Boundless | Mattheo Riddle

𝐋𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐁𝐲 𝐋𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 (𝟏𝟐)

Mattheo Riddle

Slytherin won.

It wasn't even close. We crushed them.

Blaise said it was the cleanest game we'd played in two years. Draco claimed it was because he threatened to rearrange the Chasers' bones if they missed another pass. Personally? I didn't remember half of it. Not really. I played like something was chasing me — like everything I'd left behind was still out there, snapping at my heels.

But the cheers... The cheers were real.

The common room was buzzing, green and silver everywhere, lit with floating lanterns and the soft hum of a wireless turned up way too loud. Someone spiked the pumpkin fizz, Theo was dealing cards with Enzo like it was a high-stakes poker match, and Pansy was holding court by the fireplace with Daphne, Astoria, and every second-year who idolized her.

And Ollie was there. Of course, she was. Wrapped in her house scarf, laughing too brightly at something Astoria said, but her eyes kept drifting across the room. To me.

I didn't go to her. Didn't pull her away. Not yet.

I wanted her to choose it.

So I waited.

I laughed at Enzo's bad jokes. Took the firewhisky that Theo shoved into my hand. Let the music move around me like smoke.

But I watched her. Every glance. Every fidget. Every time she touched the chain around her neck — the one I gave her third year, when everything was still easy.

And then finally, finally, she stood.

She crossed the room slowly, like she was afraid I'd vanish if she moved too fast. She stopped just in front of me, fingers curled at her sides.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi," I echoed.

She didn't sit. Didn't speak. Just looked at me with all the weight of the last two years caught behind her eyes.

I shifted slightly on the couch, patting the space beside me. "You made it."

"Win or lose," she murmured. "That was the deal."

She sank next to me, pulling her knees up and tucking her feet under her. The distance between us was small. Not nothing. But small.

We sat in silence for a minute. The kind that wasn't awkward. The kind that held too much to say.

And then — she started.

"You missed... everything. Your O.W.Ls. N.E.W.T. prep. The World Cup summer. Pansy getting hexed by a first-year. I... I got Prefect. Not because I was brilliant, but mostly because I was consistent. Which is ironic, since I wasn't consistent about anything else."

Her voice cracked on the last word, and I felt it in my ribs.

I turned slightly toward her, elbows on my knees, head lowered so she didn't have to look at my face unless she wanted to.

"I kept your letters," she went on. "The ones I never got to send back. I talked to a photo of you for months. Told it everything. Until I hated the sound of your name."

My stomach twisted.

"Did you hate me?" I asked quietly.

"No." She shook her head, eyes glinting. "That would've been easier."

And I didn't know what to do with that. Didn't know how to hold it — her pain, my guilt, the broken thing we kept pretending wasn't still bleeding between us.

"I wanted to write," I said. "Every day, I did. But they were watching. Not just me. You. All of you. I thought I could outrun what he left behind. I thought hiding the Horcruxes would stop it all. That maybe no one would need to be sacrificed again."

"You thought wrong," she whispered.

I nodded. "I know."

Another pause. This one longer. Heavier. Her head dipped, eyes on her lap. Then, slowly, she leaned sideways — rested her cheek against my shoulder like it was muscle memory.

My whole body went still.

She didn't say anything else. Didn't need to.

I felt her breathing even out. I felt her guard lower, piece by trembling piece. And when her arm slid around mine, and she curled just a little closer, I let my hand drift to her knee. Just a touch. Just enough.

She was tired. I could feel it in the way she exhaled — like she'd been carrying the whole war by herself and only just let it drop.

I looked down at her. At the girl I left behind. The girl I kept in my dreams when the world went dark.

And all I could think was: She stayed.

Through silence. Through everything. She stayed.

And now it was my turn to stay for her.