BEAUTIFUL FLOWER | MATTHEO RIDDLE

CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT

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T R I G G E R W A R
N I N G

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MATTHEO RIDDLE IS YASMINE AMAROS. CALANTHA, EPIPHANY, ERISED, LANA, VASILI, KASSANDRA, NICCOLÒ, AND DAÌNN ARE MINE. ALL OTHERS UNLESS MENTIONED ARE JK RO*LINGS.

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F O R T Y E I G H T

HIS hair was a chocolate brown, like mine, almost. It was longer, curling around the tips of his ears, like mine. It was the hair I'd only ever seen in pictures. His eyes were my own, and as I stared into them, I felt as though I were staring straight into a mirror.

His cheek tugged up as he smiled, his tongue in the corner of his teeth, as he grinned at me. "Sit down." he said. So I did.

Slowly, I felt the cold of the table creep onto my palms, a ceramic gray beneath. I was spinning, my vision perfect yet so disoriented. Had I taken something before coming here and forgotten? Was any of this even real, and was I dreaming?

No, this was real.

But it couldn't be, because there was no way for this to be possible.

He tapped on the table, his fingers a warm color, no longer pale and shriveled. He was earning my attention, keeping me from my thoughts. He wanted me to look at him, to see him. To know this was real, and that he had done it, however he had.

My fingers clawed at my pant pockets, trying to keep myself from fidgeting or from looking stupid. I felt stupid, and clueless, and overall just dumb. "Who are you?" I mumbled, fingers twitching in my lap.

My legs bounced under the table, and I placed a shaking hand on my knee to try and stop it. But it wouldn't. It was like everything was coming down at once. There was no possible way this could be happening. The power it takes to... he doesn't--didn't have it, and still doesn't. I made sure he never would.

"Don't be an imbecile, my boy." he snarled, his voice young and boy-ish. The sound of innocence. He smiled, taking in whatever expression I held, revealing his perfect teeth and define cheekbones. My cheekbones.

I dipped my head, whispering. "This is impossible."

"I can assure you, son, that it was very, very possible." he spoke cruelly, though sounding so young.

"How did--"

His hand smacked the table hard, and from his pettish wince I knew it had hurt him. I made a mental note— he's not as strong as he was before.

"Don't ask foolish things!" he clambered.

"You look just like--"

"Myself?" he hummed, nodding proudly. His long eyelashes batted above his deep eyes, and he tilted his head. "Only I'm your age."

I nodded, rather dumbfounded.

"Yes," he continued. "It was necessary for. . . future plans."

My mouth twitched. "What?" I pettishly laughed. "Do you plan on finishing your seventh year at Hogwarts?"

His face turned overtly serious in a matter of seconds. "There will be no Hogwarts. Everything is almost ready, and soon it will all begin."

My mind flashed back to Pansy, whose limp body I strung up in one of the girls bathrooms. I clenched my eyes shut, feeling her pair of eyes on my arm, just above my wrist. I remembered her cries, her pleads for mercy. How she begged me, and how I made her close her eyes because I couldn't bare to see her death at my own hands.

How I carved words just alike to my Father's in her stomach, only to send a message he very well could have sent many other ways.

I flushed away the thoughts of her, trying to focus on my Father's new appearance. My chin tiled upward. "What exactly is it you plan on doing, Father?"

The millions of other questions I had for him didn't matter, I knew he would answer nothing. It didn't matter how he had taken a new form or why he chose to do it. He would never tell me, and I wouldn't find out until it was too late.

He paused, his eyes settling on me for seconds before he looked away. Smiling to himself, as if dancing around the fact that he wouldn't tell me no matter how much I asked, he grabbed the table and stood from it. I tried to watch him, to analyze him. Nothing.

"My plan," he walked with negligent ease. Perfect posture. "Is to clean up your mess, before I start anything. That is my first plan. One again, you've subsided me."

I frowned, stomach aching. "What mess--"

"Your sister!" he yelled, tearing open a tapestry spread across an adjacent wall; his wand swam through the darkened fabric as if it were water.

I flinched, my ears ringing at the sound of my chair sliding backwards against the tiled floor. My knees ached, and my nose burned with the scent of foul air. Where was Epiphany? Was Daìnn still with her? And where was Calantha? Was she asleep in her dorm? Were either of them okay?

"How dare you think of me so foolishly! I expected more from you. I always expect more from you. To think it was your brother that came to me! You almost let her die!"

I stood from my seat. "It happened because of you!" I yelled back. Why had Daìnn gone to him? "She is dying because of you! Because of what you didn't do!"

Young laughter filled the foyer. "Because of me?" he repeated me. "Please," he said with a charming smile. "Enlighten me."

My ears were ringing terribly, and that foul scent was burned the edge of my nostrils. My chest heaved up and down and my breathing was obnoxiously loud, though I didn't care. My arms began to grow heavy and my legs numb; something was wrong.

"You didn't protect her." I spoke. "It was Malfoy." I spit out at him, disgust in my voice. My mind flashed back to that night, floors below where I stood now. "You let him have too much power. He did this to her."

All he did was laugh. "You sound foolish, and how dare you lie to me. To me!" he stepped toward me, veins tearing across his neck. My chest heated up, my own veins pulsated and burned through my skin. I felt hot moisture cloud beneath my button up shirt, and my teeth gritted.

I tried to talk, but all that came out was a feeble moan. He stopped and watched me with a complacent smile on his face.  He was enjoying this. My knees buckled, and suddenly, it was as if a large weight bared upon my shoulders, and pushed me onto the ground.

My knees hit the floor with a loud drop, and another moan left my mouth, which now hung open as my back arched out. Only my chest hurt, like it did every so many days at this same hour for whatever reason.

It was another fit. Whatever it was that happened to me in the middle of the night. This wasn't him, this was my own body doing this to me. My chest burned, the veins igniting through my skin, creating lacerations and hot heat which coated itself all over my body, making me feel like I was being burned alive.

"Well," my Father's young self said, watching me delightfully. "I assume Malfoy did this, too?"

My face scrunched up in a mixture of pain and confusion. He read my expression clearly.

"What?" he furrowed a brow. "You don't know?"

I couldn't speak, couldn't do anything other than breath in shanty, uneven pants, and moan in pain.

"Well do you at least know who is on the other side?"

Was he being serious? I felt my face twist into a darkened horror, my cheeks hot and pouring with beads of sweat, my brows furrowed and lips bleeding from my teeth.

"Of what?" I managed to say, to spit out in a single breath. The two words made my throat close up and swell.

Again I was back in my bed, hands clawing at my throat, suffocating. My bed sheets were wet from my sweat, and my whole body wretched as my skin felt like it was being peeled off of my body.

"Of the bond, of course." my Father sneered.

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