Emerson Wilmore was an exemplary Ravenclaw student, known for her unwavering dedication to academics and an unyielding moral compass. However, things took a twisted and deviated turn in her life after her boyfriend, Cedric Diggory, was murdered by L...
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Even though not everyone was at the pitch after the game ended, it didn't matter. By the time Emerson and Olivia were making their way back toward the castle, the whispers had already started. Word was spreading like wildfire. Even though not everyone was down on the pitch to see it with their own eyes, enough people had. Maybe it was magic. Or maybe it was just Hogwarts being Hogwarts.
The news travelled faster than a Golden Snitch: Mattheo Riddle kissed Emerson Wilmore. In public.
The repercussions were impossible to miss.
Girls from every House were glaring openly. Groups of younger students huddled together and whispering behind cupped hands. Emerson even caught one Fifth-Year Ravenclaw muttering under her breath to her friend, eyes narrowed with thinly veiled jealousy.
"She kissed Mattheo Riddle—?"
"I thought he didn't do relationships..."
Even a few older students were casting glances at her, eyes darting to the bold RIDDLE stitched across her back like it was a scarlet letter.
Emerson simply smiled to herself, her heart still floating somewhere far above her, untouchable. She shook her head with quiet amusement.
Mattheo Riddle had never kissed anyone like that. Not publicly. Not for the world to see.
Everyone knew his reputation: dark, dangerous and untouchable. He had his flings, sure. They were all whispered about behind closed doors and spoken of in half-drunken breaths at parties. But no one had ever seen him like that before. No one had seen him look at a girl the way he looked at Emerson, like she was the only thing in the world worth chasing.
And now everyone knew.
Olivia practically bounced beside her, unable to contain herself, rambling a mile a minute. "I cannot believe that just happened. Em, do you understand what you've just done? You've just cracked the bloody code of Mattheo Riddle. You've—you—he—Gods, I'm not even making sense. I mean, you two— you obliterated everyone else's love stories, that was like something out of a bloody novel—!"
Emerson laughed softly under her breath, shaking her head.
"I'm serious!" Olivia cried, throwing her hands in the air. "I thought Enzo was going to faint. Did you see Theo's face?"
Emerson was still smiling, but her cheeks were still flushed from the kiss. The adrenaline pumped through her veins. She could still feel the lingering feeling of Mattheo's hands at her waist and his mouth on hers.
She tugged Mattheo's jersey tighter around herself, comforted by the smell of him clinging to it. She felt strangely proud, not because of the whispers, or the glares, but because he chose her to kiss like that, without caring who saw. She didn't even initiate it.
