It was a Thursday, and he hadn’t expected much from it.

Dinner had just begun, and the scent of roast and spiced cider hung low in the air, clinging to the folds of his robes. Mattheo leaned back lazily, elbow slung over the bench behind him as Blaise spoke about something—Quidditch, maybe, or some girl in Divination who’d hexed her own fringe.

He wasn’t really listening. He was watching the way the pumpkin juice caught the dying light, amber and slow like syrup, letting the dull hum of the Hall wrap around him like a well-worn cloak. Safe. Familiar. Predictable.

And then you happened.

He didn’t see you approach. He only felt the fingers curling into the collar of his shirt—cool, quick, decisive—and then the pull. His balance tipped forward, his first instinct was to shove back, sharp and ready with some clipped curse, but then—

Your mouth was on his. Soft. Sweet. Unapologetic.

You kissed like someone who didn’t believe in asking first but damn well knew how to earn forgiveness later. It stunned him. Paralyzed him, nearly.

Your lips were warm and tasted faintly of caramel, something roasted and spell-woven, like sugar scorched over fire in a winter hearth. It should have ended there—a strange girl kissing him, a shove, a curse, confusion.

But then his hands betrayed him. Gripped your waist, pulled. And his mouth opened just enough.

The kiss changed—deepened—slid from confusion into curiosity and then something almost hungry. Mattheo’s mind caught up too late, somewhere in the haze between your teeth on his lower lip and the faint gasp you made when he angled his mouth just so.

He didn’t know what your name sounded like whispered into a pillow, but he knew now what your breath felt like in his mouth, and that was enough to ruin him for a second longer than was wise.

The Great Hall had gone oddly silent. Or maybe it hadn’t. He couldn’t tell. All he knew was that when you finally pulled away, your lips were pink, your eyes glinting in a way that was far too composed for someone who’d just kissed Mattheo bloody Riddle in front of half the school.

Your thumb brushed his jaw as if to wipe away the last trace of confusion—or maybe to leave something invisible in its place.

And then he saw him. The boy. Standing just behind you, frozen in some strange agony of betrayal and disbelief. His face was flushed, his fists balled tight, rage and heartbreak writ clear on every trembling inch of him.

Ah.

Mattheo exhaled slowly, his tongue brushing the corner of his mouth where your taste still lingered. He looked from you to the boy and then back again.

Of course.

“So,” Mattheo murmured, voice low, slow, smoky with something close to amusement. “That was for him.”

You didn’t answer. Not with words. Just a faint, sly raise of your brow, and then you slipped away like mist—Ravenclaw blue trailing behind you like the end of a spell, your presence still stitched into the air around him.

He watched you retreat. Noted the sway of your hips, the tilt of your chin, the strange, airy poise that marked you as Luna Lovegood’s kin—but gods, you were sharper.

Less stardust, more steel beneath the softness. He remembered, distantly, how your hands had healed him once—weeks ago, after a duel gone too far—your fingers sure and clinical even as blood soaked his shirt. You hadn’t said much then. Just looked at him like you already knew things he hadn’t told anyone.

You were healing magic, yes. But not gentle. Not in the way people assumed.

Mattheo sat back in his seat slowly, heart still thudding a little too fast, and let the weight of what had just happened settle on his shoulders like snowfall.

He hadn’t planned to kiss Luna Lovegood’s little sister. He certainly hadn’t planned to like it. But plans, he supposed, were for people who didn’t know how good you tasted.