The Villain's Son ~ Mattheo Riddle

Chapter 25

I suddenly woke up. I say suddenly because I hadn't been dreaming and couldn't fall asleep anymore. I twisted around, flipped my pillow, but nothing worked. When I looked at the time I noticed it was only 2 o'clock.
What was I supposed to do now? Maybe a small walk could help. I know it was way past the curfew, but if I was quiet enough it would be fine.

I got out of bed and put on some shoes, a hoodie and a jacket. It was January so walking in my pajamas would be the death of me.
As I was walking out of my dorm I wondered why I woke up in the middle of the night. Sure, when I was small I sometimes had nightmares that would wake me up but I haven't woken up in the middle of the night in years.
It was weird walking through the empty hallways that were usually crowded. The silence was even more abnormal. I had been used to only having silence in my own room or sometimes in classrooms, but now it seemed like the castle itself was sleeping. My feet brought me from hallway to hallway, down the stairs to the courtyard. From there I could see the moon clearly.
The moon has always interested me, the moon has been the start of my passion for astronomy. By now I almost know everything about the moon, both facts and myths. In my dorm and room at home I had multiple moon 'things' like maps, pictures, books, pillows and more. On my body I always wore a necklace of a moon, one that my grandma had given me, and a ring of a moon. Cho and Athena always thought it was weird but that didn't stop me. The moon was something beautiful. It comes back every night but always in a different shape. It brings light to the darkest moments. I know that the way I'm explaining it makes it seem like I'm a total weirdo, but I'm not, I'm just interested. In the future I hope to become an astronomy researcher.

I was brought back on my feet when I saw something move in the corner of my eye. I turned my head and searched for the 'something'. I was scared of what it could be, what if it was a teacher? When my eyes catched it I blinked a few times to see if it was real, but it didn't vanish. Mattheo didn't vanish. The slytherin student was sitting on the ground with his back leaning against the tree in one of the corners of the courtyard. I could see smoke coming out his mouth.
Maybe I have finally become crazy but my mind was telling me that I woke up because of Mattheo, or for Mattheo. This made me walk towards his. I didn't want to scare him or be weird so I did it slowly.  The closer I got the more I could see. He was smoking a cigarette and looking straight forward, probably lost in thoughts. His curls were messy compared to how they usually looked. I liked it, the way some of the curls fell over his face. When I looked at his face he looked like he was tired, this made sense knowing it was in the middle of the night. However his face showed a different kind of tiredness, like he was tired of something. Maybe it was because he thought he was alone that I was able to finally see an expression on his face. A different one than annoyance or anger. Besides that I could see that not much had changed since the last DADA lesson, he still looked half dead. Luckily his cheeks weren't as hollow anymore.

I stood beside him before deciding to lay down and making myself comfortable. Whilst doing so I was making sure there was enough space between us. My eyes were facing the sky again, even though I wanted to do nothing more than to look at the boy beside me. There was a comfortable silence between us. However,  I had a million questions going through my mind.  After a few minutes of silence curiosity made me open my mouth.

"Did you know that it's always dark on the moon itself? It just reflects the light of the sun."

This of course wouldn't answer any of my questions but my plan was to build up a conversation. I didn't really talk about astrology with people because it always bored them. But Mattheo was like a wall, even though he didn't respond, most of the time, he didn't judge either.

Mattheo of course didn't say anything so we sat in silence, again.

That was until he broke it.

"What are you doing here?"