It had been weeks since Evelyn had last seen Tom. Weeks. Weeks without a glimpse of his curled hair, his smooth skin, his dark eyes. Weeks without any answer despite the fact that her mind was begging for one.

He confused her. Tom was powerful—she could sense it—and yet he pretended he was just another student. He pretended like there wasn't darkness lingering beneath his veins when Evelyn knew that wasn't the case. He was incredibly powerful, brewing a strong potion within one night and healing her broken rib with just an utterance. And sometimes... sometimes she swore that she could feel his presence in her soul, like a part of him was in there with her, feeling her mind out as if it were his own.

But that was crazy. That was impossible.

Something about Tom must have been messing with her mind. Perhaps it was his good looks. He was very handsome, easily the most handsome boy she had ever seen. And despite the fear that other Hogwarts students clearly held towards him—whispering constantly about the son of the Dark Lord—they also whispered about how his good looks were even finer than his father's, finer than Cedric Diggory, finer than Gilderoy Lockhart. As soon as he graduated, he could be voted Most Handsome Man in the Wizarding World, an award that really only Lockhart had won in recent years. Tom's looks called to her. She was mesmerized by his charming smile, his deep dimple, his sharp jawline, his strong cheekbones, his enchanting eyes...

No, she told herself. Evelyn had no intention of letting a boy invade her every thought. She couldn't afford that. People didn't remain close to Evelyn; they never wanted to. Now, she was so used to being alone, she didn't want it any other way. She had always been alone, never knowing a family or a friend. Never knowing what it felt like to have someone in the world who actually loved her, who wanted her to be there, who smiled when they saw her face. She had no one. Why would she change that? Why would she just give herself another person who could leave?

And yet despite her reservations—despite her promise to herself that she wouldn't think about a boy who barely thought about her, not when he could hurt her just like everyone else had—Evelyn couldn't stop her mind from constantly going to Tom. His face, his chocolate brown hair, his impeccable attire, his smooth voice, his cold hands on her...

At night, she thought about him. She dreamed of his eyes, of his touch, of his voice calling her his Little Dove. In the morning, she tried to wash away the visions to no avail.

Evelyn found her eyes searching for him everywhere, for a glimpse of him in each room she entered. But he wasn't there. Not at meals, not in the common room, not even in the hallways late at night where she first met him by the library. It was as if he disappeared completely.

That couldn't be right. Could she have imagined him? Could her mind have conjured up the image of his cool hands on her waist?

Could he—just like so many of the others in her life—have left her? Gone like her mother and her father, leaving her to a sentence of loneliness and isolation with two people who loathed her at her core simply for existing when her father did not.

Forget Tom Riddle, she told herself. But that was impossible when she still kept the note he gave her those weeks ago with the potion he brewed, every word from it faded except for two:

Little Dove.

. . .

The cold winds of fall descended on Hogwarts and yet Tom was still gone. By now, his absence was disappointing but expected. Evelyn convinced herself that she made him up, delirious from the pain. How could someone so handsome, so charming, so cold, so dark exist? No, she made him up, a vision of a man after she had finally turned crazy from her lack of a father figure. She no longer missed him. She no longer searched for him in every room.

Evelyn succumbed back to numbness, welcoming it as if it were an old friend. To her, it was.

Every day was the same. Awake. Bath. Breakfast. Class. Lunch. Sit by a secluded tree that overlooked the Black Lake. Class again. Dinner. Reading in the library. Sleep. Darkness. Repeat. All of it alone, all of it just mundane enough to take her mind off of a life she desperately hated.

Why did her mother have to leave her? Why did her father have to die? Why did she have to exist? Sometimes, she wondered if it might be better if she didn't. No one would care. Her grandparents would probably be thrilled. No one else knew she existed. Perhaps at the end of the year, she would, finishing the year that her father never could. Yes, that sounded nice. It sounded peaceful. It sounded right.

She sat in the Great Hall at lunch, waiting for the moment she could finally be dismissed and allowed to resume her dismal return. All around her, students were happily chatting about the upcoming holiday. All Hallow's Eve. Halloween. She never cared for it. She never had a reason to celebrate. To her, it was just another day on the calendar.

They still avoided her, leaving a few seats around her as if her constant sorrow was contagious. Perhaps it was. No one had ever gotten close enough to her to find out. Tom was the closest and he... he was gone.

Evelyn looked down at the book in her lap. Dracula. She had read it at least a dozen times. What was one more? It was a break in the monotony, a reprieve from her dismally ordinary life where she moved through classes that never noticed she was there.

But if Evelyn wasn't reading, she would have noticed the figure slide into the seat across from her. Perhaps she wouldn't have been frightened when he finally opened his mouth, revealing himself to her with a haughty, arrogant voice.

"What are you reading?" he asked with his head in his hands. Evelyn startled and looked up to find a young boy—no more than fifteen—with many curly, chocolate brown locks and warm brown eyes to match. He had a wide smile and deep dimples, even deeper than Tom's, and he was staring at her with amusement, like he couldn't quite believe she was sitting in front of him. "Sorry," he said with a grin. "You get pretty scared for a girl who willingly talks to my brother."

She furrowed her brows. His brother? "You must have the wrong person. I haven't talked to—"

"Tom Riddle?" he asked with a smirk. Evelyn could feel her eyes widen and a faint warmth come to her cheeks. "I believe you have. Unless Regulus had another pretty daughter with grey eyes?"

"No, no, that's me," she mumbled. Tom's talked about me? So he was real. She hadn't made him up. "Who are you?"

He looked taken aback. "I'm going to pretend like you didn't just say that... you don't know me?"

"Sorry, no."

The boy scoffed. "Can you believe she doesn't know her future husband?" he asked the seat right next to him as if there was a person there (there wasn't). Then, he turned to her with a mischievous grin. I can already tell he's trouble. "Nah, I'm just kidding. That would be weird. I'm Tom's younger brother, Mattheo. And your cousin."

Evelyn nearly spit out the juice in her mouth. "My cousin?" She didn't know she had cousins—well, of course she had some cousins, everyone did, she just didn't know who they were.

"Mhm. On your dad's side. My mum's."

Her eyes widened. Oh, Merlin. Does that mean I've been infatuated with my—

"He's not your cousin," Mattheo said as he took a bite of an apple in front of him. When he spoke, some of the fruit was still in his mouth. He didn't seem to care about table manners. "I'm your cousin. We have different mums. Mine was your dad's cousin. Tom's is some muggle six feet underground. You two aren't related at all." His voice dropped as he muttered to himself. "It would be weird if you were..."

She was a bit shocked. Was he always so crass? He spoke about Tom's apparently dead mother like she was just a fly he found on the sidewalk. "It's n-nice to meet you," she stuttered through her surprise.

Mattheo grinned. "You don't need to pretend, Evie baby—"

"Don't call me that."

"—I know you like to be a little loner over here."

She frowned a little bit. The boy either didn't notice or didn't care. "So why are you here?" He was much younger than her and it wasn't as if they even potentially ran in the same social circles. Mattheo had clearly never cared that they were family before and she had never known. There was absolutely no explanation as to why he sat in front of her speaking as if they had known each other all their lives.

"Tom sent me to watch you." Then, he frowned. "And someone snitched that I wasn't doing a great job at it so now I have to sit with you unless I want him to curse me with warts again. I bet it was bloody Malfoy, he was always a git..."

Wow. That sentence had a lot in it. Again? Tom had cursed his brother with warts before, apparently enough to dissuade Mattheo from acting against him. And someone named Malfoy "snitched" on him? Tom had sent someone to watch over her? All the information swam around her head like a dozen golden snitches, each one too far out of reach for her to grab one and figure out what it all meant.

She focused on the first question that came to her mind. "Why did he send you to watch me?"

He shrugged nonchalantly but the way that his eyes lit up told her that he definitely knew the reason; he just wasn't telling her it. "He's gone. I know you've noticed it. You're not as good at being subtle looking around for him as you think you are."

Warmth spread on her cheeks. A blush that suggested he was correct. "Where is he?"

He looked at her with a bit of shock before composing himself. Mattheo then began to pick at the skin of his apple, peeling it off before taking bites. "Taking care of things."

"What things?"

Mattheo gave her a pointed look. "Have you met Tom? He's not exactly making waves of friends wherever he goes."

She frowned. "And he's taking care of that how?"

The boy sighed and set his apple on his plate. "Look. I'm not supposed to tell you anything. Actually, I'm not even sure I'm allowed to talk to you; Tom just got angry that I wasn't sitting near you but I thought it would be creepy to just watch you eat. So don't try to get me in more trouble than I already am. Tom's a scary bloke and I'd like to keep my beautiful face."

She heard a snort from down the table. "It's not beautiful, Riddle," a girl's voice called out.

"Fuck you, Nora!" Mattheo sneered. "Maybe you would see how attractive I am if you got your head out of your ass."

"It is out of my ass! You would know if you stopped staring at it so much!"

"Oh really? Because from over here, it looks like you're wearing it like a hat!" Mattheo then turned back to his food and began to grumble angrily about the blonde girl he was just talking to. "Stupid fucking Nora with her stupid fucking face and her stupid fucking ass."

Evelyn watched the exchange with wide eyes. Tom's brother was almost the complete opposite of Tom. Outgoing, talkative, fiery. Tom was quiet, sullen, perceptive, and calm enough to be dangerous. However, the more she watched Mattheo, the more she saw their differences. They both held a certain kind of charm that just drew you in—Tom more so than Mattheo, though the younger brother made up for it with his personality—curly brown hair (though Mattheo's curlier than Tom's), and dimples that made her heart stutter. As she looked at the young boy in front of her, she realized with a little surprise how much she wished it were Tom in front of her.

That was a dangerous thing to think. Thoughts like that would only remind her that he wasn't there. No one was.

"Mattheo," she said, grabbing onto the boy's arm. It was warm, unlike Tom. She found herself slightly disappointed. Get a grip. "Is there anything you can tell me? Anything at all about what Tom is doing?"

He groaned and grabbed his face. "Evie..."

"Don't call me that."

He ignored her. Again. "Tom specifically said not to tell you where he was. I barely know where he is myself; he's so secretive."

She squeezed his arm. It was then that Mattheo finally looked her in the eyes for the first time. He looked a little startled to see them—perhaps because her irises were so pale—but it also seemed to disarm him. "Please, Mattheo. For me? For family?"

The boy sighed and gripped onto his cirls. "That's not fair! You know I can't resist family." I'm hardly family, Evelyn thought but she kept her mouth shut and just pleaded at him with wide eyes and a slightly pouting lip. "Ughhhh. Fine. You're just as manipulative as him, y'know? No wonder you get along."

She smiled softly. Tom's talked about me. Either that or he was more perceptive than his brother, which she highly doubted. Tom would have never let a begging face sway him; she barely knew him and yet she had that figured out already. "Thanks, Mattheo."

"Don't thank me yet," he muttered, looking down. "How much do you know about our father?"

"Enough." Everyone knew Voldemort. Only a fool wouldn't fear his name, only a muggle wouldn't know the effect he had on the Wizarding World. Evelyn was five years old when he perished. She could still remember the fear that lingered for months after he was gone, the clouds that seemed to settle over Black Manor.

"So you know that Tom is meant to be his heir?" She nodded. "Well... that kind of power and position comes with many followers and 'friends' but just about as many enemies."

Evelyn bit her lip gently. "So Tom is dealing with 'enemies?'"

The boy nodded. "He's been hearing rumors of an extremist faction of the Death Eaters, one who wants to 'test his darkness' or something. All the professors think he's sick and at home recovering."

"But he's really trying to figure out who they are and what they want?"

"You catch on fast," Mattheo said with another nod of his head.

Evelyn frowned. "So you aren't at all worried about him?"

Mattheo smirked and then laughed. "No! Tom isn't someone to mess with. He's even worse than my dad when it comes to that. He's unforgiving, he's dark, and he's powerful. That isn't exactly a winning combo for the other guys." He shook his head like what she asked was hilarious. "Worried about Tom? Puh-lease. He said he'll be back in a few days. I just hope he's in time to jinx Nora Rosier by Halloween. It'd be doing her a favor, really; she already looks like a Halloween character as-is."

"I heard that!"

"You were supposed to!" he shouted.

Evelyn ran her hands over her forehead. Those two were enough to give any sane person a migraine and she had only been speaking to him for ten minutes. "So if you aren't worried and if he isn't worried, then why did he ask you to keep an eye on me?"

The boy shrugged. "I'm not sure. All I know is that for every bruise you have, I will receive 'it times ten,'" his voice dropped at the end to intimidate Tom's, which made him laugh. It seemed that he wasn't at all worried about his brother's threats. Either they were empty or Mattheo was used to it by now and didn't care. Knowing Tom, it was definitely the latter.

"Oh, I remember!" Mattheo said. "Something about telling Professor Snape he would make sure that you're being careful?"

And even though she didn't want it to, Evelyn felt her heart sink. He only "cared" about her because of some commitment he made to a professor. Nothing more.

Why do you want it to be more? She didn't know. But it was wrong. You don't. He left just like all of the others, a firm voice inside of her said. And with that, Evelyn felt another layer build itself around her heart, guarding it from anyone who could ever possibly get in. Not that any had or would try.

She grabbed her chest. It was safe. She was alone. She was with the one person she could trust: herself.

"Hey, what are grandma and grandpa like? I've never met them," Mattheo said, changing the subject.

Evelyn's mind instantly flashed to a bruised cheek, a broken rib, a book thrown at a little girl in the corner of the room, nights filled with tears before the tears began to stop, a cold, dark manor with locked doors and windows, a lake that always felt like it would drown her, a grandmother who insisted on being called "ma'am", a grandfather who broke her nose then fixed it only so he could break it again, a house that felt more like a prison than a home, a little girl who wished every night for her father to return so she could finally find a pair of arms that didn't hurt...

No. She couldn't allow herself to remember. She wouldn't.

"They're horrible," she muttered, instinctively grabbing her rib to make sure it wasn't still broken.

Mattheo's eyes flashed to her side before dawning with understanding. "Well, who needs grandparents? You have me and I'm, like, the coolest cousin ever."

"W-what?" she asked with surprise evident on her face.

He rolled her eyes. "We're family now, Evie."

And for the first time, she didn't correct him.

Family? With this loud, crass, sometimes-vulgar boy who talked with food in his mouth and didn't hesitate to tell her like it was and didn't shy away from violence? Violence? With this outgoing, loving, passionate boy with a bright smile and warm eyes like pools of melted chocolate that drew her in with every gaze? Family?

No. You don't have a family.

"I...I..."

He grinned. "I'm not taking no for an answer, Evie. We're related. Plus, I like you. You haven't threatened me with warts and you're definitely the best-looking out of all of my cousins. So, family?" He held out her hand for her to take.

Evelyn stared at it. The sight of someone who wanted to be closer to her was so unfamiliar. The sight of a hand reaching toward her without the intention to bruise and batter her was unknown. And yet here was this young teen boy staring at her as if he just found the jackpot. Her. Family.

"Hi," she said softly, sinking her hand into his grip. "I'm Evelyn. Your cousin."

Aww, Evelyn and Mattheo, cousins to the end! I love them already, hopefully you do too. Poor Evelyn finding "a pair of arms that didn't hurt" literally broke me, like who allowed me to write that? And the side plot was introduced! So yay, we're getting somewhere.

Also, for those of you who have read all of my stories, have you noticed that Mattheo has called every girl his future wife? Little fun thing I like to include in all of my stories lol, there are a few others that I include in each one too.

Please review and follow! They really do make my whole day.