Mattheo Riddle actually showed up to breakfast. That alone was enough to turn a few heads. He rarely bothered. He usually rolled out of bed late or showed up after the first class, smelling of smoke and last night’s regret. But this morning, he slid into his seat beside Theo, hair still a mess, but his shirt was actually tucked in. Tie was loose but present. There was even the ghost of a smirk tugging at his mouth.

"Must’ve been a real good night, mate,” Blaise said, grinning around a piece of toast. Theo laughed. “Can’t remember the last time you shared breakfast with us.”

Mattheo didn’t deny it. Just shrugged, biting into a generously spread toast, his smirk stayed. The others kept on, laughing, joking. Mattheo played along in the way he always did.

But as the morning bled into afternoon, the sharpness started to creep back in.

He snapped at a fourth-year who bumped into him outside Charms. Punched a sixth year for looking at him wrong. Rolled his eyes at everyone who spoke to him. At lunch he was quiet, head low, stabbing at his half eaten food.

By the time classes were over, he’d vanished.

You found him in the courtyard.

He was tucked into the far corner, behind a half-dead hedge that barely blocked the wind. Sitting on the low stone ledge, cigarette lit between his fingers. Smoke curled slowly in the air. His shirt sleeves were pushed up, his knuckles scabbed over from something. His eyes were on the sky, unfocused. Distant.