The cruelest thing about wanting love is needing it from someone who already has everything.

Mattheo stands just beyond the circle of firelight, half in shadow, half forgotten. The Great Hall is chaos — broken stone, fallen banners, bodies he refuses to look at — yet his eyes are fixed on only one thing.

His father.

Voldemort’s pale hand rests on Draco Malfoy’s shoulder. Then, unexpectedly, impossibly, his arms pull Draco in. The hug is awkward and wrong, Draco’s body stiff with confusion and fear, his hands hovering uselessly at his sides. It lasts barely a second, but it might as well be an eternity.

A gesture of approval. Of possession. Of something dangerously close to affection.

Mattheo’s chest tightens.

Draco doesn’t even want it. You can see that much. He doesn’t lean in. He doesn’t return it. He just endures it — and somehow that makes it worse.

Because Mattheo would have leaned in.

He would have memorized the weight of those arms. The approval. The acknowledgment.

He’s spent his whole life being sharp enough, ruthless enough, loyal enough. Every spell perfected, every weakness buried, every emotion strangled before it could make him look small. All of it done for one impossible hope — that one day his father would look at him and see something worth keeping.

Instead, Voldemort steps back from Draco and turns, red eyes catching on Mattheo’s presence like he’s just noticed furniture in the room.

“Is there something you wish to discuss, Mattheo?”

The question is cold. Detached. Polite in the way only monsters can be.

Mattheo swallows.

For half a second, the truth claws at his throat. The words I wanted that. I’ve always wanted that. Why him and not me. What am I missing.

But he doesn’t say them.

He never does.

“No, Father.”

The words taste like ash.

Voldemort studies him for a moment, searching not for feeling but for usefulness. Finding neither urgency nor interest, he turns away.

“Very well then.”

And just like that, it’s over.

No touch. No praise. No acknowledgment.

Mattheo remains where he is long after his father has gone, jaw clenched so tight it aches, nails digging into his palms. He tells himself it doesn’t matter. That love is weakness. That wanting it is pathetic.

But the image burns anyway.

Arms around someone else. Approval given freely. Affection wasted on someone who didn’t even want it.

And Mattheo Riddle stands alone in the wreckage, realizing that the one thing he’s always wanted… Is the one thing he will never be given.