It was Poppy's eleventh birthday. She was no longer the youngest Hufflepuff. She was still the littlest, but not the youngest. She had told no one that this was the day that she was at least old enough to really belong here.
She had been getting packages from her father--her real father--for the last three days. He had somehow managed to slip a surprise in her trunk, he'd send a box of packages yesterday, and another today. In the three larger boxes there had been a total of twelve boxes. One for every year he'd missed. and one more. She had only opened one of the boxes. She wanted to string this out as long as she could.
It was a tin that was painted to look like a stained glass piece that had dragonflies and water lilies. She opened the tin. It was filled with an assortment of candies from Honeydukes. There was a little slip of paper right on the top of the brightly wrapped candies. She opened it.
It read, "Making friends might be a little easier if you share. Love, M." It made her smile. This man she'd only known a few days, her real father, remembered her birthday with a shower of gifts while the man she'd thought was her father had been summarily tossed out of her life, hopefully forever.
Poppy looked self consciously in the mirror. The side of her forehead was black from her hairline down across her cheek. She didn't want to talk about it. She had tried to pull her hair over it, but that just looked even more weird.
"You don't need to hide it," he had told her softly. "Let it remind you that you survived, and that I will always come for you. If you need me, I will always come." She read the little note again. He was offering her, from a distance, a way to break the ice with some others who probably felt as distant and awkward as she did. She closed the lid on the tin, took it with her, and left her dormitory room to go to the Hufflepuff common room.
She saw another young girl. She had to be a first year too. The common room was still quiet at this hour of the morning. Poppy took a breath for courage and went over to the couch and sat down on it too. She paused a moment, and then opened the candy tin, and looked at the other girl.
"I like candy for breakfast sometimes," she said quietly, holding the tin out towards the other girl. "Would you like some?"