cheeks heating as she realised she was staring.
Y/N found sleep easily that night, for the first time in a while. Finding comfort in the warm the of the sheets and covers and the softness of the pillow, even in the soft, lulling sounds of Mattheo Riddle breathing evenly, and softly, next to her.
—————
Saturday.
The comfort Y/N found in that word, those three syllables alone, was immense.
She stayed in bed that morning, having had a late night the day before, and enjoying a sleep she fiercely wished would never end.
So, she indulged in a nice weekend lie in that morning, interrupted and disturbed as it was by the constant flow of movement and noise by the inmates - students - around her.
Most were off to Hogsmeade, it being a Saturday - their designated day to go - and nearing Christmas as it was.
Y/N was not most, in this instance. She had no desire nor need to go to Hogsmeade to simply be wandering around, on her own, in the cold. She would much rather be spending some quality time with her bed, in her emptied dorm. If that meant missing breakfast, so be it.
Unfortunately there were others, with similar ideas, more specifically, one other - Mattheo Riddle.
—————
Stupid fucking boys. They always ruin everything. All Y/N wanted, all she asked was this one day alone, just a bit of time to herself in the crowded and agonisingly teeming school, constantly and annoyingly amass with students, her peers.
Fuck, she hated people.
Especially, in this moment, that moronic Mattheo Riddle, snoring obnoxiously loud, in the otherwise dead silent room. The sound became increasingly more irritating as time went on, the noise feeling as though it were right in her ear.
That's it. She thought, as she moved her arm to pull an extra pillow from her bed.
She swung it then, in a loose, weak grip - it being early still - and quietened him with a muffled "Shut up!".
"Thick, annoying idiots, these boys are. Why they in our fuckin' dorm?" Y/N near incoherently muttered to herself as she turned over in the bed, and pulled her heavy black quilt back over her head - now only on one single pillow - attempting to regain sleep and continue her lie in.
The snoring had halted, thank the gods. She truly would've have adopted much more aggressive and excessive measures in order to preserve her precious sleep.
The bed sank behind her. Fuck. In her half sleep state, she froze.
"Well, good morning to you as well." Said that same deep voice, carrying an vexatious air of confidence, arrogance she supposed.
She released a shaky breath, that came out sounding more like a sigh of annoyance, and braved the outside world and light as she lifted the dark duvet away from her face, exposing as little of her face as possible.
Looking through the one, half opened, exposed eye, she saw the blurry image of Mattheo in a beyond wrinkled, half opened, uniform shirt with a white vest underneath and the uniforms black trousers, equally creased with a combination of sleep and just having worn them so long, and what has got to be the among the worst bed head, Y/N has ever seen.
He was sitting with his legs up and leaning his back on the head rest. The position he had taken up on the sliver of bed available, with Y/N laying on most of it, didn't look comfortable. At least, she thought, he wasn't touching her or anything, and if he had she would have battered the shit out him without hesitation.
They made brief eye contact, before she closed her eyes again and pulled the covers back up.
"Y/N," he said then, surprising her with his knowledge of her name. She had assumed he didn't know it. "Do you want breakfast, it's gonna close soon." He said, almost kindly, she thought. How out of character.
She shook her head, slowly, tiredly. She wasn't sure if he saw the motion, her head being under the thick black sheet, but he got up and left then, and it didn't matter.
Somehow, she fell back to sleep after the encounter, something she would forever be grateful for.
—————
It must have been less than half an hour later, when her sleep was interrupted once more. Scuffling on the floor, socks on wood, the door slowly falling closed with a long, drawn out squeak. The rattle of porcelain dishes; the slosh of liquid; the smell of food, breakfast.
What fool had brought their breakfast back in here. Nobody but her ever did that.
That's it. She got up abruptly. Ripping off the warmth of her covers, and lifting herself up to rest against the headboard. Rubbing her sleep filled eyes, she looked up.
Who the actually fuck is this boy?! She questioned silently, as Mattheo Riddle, him once again, shakily carried, across the room, a tray full with an assortment of breakfast materials.
What is going on? She wondered once more as Mattheo nearly spilled orange juice from the jug, tripping over a chip in the worn wooden floorboards.
He walked unsteadily until he reached her bed. Lowering himself and the tray down, he moved to slowly, but surely, settle himself on the edge of her bed. The springs of the mattress protested with a whine, and the bed frame with a groan, and herself with the silence of utter befuddled confusion. She couldn't help her wide eyes and gaping mouth as Mattheo Riddle gently sat the tray down on the sheets in front of himself, and in front of her.
"What??" She quietly rasped out.
"Breakfast." He responded, shoving toast into his mouth, clearly not finding the situation in the least bit strange.
She stared. His brown, definitively unbrushed, curls fell down over his quirked eyebrow as their eyes met.
She tilted her head.
He quirked a brow.
"It's morning, I assume you want breakfast." He 'explained'. This came out garbled through the toast he was still eating.
"Dig in," He gestures to the plate of pancakes on her side of the tray.
She sat up straighter to rest her back against the headboard, and pulled the covers up behind her, making a cocoon-like seat, before picking up a knife and fork from the wooden tray and 'digging in'.
She did so rather tentatively though, leaving Mattheo to ask, toast now swallowed, " What, never had breakfast in bed before?"
No, she thought, and also never in school. She didn't even know you could bring food from the dining hall to the dorms, also never before from a stranger, a boy she had only heard stories of, and none that involved him serving breakfast to random girls, or even talking to anybody nicely, at that.
So she said it. Said exactly what she was thinking. He was being weirdly confident, and now so was she - or was she just being weird, her mind conjured up for her. No. Well, it didn't matter anyway. She didn't care what Mattheo Riddle thought. But what if he told other people, her mind again bringing her to the worst conclusions. No, he doesn't have any friends and doesn't talk to anybody, she reasoned.
He began to respond then, cutting off her spiralling thoughts.
"Good point. It is weird."
He stuck out a fork and grabbed some pancake.
And that was it. No explanation.
She shrugged, and began eating the pancakes as well.
They were nice, and she was hungry. She shovelled them into her mouth faster. Mattheo brought his fork back to take another piece, "No, these are mine, you can have some more toast," she said gesturing away from her pancakes and towards the last slice of toast.
He looked up at her through the mop of curls falling into his eyes, "ok.”
And they ate breakfast. And they talked. And, she thinks just maybe, Mattheo Riddle isn't as bad as everyone says he is.