The Serpent & Hawke | Mattheo Riddle | Enemies to lovers

Part 66 - Guiding light

Mattheo's POV

I landed steadily at the Manor, the familiar gravel crunching beneath my feet.

The silence that greeted me felt wrong.

Not the usual hushed reverence of dark magic, but the hollow quiet of abandonment.

Standing still, I took a moment to marvel at how different everything felt.

The darkness that had lived inside me my entire life was gone, leaving me lighter, clearer.

All those years of wrestling with rage and hatred had lifted like fog burning away in sunlight.

Was I still angry at my father, at the cursed life he'd forced upon me?

Of course.

But somehow, impossibly, I felt grateful too.

Without his twisted plans, I might never have met Lyanna, never known what real love felt like.

A smile tugged at my lips as I approached the house I'd once called home.

Fear had no place in me anymore — I was ready to end this, one way or another.

The entrance hall looked like a scene from a nightmare.

Furniture lay scattered like broken toys, dark blood staining the marble floors.

Dead Death Eaters stared sightlessly at the ceiling, their masks cracked to reveal frozen expressions of terror.

Whatever had happened here, my father's faithful hadn't died well.

I moved carefully toward the ballroom where it had all begun.

This room had witnessed so much — my first meeting with my father, countless hours of torture, Lyanna's screams echoing off these walls.

Now it would witness the end.

The closed doors couldn't quite muffle the sound of laboured breathing within.

My grip tightened on my wand as I pushed them open, cold air hitting me like a bricked wall.

The massive table stretched before me, surrounded by empty chairs like graves marking where Death Eaters once sat in reverence.

Only one seat remained occupied — at the head of the table, my father slumped like a broken puppet.

The mighty Lord Voldemort looked pathetic.

His head lolled against the chair's high back, sweat beading on his inhuman skin.

The Elder Wand trembled in withered fingers, his skeletal chest rising and falling with visible effort beneath tattered robes.

This was supposed to be the most feared wizard in history?