BOOK 1: PHILOSOPHER. (Mattheo Riddle).

Chapter 29.

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PHILOSOPHER.
Chapter 29.
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Mattheo doesn't sleep a wink through the next day while the other students enjoy their Sunday.

  As they all have to catch up on their sleep after a night out in the forest. Lorenzo sleeping through most of the day since he's lazy on Sundays.

Mattheo visits Delphini for a little bit in the Hospital Wing, where he regales her with the tale of what happened with Norbert the dragon. Mattheo doesn't tell her about Voldemort being the forest, so he doesn't have to worry her.

  Telling her that Voldemort is looking for a way to come back to power won't help her recovery. Delphini might worry herself into an early grave with something this big.

Then Mattheo goes for a walk in the creature habitats with Lorenzo and Penny, but he isn't in the mood. Mattheo just watches how happy that Lorenzo and Penny are to talk about dragons and centaurs, and how Lorenzo got to spend a night in the forest. Penny loves hearing about all of the magical creatures they got to see.

A quick match of gobstones with Frey lifts his mood a little bit. Frey has impeccable accuracy compared to all of the other players. "Losers" Frey mocks the losing teams. She's also a bad winner.

  Mattheo follows it up with a friendly match of Quidditch with Harry, Ron and the Weasley twins. Even the blood and gore of their 'friendly' match doesn't manage to turn Mattheo's frown upside down.

But nothing seems to perk up his mood. Mattheo walks around with that dead look about his face again. That unimpressed and distance look when he's deep in thought. This time it's about how screwed he'd be if Voldemort returns.

  Mattheo's smile doesn't return until he sees Artemis the next day, and he sees her just smiling at him from across the Great Hall.

  A simple smile does what the rest of his friends combined couldn't do.

Mattheo hasn't told his friends of what he learned in the forest, or what attacked the unicorn. Mattheo just wanted to give them a day of peace, but since it's rolling into late afternoon he knows that it's time to tell them.

Mattheo gathers them in the Undercroft. Not just the usual group, but everyone, this is bigger than them now. Everyone stands to suffer if Voldemort returns to power.

The Gryffindors take up the bulk of the room, since there is so many of them. Seamus and Dean sit by Delphini, the two boys are never too far away from her these days. Harry and Ron giggle to each other while they mess with Hermione's hair. Penny and Lorenzo are chatting intensely with Yuffie. Frey and Artemis are messing around with Frey's camera, taking pictures of each other for their next scrapbook.

They're all just children. They're too young to have to worry about Voldemort. The Dark Lord should be long since dead, and not bopping around the forest trying to get some semblance of his powers back.

  Every single one of the children that are sat before him have felt the reach of Voldemort. They've all had someone who has been affected by the dark wizard and his armies. Some have family members that died during the war.

  Now, Mattheo has to ask them to deal with all of that again.

All of them stop when they see Mattheo enter the Undercroft.