Chapter Two: Mattheo Riddle's Odd

Evelyn...

   "Pans, Pansy. Wake up," I cried, shaking Pansy's body, seemingly harsh, but gently. I could easily feel her sharp shoulder blade under my fingers.

   "Stop that!" she murmured sleepily, opening her eyes under the shake of my hands.

   Even though she was in her ugliest situation, with the dark shadows around her eyes from the party last night, it didn't change the fact that she was pretty. And, perhaps it was because of her personality, or her physical features, she always looked stern, even when she was just woken. 

   "Get up." I pulled my hands off her.  

   She rubbed her forehead with her palm, wincing as she did so. 

   "After drinking that much of alcohol, I would be surprised if you wouldn't get a headache."

   She growled.  

   "If you are coming," __ I opened the door and slung my messenger bag over my shoulder __ "I can take you to Madam Pomfrey. If you are not: I will simply leave you by here." I blamed the haughtiness for my hungry stomach.  

   "What am I gonna say to Madam Pomfrey? I've drunk a great amount of whiskey when we were having a party in the common room with drugs, now I'm hungover and my headache is killing me?" the snake in her burst out.  

   "You are going to tell her you've got a headache, and she is going to do something for you," I said matter-of-factly. "I'm not wasting my potions on you."

   She rolled her eyes, then clumsily succeeded in pulling herself up in a half-sitting position.  

   "Are you coming, or not."

   "I am, if you can see!" She scooted towards the edge of the bed to stand up slowly.

   "Hurry then." 

...

   We made it to the Great Hall after Madam Pomfrey relieved Pansy's headache with a wave of her wand; though already with five minutes delay.

   Reaching the Slytherin table, my eyes scanned each of the boys Theo was talking with; the usual gang I was forced to sit with every day, because Theo and Pansy were among them, and that I was set in between them recently.

   "Do it before he__" Draco Malfoy cut his sharp words immediately when he noticed me approaching. He stared at me with a smug, sneering expression, as though he was sniffing something smelly under his nose.

   He was a pale boy __ even more pale than Pansy and me. He had white-blond hair, and pale silver eyes, looking as much as the smug, proud boy he was.

   Next to him sat Blaise Zabini; a black, tall boy, with long, slanting eyes and sharp cheekbones. He looked at everyone as if he was Merlin himself.

   To the other side of Malfoy was Lorenzo Berkshire, Draco's second best friend after Theo; he was kind of tall, brunette, and a sweet seeming Slytherin boy __ Only seeming, though; he was a Slytherin, after all.

   And, to my annoyance, there sat Mattheo Riddle: the perfect picture of a menacing, frosted Death Eater.

   The menacing part was displayed with the scars on the hook of his nose and the end of one of his eyebrows, and his dark curls falling untidily over his forehead. The frosted, and his most annoying part, though, were his eyes: his eyes were so deeply cold in despite of its warm, dark brown colour, cold to the point of freezing you from the inside out.

   Annoyingly, they would stare at you, as though sucking your soul, mesmerizing you with the death in them; like a Dementor would do.

   But this glare was for the public only, and me. I would not know that either, if Theo hadn't mentioned that "he is not the way you think he is" probably a thousand times forever.

   I still could never see why all the girls in the school were drooling over this sullen creature like a bunch of mesmerized house-elves, though.

   But when we sat at the table, I nearly froze at the sight of this newly Mattheo. Who had, seemingly, switched to that someone "I didn't think he was". He was smirking all the way to his ears, un-cold in a way that definitely caught me off guard.

   New year, new person, I thought. But this was not something I could keep up with; my suspicion was boiling to the surface.

   Pansy sat down at Theodore's left, and I sat next to her, completely ignoring the staring Malfoy, and the breathing, and, odd, Mattheo.

   The awkward silence went by as I helped myself with fried eggs and sausages. I couldn't understand why Malfoy was still staring at me like we hadn't had this going on every day.

   "I am not going anywhere. Pull your eyes off me," I told the still staring Malfoy coldly. And, finally, he tilted his head to look away, sneering as he did so. 

   He mumbled something as "Since when we accept blood traitors here?" with his sniffing expression.  

   "Let's  just pretend I didn't hear you." I put some sausages into my mouth, ignoring when the blondie raised his eyebrows at me.

   "After the lunch at the Astronomy Tower, then." When his eyebrows turned back into its normal position, he uttered the words towards Theodore, Blaise, Mattheo, and Lorenzo.

   "When you are friends, or not," I added darkly, "with a bunch of Death Eaters."

   My eyes were fixed upon my food still, but I could plainly sense all the boys' eyes snap to me suddenly.

   "And what if we are?" Draco gritted sharply.

   "Draco." Theodore pinned him with a warning gaze, while Lorenzo shook his head wearily. Draco, still staring at me with his unpleasant expression, ignored them. 

   I looked up from my dish, staring dead into his pale eyes.

   "I did not say you weren't." My tone was cool, my face relaxed. "All your fathers, and mothers, are Death Eaters. I would not expect you to be angels."  

   Mattheo, after looking unenthusiastic in this conversation until now, choked a chuckle, and Draco straightened his collar as though he was resisting from snapping at me. 

   Mattheo? Laughing? Odd.

   Indeed, it was even more odd considering the fact he laughed at my comment. For Merlin's sake, something was absolutely off about him.

   Lorenzo shook his head at the table, an amused smirk playing at his lips. "She's a menace."

   "That's my girl."

   For a second, I could not believe what I just heard. But when I faced Mattheo's playful smirk, I basically doubted my own sanity.

   Blaise choked on his food, smirking. Pansy gaped between me and Mattheo in confusion, and Draco turned his attention to his food, looking uncomfortable, succeeded to stop himself from speaking. And I think Lorenzo was the only one who allowed himself to chuckle.

   I would rather believe that I heard wrong than want to hear it once more. But I could swear if it was not flirting, I would eat slugs.

   This could be hallucinating.

   No. I am not delusional.

   But I could not connect it to my luckiness either. Exactly when I had to get close to him, he would suddenly realize that he didn't hate me? No, I could not be that lucky.

   I, indeed, had noticed he had been a little more, oddly, warmed-up since the term started. But this? No sense at all.

   "That's my girl," he'd said. He could be still trying to mess with me.

   "What the hell is going on?!" Pansy spat out at Mattheo, who only kept the creepy smirk up.

   And then when someone tapped on my shoulder, I came back to my senses.

   "Hey."  

   I tilted my head to look at Harry __ Potter __ standing some steps behind me, clenching a rolled parchment in his hand.

   He was a skinny boy, with messy black hair and bright green eyes. He always wore round glasses, and a scar was on his forehead with lightning bolt shape who everyone recognized the boy with.

   He looked as though he was controlling himself not to jinx all the Slytherins sitting at the table.

   "It's for you." He held out the rolled parchment he was carrying. "From __" He cut off when his eyes met Draco's. "Never mind." 

   At a cautious distance, his two famous friends, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasely, were observing the scene, looking prepared to save him in case if I decided to bite him suddenly.

   My eyes narrowing, I took the rolled letter from his hand. And then he strode away, as if someone had forced him to approach me in the first place.

   I turned to see everyone, including Draco, with his sniffing-smug expression, staring at me, and the letter in my hand. But Mattheo's caprice, his expression which had turned from smirking to a deadly grimace, made me oversee anything else.

   But I ignored them and stared down at the letter in my hands.

   It wasn't signed by anyone, but I could already guess who it was from: my father.  

   Because he would never bother to send his owl to find me separately; firstly because he was a top missing prisoner from Azkaban, and he was not supposed to draw any attention to himself, and then because he didn't want to make any specific contact with me to make me feel special. That was why Harry received the letter that was meant for me.

   Even though I did not expect it to be anything important, because it was from him, to me, I still staffed the letter into my pocket to read it when I was alone.

   And so I waited until the evening, sitting in the library with no one nosily staring at the letter, then I unrolled the parchment and read the single sentence:

   I just heard of the mission you are given. Wish you luck.

   Just as I expected. Nothing important.

   I crumpled the letter into my fist, as though the parchment were guilty of all the crimes in the world.

   If those words were supposed to motivate me, it sucked any existing motivation in my being out of me.