Dorm 5108 | Mattheo Riddle

one.

The air of Hogwarts grows colder as I make my descent down the stairs towards the dungeons. It has been around 6 years since I was last here, yet I still remember my way like the back of my hand.

Returning sixth-form students were paired up and given their own common rooms. I'm not lucky. In fact, I'm sure I'm the unluckiest person in this world. So when Professor McGonagall told me that, because I'm joining back 2 weeks later than all the other students, I'll be rooming with a boy in my year due to their being no other free commons–I wasn't shocked.

Annoyed? Maybe. But not shocked.

I liked to be left alone and that was it. Simple, right?

It was easy, back in Durmstrang. The girls I used to dorm with quickly gave up on trying to befriend me. From what I remember, we had nothing in common anyway–not that I let them find out if we had any similarities. We barely even spent time together in the same room, except for sleeping. Of course they tried in the beginning to befriend the new girl and find out what kind of person I was but I wasn't hard to figure out.

I must have been unbearable to live with considering their personalities were the complete opposite of mine. They wanted things I couldn't be–a friend, a listener, a person who actually cared. I almost felt bad for not being a bright, colourful roommate who liked to do things that girls liked to do. With every lunch plan and movie night I cancelled, the girls eventually stopped asking and stopped trying. I closed off as I do with many of my acquaintances, with the exception of Pansy.

Pansy Parkinson has been my best friend since we were 11. We met on the Hogwarts Express, and clicked instantly. She brought me out of my shell, with laughter like sunshine and her caring personality. She was devastated when I had to leave for Durmstrang in second year. She wanted me to move in with her but my parents had made other arrangements for when they passed. So I was shipped off to Durmstrang, under the care of Karkroff. Pansy wrote to me almost every day, and I was allowed to stay with her during the holidays. I'm still surprised that we managed to keep our friendship alive for these 6 years despite the distance. She could have given up on me, but she didn't– and that is why Pansy, as a friend, is more than enough for the relationships I need in a lifetime.

I reach the Slytherin Sixth-Form entrance and mutter the main password, looking for the door to my new living space.

Dorm 5108.

Private kitchen and living space. View of the Black Lake. My own personal room and bath. Hard to pass up? Too good to be true? It is. There's always a catch to perfection and this time, it's my new dorm mate. He squints at me, a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. His curly hair, sitting atop his 6-foot lean frame, is just as unruly as mine. He reeks of alcohol and has an expression screaming massive hangover.

Not that I need to ask, but to make sure, "Are you Mattheo Riddle?"

He groans and opens the door wider to let me inside the common room that Pansy called frighteningly, unbelievably sublime. Raising his arm and flicking his hand, the blinds on the ceiling to floor windows darken the room and dims out the light to lessen his increasing migraine to sound and sight. The scene he has unveiled to me is something I'm painfully used to seeing. Growing up everyday around it doesn't mean I learn to ignore the signs of an alcoholic or drunk.

"What's your name?" He steadies himself onto the modern black sofa in the middle of the living room.

"Rhiannon Varlia," I reply, my tone louder than it should be. He grunts a response and I hide a smirk, mentally chastising him for drinking over his limit.

"Okay, Rhi,"

"Rhiannon," I correct but he doesn't seem to hear me.

"Rhi, up the stairs and to the left is my room," I follow to the area Mattheo points to but unfortunately he seems to be direction challenged under his post intoxication. My eyes look to the opposite side and see the stairs leading up to two doors. "The right is yours, you get your–"