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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By the following Saturday, Emerson had mostly recovered from what Enzo dramatically christened the Monthly Uterine Blood Shed, a phrase he announced at breakfast one day with such tragic solemnity that Olivia nearly choked on her pumpkin juice and Theo had stared at him as if wondering whether friendship was a curable condition. Emerson, naturally, threatened to hex him, but even she had to admit the name stuck better than it should have.
Mattheo, however, did not find it funny at the time. It wasn't because it wasn't funny, though he would rather be cursed than admit that, but because Emerson still looked pale that morning while she was wrapped in her Ravenclaw scarf with tired eyes.
Enzo had only taken the reactions as encouragement and spent the rest of breakfast whispering alternative names under his breath:"uterine uprising," "blood curse but domestic," and "the crimson betrayal", until Olivia had kicked him beneath the table and told him that if he didn't stop, she would make sure that he experienced it spiritually.
The days leading up to Saturday passed in a blur of lessons, hushed corridors, and Mattheo behaving in a way that would have stunned anyone if they knew what was happening behind closed doors. To everyone else, he remained himself; sharp-eyed, impatient, often irritable, and perfectly capable of glaring someone into silence before they'd finished a sentence. But around Emerson and in the privacy of their relationship, his care had become almost surgical in its precision, quiet enough not to draw attention yet constant enough that she could feel it threaded through the shape of every day.
A warmed flannel appeared beneath her folded cloak before their first lesson, tucked there where only she would find it. Dark chocolate was slid into the pocket of her robe with no explanation, though she knew exactly whose fingers had placed it there when she later found a tiny note wrapped around it that said, Eat, Emie. Don't argue.
Her bag became noticeably lighter between one lesson and the next, because he kept wordlessly taking the heavier books from it when she wasn't looking. During meals, her cup was somehow always full of tea before she noticed it emptying, and when she skipped pudding because the cramps had stolen her appetite, a bowl of something gentler from the kitchens was waiting for her in the common room later that night, delivered by a very pleased Puddy who refused to say who sent it but looked like he might burst from the secret.
A fresh peony appeared beside her bed each morning as well, never a full bouquet after the first day, just one bloom placed carefully on her bedside table before she woke. It was always the softest colour he could find. Sometimes it was blush pink, sometimes cream and sometimes a pale yellow so faint it looked almost white until sunlight touched it. He never told her when he delivered them, and she never asked how he managed to slip into Ravenclaw Tower without being seen again, because some questions were better left unanswered when Mattheo was involved.
Importantly, Mattheo never once acted disappointed that the night they had wanted was stolen from them.
