The castle always felt colder at night. You walked alone through the corridor leading toward the library, the dim torchlight painting moving shadows on the walls. It was past curfew, but sleep had long stopped visiting you.

Not with the constant whispers about your brother echoing in every corner of Hogwarts. The Chosen One. The Boy Who Lived. You’d learned to live in his shadow, quietly, invisibly.

A soft noise broke the silence. The creak of a floorboard.

“Should’ve known it was you,” a low voice drawled from behind one of the pillars. Mattheo Riddle stepped out from the dark, his tie loosened, his eyes glinting with that usual mix of mockery and curiosity.

“Potter’s little secret.”

He said it like a joke, but there was something else in his tone — interest, maybe. Or challenge.

You stared back, unsure what he wanted. He had that same dangerous calm his father was rumored to have had, but unlike the stories, there was warmth behind his smirk. Something alive.

“Out past curfew again?” he murmured, circling you just enough to make your pulse quicken. “Aren’t you supposed to be the good one?”