War, Love, and Riddle //Mattheo Riddle x OC

Chapter Twelve - Calming His Raging Storm

Dumbledore summoned the Potter twins again three nights later.

By the time Emma and Harry reached the spiral staircase leading to the Headmaster's office, snow had begun falling beyond the castle windows, soft white flakes drifting past the dark glass in slow, silent spirals. Hogwarts felt colder lately. Not physically, though the stone corridors certainly carried enough winter chill to numb fingertips but emotionally, as though something uneasy had settled deep into the bones of the castle itself.

Emma could feel it everywhere.

In the whispered conversations that stopped when professors passed.

In the anxious glances exchanged over copies of the Daily Prophet.

In the way students laughed louder than necessary, like they were trying to drown out the growing fear pressing in around them.

The war was no longer something distant.

It was here.

And somehow, despite being young, she and Harry kept getting pulled deeper into the center of it.

Emma followed Harry into the circular office, her expression carefully neutral even as the familiar collection of silver instruments whirred softly around them. The portraits of former Headmasters dozed quietly in their frames, though Emma suspected at least half of them were listening. Fawkes sat motionless upon his perch near the window, his bright eyes strangely knowing as they followed the twins across the room.

Dumbledore stood beside the Pensieve waiting for them, his long fingers lightly resting against the stone basin. Firelight flickered across his half-moon spectacles, briefly obscuring his expression as he looked between the twins.

Emma was not particularly thrilled to be there.

The conversation before this, specifically Dumbledore asking, with infuriating casualness, how things were progressing between her and Mr. Riddle, still lingered unpleasantly in the back of her mind. Worse still had been Harry's sideways glance afterward, sharp with judgment he didn't even attempt to hide anymore.

It was exhausting.

"Professor," Harry greeted quietly.

Dumbledore inclined his head. "Tonight," he said, gesturing toward the swirling silver contents of the Pensieve, "we revisit another memory. One I believe may be among the most important I have managed to collect."

The pale liquid shimmered beneath the candlelight, clouds of silver drifting lazily beneath the surface like captured smoke.

Harry moved first, leaning down toward the basin without hesitation. Emma followed close behind him, and within seconds the office dissolved around them.

The memory settled into place slowly.

Voices came first, muffled, indistinct, followed by the warm amber glow of lanternlight and the heavy scent of cigar smoke lingering in the air. Emma blinked as Slughorn's office materialized around them, though younger somehow, cleaner at the edges, untouched by the subtle wear time left behind.

A Slug Club gathering.

Only this time, no girls sat among them.

A group of boys occupied the small circular table, dressed neatly in their Hogwarts robes, listening intently as Professor Slughorn beamed at the center of it all.

"More knowledgeable than half the staff, you are," Slughorn was saying warmly.

Emma's attention shifted toward the boy seated nearest him.