Mattheo had stood there for a full ten minutes outside your dormitory door with the small, imperfect bouquet clutched in one calloused hand like it was something dangerous—something that could detonate. They weren’t even impressive flowers—just nicked from the edge of the greenhouses, wilted slightly from the walk back. Still, they’d reminded him of you in some roundabout, half-formed way. Beautiful, yes, but with a sort of stubborn wildness that refused to bend to anyone’s hand.

He’d scrawled someone else’s name on the note. Neville. He didn’t know why. Maybe because he couldn’t bear the thought of you knowing that it was him who’d started doing things like this. Soft things. Honest things. The kind of gestures that didn’t fit a boy like him.

But it was getting harder to fake it now.

Seven months. That’s how long it had been. And somewhere along the way, the armor he wore so tightly—the sarcasm, the swagger—had started to peel at the edges.

Because he caught himself replaying things you’d said hours after you’d walked away. Because, lately, he’d been looking at his own hands and thinking they were too rough to be touching someone like you.

Today, though… today was something else.

You’d been quiet. Withdrawn. It was that terrible kind of quiet, the kind that made his stomach twist because it meant something real was eating at you. And real things meant consequence, meant risk, meant responsibility.

At breakfast, he caught you staring at your plate for too long. In class, you didn’t pass him notes or jab your quill against his hand in that way that usually made him want to kiss you breathless in the back of the classroom. You hadn’t even looked up when he brushed past you in the corridor. And Merlin, that—that hurt.

He found himself staring at the back of your head in Potions, fingers twitching against the edge of the desk, not even registering Snape’s instructions. His mind played loops of every interaction from the past week, trying to pinpoint the exact moment he fucked something up.

By the time the evening rolled in and the torches burned low, casting long shadows down the halls of the castle, he was unraveling by the thread.

It started in the common room—his foot tapping restlessly, his mouth tight, eyes scanning for you every time someone walked through. When Blaise joked about something and Theo laughed, Mattheo didn’t. He just sat there, hunched over, chewing the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood.

And then he was up. Out of the chair.

What if he was the reason?

That was the thought that clung to the sides of his ribs like rot. What if being close to him—being loved by him—was slowly hollowing you out? What if every time he touched you, he left something behind, something cold and broken?

Because he was broken. He knew what he came from. What he was made of. He’d tried not to let it touch you. He’d tried to keep the worst parts of himself at arm’s length. But maybe it had leaked in anyway. Maybe his rage, his hurt, his darkness had found cracks in you that you never even knew were there.

The idea of that—of ruining the only good thing he’d ever touched—was enough to send him spiraling.

He left the common room without a word, his footsteps hollow against the stone. He didn’t know where he was going. Only that he had to find you. Say something. Fix it.

But what could he say?

That he was scared? That every time he saw you smile, he wanted to lock it away so nothing could ever dull it? That some nights he stared at the ceiling, heart hammering, wondering when you’d realize you deserved better?

That maybe he loved you, and that was the most terrifying truth of all?

When he finally found you—leaning against a cold stretch of wall near the library, eyes red like you’d been crying—he stopped cold.

His breath caught. His chest ached. And all he could manage was a whisper.

“…Did I do this?”

He meant your eyes. Your silence. The slow, sad way your shoulders curled in.

Because if the answer was yes—if he was the reason—then Mattheo didn’t know how to forgive himself.