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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That day was colder, somehow.
Even though the sun still hung warm above the castle, the air between them felt icy.
Emerson didn't skip any of her classes, like she initially planned. She wasn't hiding in the library or curled up beneath the covers in her dorm. She moved through the halls with her usual grace, answering questions in Arithmancy, taking notes in Potions and her quill scratching neatly across the page.
But not once did she look at him.
She walked into Defence Against the Dark Arts without glancing toward the back of the classroom, where he normally saved her a seat and leaned close and whispered some sarcastic comment that would make her snort into her sleeve. She walked right past, close enough that their arms could have brushed, and he swore he caught a hint of her peony-scented perfume. But her eyes were focused ahead, her expression composed.
She didn't sit next to him. She sat beside Enzo instead.
When their fingers brushed accidentally over a shared ingredient in Potions, Emerson pulled her hand back like it burned.
In Charms, she tucked her hands into the sleeves of her robes instead of fidgeting with his fingers beneath the table. Her quill scratched against parchment without that little bump of her knee into his like she used to do when she was trying to get his attention without drawing notice.
Mattheo didn't say anything. He couldn't.
The space between them was like a chasm, wide and brutal and hollow. No glances. No touches. No secret smiles or inside jokes. The intimacy from the Astronomy Tower felt like a fever dream. It was already distant and decaying.
Mattheo was barely holding it together.
He felt the distance in every inch of her. It was unbearable, but he didn't chase her.
Because how could he?
Because he ruined it.
Because when she cracked open her heart and tried to talk about feelings, he slammed the door shut with cold hands and a locked jaw. He could still hear her voice in his head, brittle and quiet:
"It meant the world to me."
And it had. Fuck, it meant everything.
Mattheo leaned back against the stone wall outside the the Potions classroom classroom, jaw clenched and eyes shut. His knuckles were raw from clenching them too hard against the brick wall earlier. His thoughts were louder than anything else in the castle.
He wished the moment hadn't ended like that. He wished they stayed in that goddamn Astronomy Tower all day. Skipped classes. Curled beneath that enchanted blanket with the morning sun on their skin, tangled up in one another like the rest of the world didn't exist. Just them. Just her. That impossible, perfect moment where he let himself feel happy, even if it wasn't love. Even if it wasn't that.
