Mattheo Riddle - Imagines/OneShot

Almost, Always

Word Count: 1700

Song Inspo: Picture You by Chappell Roan

A/N: 30k reads....this book has reached 30k READS. I CAN NOT THANK YOU ALL ENOUGH. I started this thing out as shits&giggles, but guys....I love you♥️

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Y/N's POV

There's always a moment, fleeting but certain, when you realize someone has changed your life forever. With Mattheo Riddle, that moment happened every time he walked into the room.

It started in our fifth year at Hogwarts. He wasn't like the other students, obviously—his reputation for trouble preceded him, yes, but yet there was a softness to him that I couldn't ignore. A fleeting smile, a quiet glance when he thought no one was watching. It wasn't loud or obvious. It was...magnetic.

I never tugged on that string, though. And neither did he.

The Great Hall buzzed with its usual chaos—laughter bouncing off the stone walls, owls swooping in the morning letters, and the clang of forks and plates as students eagerly devoured breakfast. Amidst the din, my gaze found Mattheo Riddle. It always did, as if drawn to him by an invisible tether.

He sat with his usual smirk, his dark curls a mess that somehow looked perfect. His friends surrounded him, their laughter ringing out, be he seemed a world apart, his fingers idly tracing patterns on the wood of the table.

"Staring won't make him yours," Pansy murmured beside me, her lips quirking into a knowing grin.

"I'm not staring," I lied, dragging my gaze to my plate. But the truth was, I couldn't help it. There was something about Mattheo—something magnetic, something achingly unreachable.

We weren't strangers. In fact, we weren't even acquaintances. We were friends—or whatever you called the dynamic where one person burned quietly while the other seemed blissfully unaware.

Mattheo's POV

It was always her.

Y/N had this way of making the chaos in my head quiet. In a world where I was the shadow of my father's expectations, she was the light I didn't deserve. I told myself it was just a crush, just an infatuation that would fade with time.

But every time she smiled at me, the world seemed to tilt. And every time she didn't, I felt like I couldn't breathe.

I watched her from across the Great Hall, her laughter bubbling as she joked with her friends. She had a way of drawing people in, making them feel like they mattered. I stared too long sometimes, hoping she'd look my way.