Mistakes Were Made Finished

To say Matthew didn't give a damn would have been a significant understatement. There wasn't a word to acutely describe just how little Matthews emotions could care so his silence answered whatever questions Nabi had echoes to him. His searching eyes clearly portrayed that he was searching for someone and the flash of danger within them told her being caught was of no consequence. Matthew had a singur goal and revelations was the core. The boy was sick of deceit, sick of hidden intentions and by god he was sick of being a pawn in anyone else's game.

Had he not exposed the culprit perhaps he would have replied, perhaps he would have felt ridiculous for such paranoid such notions of conspiracy but his truth was revealed with the bodies. Matthew wasn't simply furious he was dangerous, he was lethal, he was everything they claimed him to be. Fingers constricting tighter around the cherry wood he pushed forward and drove the tip of his wand under Gideon's neck ignoring the perfected serenity of his words. It was all an act and Matthew knew it. Taylor had unravelled the layers or Gideon Athanatos and while she still feared him he saw him for the pathetic life he curated.

Gideon Athanatos was obsessed with control, he led people through his game and didn't let them leave until they either broke or lost. Well Matthew had no interest. In fact less than that he defied him. With this act he was stepping off the board and smashing it for good measure. Wood buried into his jaw Matthew spat out his words with venom on his tongue, "I don't know what part of your life was so sad that you had to rely on others for your entertainment but leave me the fuck out of it. Taylor told me to keep quiet and play your game but honestly, you're not scary, you're just pathetic. Leave me alone."

With a violent push back into the red flashed dungeon Matthew made haste and turned his back on the psycho and his attempted torment. As he fled the damp dingy halls his crocs once again found purchase with a puddle and for a second his reflection flashed in the small pool. A reflection he didn't fully recognise. A person he knew existed but refused to accept. A person Gideon so masterfully drew out.

A chill ran up her spine.

The lack of vision had caused her other senses to spike, the smell of the sparks mixed with that of the damp dungeon. Her hand had grazed one of the wet stones, leaving a cold aftertouch. Luckily, she had only bumped into a wall. Bloody dungeon...Her sight began to clear, growing used to the red-stained light, when she saw a figure emerge from the shadows. The figure was familiar, and her eyes followed his every move.

They were not alone.

The figure of golden hair spoke, a voice she had not heard in a long time. The sound of an angered tone followed by the sound of a thundering slap across the young Matthew's face lingered in her mind. The days at the cabin had some of the most unanswered questions. What really happened? Her eyes flickered to look for Matthew... they had answers, that she knew for certain. The uninvited guest's words lingered in the air, insinuation weighing.

Pressing slightly.

Nabi's eyes narrowed, turning to face the boy, it was beginning to make sense. The tainted confession, the insinuation, Matthew's anger. This intruder was attempting to overwrite her play, and caused the wires she held in her hands to twist gently. A step was taken, moving toward the boy, but she quickly came to a stop. Her eyes followed Matthew, who stormed toward the boy and pressed the tip of his wand toward his neck. Her eyebrow raised, standing back to observe them.

There is more to this.

Nabi knew, she knew well that nothing is as it seems, not even Matthew, who displayed a different side of himself. But who is this boy to him? The intruder certainly seemed to know how to dig under the young Campbell's skin. Her head tilted slightly, looking at their interaction before Matthew pushed the boy. Should she have said something? perhaps. But her attention was too focused on one thing.

The intruder.

His calm demeanor caught her attention, her face was blank as she observed for a crack. Her gray eyes were cold; she had never come across someone like him, and that intrigued her.

There was only one issue: she was not willing to share the wires in her grasp.

Her tone was flat, dead, and unamused, "To stain a lamb's coat with ink does not make it a black lamb, Mister..." Her gaze moved to Matthew, "Their tainted coat is simply shed."

Unaware of an Aamon hidden in the shadows, she told the intruder, "A wolf can take a lamb, but the shepherd can take more."

There was a certain thrill in feeling a wand pressed to his throat.

Use it, Gideon's eyes said. A quiet dare, venomous yet also careless in its calm. Go on. Let it crack the air, see the bloom of red. Let fury paint the walls. He was getting a little excited. Gideon didn’t flinch. He welcomed the moment with a stillness that felt like provocation. The tension in the air? Delicious.

But nothing came of it.

The loaded wand was nothing more than a theatrical flourish. A threat without teeth.

So Gideon listened as Matthew’s venom spilled over in a tirade, words like blades meant to cut the youthful fiend down. An attempt to slice through the veil of control, of pretense. Gideon didn’t interrupt Matthew's bid for liberty. Gideon didn’t even blink. The Athanatos let the storm come, let the boy rage, spit, seethe. He wondered if this give-no-fucks facade went any deeper than the show here. It did not really matter he decided, the response was was fascinating. A study in heat. Was he calling Matthew hot? No. But this was a study in potential. A validation of his ambition, and he knew that the dark lady would smile on him.

Then Matthew turned, fled. Technically, he stomped away but one does not need to be in a rush to flee. In his wake, Matthew left Gideon with only the ghost of the Slytherin's fury echoing in the hollow chambers of the dungeon.

The silence after was deafening. Gideon stood there a moment, perfectly still in the dim red shimmer of Periculum sparks that painted his world a lovely red were fading. His gaze dropped to the stone where Matthew’s reflection had broken. Time was always out of order, just a bit wrong. He wondered if Pride was near. A splash, a blur, and then Matt was gone. Gideon did not pursue Campbell. Gideon made no attempt to call after the teen.

There was nothing to say. Matthew had bitten back, thrown down the game pieces and refused to play.

“Interesting,” the Hufflepuff murmured to no one. Well, perhaps not 'no one.' Nabi, that girl that Aamon seemed interested in was staying behind. She seemed to be allergic to sunlight and color. The antithesis of his stupid little brother.

Gideon's fingers flexed at his sides, a quiet tremor betraying nothing. Was it a loss of control? it was believed that control was his doctrine. His comfort. But there was something worse in there than a man in need of power, because he already had that.

Matthew had left the girl behind. Certainly not his potential paramour. How disappointing, this would have been so much more fun if he was partially in the right. When she addressed him, Gideon didn’t smile, not exactly. The teen's expression was something quieter, something colder.

“To stain a lamb’s coat,” she had said.

He let the silence stretch between them before responding. It was not hesitation, but a choice. He let her words echo. He let the drama breathe.

“Then I suppose,” Gideon murmured, his voice not sweet but rather smooth, with something a little broke in his tone. Like velvet fraying at the edges. “We’ll see how many coats were merely whitewashed to begin with.”

He didn’t move toward her. Didn’t bare his teeth or flash anger like some lesser creature. Gideon didn’t need to snarl to be threatening.

Instead, he looked at her like someone appraising a delicate mechanism. Like something, not someone, intricate, coiled, and maybe even a little dangerous if left unchecked. His gaze held hers with steady intensity, devoid of flattery, but not without interest.

“And you…” he added, voice low as if testing the weight of her presence, “think you’re clever, and maybe you are,” he said softly, “but soon enough you’ll start wondering whether the game you think you’re running was built inside a larger one.” He allowed the stillness to move on its own between them. The darkness here was always wrong. It was still wrong. “And whether you were ever the shepherd.”

He left no insult. No overt challenge. Just that final note of possibility. A notion that was sharp enough to cut, soft enough to question. “But don’t worry. I never take more than I need.” Not always, anyway.

Giddy turned slowly. His every movement deliberate. Every step toward the exit precise, quiet, patient. The kind of patience that meant something awful was brewing under the surface. His boots clicked softly on the flagstone, a metronome to someone's terrible fate counting down. At the threshold, Gideon paused. His hand lifted.

The tip of his hawthorn wood wand glinted in the low light. They say that the hawthorn wand was drawn to conflicted individuals or those experiencing turmoil, but he felt neither. He was not aiming his wand at Nabi, so cold and so delicate. No, he was not about to aim his wand at a person, no matter how adept he was at casting curses. Where was the fun in that, he already knew how Aamon would react. How he would cry.

No, he wanted to experience her indifference. His knowledge that nobody would come. So instead, he pointed the long, sleek length of wood at the ancient stone wall just behind him.

A whisper of incantation passed his lips. Not a shout, not a flourish. Just a breath.

"Bombarda." His voice deeper, like gravel and thunder.

The magic cracked through the air like lightning chained in human voice. A splintered web of fractures bloomed across the stone like black veins, racing up the walls and into the ceiling. The sound was deafening, a series of violent snaps, groans, and moans as if the dungeon itself were suddenly aware of its own suffering.

Then stone dust rained like ash.

A torchlit sconce fractures. A support beam groaned dangerously, dislodged, and stones would will the still fog-filled passage behind him. Aamon was laying there, still likely on his ass half aware as the world came down around him. Upon him. Nobody would scream for him. Nobody even knew he was there.

And Gideon didn’t look back. He didn’t wait for a reaction. He simply walked away.

Why was Aamon in the dark? Why was he in the still lingering fog that left him breathing in air with 90% humidity in this damp dungeon? Why was he on his ass with a dirty boot print on his chest? His brother dragged him along, told him he would learn a bit about people. Aamon had no idea what that actually meant but he also knew better than to debate his brother, even if that meant he had to break curfew to keep the brotherly peace.

Now that he was here. All he knew was that Matthew was meeting up with Nabi after dark. Aamon had a basic notion of what the letters said because Gideon told him and the idea broke his little heart. It was not that he did not know, but he could not help but feel a bit disappointed. Now that Gideon was interrupting their dalliance, Matthew sounded pissed. Matt's words were somewhere between an insult and an exorcism.

Matthew's tirade echoed off the stone like it was meant to rattle ghosts, not just ears. The muggleborn's voice that was sharpened, but not with rage. Aamon knew what anger sounded like. He also knew what people sounded like when they wanted to sound angry. Aamon knew what angry sounded like and this was not it. But there was something ugly and righteous in his words that Aamon lacked the insight to process, and Matthew's indignation and frustration cut through the haze of fog and fire.

Aamon couldn’t see them, Matthew and his brother. Not clearly. But the Slytherin could picture it: the way Matt’s jaw tightened like he thought that was a personality trait. The way the snake's fists clenched as if he could punch his way into being right. He had no idea Matthew had a wand to his brother's throat. An exploration into Aamon's true character that would have to be explored at a later time. But there was venom in his tone, the kind of venom people saved for people like Gideon so he knew the target of Matt's alleged fury.

And honestly? Fair. Gideon usually deserved it.

Aamon just wished it didn’t come at a time when he was still trying to decide whether to be furious or flattered by his brother’s manipulative fog-shoving schemes.

Somewhere in the chaos, he heard Nabi’s voice. She was talking. About shepherds? Aamon blinked. He tried to scuttle out of the fog to see what was actually happening.

Her voice was measured, even poetic probably, but her words flew right past the part of his brain where logic lived. He caught words like “tainted coat” and “wolves” and something about inking sheep. Like with tattoos? It sounded like a metaphor. Or a warning. Or a poem written during a really intense tea break.

And Aamon understood none of it. He stared at her through the curling mist like a man listening to a ghost give directions in another language. He nodded, though. Not that she could see him. The nod felt polite.

Then came the real problem.

Gideon raised his wand. Aamon knew that pose. The too-still stance, the way the corners of his brother’s coat caught the air like drama had come to life. It was theatrical. Too much. Gideon’s specialty.

Aamon did not even get a chance to tell Gideon to hold.

"Bombarda."

The air cracked. The dungeon screamed. The wall did not so much crumble as it exploded inward. The ceiling shuddered above them like a beast disturbed mid-slumber. Stone groaned. Dust flew. Aamon flung himself sideways with all the grace of a startled flamingo and hit the ground shoulder-first but he had not lurched far enough to avoid the avalanche of stone and detris. He was buried immediately.

One should always be careful not to strain a wire too much.

Her gray eyes continued to study him, and the silence settled. A momentary tremor was taken, but she said nothing. There was no reason to. The boy spoke, a tone too calm for someone who had just had a wand to his neck, and a hum escaped her. His murmured words speckled like ink over a piece of white parchment.

One twist.

One pull.

His words echoed. Was it a vague challenge? Another insinuation? Her eyebrow raised slightly when he looked at her, she was not the only one assessing. Perhaps sooner rather than later, time did have a way of chipping at people's masks, shedding the lamb's coat.

Much like a strained wire, a lamb's skin was sensitive.

Too much stress and a wire may snap, a coat could stain red.

Nabi's head tilted, the motion minute. Life was not black and white, there was no right or wrong, there were only winners and losers. Wolves and lambs. Lives overlapped, the possibility of a few pieces on one's board mixing with another player's. Was she a shepherd or a wolf wearing a lamb's skin?

Or neither at all?

"What if there was never a game?" Her voice was calm, measured. She was not skeptical— no, she knew there was always a game to play, a new move to make. Nabi merely wanted to see what sort of skin he had. What kind of game pieces he had, what wires he held.

To no surprise, he gave nothing. Instead, he turned toward the nearest exit while her eyes followed him. Her jaw clenched with each step he took, echoing in the almost pitch-black area.

Until he stopped.

Nabi watched as he turned, her eyes barely making out the wand he pointed, but not at her. Her breath hitched, barely registering the incantation the boy whispered, when the ground seemed to shake. The sound of a rumble filled the fleeting silence as the air mixed with dust and magic. What in Merlin's name?

CRACK

Her instincts kicked in, ducking as if the ceiling would fall on her, but it did not. Somewhere in the shadows, the sound of something collapsing was heard. She looked up, but the boy was gone. The corner of her mouth tugged, her fingers grazing the wand in her pocket.

This is not over.

Nabi coughed as she looked around the foggy space. The boy had missed her, but the incantation was not accidental. Her eyes narrowed, a shackle echoed inside her, a chain dragged heavily across a stone floor. The labyrinth was changing.

Her eyes looked at the shadows, oblivious to a trapped Aamon. "A wolf." The mutter was low, an observation more than anything. The dust coated the floor as it settled down, and she straightened up. Patting off the thin layer of what was left before walking out sternly. Gentle clunks echoed in the dark; pressure brewed something that should have been chained. Her back was to him as she unknowingly left someone behind.

Aamon.