Mind Over Matter || Mattheo Riddle

M A T T H E O

Riddle-Mattheo looks upset when I don't say his name.

And I really do wish I could say it, but it almost makes me feel sick to my stomach. The last time I called him by his first name, on the train to school in first year, he threw a chocolate frog at me.

Safe to say I don't exactly want to reenact that scene.

Mattheo takes my hand and pulls me out of the closet, interlocking our fingers and keeping them that way as we walk down the hallway. "Do I get to do my essay now?" I try to change the direction of where the conversation is going, but he doesn't even respond.

His hand just tightens around mine.

I almost have to jog to keep up with the Slytherin boy, which normally I wouldn't mind, but he seems more closed off than before.

"Where are we going?" I ask as he takes a turn down a hallway I don't recognize.

After a few minutes, we're in a hallway I've never been in. There's a few doors on each of the walls-each boarded up-and the hallway looks as if it hasn't been touched in a century.

Mattheo turns so he's looking at me, but doesn't let go of my hand. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him raise his hand with his wand and flick his wrist, then one of the wooden planks on a door breaks open. "There's something in here I want to show you." His voice is sharper than I've heard it in a long time.

He pulls me into the room and I see that it's kept oddly clean, with very little dust anywhere.

"This is a room my father designed, for some of the plans he had for this school." Mattheo let's go of my hand, and I take a few steps forward. "If you're going to meet my parents, I need you to understand how they think."

It's weird that he brought me here, considering he hasn't tried to talk to me about anything to do with his parents.

Mattheo softly touches my hand as he walks past me, going to a box at one of the walls. I follow him. "This stuff will make me understand how your parents think?" He nods, opening the box. "How?"

He pulls out a notebook, holding it out for me to take. I do. I open the book and it automatically folds open to one of the pages in the middle, where it's sewn together, and I see how it might make me understand You-Know-Who.

The pages are covered in drawings and neat writing. The drawings on this page are of a girl, one with long straight hair and thin lips. I turn the page to see drawings of body parts, organs and knives.

The rest of the pages are drawings of the school, body anatomies and different ways to hurt people. I feel sick to my stomach.

Mattheo walks around me, so he's standing directly behind me, and he places his arms around me. He flips the pages of the book to the first page. I see what he 'titled' the notebook, and I feel impossibly more sick.

MUDBLOODS: ANATOMY, WEAK SPOTS, AND THOUGHTS.

Wow, Dark Lord, way to keep your plans hidden.

"He has another book, one that's for Half-Bloods. And he has many for each of the muggle borns he went to school with." He rests his chin on my shoulder, one of his hands running up my arm.

I can't help but lean into him. "He really hates anyone that doesn't fit his standards, doesn't he?" I feel him nod. You-Know-Who's mind is fucked up, considering he's a half-blood but also hates anyone that isn't a pureblood.

"He's going to try to manipulate you," he tells me. His voice is far too soft for someone talking about a murderer. "In a way you've never felt before. Can I show you?"

I turn and he stands up straight. He takes the book out of my hands and drops it onto the floor, not breaking eye contact with me once. "I'm not as strong as he is, but I can start to show you how to stop him." He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear.

I don't get a chance to answer if I'll let him or not before he's sitting me on the floor in front of him and he tells me to close my eyes.

All I can hear is my breathing, and his, before I feel something odd in my head. I'm not sure what it is exactly, but it almost feels like scratching. Voices start to appear in my mind, overlapping and I can't tell what a single one is saying. I can tell my breathing is picking up as one of the voices become louder and the other start to recede, and I recognize whose voice it is.

"Come on, sweetie! I'm home!" My mother speaks. Her voice is raspier than it was last time I saw her, but I guess that's what happens when you don't see someone for over three years.

She tries to hug me, and I back away. "Papa's not home, and he says I can't be around you without him here." She scoffs.

"Oh, such nonsense!" My mom walks past me and into my house, and I hug my book closer to my chest. "I'm your mother! I would never hurt you, dear."

"Liar!" I yell, gaining a stern look from her. "Don't you remember last time you were here? You threw things!"

Some things fly quickly in my brain, before a piercing scream hits my ears. I think it's mine, from when I was younger.

I feel a hand on my knee and I open my eyes, all the noise in my head stops. My hands are shaking and I'm breathing quickly. Mattheo looks worried, suddenly making me remember that he was doing something to show me what his father can do. He didn't hear all that, did he?

"Julia..." he can't even finish a sentence, which tells me he did hear it. It's how everyone reacts when they find out anything about my parents.

I look down at my lap, feeling tears start to sting in my eyes. If I cry right now, it'll be three for three in front of Riddle.

I clench my jaw before standing, wiping my eyes as I walk out of the room. Maybe I'll actually get to do my essay now. I walk quickly down the hallways Riddle had pulled me through, hearing him following behind me.