You and Mattheo Riddle have only one thing in common: you’re both the most popular Slytherin students at Hogwarts. He’s the Slytherin Casanova, the usual bad boy with an arrogant reputation and a new girl every week, even though he hides a dark past and an equally dark family relationship. You, on the other hand, are mysterious and secretive, but at the same time you are perhaps the most beautiful girl Hogwarts has ever seen.

Neither of you has ever been interested in a love affair, which is why your relationship was strictly one of occasional hookups, whereby the rule was that you were free to do whatever you wanted for the rest of the time.

But then, Mattheo started observing you more often. Even seeing you with other guys at parties in the Common Room initially gave him nothing more than a feeling of strangeness, until it grew to annoyance, or Mattheo's secret denial that it could be jealousy.

He never mentioned it to you. But after the Christmas period, he started to get more stressed. You couldn't tell if it was because of family problems or something else. He didn't talk about it much.

Until one night, during a party after Slytherin's victory at the Quidditch match, you ended up in his dorm and shared his bed, as was often the case. But today he seemed particularly distracted, and even his attitudes towards you no longer seemed as lustful as they had always been at first. He had softened—he was gentle, caring. He was sweeter, more vulnerable.

He watched you silently as you got dressed, as you always did afterwards, his eyes thoughtful. Just as you were about to get off his lap, however, his hands find your thighs, "Wait."

You look up at him, and for a second he looks at you, gently making your figure straddling him again. Then, he does something you never expected: he wraps his arms around your waist and lets his head fall on your chest, wearily, as if he needed it, but there was no lust in his movements as he closed his eyes and whispered, "Please... stay. Just for a little while."