Fighting Fate // Mattheo Riddle ♣️

Chapter Five - An Introduction

Word Count: 4,233.

Warnings: None. 

I didn't sleep. Despite having Mattheo beside me for the entirety of the night, I hadn't slept at all. I didn't feel safe in that dark room. The branches of the trees hit against the window and I thought that someone was outside. The floorboards creaked in the corridor and I pulled myself closer to the boy beside me, afraid that Voldemort had come for me early, so when the light streamed through my bedroom window and the wind didn't sound like the voices of my mother and the man I had killed, I was quick to get up.

There was a constant knot in my stomach the entire night, a feeling of sickness in my throat. My clothes felt foreign against my skin, and I was quick to change them once the light hit my face.

Riddle was still asleep in the bed, lying on his side. The brown curls on his head fell across his face and he almost seemed to be smiling in his sleep.

I took my wand from the bedside table, looking at the boy for a moment. He was something else, Mattheo Riddle. He was a pleasant difference to Hogwarts when I first met him, a burst of light, but I couldn't help but notice how he's changed in the past two years.

That joy that he brought with him seemed to be slowly slipping away and I couldn't help but think that some of that could be my fault.

He stirred in his sleep and I quickly made for the door before the boy could wake up. I left the room, carefully shutting the door behind me.

Making my way down the hallway, I found my nerves getting the better of me and my thumb fidgeted with the ring on my hand. Each door I passed seemed to tighten the knot in my stomach. He could walk out of any one of these.

A door creaked in front of me, and I froze. Three paces to my right, a bedroom door was slowly opening. I watched a slender hand curled around the doorknob, pushing it open further, a black-haired woman stepping into the hall. Her eyes widened when she saw me, her figure turning rigid. It was Estrella. The same, older, Estrella that I had seen last night, but her expression didn't seem as though we had recently talked.

"Lyra," someone called. I turned quickly, jumping. Draco was standing at the top of the stairs, his hand on the banister as he watched me carefully.

Before replying, I turned back to my mother, only to find that she wasn't there. The door had been shut and I found no sign of anyone having stepped out of the room at all.

Shaking my head, I turned back to my cousin. "Hey Malfoy." I smiled, making my way towards him.

"You okay?" he asked as we began to descend down the stairs.

"Tired. I haven't slept much since the whole Crouch thing," I told him quickly.

"Yeah, since you brought that up, did you really kill him?" Draco asked.

A shiver ran through my spine as I thought about it. "I don't remember physically doing it, but I must have. Nobody else was there."

We made our way to the kitchen. Draco sighed. "Did you tell Theo?"

I shook my head. "No."

"Pansy?"

"No."

"Blaise?"

"No."

"Nika?"

"No."

"Oh, please tell me that you told Potter about it?"

"Hell no. He'd tell Dumbledore, thinking the man could help. That wizard would throw me in Azkaban."

I turned from his gaze, making for the kettle. If I wanted to be on the top of my game, I would need to be awake first.