Within the stone corridors of the Slytherin dungeons, belonging to the circle does not guarantee being seen by everyone. The protagonist had managed to earn a legitimate and respected place within the school's most exclusive group. She got along wonderfully with the Slytherin Boys: she shared laughs and cigarette smoke with the lightness of Enzo Berkshire, engaged in intelligent debates with Theodore Nott, earned the silent respect of Regulus, and shared confidences with Draco and Tom. But her main pillars in that ecosystem were, without a doubt, Pansy Parkinson and Astoria Greengrass. As her closest friends and confidantes, Pansy provided fierce, protective loyalty, while Astoria was her grounding force with her natural empathy and elegance. Together, they formed an inseparable, united front in the common room.
However, to Mattheo Riddle, she remained little more than an elegant piece of furniture in the room.
Despite the protagonist's clear closeness with everyone around her, Mattheo overlooked her with mathematical coldness. If she spoke, he simply looked away; if she sat at the table, he didn't even bother to divert his gaze from his own affairs. To the younger Riddle, she was invisible, an irrelevant presence not worth the expenditure of his hostility or his dark charisma. And that heavy, sharp distance was the perfect shield.
That same invisibility in Mattheo's eyes was what dictated the rules of the game for Daphne Vance and Amara Rosier.
To them, the protagonist did not exist on the map of threats. Although they saw how she integrated perfectly with Pansy, Astoria, and the rest of the boys, Daphne and Amara only cared about one thing: Mattheo. Seeing that he didn't pay her the slightest attention, they decided to treat her with icy courtesy or absolute indifference. Daphne would greet her with a perfectly rehearsed, white-toothed smile that died before reaching her eyes, while Amara would pass by as if she were dodging a ghost. They didn't attack or sabotage her; they simply ignored her because, in their eyes, no one who was invisible to Mattheo Riddle posed a threat to their own plans for conquest and status.
The three of them moved in a silent, peaceful truce, sustained solely by Mattheo’s disinterest.
But in the underground wing of Hogwarts, the balance is fragile. Neither of the two rivals suspected that this indifference was the fertile ground where something much more complex would begin to take root. Because this slow burn does not advance with grand gestures, but with imperceptible details: a look Mattheo holds for a second too long, a book he slides across the table to her without looking, or the simple fact that, for the first time, he decides to stay in the common room just because she is there.
Daphne and Amara's cold courtesy is numbered. The moment they notice that Mattheo begins to tolerate—and eventually seek out—the protagonist's presence, the polite smiles will fall to the ground. With Pansy and Astoria ready to defend their best friend, the claws of a lethal rivalry will come to light, changing the rules of Slytherin forever.
