Lost | Tom Riddle ✔

Blooming romance

This chapter is dedicated to my wonderful readers who live in Brazil, Venezuela, Peru, Chile, Argentina, and Nicaragua. You people are awesome.

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It was only the first night back at the school, and Alexa was already behaving as an owl. While everyone else was sleeping peacefully, she was busy looking at the ceiling, absentminded. She still couldn't believe that her sixth year had started. To her, it felt like the day before when she met Deputy Headmaster of Hogwarts, Prof. Albus Dumbledore, for the very first time. She remembered her happiness when she realized that she was having a chance to study in one of the finest schools in the magical community. She remembered how happy her aunt was when she dropped her off to the train for her first year. She still remembered how she had tried to mask the sadness she felt when she saw children hugging their parents and waving good-byes. Though she had her aunt, she did miss her parents terribly.

Alexa remembered her first train ride. She was not early enough to acquire a compartment exclusively for herself and ended up sharing it with Six boys, all of whom were her seniors. From how interactive they were, she could tell they were housemates. They first tried talking to her, but her anxious stuttering and pathetic responses shooed them away.

Being an asocial person, Alexa had already read about Hogwarts and its fundamentals in the vacation before school. She knew that there were houses. And to be honest, she was not sure if any one of them would consider her worthy. She was never brave and social enough to be a Gryffindor. She preferred reading over playing but was not intelligent and studious enough for Ravenclaw. She wanted to protect herself and those around but lacked the ambitiousness and cunningness of Slytherin. Last but not least, Hufflepuff favoured hard-working and loyal people. Loyal? Of course, but was she hard-working? She had doubts. However, because of dearest Helga Hufflepuff, she was not on the train returning the very same night.

She was a part wolf, but being a metamorphmagus had better control over her senses. In fact, she shifted only when she had emotionally unstable full moons. The potions that Professor Dumbledore recommended her were good enough to control her hormones. She had other symptoms, but her metamorphmagus side was good enough to hide them. However, this side was hard to go unnoticed. The wig and glasses provided her privacy even if she never wanted to rely on them fully. For the first four years, her shagginess, timid, and cautious personality made people around her overlook her. And if she wanted to be honest, it was pure bliss. In her fifth year, she even managed to control her hairs from changing their colours. She was so happy that she was getting better at controlling them without worrying about her wig. But then her happy bubble shattered when that one particular snake invaded her paradise.

A shiver ran down her spine. She clutched her blanket tightly as his handsome face flashed in her mind. How could she not notice the most beautiful boy in the castle? She wasn't blind. She was a girl after all. An unnoticed teenage girl. During her early years in school, she used to gaze at him from distance. In admiration of course. And it was not just because of his attentively carved sharp features. It was because of the knowledge he had. His self-confidence was something that she had envied from the very beginning. All these years she never saw him making a fool out of himself, something she did quite often. But hey, that was expected from a possible descendant of Salazar Slytherin. Yeah possible, because she had no proof if he really was. She liked how he built up himself. Riddle was not a name that belonged to a magical society. She had seen his struggle when his housemates treated him differently. Only Anthony was the person who had befriended him in his first year and stuck up for him when others gave him a cold shoulder. Maybe that was the reason why that git valued their friendship. Avery was one of the most loyal people anyone could come across, ever.