#and not all evil is Slytherin

[ponochino]

i have many issues with the Harry Potter books/movies but one of them is Peter Pettigrew' character. Like JKR made the only Gryffindor antagonist be ugly and fat (even pre animagus) and implied that the sorting hat made a mistake putting him in Gryffindor by making him a hatstall and a coward.

Like Peter should have been such an interesting character since he was the main antagonist that's not Slytherin and he betrayed all his friends but instead he is boring and makes no sense.

So what if instead of fear it were some of his Gryffindor traits that pushed him to the dark, like he actually believed in Voldemort's cause and so by joining him he actually saw himself as being brave or being a hero and he was too stubborn, reckless, and prideful to consider other ways. And yes, you'd need a backstory on why Peter came to the conclusion Voldemort is right, but it would be way more interesting and scarier and more tragic.

Instead of poor foolish Peter being too scared to say no to Voldemort you get cunning Peter choosing Voldemort over his friends.

TLDR: Peter Pettigrew should never have been portrayed as weak and foolish and cowardly because it diminishes the tragedy of his betrayal and undermines the fact that he was a Gryffindor.

[lilithofpenandbook]

Some people seriously haven't realised Minerva McGonagall is essentially the same as Severus Snape and it shows

[crovvlipso]

The main quest (good) ending scene, but Sebastian shows up to comfort MC after the death of Professor Fig.

I imagined him running past other professors who were fighting goblins and when they sees him they shout "Mr Sallow! What wait— who let you in— where are you going? It's not safe! Come back here!" but he gotta go fast.

[aidens-ocean-galaxy]

rosekiller as agathario, anyone?

[gigglesandfreckles-hp]

today an 8th grader got sent to my office after getting in a fight in the school bathroom.

i have a copy of ‘quidditch through the ages’ in my office and upon entering, he immediately grabbed it off my shelf. i thought it was kinda strange to snatch a book off an assistant principal’s shelf but whatever. i work with teenagers. i signed up for this.

so before doling out consequences and all that, i decided to play it chill and so i asked him if he liked harry potter and told him i was a proud gryffindor. i kid you not — he immediately slammed the book shut, looked me dead in the eyes, and said, “WELL I’M A SLYTHERIN. FUCK YOU.”

[thorn-rosed]

[slitheringghost]

A narrative thread I find interesting is Family As Teachers and how characters influence and mirror each others’ abilities in familial dynamics - particularly in sibling/"twin" dynamics - which is fitting in a society where children’s magical education seems entirely controlled by their families until age 11 when they start Hogwarts and intermittently afterward. This theme is reflected in Ollivander’s words in DH while discussing the mystery of the twin cores and general wandlore with Harry:

"The best results [...] always come where there is the strongest affinity between wizard and wand. These connections are complex. An initial attraction, and then a mutual quest for experience, the wand learning from the wizard, the wizard from the wand"

You even have the three Peverell brothers inventing the three Hallows together to conquer death

Fred and George - as the actual siblings/twins, the most in tune - drop out and invent Weasley's Wheezes together, shared sense of humor via a literal Joke Shop. They find the Marauders' Map ("This little beauty’s taught us more than all the teachers in this school"). This twin duo sometimes turns into a trio - see post about Hermione’s contributions to their inventions in my meta Hermione As Teacher and Connections to Lily (who eventually joins the Weasley family, so like a sister to them); and additionally the twins’ best friend Lee Jordan helping them:

Fred and George Weasley with their friend Lee Jordan, all three of whom were carrying large paper bags crammed with Zonko’s merchandise Fred and George appeared finally to have perfected one type of Skiving Snackbox, which they were taking turns to demonstrate to a cheering and whooping crowd […] Lee Jordan, who was assisting the demonstration, was lazily vanishing the vomit at regular intervals with the same Vanishing Spell Snape kept using on Harry’s potions. (OoTP)

George then mentions utilizing Vanishing into their fireworks: (“Oh, I hope she tries Vanishing them next…They multiply by ten every time you try”). Snape’s skill at Vanishing ties to dynamic with Mcgonagall as she’s shown teaching 5th years Vanishing Spells in OoTP, and later in the book LV’s emphasized as weaker in Conjuration with his conjured shield, unsurprising given Dumbledore was his Transfiguration teacher.

THE MARAUDERS - James and Sirius collaborate on the Marauders' Map (with Remus; shared sense of humor built into it via insulting Snape), two-way mirrors called "twin" mirrors in DH; James's wand is "excellent for Transfiguration", he's a confirmed prodigy and Sirius is equal to him - both Animagi, McGonagall's favorites ("Both very bright, of course—exceptionally bright"), Sirius goes "I don’t need to look at that rubbish, I know it all" re: Transfiguration textbook; looking to create a new identity from his family's Dark magic, Sirius's interest in Transfiguration likely stemmed from James. Equal in DADA (finish the OWL early, "I’ll be surprised if I don’t get Outstanding on it at least" "Me too"), hex people together.

Remus - Dark Creatures interest from his father (Lyall was "a world-renowned authority on Non-Human Spiritous Apparitions" such as "poltergeists, Boggarts and other strange creatures") shown in Remus with Peeves and the Boggart lesson. A possible hint of Remus and Tonks friendship affecting her interests - Tonks helping with a "murderous old ghoul lurking in a toilet" in 12GP.

THE BLACK FAMILY - the Blacks are all brilliant. Sirius and Bellatrix are mirrored in battle implying Bella taught him and/or they dueled together - a connection transferred to Sirius mirroring James and Remus in combat ("Then, with identical fluid movements, they reached into their back pockets" in the prequel; "Then, with one movement, they lowered their wands" in PoA). Same weapons: Knives - Sirius slashes the Fat Lady and tries to stab rat!Peter, gifts a penknife that opens any lock to Harry; Bellatrix tortures Hermione and murders Dobby with a knife (potentially they keep them handy for blood magic - "rusty daggers" in 12GP nearby the crystal bottle of blood).

Bellatrix, Narcissa, and Regulus can all occlude LV and Bella trains Draco. Sirius knows a lot about Dark Arts and Harry's curse scar from the horcrux, Regulus identifies LV's horcrux, Bella is LV's Dark Arts student and given a horcrux.

Sirius and Orion - Orion warded Grimmauld Place, adding "every security measure known to Wizardkind", made it "Unplottable, so Muggles could never come and call"; Sirius maybe used his family's magic on the Map (a tool in part to make Hogwarts safe from teen DEs, and I HC Sirius worked on it most, as Hogwarts was also a home and escape from 12GP to him), role as Secret Keeper, offers GP as safehouse to the Order, undoes its enchantments to let halfblood Harry inherit. Sirius and Walburga both use the Permanent Sticking Charm - Walburga to terrorize and scream bigotry, Sirius to flaunt his differing politics with Muggle stuff.

I HC Bellatrix invented some Dark artifacts in 12GP - the "unpleasant-looking silver instrument, like a many-legged pair of tweezers, which scuttled up Harry’s arm like a spider when he picked it up and attempted to puncture his skin" which Sirius smashes with Nature’s Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy (fits Harry and Sirius's interaction with Bella later in OoTP) and the "musical box that emitted a faintly sinister, tinkling tune when wound”, making them all "curiously weak and sleepy" until Ginny shuts the lid - placed right next to Merope's locket (esp. as Sirius’s words after this passage parallel Bellatrix in DH). Raised as the heir, Bellatrix likely had similar training and skill in wards as Sirius.

Bellatrix and Voldemort - paralleled in combat ("Bellatrix was still fighting too, fifty yards away from Voldemort, and like her master she dueled three at once"), both Legilimens. Her speech about the Dark Arts and learning "spells of such power" while teaching him the Unforgivable curses - she's likely as skilled as LV in inventing curses.

Dumbledore and Grindelwald - "just as precociously brilliant", "even after they’d spent all day in discussion — both such brilliant young boys, they got on like a cauldron on fire", "at last, my brother had an equal to talk to, someone just as bright and talented as he was". Twin imagery with Grindelwald as hilariously described like Fawkes.

Next-door neighbors, knew each other only for a few months, yet Grindelwald’s ideas "caught and inflamed him", Dumbledore’s "ideas helped Grindelwald rise to power". Collaborate on the fascism and Deathly Hallows quest, but not Dark Arts (vs. Snape and Lily share the Dark Arts experimentation but not the fascism). Both on the same level in dueling, can conceal themselves without a Cloak.

Bathilda Bagshot - Dumbledore's Mother Figure/teacher, "impressed by his paper on trans-species transformation in Transfiguration Today" which Dumbledore's shown reading, so she presumably mentored him in Transfiguration, clearly a favorite field (While Dumbledore had few close friends, McGonagall's maybe the closest equivalent to a female friend; echoes Snape with Eileen and Lily).

Elphias Doge - met at 11 on their first day at Hogwarts, "Our mutual attraction was undoubtedly due to the fact that we both felt ourselves to be outsiders". They "intended to take the then-traditional tour of the world together, visiting and observing foreign wizards, before pursuing our separate careers".

While the pair are said to not be intellectually on par, Dumbledore's interests clearly influenced Doge, also implied in Doge writing “his friends benefited from his example, not to mention his help and encouragement, with which he was always generous. He confessed to me in later life that he knew even then that his greatest pleasure lay in teaching.”

Doge on his travels mentions "experiments of Egyptian alchemists" and "escapes from chimaeras in Greece" (fire-breathing lion, goat, serpent hybrid) - echoing Dumbledore as a "Gold Medal-Winner for Ground-Breaking Contribution to the International Alchemical Conference in Cairo" and interest in certain magical creatures and associations with fire (Fawkes, dragon's blood uses, "trans-species transformation" research, bewitches a branch of Gubraithian "everlasting" fire which is Charms related, the Deluminator as a cigarette lighter).

Nicolas Flamel - Dumbledore's Chocolate Card notes his "work on alchemy with his partner Flamel" inventor of the Philosophers' Stone (colored “blood-red”) who taught teen Dumbledore; Dumbledore later enchants the Stone and links it to the Mirror of Erised (only one who wanted to find but not use it could get it, or they’d be shown making gold or drinking Elixir of Life). Albus also means "white", after an alchemy principle.

Marchbanks who examined him in Transfiguration and Charms N.E.W.T.s says he "did things with a wand I’d never seen before", won the "Exceptional Spell-Casting award"; published papers in Transfiguration, Charms, and Potions journals - linked more with wand magic fields.

Snape and Voldemort - From his words in HBP (disdain at Mundungus for not being a real Inferius), Snape likely learned necromancy with LV and enchanted Inferi during the First War (fitting to his vampire vibes).

Potions - LV uses "old piece of Dark Magic" rebirth potion; creates the Rudimentary Body Potion of snake venom, unicorn blood, spells of his own invention. Snape's Potions speech in PS - "the power of liquids that creep through human veins" (reference to potions with human blood?).

LV invents the Drink of Despair, Snape modifies the Elixir to Induce Euphoria (and assigns a dementor essay). Snape’s knowledge of poisons (logic puzzle, undetectable poisons essay, etc) and the bezoar trick as antidote, Tom poisons Hepzibah with a "lethal and little known" poison that passes for sugar to frame a house-elf who can’t carry a wand. Riddle petrifies students with the basilisk, Snape brews Mandrake Restorative Draught for basilisk victims (mandrakes heal transfigured or cursed victims, "an essential part of most antidotes").

LV curses the Gaunt ring, Snape heals that curse (golden potion and countercurse, collaborating with Dumbledore). LV turns the locket into a horcrux, Snape heals Katie Bell from the cursed necklace. LV curses the DADA job and the curse on his name, Snape invents Sectumsempra. LV the most accomplished Legilimens; Snape the most skilled Occlumens (and a skilled Legilimens). LV adds a concealed entrance on the Locket Cave/symbolic Gaunt shack, Snape renovates Spinner's End with two hidden doors (both in locations related to their Muggle childhoods).

Snape and Lily - to a large extent it makes sense that their magical abilities and interests align even more closely than any other duo save the Weasley twins, because they played the role of "family training" for each other for 2+ years. Both outsiders and ambitious with magic as their way out, Lily's joy at magic and Snape views it as an escape from home, closest to siblings living in the same town. Snape's keen on sharing everything (esp. if raised with an idea of how training works in magical families), Lily on knowing everything (and seems to be following Snape's lead on the magical world in a lot of ways).

Eileen clearly taught Snape a lot about wizarding society and I assume some magic, has all her school textbooks and likely some Prince family books/knowledge, with Dark Arts and Potions specialties, which Snape passed onto Lily. But Eileen either wasn't as gifted or intellectual as her son (we only know she's Captain of Gobstones) and/or just too neglectful for the connection to go far.

Snape tells Lily "you’d better be in Slytherin" in the scene he tells James "if you’d rather be brawny than brainy" re: Gryffindor vs. Slytherin, so he thinks Lily falls under "brainy".

Magical power - unsupported flight, Snape's a Legilimens and there's circumstantial evidence of Lily as one in the early memories.

As with J/S, Lily's wand predicts her mutual interest with her best friend/like-a-sibling (of course their main field as Potions which doesn't require much wandwork) - "Swishy, nice wand for charm work", the Prince invents Charms. They "swish and flick" in Charms (levitating feathers), associated with flight. If taking extracanon, willow's an uncommon wand wood with healing power, enables advanced nonverbal magic (Snape heals Dark magic/etc, invents nonverbal spells).

James and Sirius are wary of Lily's wand means she's a skilled duelist and has gotten into fights; Snape invents hexes. Given the theme of duel between brothers, dueling's traditional in magical families, so Snape and Lily likely practice dueled together too with similar methods (Legilimency in combat); though in application, unlike the Marauders at Hogwarts, they'd be fighting on opposite sides.

Slughorn describing the Prince's work as exactly like Lily's at every turn indicates it as collaborative as the above examples of duo inventions - "You’ve got nerve, boy", "That’s the individual spirit a real potion-maker needs", "Unorthodox, but what a stroke of inspiration", "I really don’t know where you get these brain waves", "intuitive", "instinctive" "a natural" - aka she's creative, inventive, unafraid to take risks with and push the boundaries of magic.

The Prince's disdainful "just shove a bezoar down their throats"; Slughorn laughs at the bezoar, says it's exactly like Lily, gives house points "for sheer cheek" - implies Snape and Lily shared sense of humor often consisted of making fun of how purebloods view magic and incorporating their Muggle background into their methods (matches "as there is little foolish wand-waving here, you will hardly believe this is magic"). Snape's interest in poisons led to the bezoar trick which is Dark Arts related, so Lily knowing the same also implies her Dark Arts interest (of course Potions masters, Aurors, Healers, etc all study poisons, but I assume going deeper into it leads to more effective healing, as with Dark curses and cursebreaking skill on the Gaunt ring/etc).

Like Fred and George, Snape and Lily experiment and invent together constantly over summers - Petunia says Lily "came home every vacation with her pockets full of frog spawn, turning teacups into rats" (Potions, Transfiguration) and the Dursleys don't know Harry can't do magic over summers in CoS, an easy lie for Lily to keep up when doing magic often at Snape's house.

Snape evidently came prepared to impress Slytherins - per Sirius, he was always fascinated by Dark Arts, famous for it, knew more curses when he arrived than half the 7th years (likely showing off his knowledge vs. immediately cursing others). Snape's very aware of Muggleborn prejudice (hesitates before saying it makes no difference), yet was set on Lily being in Slytherin for 2.5 years pre-Hogwarts and groans when she's Sorted elsewhere, so sharing his Dark Arts interest with her fits that, expecting she'd need to "get in with the purebloods" along with him, which means making sure she knows as much as he does (see this post).

Snape at nine thinks Lily's the odd one for being fascinated by dementors:

"Tell me about the dementors again." "What d’you want to know about them for?" "If I use magic outside school —" "They wouldn’t give you to the dementors for that! Dementors are for people who do really bad stuff. They guard the wizard prison, Azkaban." (DH)

Cue Snape's monologue about the Dark Arts years later:

“The Dark Arts are many, varied, ever-changing, and eternal [...]" Harry stared at Snape. It was surely one thing to respect the Dark Arts as a dangerous enemy, another to speak of them, as Snape was doing, with a loving caress in his voice? “Your defenses must therefore be as flexible and inventive as the arts you seek to undo. These pictures [...] give a fair representation of what happens to those who suffer, for instance, the Cruciatus Curse” — he waved a hand toward a witch who was clearly shrieking in agony — “feel the Dementor’s Kiss” — a wizard lying huddled and blank-eyed, slumped against a wall — “or provoke the aggression of the Inferius” — a bloody mass upon the ground. (HBP)

They absolutely mutually encouraged each other's interests in forbidden and Dark magic. Snape and Lily learn magic together, their magic individually and together parallels LV's the most, and they directly undo LV's own magic, Snape's instances even utilizing Potions.

Dumbledore expects Snape to immediately know Lily's work vanquished LV ("You know how and why she died. Make sure it was not in vain. Help me protect Lily’s son"), implying he knows Snape and Lily learned similar magic together and expects Snape to ~recognize Lily's style~. Converse to how he speaks to McGonagall the same (?) day:

"After all he’s done... all the people he’s killed... he couldn’t kill a little boy? It’s just astounding... of all the things to stop him... but how in the name of heaven did Harry survive?" "We can only guess," said Dumbledore. "We may never know." (PS)

Lily and Sirius - Sirius is also knowledgeable about curses - knows the countercurse for the biting snuffbox (Wartcap Powder) and examines his hand "with interest"; suggests the Conjunctivitis Curse "as a dragon’s eyes are its weakest point" which Krum who was taught Dark Arts; often the one consulted regarding Harry's curse scar, recognizes Priori Incantatem, Harry writing to Sirius when he wants someone like a parent "who had experience with Dark Magic".

Sirius breaks Black family tradition in undoing wards/protections on 12GP (maybe manipulating a form of blood magic?) to let his halfblood not blood-related godson inherit and block DE Bellatrix out; and Lily creates blood wards that'd traditionally protect a pureblood family house to protect her Muggle family and eventually protects Harry. Mirroring Snape and Lily weaving their Muggle background in their magic, Sirius enchants Muggle objects like the motorbike (and creates an alternate method of flight).

When Harry says "You never heard her, did you? My mum... trying to stop Voldemort killing me... and you did that... you did it" Sirius goes quiet, which may hint at specific knowledge that Lily vanquished LV (also a possible reason for Sirius rereading Lily’s letter in OoTP, when the Order’s trying to figure out what’s up with the prophecy and the Harry-Voldemort connection).

Harry and Ron - "In the end, he chose the same new subjects as Ron, feeling that if he was lousy at them, at least he’d have someone friendly to help him", write up absurd stories for Divination and make fun of Trelawney together. Harry and Hermione elaborated here.

Parvati and Lavender - Divination, both close with Trelawney (vs. Padma in a different house than her twin)

Moody and Tonks (who was "close to Mad-Eye" "his favorite and his protégée at the Ministry"), Bellatrix and Barty (if you accept he was her apprentice), Snape and Draco (“Draco’s favorite teacher”), Xenophilius and Luna - her family training consisting of... conspiracy theories, Luna first shown reading The Quibbler (Most likely Pandora Lovegood was a conspiracy theorist like her husband - "intellectual equals" - and died due to something like believing an explosive Erumpent horn was a Crumple-Horned Snorkack horn)

[the-phoenix-heart]

Every day I think about how Lily Evans should have been a slytherin

[iheartmoons]

alr who wants me to write a rosekiller fic thats canon compliant and long. i dont have the energy for 1st to 5th year (maybe a couple chapters to show the important stuff) but i would do 6th all the way until after goblet of fire!! it would be from barty's POV of course, and would have kinda... insane rosekiller? it would also have unrequited bartylus im thinking hmmm hm my brain is thinking. it would also have jegulus but end with jily because canon. it would also have reg's plotline of the horcrux, and also have pandora and barty after the war. panda trying to carry on the horcrux hunt. dorc's revenge era after marls dies. i would also want it to be very raw, like proper proper canon compliant. so like no comfort, no fluff (well, maybe some, but not overall), just literal insane love. and martyrdom and his father's abuse and unrequited love and morally bad characters and so much pain.

only writing it though if people want it. so like. tell me if you do :)

[fxckyou-next]

someone asked what my house was and then proceeded to say "you couldn't be a slytherin, you're too nice!"

Regulus Arcturus Black did not sacrifice himself to take down the dark lord so that you could view all Slytherins as evil and selfish

[supbro50000]

Question what if Charlie Violetta Mike and Veruca studied in Hogwarts which faculties did they go to if studied in Hogwarts

Violet: Gryffindor and quidditch seeker

Mike: Ravenclaw and care for magical creatures

Augustus: Hufflepuff and quidditch beater

Charlie: Hufflepuff and muggle studies

Veruca: Slytherin and just about anything unpleasant

[toruland]

i hateeee the way slytherins are portrayed in Harry Potter :(

[kindred-spirit-93]

woah my turn! hilal would be one of these, absolutely no in between:

she'd have citations and do it so seriously even annabeth would have to do some research of her own, nico loses his shit, will is actually considering calling his aunt artemis, and jason straight up confirms

this took me like an entire hour. no regrets. moon memes bc i ran out of space:

btw the word Hilal in Arabic means crescent moon hence the joke :)

if loser demigods had access to google slides me thinks

but also i ran out of ideas so idk if i should do more

(if yall have ideas pls give it)

[cowboycereal]

i wish harry potter stans on tiktok spoke about it the same way the twilight lady does*

*if you’re going to engage, engage critically instead of accepting the text’s harmful rhetoric at face value and moving on

[moonlightspencie]

tenderly, tragically

Description: Silly, lifelong best-friendship leads to a lot of meaningless teasing. Though, sometimes teasing comes from a place of truth. It’s just that sometimes, those getting teased are the last to know why.

Pairing: Best friend!James Potter x fem!Reader

Warnings: fluff, some angst, smut 18+ (p in v, praise kink, whiny james, size kink, first time for both), drinking, its really idiots to lovers

Word Count: 7.8k (just fluff): 9.4k (smut)

A/N: smut is at the end, and there’s a warning before it starts since it’s kind of like an alternate ending/extra bit. if you JUST want fluff, it ends at a good point for that before the smut starts :) ALSO: as with all of my marauders fics, characters are aged up (19-20)

fic playlist

“Jamie,” I squeal a laugh, chasing after him.

He laughs, continuing to out-run me. The bastard.

“Not my fault you’re slow,” he calls back. “Catch up, love, or you’ll get caught.”

I run harder, jumping on his back when I get close enough. We both knew he’d slowed down to let me get closer, but neither of us bothered to mention it. He laughed, holding onto my legs as they wrapped around his waist, slowing until he was walking.

“You’re going to get us caught, you know that?”

I snort a laugh. “Please. There wasn’t even anybody there.”

He rolls his eyes playfully, finally dropping me from his back, and instead slinging an arm around my shoulders.

“They could have, though.”

“But they didn’t,” I say pointedly. “Besides, Remus, Peter, and Sirius are still actually in the Slytherin dorms. Lousy look-outs we are because of you.”

He chuckles, walking us towards the stairs.

“They’ll be fine,” he shrugs with a cocky smirk. “Besides, I doubt even most of the Slytherins would object to a little prank on Snivellus.”

I hum, nodding a little. “I guess. Still. You’re a bad friend.”

“You ran too,” he accused, his brow furrowing. “Don’t go and pin all this on me.”

“You told me to run!”

“You didn’t have to listen!”

I scoff, shaking my head. He gives me an irritated look, but pulls me a little closer under his arm. We get into the common room, and without even asking, he starts ushering me to their dorm room.

“Why?” I ask, knowing he knows what I’m asking.

“Sue me for wanting to spend some time with my life-long friend,” he says, quirking a brow.

I push him away from me, but he doesn’t really let me get far. He opens his door, pushing me in first. I immediately flop onto his bed face-first.

“Not complaining now, are you?” he asks, laying next to me.

“Not my fault your bed is so comfy,” I say, my voice muffled by the mattress.

I feel the mattress dip, and look up to see him also turned on his stomach, right next to me.

“If you really wanted to get me alone this bad you could’ve asked,” I say with a wink.

He rolls his eyes, but a smile gives him away.

“Please. I know you’re secretly hoping for it, but we both know that’s never going to happen.”

“Me?” I laugh. “As if. What would I do with a quidditch player?”

He scoffs, an offended look on his face.

“I’ll have you know that I am very desirable, and half of that has to do with the fact I’m the seeker, thank you.”

I roll my eyes. “Uh huh. And what’s the other half?”

“You seen this face?” he asks, a cocky smirk on his lips.

“Unfortunately I have.”

“You’re mean,” he says, a laugh breaking up his attempt to be offended.

He pushes me a bit, but I hardly budge. I laugh at his attempt, but apparently that was the wrong thing to do. He perks up, trying harder to fully push me off the bed, now.

“Hey!” I say in protest, fighting back against him.

He laughs, both of us practically fighting as he keeps trying to push me off. I see an opportunity a moment later and take it: I grab onto one of his arms with both of mine.

“Ha!” I say loudly. “Can’t push me off now unless you also fall off.”

He pauses, then an evil smirk comes onto his face. My face drops as I realize what he’s about to do. He scoots over, dropping both of us onto the ground. I squeal as we fall, and I end up taking the brunt of the fall as he lands on top of me.

“You should never threaten me with a good time. You know I can’t resist,” he says, not bothering to alleviate the pressure of his body pinning me down.

I groan. “You suck. I didn’t think you’d actually push both of us off just to get me.”

“Then you don’t know me very well,” he replies with a quirked brow.

“Please. I know you better than anyone and you know it.”

He opens his mouth to snark back at me, but the door opens before he gets a chance.

“You two are the worst,” Sirius says, clearly out of breath. Then, he scoffs as more footsteps follow behind him. “And look at this! They ran off on us to… Canoodle on the floor.”

I furrow my brow, pulling a face as I try to see him around James.

“Canoodle?” I repeat in disgust.

James finally starts getting off of me, kneeling on the ground next to me as I start pulling myself up. Remus and Peter give us a look.

“We’re not… canoodling, and you can blame Prongs for us ditching. He’s the one who took off running and told me I had to, too.”

Remus quirks a brow at that as Sirius goes to sit on his bed.

“You didn’t have to listen to him,” Peter pipes up.

“That’s what I told her,” James says, giving me a self-satisfied look.

I make a sour face at him, pushing his arm a little. He pushes me back, and I straighten up. Though, Remus must notice that look on me.

“Don’t you two start up again,” he says, pointedly looking between us. “If I have to watch you two flirt any more I might throw up.”

“We’re not flirting,” James grumbles. “She’s just fun to mess with.”

“Mm. And you’re just easy to win a fight against,” I add.

He looks at me quickly. “You didn’t win the last one.”

“Because you pushed us both off the bed!” I exclaim.

“Oh, shut it, you two,” Sirius says, his arm draped over his face. “We’ve been back for three days and you’re already acting up.”

I snort a laugh at Sirius’s annoyance, climbing back onto James’s bed. I sigh with my face in the pillows, feeling him climb over me to get to the other side a second later.

“You got us in trouble,” he whispers.

“Your fault, not mine,” I reply.

“You’re the one who insulted my perfect face.”

“You’re the one who pushed me first,” I argue back.

“Oi!” Sirius calls out again, leaving us both laughing.

Our first few weeks of school go off without a hitch. The boys continue pulling their little pranks, occasionally dragging me along with them. I settle into my space this year, glad to still have Lily, Marlene, and Dorcas as my roommates. We always tended to get along quite well.

I start reading a new book one night, absolutely enraptured with the story, probably even more so considering it’s helping me to avoid the homework that I really should be doing. I get through the first couple chapters before I notice Lily staring at me.

“What is it, Lils?”

“Can I tell you something?” Lily asks suddenly.

She looks around the room, seemingly to make sure the other girls are really gone for whatever she’s about to say.

I look at her over my book. “Sure.”

“Promise not to tell anyone?”

I nod. “Promise.”

She sighs, sitting up a little straighter. “I think I have a thing for someone… Well, for James.”

My eyes widen. “Really? You wanted nothing to do with him a little while ago.”

“I know. I just… I don’t know. Maybe I’m just bored or something, but I’ve been thinking about telling him.”

I nod. “Yeah. You should.”

“Really?” she asks, surprised.

“Why not?”

She smiles to herself. “Yeah. Why not? Do you think he’ll say it back?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe? He did have a crush on you before.”

She hums to herself. I laugh a little, shaking my head.

“I think I’ll do it tomorrow. Better to do it sooner than later, yeah?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” I shrug noncommittally. I really just wanted to get back to my book.

“You don’t even care,” she groans after a moment.

“This is a really good book, Lils,” I laugh.

“Fine. I’ll stop bothering you.”

“Thanks,” I smirk to myself.

She scoffs again, though I know she isn’t really offended. I wish her good luck as we head off to our classes that day, knowing she was planning on telling James sometime in the morning.

I end up finding him later, though I try not to press for answers the second I do. We sit on the grass in the late afternoon, watching some first years play a little quidditch match for fun. It’s uncharacteristically warm outside, and the sun shines down on us. After half an hour of watching the kids play, I glance at James.

“I wanna show you something,” I say suddenly, standing.

James looks up at me in confusion. “I’d prefer not to move.”

I roll my eyes, crossing my arms over my chest.

“It’s a nice day. Sunny and no clouds. Please, just follow me?” I ask, almost whining. “Promise you’ll like it.”

He leans back on his hands. “How do you know?”

“Because I found a secret place in the woods, and you’ll be the first person besides me to see it,” I offer.

He quirks a brow. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Now get up.”

He grumbles to himself as he gets up, following me as we walk towards the woods. I start leading him through the trees towards the destination I had in mind.

“What were you even doing in here? It’s dangerous,” he says quietly.

“I was fine. Just had a long day and wanted to explore. It was in the daytime anyway,” I say matter-of-factly.

He hums to himself, clearly dissatisfied that I went out here by myself. But as I finally lead him to our destination, his annoyance wears off.

“Whoa,” he says, his eyes a little wide.

I smile. “See? Told you it would be worth your while.”

He looks on at the small clearing. There’s a little pond with clear water, the space in the trees allowing some sunlight to reflect on the water. It looks peaceful at least, and nearly-heavenly at best. I look at him expectantly.

“How’d you find this?” he asks, squatting by the water. He dips his hand it. “Whoa. It’s warm.”

I nod, still standing. “I found it when I was exploring, like I said. A few weeks ago. I charmed the water to stay warm, so I’ve been out here two or three times to swim. Thought I’d show you before it gets too cold.”

He smiles, standing up. “You want to go swimming? You didn’t bring any—”

His eyes widen as he finally looks at me. At this point, I’ve already started taking off my robes and my shirt.

“What?” I ask, brows furrowed. “You act like you’ve never been around me getting dressed. We’ve been friends since we were like six years old. Now, hurry up. Faster you get undressed, the faster we get to swim.”

He rolls his eyes at me, begrudgingly taking off his clothes, even though part of him still looks excited that I’d found such a nice little place.

I start wading in once I’m down to my underwear, the water feeling nice and warm in contrast to the slightly-cool air. I hear him come in after me in a moment, and turn to watch him.

“Nice, isn’t it?”

“Can’t believe you were hiding this from me,” he says, hiding a smirk.

“Oh, please,” I reply, floating on my back in the water. “You’re lucky I showed you at all. Nobody else knows about this. You should feel honored.”

I hear him hum and splash around a little, though my eyes are closed. I bask in the warmth of the sunlight on my face.

“Did Lils talk to you today?” I ask after a few minutes of silence.

“Yeah.”

I upright myself, looking at him as he aimlessly walks around in the water.

“And?”

He glances at me, giving a shrug. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” I press, furrowing my brow. “What’s that supposed to mean? What did you guys talk about?”

“I have a feeling you already know,” he snorts a laugh.

I roll my eyes, wading closer to him. “So she told you?”

“Yep.”

“Well, what happened? What did you say?”

He sighs dramatically. “Does it matter?”

I splash him a little. “I’m gonna hear about it no matter what. She’s my roommate. Just wanted to know from you before I see Lily later.”

“Told her I wasn’t interested,” he says quietly, splashing me back a little.

I pause. “Why? You always had a massive crush on her.”

“Not in, like, a year,” he says.

“So you just rejected her?”

“I didn’t reject her,” he furrows his brows, looking away from me. “She told me she liked me, and I just told her I wasn’t into her like that. She didn’t ask me a question, so it wasn’t a rejection. Just being honest.”

I groan. “Jamie, she’s going to kill me. I’m the one who encouraged her to tell you.”

His eyes widened. “Why the hell would you do that?”

“I thought you liked her!”

He pauses for a moment, then splashes me again, this time fully soaking me. I scoff a laugh, in shock as the water hits me. I glare at him, then splash him back just as hard. He starts going on the attack, practically throwing the water at me repeatedly.

“You absolute tosser,” I say, continuing to splash back, though I can’t help but laugh.

I start backing up as we both continue, now laughing and barely able to see with how rapid-fire we’re going. Eventually, I turn and start running for the shore as much as I can while being chest-deep in water. I squeal as I hear him closing in on me.

“No, no, no,” I laugh, getting closer and closer to safety.

“Should’ve thought about trying to run a little harder, love,” James says back, still giggling to himself.

He catches up to me when the water is finally below my hips, and grabs around the waist, pulling both of us backwards. The water goes over our heads for a moment, and I gasp out a laugh as we emerge again. He sits us up in the pond.

I turn in his arms, smacking him lightly on the chest. “You’re awful!”

“You love me,” he smiles brightly, still sitting on the ground in the shallow water. He pulls me in a little closer. “You’re just mad that I won.”

“Still can’t believe you said you didn’t like her,” I say, brushing some of his wet curls away from his eyes.

“Not gonna lie to the girl,” he shrugs, swatting away my hand.

“Still. I thought for sure you’d be excited.”

“Hm. I don’t know. Maybe a couple years ago, but not anymore.”

“At this point I’m convinced you’re driving girls away on purpose. When was the last time you dated someone?” I laugh.

He looks at me, mockingly offended. “Excuse me?”

“What?” I exclaim, still laughing. “Last girl I remember seeing you with was some Ravenclaw a few quidditch wins ago, and even then, you were just sucking face because you were drunk.”

He finally pushes me away from him, trying to hide a smile. I chuckle, gaining my bearings, and finally landing comfortably on my knees in the water a foot away from him.

“You wouldn’t be so offended if I were wrong,” I tease.

“Yeah? And when’s the last time you dated somebody?”

I scoff. “You scare off every boy who tries to ask me out.”

“Cause they’re all ridiculous,” he states, making a face. “Are you seriously telling me you wanted to go out with that Johnny kid from Hufflepuff?”

I smirk. “Touché. But still, it’s not my fault I’m not dating anyone. You, on the other hand…”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he quirks a brow.

“You’ve got all kinds of girls chasing after you. What’s your excuse?”

He pauses for a moment, then smirks. “Who else would waste all their time with you if I were too busy with some girl? You’d be all alone. I’m doing you a service by staying single.”

“Please. You and that ego, I swear,” I shake my head. “I have plenty of friends outside of you.”

“I’m the best one, though,” he says, a brow raised with a cocky smile.

I make a face, then splash him once more for good measure.

“That’s it,” he mumbles, tackling me.

I yell a little with a laugh as his arm wraps around my back and drops me onto the bank where the water was scarce. I keep my head propped up as much as I can, though the rest of me is still covered in a little bit of water. It doesn’t help that James is pressing me into the ground.

“Admit it. I am the single greatest person you’ve ever met.”

I laugh again. “In your dreams.”

“Not letting you up until you admit it.”

“Guess we’re stuck here forever, then,” I argue back.

“Guess so,” he says plainly, dropping his full weight on me. I groan, my breath getting squeezed from me. “Best to make myself comfortable, then.”

“You’re so heavy,” I whine.

He chuckles, just quietly observing me for a moment. I tilt my head in question as he doesn’t snark back. He swallows, a small smile still on his face, but a little bit of color now in his cheeks. My eyes widen a little bit.

“Jamie—”

He doesn’t give me a chance to get anything else out, his lips pressing to mine softly. I freeze, in shock at the sudden change of circumstance. My best friend is kissing me. He stays there for a moment, and only pulls away when he realizes I wasn’t kissing him back, his cheeks taking on a deeper shade.

“I’m sorry, I don’t…” he shakes his head, looking at me with his lips still parted. “I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry.”

He gets off of me quickly, getting out of the pond and back to where we left our clothes. He casts a drying spell on himself and starts getting dressed. Meanwhile, I’m still in the water, feeling like I’m stuck. I swallow with a dry throat, turning to see him starting to pull on his pants. I finally get up, quickly moving towards him.

“Jamie—“

“I’m sorry, I don’t know why I did that,” he shakes his head, not looking at me.

I let out a frustrated groan. “We have to talk about that, James.”

“Not right now. Just,” he sighs, looking at me quickly. He takes out his wand again, casting that same drying spell on me. “Get dressed. We don’t want to miss dinner.”

I stare at him for a moment as he continues putting his clothes on, then finally move to get mine on. We finish getting dressed in an uncomfortable silence, that kiss playing on repeat in my mind. Why would he do that?

I look at him when I’m done to see him staring at his shoes, his hands shoved in his pockets. I walk nearer to him, though he takes half a step back when he notices. I furrow my brow.

“Don’t start that.”

“Start what?” he asks, his voice uncharacteristically quiet.

“Pulling away from me,” I say, grabbing his arm and tugging him closer to me. “I don’t know what just happened, but I’m not going to lose you as a friend all because you—”

“I’m not pulling away from you,” he rolls his eyes. “I just— I don’t want to… I’m embarrassed. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“You don’t need to be embarrassed.”

He scoffs. “Right, because there’s nothing embarrassing about trying to kiss your best friend while she looks at you like you’re crazy.”

I sigh. “I just didn’t know what was happening. You’ve never done anything like that before.”

He looks away, chewing at his lip. “Can we just forget about it? I really don’t… I didn’t mean to.”

I fall quiet for a minute, trying to gather my thoughts, but they’re all seeming to escape me. I let go of his arm, taking in a deep breath.

“You know I love you, right?” I ask.

He nods. “Yeah. I know.”

“Okay. Yeah, we can forget about it,” I nod. “You want to go get dinner, then? I heard a rumor they’ll have those apple tarts you like.”

He looks at me, smiling a little bit. “Yeah?”

I nod again, smiling back. “Would I lie?”

He chuckles a little, nodding towards the way we came into the woods. I start leading the way back out until we see the castle again. He catches up to me at that point.

“Sorry again,” he says quietly.

“About what?” I ask, raising a brow. “All I remember is us swimming around. Unless you’re apologizing for tackling me in the pond, in which case, you’re forgiven only if you get me some chocolate frogs next time we’re in Hogsmeade.”

He smiles a little. “Yeah. Promise I will.”

“Good,” I say, knocking into his shoulder a little.

He nudges me back. Of course. I go a little harder the next time I knock into him, until we’re both practically pushing one another over as we head towards the castle. He gives me a particularly hard shove, barely catching me by the arm before I actually fall to the ground. We’re out of breath from laughing when we finally get to the castle, feeling wonderfully back to normal by the time we reach the Great Hall.

We walk up to the marauders, taking our usual seat across from the three boys.

“Hey,” I greet.

“Where were you two for the past hour?” Sirius asks with a quirked brow.

I snort a laugh. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“I would, considering we saw you wander off into the forest,” he says, leaning forward on his arms with a smirk.

I roll my eyes. “None of your business.”

“Always so secretive,” Remus says, stabbing a few potatoes on his fork before looking between us.

I glance at James who laughs as soon as we make eye contact. Though, I also catch another pair of eyes when I turn towards him, and wince a little. Lily looks at me with her brows furrowed from a little ways down the table. I shrug at her, unsure why she looks upset with me. She rolls her eyes, going back to her conversation with Dorcas. I sigh.

“Great. Now Lily’s mad at me because you had to go and turn her down,” I say to James.

Peter laughs. “He turned her down?”

“When did this happen?” Remus asks, looking much more curious now.

“You need to learn how to shut it,” James says to me, his voice a little high as he shakes his head.

“They would’ve found out anyways,” I say, barely feeling sorry at all.

I hold back from chuckling as James is pelted with questions from the boys, focusing more on my food and trying to ignore the occasional sour glance I get from Lily.

Though, I couldn’t escape her forever.

I walked into my room after a night of sitting around with the boys and Marlene in the common room. I thought I would be going to bed and falling asleep, but clearly it was wishful thinking. Lily stared at me from her bed as Marlene and I shut the door behind us.

I raised a brow. “Hi?”

Marlene looked between us, excusing herself to take a shower. The traitor.

“What the hell?” Lily said, crossing her arms.

“Yeah, what the hell? Why have you been giving me sour looks all day?”

She scoffed. “You told me to tell him, and you know what he did? Oh. Wait, of course you know. Because of course he already told you. Because of course—”

“Oh my god, Lily,” I roll my eyes, going to sit on my bed next to hers. “I’m sorry that I was wrong about how he’d react, but I had no clue. I thought he still had a thing for you.”

She huffs a sigh. “I should’ve known you were setting me up. What, do you like to see me embarrassed?”

“If I did, I would’ve gone along to watch it happen,” I say, annoyed at her attitude. “Sorry I was wrong, but I didn’t know. And you said you wanted to tell him, anyways.”

“You don’t seem to be that sorry considering you were back to hanging around him again all day.”

“He’s my best friend, Lily. I’m not going to ditch him because he didn’t have feelings for you,” I say, shaking my head.

She stands up suddenly. “Well, maybe you should. Maybe if you weren’t like… In love with him, you’d be a better friend to me.”

I stare at her in annoyance. “You need to get a grip. I wouldn’t have encouraged you to try telling him if I was ‘in love’ with him. We’re friends. You’re being insane.”

“Well, clearly he at least has feelings for you!”

I furrow my brow. “Excuse me?”

“Why else would he reject me?”

I laugh against my better judgement. “Are you serious? One boy doesn’t like you, so it just has to be because he’s in love with someone else? Lily, I love you, but that is the most egotistical thing you’ve ever said.”

“But you’re not denying it.”

“James isn’t in love with me. Have you considered that he just doesn’t like you anymore? It happens. People move on,” I say, sighing. “Just… Go to bed, Lily. This is a ridiculous and pointless argument.”

I lay back on my bed, closing my eyes while I wait to get into the bathroom. I hear Lily mutter something under her breath, but choose to ignore it. The more she got angry with me, the less I cared that she got her feelings hurt. I didn’t want to be unsympathetic, but it was getting hard to be concerned when I was blamed for a boy not liking her. Obviously James didn’t like me.

Obviously.

I think.

He did kiss me.

I open my eyes, staring at the ceiling for a moment. James didn’t like me, did he? He’d never shown interest in me before. That kiss probably just happened because he was confused. He wanted to forget about it, anyways, so clearly that had to mean he didn’t mean it. And I didn’t feel that way about him anyways, so it didn’t matter.

Except, I did feel my heart pound a little differently when he looked at me before the kiss.

I didn’t hate the way his lips felt.

Seeing him smile at me on the walk back did give me a few butterflies.

But, no. That’s nothing. He’s my best friend, I wouldn’t suddenly start feeling that way about him. I couldn’t. It’d be ridiculous.

It’s not like I’d spend the rest of the night thinking about him. Except that I did. A lot.

I woke up the next morning, feeling like I was going insane. I’d never felt that way about him before. Of course, I always though he was attractive. How could anybody look at him and not think he was gorgeous? But there was never anything more besides friendship. So why could I not stop thinking about him?

My eyes feel heavy as I sit in my last class of the day, James trying repeatedly to mess with me throughout the class. With five minutes left, he leans in closer. Since when did he start smelling so good?

“Hey,” he says quietly, drawing my attention. “What’s wrong? You’re not getting mad at me.”

“Just tired, Jamie,” I shrug, staring at the notes on the chalkboard that I haven’t copied down.

“That’s a lie. I can tell.”

I sigh. “Have you ever… Has anyone ever told you something about yourself that you thought wasn’t true, and then… And then you realize they might be right?”

He furrows his brows. “How do you mean?”

“I don’t know. Like, let’s say someone tells you that you like strawberries, when you’ve never liked strawberries. But then you think about every time you’ve had a strawberry, and you realize that you actually really did like strawberries. A lot more than you thought you did. Like… you realize strawberries are your favorite fruit.”

He stares with a confused look, tilting his head. He reaches up, pressing the back of his hand to my forehead.

“Are you feeling alright?”

I lean away from him, rolling my eyes. “Cut it out.”

He smiles, nudging me slightly. “Can’t say I’ve had that experience, no.”

I groan. “This sucks.”

“Why can’t you just tell me what actually happened?” he asks. He pouts. “Please?”

I smile at him, trying hard to be annoyed, but finding it difficult. God, I’m in trouble.

“I just can’t. It’s… private.”

“You never keep secrets from me.”

“I don’t even know what secret I’m keeping just yet,” I sigh, resting my chin in my hand. “I feel like I’m going crazy.”

“Aw,” he coos. “You say that like you aren’t already.”

I push him, laughing softly, though we both straighten up when the professor reprimands us. We give a quick apology, still smirking at each other the next time we catch one another’s eye.

The next days pass by in a blur as I come to terms with what I’ve been feeling. It doesn’t help that I couldn’t talk to anyone, especially since Lily was still mad at me. Now, though, I couldn’t blame her as much. She somehow realized I was into him before I did.

“Hey,” Remus says, coming up to me as I sit in the common room. “It’s late. Why are you still here?”

“Why are you?”

He shrugs, sitting next to me. “Can’t sleep. Moon’s coming in a couple days.”

I hum in acknowledgement. “Gotcha.”

He settles into the couch, crossing his arms over his chest. He looks sideways at me as I stare into the fire.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Cause I can’t tell anybody.”

He scoffs. “That’s ridiculous. You’ve been off for days. James keeps complaining about how you’re not spending time with him as much.”

I shake my head, not responding.

“You need to talk to someone about this.”

“Can’t.”

“Bullshit.”

I look at him. “Seriously. I can’t talk to Jamie about it, Lily’s still mad at me, and Marls and Dorcas are too gossipy.”

“You can talk to me,” he shrugs.

“You wouldn’t get it, though.”

“Try me.”

I let out a breath. “You have to promise this stays a secret.”

He nods. “Promise.”

“Okay,” I say under my breath. “Okay. So, um, Lily got really mad at me the other day because of the whole…. Confession thing. And I didn’t understand why, and she started accusing me of things, and obviously I disagreed… But then something she said kind of stuck with me.”

“She’s just mad. Don’t listen to her,” Remus says, shaking his head. “You know how she gets when she’s in one of those moods.”

“But I think she was kind of right,” I sigh. “That’s the problem. She thinks… She told me she thought I was into James. And not like friends, like really into him.”

Remus’s eyes widen a little. “And… are you?”

“I’ve been thinking about it for the past week, and… I think I might be.”

“Whoa. I know we always tease you two for how close you are, but I never thought you…”

“I know,” I groan, my face in my hands. “And I know I haven’t been hanging out with him as much as usual because of it, but I don’t know what to do. How do you tell your best friend that you suddenly realized you’re in love with him?”

He doesn’t answer, just reaches over and gives me a hug. I accept it, sighing a little.

Our next week goes over just like that. I don’t avoid James by any means, but I try not to always be alone with him. I do find more opportunities to talk with Remus about it all, though, and it helps. Just to have someone to listen to me as I complain about my feelings. I do the same for him when he has troubles, though mine seem silly in comparison. He always tells me not to compare, though.

Unfortunately, though, as much as those chats help me process my feelings, they don’t help me get over those feelings at all. If anything, they only grow the more I think about James.

It’s super annoying.

Even more annoying is Lily’s smug look when I tell her about my feelings for James. I expected her to be mad at me, but she did something worse: she laughed at me.

“I knew it!”

“How? I didn’t know!”

“Because you are so obvious,” she shakes her head.

I scoff. “I’m clearly not that obvious or else you wouldn’t have told me you had a crush on him.”

“Alright. Fair enough,” she quirks a brow. “But still.”

I roll my eyes, walking over to hug her.

“Sorry about that. If I knew I had a crush on him I wouldn’t have told you to go for him.”

“Sorry back,” she says. “Shouldn’t have gotten mad at you that he told me no.”

“I agree,” I laugh.

She whacks me in the arm, laughing back.

I try to go about my life as usual over the next couple of weeks. There’s no sense in making myself miserable or drawing attention to my small shift in behavior. I find myself still doing most of the same things I always did. Just a bit more carefully.

I sit with the boys at dinner, laughing at their stupid jokes and the plans they have for pranks. I finish my food, pushing the plate away from me, and listening in on a conversation being had between Sirius, Remus, and Peter.

“You know, those three plan on being out all night,” James says quietly, leaning close to me as he watches the three boys talk.

I raise a brow. “Yeah? Doing what?”

“They wanted to just be out of the castle for the night. Think Sirius and Remus are going to the shrieking shack, and Peter is sneaking out to go meet up with some other friends in Hogsmeade, I guess.”

“And you aren’t running off?”

He shakes his head. “Told them I’d stay behind. Thought me and you could have a sleepover. Like old times.”

I chuckle. “It has been a while.”

“I think close to a year. They’re always in my space,” he says, feigning annoyance. “But it’ll just be us tonight, if you want.”

I push down whatever feeling rises in my chest at that and agree, despite my better judgement.

He pulls me into his room that night, immediately going to the foot of his bed, looking at me like he’s about to change my life.

“I brought something a little… fun,” he smiles, opening up his trunk to show me his secret stash of drinks. “Thought we might finally crack it open.”

I laugh. “And you didn’t think to tell me sooner?”

“Hey, we’ve had plenty at the Gryffindor events,” he smiles. “This is just for us. Our secret.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“I’m the greatest.”

We find ourselves on his floor after a few drinks, feeling fuzzy and happy. We talk about nothing for hours, occasionally passing a bottle between us.

“Maybe we should do this more often,” he says, smiling up at the ceiling. “I miss spending time with you like this.”

“We’re always together.”

“You spend a lot of time with Moony lately. Not fair, I want you all to myself,” he chuckles, poking my side.

I laugh, poking him back. “I’m still all yours. Love Moony so much, but you’re still my favorite I think. Now, if Sirius decided to start hanging around me more, then you’d be in trouble.”

He giggles, his cheeks rosy. I watch him carefully, feeling warm in the face myself, but for a different reason.

“You have a really cute laugh,” I say before I can think about it.

He looks at me with a smile, his tongue poking out between his teeth. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” I nod.

“You’ve never told me that before.”

I shrug. “I should’ve.”

He stares back at me for a moment, giving me a little silly smile. He leans over me, propping himself up with his forehead next to my head. He leans down, much like he did that day we went swimming. But this time I kiss him back. My hand finds his cheek, holding him gently as I let him work his lips against mine. I can’t deny the warmth that spreads over me or the butterflies I feel this time.

This time it lasts for a few minutes, neither of us bothering to pull away. Whether that’s because he actually likes it or because we’re both drunk and don’t know any better, I don’t know. I also don’t care.

He finally pulls away after a little while, still giving me that smile as if he didn’t just take all the air in my lungs away from me.

“We can pretend that one didn’t happen, either,” he says, voice barely above a whisper.

I nod, unsure what to say. I don’t want to pretend it didn’t happen, but I couldn’t tell him that without outing myself. I settle for the way his hand mindlessly reaches for mine as we go back into conversation like nothing ever interrupted us in the first place. Eventually, we move to his bed, preferring the softness of the mattress and pillows over the hard ground.

“Can I ask why you’ve been spending all your time with Remus?” he asks during a lull in the conversation, playing with my fingers as he does.

“Just became better friends recently, I guess,” I say, glancing at him. I admire his face for a moment before snapping out of it. “Some stuff I can talk to him about that I haven’t been able to tell anyone else. It’s been nice to have someone to listen.”

“I could do that for you. You didn’t have to go to him.”

“Not this time, Jamie. It’s… different.”

“How?”

“It just is,” I sigh. “I’ve had too much to drink for us to be having this conversation, James.”

He whines. “Please? I just want to know.”

“No. Maybe I’ll tell you someday, but not now.”

He grumbles, turning over and resting his head on my chest. His arm rests over my stomach. I just hope and pray he doesn’t feel how hard my heart starts beating when he does.

“Play with my hair?” he asks, his voice a little muffled.

“Okay,” I reply softly, running my fingers through his messy hair. “This okay?”

He nods a little. “Mhm. Thanks.”

We don’t wake up until the next morning, still stuck in that same position.

I find myself with Remus again the following night. I sit on a chair, and he lounges on the couch, trying not to judge me for putting myself in that situation. I don’t tell him about the kiss, but he hears about everything else.

“You can’t keep doing this to yourself,” he says after a beat of silence when I finish explaining. “You either need to tell him, or put some distance between you.”

“I tried that today.”

“I know,” he rolls his eyes. “It’s all James could talk about. Complaining the whole day that you weren’t eating with us or not going to the library when we were.”

“See? I feel like nothing I do is right in this situation,” I say, feeling defeated. “Like, how am I supposed to keep spending time with him like everything’s normal when I’m practically floating every time he so much as looks at me. It’s pathetic. And I can’t just ignore him, cause then he goes and bugs you all.”

“Maybe you just need to—”

“Hey,” James’s voice calls from behind us.

I look at him, noticing the annoyed look on his face. It doesn’t seem like he’s overheard us, but I can’t tell why he looks so irritated. Usually he’d be annoyed if I didn’t bother with them all day, but he looks… mad. I quirk a brow.

“Hey,” I say, confused.

He doesn’t reply, looking a little upset and a little lost. I turn back to Remus after a moment of silence, our conversation effectively being cut short. I stand up quickly.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say to Remus, starting to walk past James in order to get to my room.

“What’s going on?” James asks, grabbing my upper arm.

I turn around quickly. “What?”

He clenches his jaw, then looks at Remus. “Moony, we need a minute.”

Remus goes to argue, but drops it quickly when he sees James looking more serious than he ever has. He gets up, giving me a sympathetic look before he heads towards the boys’ dorms. I glare at James as he hasn’t let go of my arm yet.

“Why did you do that?”

“Why are you with him again?”

I scoff. “You mean our friend? Did you ever think maybe we were talking?”

“That’s the problem,” he says, dropping my arm.

“How is that a problem? I’m going through something and he’s just trying to help—”

He sighs harshly, looking around like he’s lost. He looks back at me with his brows furrowed.

“I don’t get it,” he says, practically whining. “You never keep things from me, and now you’re telling Moony all of your secrets and ditching me for him and… And I don’t understand it. We’re supposed to be best friends.”

“We are, Jamie, there’s just some things that I can’t—”

“Why not?” he swallows, tears starting to prick his eyes. “Why can’t you tell me? You never do this. We tell each other everything.”

I freeze for a moment, my mouth drying up as I look at him. I want to reach out for him and hold him and make him feel better. But I also want answers, because it’s his fault that everything got screwed up. He didn’t have to reject Lily. He didn’t have to kiss me when we were swimming. He didn’t have to do it again on his bedroom floor. He didn’t have to treat me like I was the most important person in his life.

“Then tell me why you kissed me,” I blurt out.

He shakes his head a little. “I don’t know.”

“Then figure it out! You don’t just get to kiss me and then act like you just did it for no reason.”

His chest heaved from his breathing, staring at me. His cheeks tinged pink again as he took a moment.

“I—I just wanted to. I don’t know. You were there and you were looking at me like that and you just…” he huffed a sigh. “I just wanted to kiss you.”

“Why?” I asked, frustrated.

“Because,” he said back, his tone matching mine. “Because I always want to kiss you and I slipped up and did it one time—”

“You did it twice!”

“Okay! Two times,” he exclaims. “We promised we would just forget about it.”

“And what exactly is that even supposed to mean?”

“You’re so fucking oblivious,” he grumbles, rolling his eyes. “God, what do I have to do to make you understand that I’m—”

I wait as he stops talking. “That you’re what?”

“I’m in love with you. I have been forever, and you’ve never cared,” he says, letting out a shuddering breath. “And now you’re spending all of your time with Remus. And it’s so embarrassing that I’m sat here hopelessly in love with my best friend of over ten years while she’s running around with another one of our friends.”

“Running around with him? We sit in the common room and talk because you’re fucking infuriating!”

“Oh, so you’re gossiping about me?” he asks, voice raising as mine does once again.

“Not gossiping, just—”

“Just what?”

“I’m in love with you, too, you fucking tosser!”

He looks angry for a few moments, then it switches to confusion, then shock, and possibly the five stages of grief before he finally lands on raised brows and an open mouth.

“You what?” he exclaims.

“You’re so annoying,” I say, groaning. “Yeah, Lily had to go and tell me I was in love with you, and she always has to be fucking right about everything, doesn’t she?”

“Are you listening to yourself right now?” he asks incredulously, furrowing his brows. “You just told me you loved me.”

“I’m aware, James,” I say, crossing my arms.

“Well… Did you mean it?”

“Obviously,” I say, shaking my head at him like it was a dumb question.

“You’re so dumb,” he says under his breath.

Before I can say anything else, he’s moving forward, his hands on my cheeks as he crashes his lips into mine. I melt into him, this kiss being way more passionate than the one we shared the night before. I hold onto his waist, letting him deepen the kiss, though it only lasts for a minute or two after that.

He pulls away. “You’re infuriating. Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“You didn’t tell me anything, either!”

“I kissed you twice!”

I roll my eyes. “That doesn’t count. You said we should forget about both times.”

“Only cause I thought that’s what you’d want,” he defends, making an annoyed face.

I try to be angry, but it’s a difficult task. I reach up, running a thumb over his furrowed eyebrows.

“So grumpy,” I mutter. “Just told you I was in love with you. You’d think you’d at least try to be happy.”

He scoffs a laugh, pulling me into a hug, his face buried in my neck.

“I’ve never been happier.”

We hear footsteps coming down a few moments later.

“You owe me ten galleons,” Sirius’s voice says.

I look over James’s shoulder as he keeps holding onto me, not caring that our friends are right there.

“You were betting on us?” I ask.

Sirius nods with a smirk. “And Peter just lost. He thought you’d take until the end of the year to get together. I said it’d be in this term.”

“I didn’t bet,” Remus says from behind Sirius, holding his hands up in surrender with a small smile. “Glad you worked it out, though.”

I smile at them, shaking my head and turning my attention back on James again. He looks at me finally.

“I’m glad, too,” he says quietly. “Think I might’ve combusted if I had to keep pretending I didn’t want you like that.”

“Didn’t do a great job at covering for it, though. Still kissed me twice.”

“You say like you didn’t love it,” he smirks with a wink.

————-> SMUT STARTS HERE. 18+ <-————

James finally pulls away, taking my hand in his.

“Good, now that you’re all out the room, if you’ll excuse us…” he says, pulling me past the boys who all groan in disgust.

I giggle as he practically runs to his room with my hand in his, kissing me the second the door is shut and locked. I smile into the kiss, my arms around his neck. He starts kissing my cheek and jaw after a few minutes.

“Hope you’ve been feeling the tension as much as I have, cause I could probably cum in my pants right now if you asked me to,” he says casually, as if it wouldn’t send a wave of arousal down my body.

“Oh my…” I trail off as he bites at my neck softly. “Are we gonna…?”

He pauses, his eyes wide. “Oh. I probably should’ve asked before I assumed, huh?”

He winces a little at his own excitement, cheeks tinged pink.

“Sorry.”

I smile softly. “That’s okay. I— I want to, I just didn’t know if that’s what the plan was.”

He smiles again brightly, kissing me once more. He giggled against my lips, then starts backing me towards the bed.

“I really do love you. Kind of embarrassing, really. I think I have forever,” he says softly, laying me down on the mattress and crawling over me.

I let out a soft breath. “Embarrassing for me, I think. I didn’t even realize until someone else told me I did.”

He laughs again, starting to kiss down my neck.

“I kind of always wanted you to be my first time, to be honest,” he says against my skin.

I pause, realizing what’s really happening. “Oh. Oh my god.”

“What?” he asks, leaning up to start unbuttoning my shirt.

“Wait, have you never… You haven’t done this either, have you?”

“Not all the way,” he shakes his head, then looks at me with wide eyes. “Is that okay?”

“That’s okay. I haven’t either. Just… You know. I’ve done some hand stuff but that was it.”

He looks at me again, then starts laughing a little. I find myself laughing right back as reality sets in for both of us.

“We’re gonna take each others virginity,” I say, still laughing a little. “Oh my god.”

He snorts a laugh. “Didn’t wake up this morning thinking this would happen, that’s for certain.”

I smile. “I love you.”

“I love you more,” he teases, dropping a kiss on the tip of my nose.

I watch as he finishes taking off my shirt, getting up just enough to help him pull it and my camisole off completely. He sits back on his knees, staring at me for a moment.

“You alright, Jamie?”

He nods. “Doing great, love.”

He starts taking off his own shirt, then. As many times as I’d seen his arms and chest, you’d think I wouldn’t still feel amazed seeing him in just his trousers… But I couldn’t stop staring, either. He leaned back in, kissing me again. I let my hands run over his arms and back, having free reign to do so and enjoying it. He nipped at my lip, a little noise leaving me and making him smile against my lips. I do the same to him, both of us ending up grinning at each other again.

“This is nice,” I say quietly. “Doing this with you, it’s nice. I like that we don’t feel like we have to act… sexy.”

“Well, that because it’s never an act for me, love,” he winks with a smirk.

I pull him back down with a giggle, though the smile is wiped from my face when he rolls his hips into mine. Feeling him hard for me for the first time leaves me a little breathless, especially when he’s grinding into me. I small groan leaves me when he does it again.

“Like it when you do that,” he says into my ear, doing it again just to get another reaction out of me. “I like those little sounds you make. So pretty.”

I find myself breathing heavily, my hands squeezing between our bodies to start unbuckling his belt. He gets the hint and sits up, pulling it off himself.

“Get out of those, yeah?” he says, nodding at my bottoms as he works himself out of his.

I comply immediately, shimmying out of my trousers and tossing them onto the ground. He gets back on top of me as soon as we’re both one layers closer to what we really want. I let my hand slide into his underwear as he stars kissing at my neck again, letting out a shuddering breath when I finally feel him. He whimpers into my neck as I start stroking him, rutting his hips into my hand.

“Feel so good, love,” he says, voice whiny and desperate.

I groan back, especially as one of his hands slides under the band of my panties to slip a finger into me. I feel myself growing hotter, kissing him and swallowing the moans he lets out as my hand keeps working him over.

“Shit, Jamie,” I moan as he adds a second finger.

“Good for you?” he breathes out.

“Yes,” I say breathlessly. “Yes. Very.”

I whine as he gets me closer to the edge, his hips doing all the work as my hand stopped moving up and down his length. He adds pressure to my clit with his thumb, sending me careening over the edge with praises and his name on my lips.

He pulls his hand away from me suddenly.

“Can’t wait any longer, love,” he says, voice wrecked.

He slides my panties off my legs as I take my bra off. Then, I watch with wide eyes as he pulls his underwear off, his cock bigger than I was expecting by far. I knew he felt big, but seeing him was entirely different.

“Fuck,” I say, staring at him. “Don’t know if I can take that, Jamie.”

“Yeah, you can, love,” he nods, settling between my legs and kissing me softly. “You can take it, baby.”

He pushes himself up just enough for both of us to see him rubbing his head through my slick before prodding at my entrance. He starts pushing in slowly. I let out a loud groan, my eyes shutting.

“Shh, just relax, love,” he says, lips hovering over mine. “You’re doing so good. Taking it so well, baby.”

He whimpers against my lips as he keeps pushing in slowly.

“So big, Jamie,” I moan, watching him disappear inside of me.

“I know, baby,” he says, a few more little noises spilling from his mouth. “I know, but you’re being so good. My good girl.”

He bottoms out, both of us panting and holding onto each other as I adjust to the new feeling. It hurts a little, but not in a bad way. Especially when he starts moving. That bit of pain makes way for a lot of pleasure once he starts rocking into me at a steady pace, whining and moaning into my ear.

“S’good, Jamie. You feel so good,” I say, trying to catch my breath.

“So good for me, baby. Squeezing me nice,” he whines, pinning me down under the weight of his body. “Good girl. So proud of you taking me so well.”

“Gonna cum again,” I say, feeling it building in my stomach again.

“Me too, baby. Just a little more,” he says, pressing his face into my neck again. “Don’t want to be done so soon, but you feel so perfect. You’re so good for me.”

I moan at his ramblings of praise, his words only causing me to get closer to that peak again. I hold onto him tightly, my body wrapped around his as he fucks into me like we’d done it a million times before. I speak his name over and over and over again as I crash down, my eyes rolling back from the intensity of the orgasm, and the fact that he doesn’t stop fucking me through it.

Though, near the end of my peak, he moans out a hundred more praises, my name falling from his lips as I feel him fill me up with his cum. He whimpers again against my skin as he finishes, not stopping the movement of his hips until he’s visibility overstimulated.

We breathe heavily, holding onto one another tightly as we come down from our highs, his hair sticking to his forehead as he leans in to kiss me softly again.

“Holy shit,” he whispers. “You’re perfect.”

I breathe out, a small smile on my face. “You… Yeah. Oh my god. I thought the first time was supposed to be bad.”

“It was perfect for me. But I barely lasted, it couldn’t have been that great for you,” he says, looking a little disappointed that he might not have done a good job for me.

I shake my head. “You still made me come harder than I ever have. You were incredible, Jamie. I mean it.”

He smiles softly. “I’m gonna have to kick them out of here more often. I might be addicted now.”

“And we have more things to try,” I add. “Can’t let this happen only once a week or something. Too much to figure out, I think.”

He giggles again. “Like what?”

“I’d really like you in my mouth next time.”

His smile drops. He starts nodding quickly. “Yes. Yeah, I’ll kick them out at two in the morning if you ask. Whatever you want.”

I laugh, pulling him into another kiss.

“Now, we have to figure out that contraceptive spell, or else we might be in some trouble,” I say with a smile.

“Sorry about that,” he smirks, clearly not sorry. “I’m sure Sirius knows it.”

“Please. As if he isn’t fucking Remus whenever those two run off to the shrieking shack.”

James’s eyes widen. “What?”

I snort a laugh.

“And you called me the oblivious one.”

[distantdarlings]

STRAY FROM ROUTINE // m. riddle

RATING: R / 4.5K WORDS

Mattheo Riddle x Fem Reader Insert

+ SUMMARY - *Requested, based on this* You wake up with an evil plan to ignore Mattheo Riddle until he cracks.

+ WARNINGS - SMUT! (P in V), unprotected, spanking, thigh-hitting, dom!mattheo, sub!reader, mean mattheo, slight breeding kink, controlling mattheo, reader is resisting (but she's doing it on purpose), toxic relationship values, name-calling, degradation, language, not fully proofread (lmk if I missed anything!)

+ MUSIC (listened to while writing) -

Ride or Die, Pt. 2 - Sevdaliza (I can't get it out of my head :'))

- - -

The inspiration that struck you as soon as you woke up was one of some kind of age-old genius. The motivation that came with it seemed to cloud your mind like some kind of drug, flooding your mind and inhibiting all other thoughts that attempted to enter your brain the rest of the day.

You had always been a bit of a shit-starter when it came to Mattheo Riddle, but today, you were feeling downright sinister.

Your eyes flicked across the room to catch the dark boy’s oaken eyes. His strong hand lifted from the counter to toy with his bottom lip teasingly. Every move was calculated, down to the way his shoulders moved when he took in a breath.

He skirted through his usual routine of tracing his eyes slowly down your body, then flicking them back up to steel his eye contact. For the first few months of your relationship with him—if that’s what you wanted to call it—that whole intimidating facade had worked on you effortlessly. But now, you knew he was more bark than he was bite. That was, as far as you could tell.

You supposed that after sleeping with him so long, he’d have lived up to his whole King Mattheo act, but he'd fallen short. You were disappointed, to say the least. The majority of the entire student body, including some teachers, were terrified of this boy that currently stared you down, but you seemed to be missing something.

Was he good in bed? Hell yes. Could he get mean? Also yes, but where was the difference? As far as you could tell, he didn’t fuck any differently than any other Slytherin boy you’d been with. They were practically all the same. Mean, dominant, and rough. They usually had some kind of ego to keep up—or a tiny dick to compensate for. Whatever it was, Mattheo didn’t seem any different.

He was mean, dominant, and rough. The only thing that had surprised you about him was how gentle he was beneath it all. With every bruising thrust, his fingers cradled your hips gently where others gripped with their nails. With every mark he sucked into your skin, he darted a tongue out to soothe where others let it simmer. He was a rough lover, but he was still a lover. The others were just rough.

That was what had kept you going back to him so many times. But you were getting impatient. It was time for Mattheo to step his game up, or you were going to get bored. You wanted him to prove to you that he was different. But you didn’t want to have to ask for it. You just wanted him to know to do it.

By the time the last of the breakfast crowd had dissipated and the campus prepared for their first periods, Mattheo hadn’t broken eye contact once. Nor had you. If there was one thing you weren’t going to do—for Mattheo or any one else—it was back down from a challenge. If he wanted to tease and stare and frustrate, you’d do the same.

Finally, he stood with the rest of his group of friends. They headed toward the door but his focus remained on you.

The tip of his wand peeked out from the edge of his uniform sleeve and, with a few mumbled words, a small slip of paper had collapsed from the tip of the wooden object. It hit the floor silently, and weaved through the swarm of feet marching through the Great Hall. Once it had reached you, it stopped just before your shoes beneath the table.

At risk of being caught by your friends, you refused to glance down at it. But, just like he always did, Mattheo had thought of everything. With a shiver, you felt the piece of paper slide up your leg like a slithering snake.

It slunk over the curve of your knee and seemed to wait for you to grab it. Ignoring the thought that it seemed to be alive like some sort of bug, you slipped your hand beneath the table and pulled the slip of paper toward you. Discreetly, you opened it up and looked down at it.

How do you want me to take you today? was scrawled in heavy, broad strokes across the sliver of parchment.

You bit back a smirk. That little fucker.

But, no. With the inspiration you had today—the inspiration to push Mattheo Riddle as close to the edge as possible—you weren’t going to allow him the satisfaction.

In fact, you were going to ignore him entirely until he cracked. That was the plan and you were settled with it. While this likely wasn’t the best thing for your own health, you weren’t too concerned. Mattheo Riddle was an asshole, but he wasn’t a murderer. You were pretty sure, anyways.

Satisfied with your decisions, you smiled lightly and pushed the piece of parchment into the first pocket of your school bag. As soon as you returned to your room, it would be placed with all of the other notes he had passed to you. Even though you weren’t wildly impressed with Mattheo’s performance so far, it was still nice to have the dirty, little notes sitting around for a rainy day.

- - -

And throughout the rest of the day, you stuck to your plan like glue. Every stare, every sneaking touch, every whispered word from Mattheo was met with a brick wall. You simply weren’t interested in any aspect of his usual antics, today. He needed to earn what he refused to admit he wanted so badly, which was you.

And by third period, you could tell he was nearly ready to explode. His jaw was clenching and unclenching, his fists were wrapped so tightly together, the knuckles were almost completely white. He was fucking angry—possibly angrier than you had ever seen him. And that was exactly what you had wanted. You wanted him to know that you were a million times different than any of the other girls he’d romanced so far.

He tried once more to entice a little desire from you just toward the end of class. The two of you sat in the last two rows at the very back of the classroom.

The room was elevated with the back rows at the highest point of the room, overlooking the rest of the class. Any secret movements were noticed simply by the backs of heads and a nonchalant teacher.

Mattheo sat directly behind you with one of his unnamed friends to his left, and another to that boy’s left. You were alone on your row. The class was not that big. But this was exactly the kind of environment a sly boy like Mattheo Riddle loved. He would take any opportunity he could to slide his dirty lips against your ear and whisper any deviance that popped into his head at the moment. And that’s what he’d done.

His head had settled just beside yours. You’d heard his breathing before even noticing the heat from his skin radiating onto yours. A shiver passed through your body at his proximity. Annoyed at your body’s involuntary reaction to the dark boy, you slipped your arms beneath the table to hide the chills sprouting across your flesh.

He must have seen them, though, because a small breath of a smirk passed across his face in your peripheral.

“I don’t know what your game is, little girl,” he whispered, his lips brushing against the shell of your ear. “But you’d better straighten that attitude up, or, I swear, I’ll fix it myself.”

He didn’t say another word before he leaned back against his own seat, leaving you to wonder whether or not this was a good idea. You reminded yourself that intimidation was his shtick. That was the majority of the reason everyone was so frightened of him. You couldn’t even remember the last time he’d actually beaten anyone up or done anything to anyone who’d wronged him. Like you’d said, he was all bark.

Still, despite his threatening words, you simply flipped your hair over your shoulder and completely ignored him. He scoffed, seemingly suppressing a laugh. He was mad. But he wasn’t going to admit that to you right now.

Besides, you were sure you’d never hear the end of it once it was all said and done.

Once the teacher had announced that class was over and recited the homework assignment to a crowd of deaf ears, you gathered all of your things quickly and made a beeline for the door. You hadn’t even given Mattheo a second to gain a bit of awareness before you were out the door and halfway down the hallway.

You didn’t have a fourth period, but Mattheo did. He had Potions for the next hour, giving you just enough time to spruce up your appearance a bit and prepare for the storm that was brewing. You knew Mattheo well enough by this point to know how this evening was going to go. He would threaten your body within an inch of its life, ask if you ‘knew who he was,’ then he’d fuck you. Just like he always did. There was too much of a pattern. Not enough spontaneity to keep you occupied—you needed more. Hopefully, today was what did it for him.

The dormitory you shared with your mates was completely barren due to their schedules. Out of the five of you, you were the only one that had chosen fourth period as your free period. It seemed odd to you that they would rather have a late start to the day, than an early end. In your opinion, you’d wake up as early as you had to, if it meant you did not have to yawn your way through the last classes of the day.

You dropped your bag onto your bed and made for the small desk that was positioned just beside the headboard. It was stocked with all of your personal hygiene products—organized impeccably—and various bits of stationery for schoolwork. It served as both a desk and a vanity for you while you were getting ready in the mornings—or getting ready to see Mattheo.

You hoped he would be desperate all through his class. You hoped his eyes would be flickering around nervously, his knee bouncing rapidly, sweat dripping down his throat. It would be a sight to behold.

Mattheo was gorgeous—there was no denying that. It was just his attitude that needed adjusting. You smirked to yourself before taking a seat at your desk, glancing at your appearance in the small mirror you’d propped up against the stone wall.

And before you were even able to apply a second layer of mascara, the large wooden door in the corner of the room rattled violently. Three aggressive knocks permeated the silence so roughly the dust motes illuminated by the sun shuddered wildly.

A chill of anticipation settled in your stomach. Surely, that couldn’t be him. Fourth period had barely even begun.

You rose from your desk and crossed the length of the room, every step echoing through your body like a cannon. Why were you so nervous? The possibilities of consequences of your own actions were really starting to rattle around in your skull.

Your fingers wrapped around the bronze door handle and pulled.

Sure enough, on the other side, stood Mattheo Riddle. A malicious smirk was printed across his lips. He glanced around a few times, seeming to scan the surroundings of your dorm.

“Hi, is there anyone else here?” he asked, his voice sickly sweet. The courteous role he was playing made you all the more nervous. He never acted this way, even when he’d come to your dorm in the past. He was usually just as brash as he always was, no matter who was in the room.

“No, there’s not,” you said, your voice annoyingly shaking just a bit. “And if you don’t mind, I’m actually pretty busy—”

Just as you started to push the door closed again, Mattheo’s foot slammed against it, completely blocking its path. You tried to push against him, but he was much too strong for you to defend against.

“I’m sure you can spare a few moments for a quick chat,” he nearly growled, never dropping the fake smile planted on his face. His strong arm pushed against the door, rendering your protection of it completely useless. He pushed through and into the room as if you’d never been holding it in the first place.

He kicked the door shut behind him as soon as he stepped through, the door clunking shut with a rough thud. You suppressed a flinch at the loud sound, refusing to show any sign of vulnerability. You couldn’t pull away from your plan now that you were feeling his anger—that was cowardly.

“Mattheo, I’ve asked for you to leave,” you warned.

“Yeah? Just answer one question for me, baby…” he said, stepping directly into your personal space and invading it in every way possible.

As if asking for permission, he raised his hand slowly and let it hover just next to your cheek. When you did nothing, he placed his fingers along your jawline. They stroked gently across a small surface area, insisting that you felt every searing second of contact.

His face came impossibly close against yours. His warm breath fanned slowly across your cheek, hints of fire and cinnamon lingering beneath your nose. The feeling of his lips skirting slightly over your skin on the way to your ear sent a myriad of chills down the length of your arms and a pool of heat between your thighs. You silenced a shudder on its way through your lips.

“Did you act that way on purpose?” he whispered. His lips caressed the curvature of your ear, his hot words curling around the room. “If not, I’ll find a new girl to open her legs when I want. But if you wanted this, I will make you regret ever having turned away from me.”

You swallowed thickly, the sound piercing the blanket of silence that fell around the room the minute Mattheo stopped speaking. It irked you to no end, that the entire world seemed to hold its breath to wait for this boy. This dark, irritatingly impossible to resist boy. It was more than you were able to handle, no matter how determined you were to prove a point.

“What I wanted…,” you trailed off coldly. “Was for you to prove to me that you’re not exactly like every other Slytherin that waltzes in here, comes in ten seconds, and then asks me if I’ve finished. I’ve been waiting for that special something to jump out at me, but it just hasn’t. I’m getting bored of you, Mattheo.” You took a deep breath, gaining enough courage to flatten your face and select your next words perfectly. “Speaking of, I was wondering if your friend, Enzo, was single.”

You struggled not to smirk at his reaction. If you didn’t know Mattheo, you’d have assumed he was going to crash out and leave the room. But you knew him and his destructive tendencies. His rage, though extremely stigmatized, was something to be in awe of, and you were ready to see it. And to be the target of it.

His eyes darkened until they were barely reflecting any of the dim light around the room. His lips parted slightly, just enough for an evil smirk to stretch across his face. He was all dark eyes and sharp canines, and it looked as if he were desperate to sink them into your flesh.

“You’re fucking done,” he whispered menacingly.

Then his hand was around your throat, firm and bruising. He walked you backwards until your back roughly hit the stone wall, the cold rock biting into your shoulder blades. His lips met yours with a fervor you’d never seen before.

His tongue cruelly parted your lips and laid claim to the entirety of your throat. You could hardly breathe with the pressure he was applying around your neck and the force of his kiss. Yet, still, you could not deny the heat building within your stomach and radiating downwards.

His free hand wrapped around your waist, the fingers slipping slyly beneath the waistband of your uniform skirt. Just as always, in the midst of the fiery storm, his fingers were able to imitate some form of softness just long enough for his hand to prepare to rip your skirt away. Despite the roughness he provided everywhere else, his fingers were gentle as they slid along your skin so as not to pinch it against the wall. It was just thoughtful enough to melt your heart down into a broiling golden puddle.

His strong hand gripped the material of your bottoms and pulled them roughly down, revealing the absence of anything beneath, save your blackened tights. When he lifted his hand once more to tear your panties away, he recognized the lack of material within his fingers and growled against your lips.

“You fucking wanted this, you dumb slut,” he spat, his pearlescent teeth sinking down into the flesh of your bottom lip. With a whimper and flash of white across your vision, he finally released you, leaving behind a thin slathering of blood across your teeth.

“You wanted me to tear you to pieces,” he whispered, his hand finally freeing your throat, but only to get to work on ripping your uniform shirt apart. The buttons clattered wildly across the floor, rolling freely each in their own directions.

You moved to protest but Mattheo shoved you back against the wall. He shook his head as if in disbelief you’d even try to get away from him at this point in time. In his mind, this was well-deserved punishment. If you were his girl, you were going to fucking listen to him. You knew what you were getting into when you first laid your lips on his.

With your shirt split down the middle, the only thing standing between his lips and your heaving body were a lacy bra and a pair of tights. The cold, gray air hit your soaked body so aggressively, you thought your teeth might start clacking together.

“All this going to waste because you couldn’t ask me for what you wanted,” he whispered. “I’m going to have to destroy this gorgeous body, when it should be worshiped.”

To your disbelief, he sank down to his knees and placed his hands gently on the back of your thighs. His scorching mouth made contact with your thighs—still covered in the thin material of your pantyhose—and he began to place wet, biting kisses along your flesh. He moved slowly from just above your knee to the top of your thigh. Each mean kiss ached as if they were done by a wild animal, but—just as he always fucking did—he soothed them with his skilled tongue afterwards. Never letting you hurt for too long.

Once he reached your core, fluttering in anticipation, he took a deep breath. The scent of your desire filled his senses as if it was his last meal. Just from how he’d loved in the past, you could tell that he was refraining from devouring you. But this was a punishment. No matter how sweet or caring he so often was, he was never going to let you have what you wanted.

“But that won’t do today…” he whispered against the surface of your tights just above your core, so close that his lips brushed across the sensitive skin. You withheld a whimper.

“Seems like it wasn’t happening any other day, either,” you chuckled breathlessly. You weren’t dropping this fucking routine. You wanted this and every inch of teasing Mattheo wanted to give you.

He laid a biting slap across your left thigh. The sound of it echoed throughout the room, only being interrupted by the cry that left your lips at the sudden abuse.

“Watch your fucking mouth,” he demanded, his hand soothing the sore flesh.

He pressed one more kiss to the blossoming handprint, before sliding a short nail against the hosiery, ripping it instantly.

You gasped at the sensation, watching as he pulled on the material. It shredded down your leg, exposing your bare thighs to the pale light. Flaming red fingerprints bloodied the soft flesh and marked you as his.

Despite your annoyance at his lack of excitement during the last few times you’d fucked, the feeling of possession that he’d laid on you always made an impression. You felt like you belonged to him in every aspect of the word.

Then before you were able to let another smart-ass comment fly, he slipped his hand beneath the large shear in the tights and ripped a hole right across your aching groin, baring your searing cunt to the world.

“Fuck,” he whispered.

Even though he was intending to punish, Mattheo couldn’t help but appreciate your body just a little bit. Though he wouldn’t admit it just yet, he could die happily buried within you.

Seeming to realize his “punishment” was a bit too sweet, he gripped your hips roughly and flipped your body around to face the wall. You helped aloud as the craggy stone bit into the skin of your breasts through your bra. The lace mixed with the cold wall made your nipples prick almost uncomfortably.

“Gonna fuck some manners into you, baby,” he murmured, his gravelly voice echoing against the curve of your spine. His mean fingers traced each nodule of each vertebrae until he reached the dimples imprinted in the small of your back.

His thumbs pressed deep against them, rubbing an easy massage into them for just a second.

“Feel good? You got any other dumbass things to say?”

“Why waste my breath? I’m gonna have to fake my fucking orgasm in a few seconds.”

You bit back a moan as he reached through your legs, gripped the hole he’d ripped in your tights, and widened it between your thighs. He pulled it up and over your ass.

“Yeah? You fake it every time, baby?” he growled into your ear, his heavy bulge pressing into your bare ass.

“Yeah,” you gasped, your voice barely more than a whisper. Your hands were settled against your desk, fingers tightened around the edges, nails scratching into the wood. Your back was arched uncomfortably against his core, begging for every slight thrust he pressed into you. You could practically feel him within you already.

“You fake it every time you cum all over my cock, huh?” he asked. Behind you, you could hear him wrestling his belt out of its loops and dropping his trousers.

“Answer me, bitch,” he demanded, grabbing a fistful of your hair and pulling your head back against his chest.

“Fuck, Matty, that hurts!” you whined. It was a good, searing kind of pain but you didn’t want him to know that. Didn’t want him to know that your arousal was dripping down your legs by now.

“Yeah? That hurts?” he taunted. “That’s nothing, baby. You can take it.”

Then suddenly, his hot core was leant against the top of your ass. You were biting back a moan and running your fingers into the desk so hard they were going numb. Still, you weren’t going to give up.

“We’ll see if you can give it—fuck!”

He shut you up by slamming himself into you. The force of his intrusion hit your cervix at a sharp angle, sending stars into your eyes.

“Let me hear you fake it, yeah?” he groaned as he pulled himself out of you all the way to the tip before pushing himself back into you.

You couldn’t hide it anymore. Though you could still force some mean comments out every once and a while, you were unable to repress your moans.

“I’m basically an expert at this point!” you moaned.

“I bet,” he growled, his hips increasing in pace. “I know the way you clench around me everytime I take you from behind—” every sentence was pushed out between deep groans that echoed in your womb— “I’ve memorized every possible way you can scream my name…and I’ve learned every single thing I have to do to make that pretty pussy cum all over me.”

Following his words, his right hand snaked around your hip and pressed directly against your clit. He rubbed perfect circles into the sensitive spot, demanding a finish from you as soon as he could pull it from you.

“You’re a bit too cocky for my liking,” you breathed against his ruthless pounding. “I’d still like Enzo’s number.”

And with one final thrust, he pierced the bubble of pleasure that had bloomed rapidly in your stomach. You came impossibly hard, with the evidence of your high embarrassingly gushing around him. He pulled away from you and let your desire cover his stomach.

He laughed almost maniacally at the way your orgasm stretched out for what felt like hours.

And then, as you were finally coming down, he was pumping himself noisily into his hand and coming all of your lower back, painting the dimples he so loved to touch.

He moaned breathlessly, a slight crack in his voice, as he slowed his movements down and came down from his own high.

A tired laugh left his swollen lips as he trailed his finger through the remnants of his spend on your back and pushed his coated fingers into your sensitive entrance.

The overstimulation sent a flurry of ice up your spine. You cried at the sensation. Your legs fluttered before giving out.

On your way down to the floor, he caught you against his arms. Your knees were impossibly weak, but he was ever so strong.

“You faking this too, baby?” he clicked his tongue before settling you against your bed.

“Fuck you,” you sighed, your eyes fluttering against the ceiling. The lightheaded feeling floating through your skull was nearly too much for you to handle, but you were still high up on your pedestal and refused to come down.

Distantly, you could hear him pulling his pants up and rearranging his clothes.

Gently, he slid the remainder of your hosiery down your legs, unhooked your bra, and lifted you up off of the bed bridal-style. Somehow managing to cradle you with just one hand, he used his left to yank your comforter back, and settle you beneath it.

He leaned down beside your ear and pressed his lips to your temple. Just before he pulled all the way back, he began to whisper.

“The next time you wanna act like that—just remember that I fucked you to sleep, brat.”

- - -

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