Whispers had followed her around the school all day.
"Is that her?"
"Flint's little sister?"
"She didn't get his teeth..."
She couldn't say she didn't expect it. It was defiantly odd that she was joining Hogwarts so late in her school career, but she had lived in France with her mother until now, her 5th year, and when her mother died she was sent back to England to live with her father and brother.
Everything was so different here. She had many friends back at Beaubaxtons, but here strong friendships and cliques had already been formed, and she was finding it hard to infiltrate them. Secondly, she could not find her way around this school; it had to be at least 5 times bigger than her last. And on top of all that, Alicia was the sister of (in)famous Slytherin Quidditch captain, Marcus Flint, and apparently at this school you either loved him or hated him, so she was either constantly bombarded with questions about her brother, or given dirty looks in the hall. She couldn't escape this stigma.
When she entered the common room that night, utterly exhausted from a day of wandering down endless corridors, or pulling on doors that wouldn't open, her brother greeted her with a wave, and beckoned her over to his group of friends who were sitting around a table, doing homework and writing letters.
"Hey, guys, this is my little sis, Alicia Flint". And the group of people looked up at her, with curious looks on their faces.
"Okay... Well this is Jessi." Marcus pointed at a girl with a beautiful smile. She nodded a quick hello, which Alicia returned. "This is Beth" Marcus had a glazed over look in his eyes when he looked down at her. She was very pretty, and she gave off sort of a warm feeling that Alicia could sense straight away. "And this... Is Sean. He's Beth's brother." The look in Marcus' eye was considerably less friendly when he introduced this boy, and I could tell that the feeling was mutual, but Sean smiled and Alicia mumbled a little hello, he was quite good looking. She looked around the group of people, they looked like a friendly bunch, and then she heard a little "Ahem" from the shadows in the corner. All the people looked around and a boy lurked out of the darkness. He was tall and Alicia thought rather handsome.
"Well, why didn't you introduce me" He smirked in Marcus' direction. Marcus screwed up his face in anger and looked away.
"Because she doesn't need to you know." Spat Marcus.
"Oh, I beg to differ, see, everyone needs to know me. I am Tom Riddle" He got a little kick out of the shocked look on Alicia's face. "Yeah, that's right. Tom Riddle, son of the Dark Lord Voldemort."
"Tom, shut up, no one cares about your life story." Marcus and Tom narrowed their eyes at each other and looked one another up and down, like they were sizing each other up. Beth let out a large sigh of frustration and stood up.
"Oh for the love of god, boys! Calm down or you will both regret it, and I mean it!" Marcus and Tom both backed off, but didn't break eye-contact. Alicia was impressed. She had never seen someone make Marcus do something he didn't want, she had never seen him back down. Beth noticed the look on Alicia's face and smiled.
"Boys... You've just got to know how to control them." Beth said, and gave Marcus a scratch behind the ear, which he didn't even attempt to remove. Alicia was liking this girl more and more.